Anna Butler here with a monthly blog post that involved a lot of delighted squeeing. Earlier this month, Archive of Our Own—the fanfiction archive created by fans for fans—won a Hugo at WorldCon.
A Hugo. A blessed HUGO. For Fanfiction, in the “best related work” category.
Which proves, I hope that fanfiction writing is as real, as legitimate, as any other creative writing. Fanfiction isn’t something furtive and amateurish that we should be ashamed of and that’s done in the margins, but it’s all grown up now. It’s creative and transformative and a hugely important way for fans to express love for their favourite shows and books. It’s written by hundreds of thousands of people.
Sometimes it’s written badly, true. But sometimes it’s incandescently brilliant: there are some fanfiction writers whose stories I’ve read far more often than their canonical source material. Those writers sing, and what they write should never be dismissed as ‘only fanfic’.
I am so awed and over-the-moon pleased about this accolade. I cut my writerly teeth on fanfiction, the way that so many writers do. I have fanfic archived on AO3, which occasionally still gets read (it’s in small, now-inactive fandoms). I don’t write fanfiction much now, sadly, as time doesn’t allow for it, but I’m still inordinately proud of some of my past fan work.
Why write it? For me, it has a lot to do with how well-built the world is and how complete it is, and how compelling the characters are, but mostly and importantly, how much potential there is to explore more. The canon material needs to have possibilities, gaps and spaces where a fanfiction writer can work to expand on this idea here or subvert that canonical pairing there. It doesn’t mean that the source material is inherently flawed, but that it has places for writers to play in.
Take a TV programme. Any TV programme. Usually, the scriptwriters have 50 minutes to get across their story. In those 50 minutes, they must do their world-building and exploration of character, and all they have to use is action and dialogue that has to be fast and snappy. In some ways that takes a skill I wish I had, in others it’s limiting because they operate in a world where what they write is played out in a visual medium that’s mediated by the actors speaking the lines, the sets, the angles the cameraman takes, continuity (or the lack thereof), the network policies towards contentious issues and the demands of the advertisers who fund the network and hence, ultimately, the show itself.
Those limits are what the fanfiction writer likes to push and pull at. Fanfiction is more inclusive of ‘difference’, for example, and tries to embrace it through slash, BDSM, writing people of colour etc in a way that the source material often still struggles with. How many shows do you know where BDSM is featured? Or where sexuality and societal pressures can be explored by utilising a bit of gender-bending? Because fanfiction isn’t beholden to the advertisers, it can be brave. And it can be shocking. That’s a freedom mainstream writers might envy.
The existence of fanfiction doesn’t mean that the source material is bad, but that it has the potential to be stretched in a way that no TV programme can do if it wants to keep its advertisers happy and the funding rolling in, or no mainstream book can manage if the writer wants to find a publisher.
Here’s the acceptance speech from writer Naomi Novik, herself a prolific writer of fanfiction:
“All fanwork, from fanfic to vids to fanart to podfic, centers the idea that art happens not in isolation but in community. And that is true of the AO3 itself. We’re up here accepting, but only on behalf of literally thousands of volunteers and millions of users, all of whom have come together and built this thriving home for fandom, a nonprofit and non-commercial community space built entirely by volunteer labor and user donations, on the principle that we needed a place of our own that was not out to exploit its users but to serve them.
Even if I listed every founder, every builder, every tireless support staff member and translator and tag wrangler, if I named every last donor, all our hard work and contributions would mean nothing without the work of the fan creators who share their work freely with other fans, and the fans who read their stories and view their art and comment and share bookmarks and give kudos to encourage them and nourish the community in their turn.
This Hugo will be joining the traveling exhibition that goes to each Worldcon, because it belongs to all of us. I would like to ask that we raise the lights and for all of you who feel a part of our community stand up for a moment and share in this with us.”
Half the auditorium, including winners in other categories, stood up.
HALF THE AUDITORIUM.
Am awed.
I do love fanfic. It’s still my comfort reading of choice. When life is having a real go at me, I go back to old fanfic faves to decompress. Here are some of my favourites:
Any Harry/Draco story by Saras_Girl, but the Foundation and Turn series are *epic* and my Christmas is made each year by her advent stories.
A J Hall’s Draco/Neville in Lust Over Pendle. Awesome. The entire Lust universe works are listed here in chronological order
Speranza’s Stargate Atlantis classic, Written by the Victors
SGAMadison’s Sherlock Holmes/Stargate Atlantis crossover A Lesson In Evil
Hiperbunny’s epic Qui Gon Jinn/Obi Wan Kenobi in Bonds of Choice
Why not share some of your favourites? Do add yours in the comments!
About Anna
Anna was a communications specialist for many years, working in various UK government departments on everything from marketing employment schemes to organizing conferences for 10,000 civil servants to running an internal TV service. These days, though, she is writing full time. She lives with her husband in a quiet village tucked deep in the Nottinghamshire countryside. She’s supported there by the Deputy Editor, aka Molly the cockerpoo, who is assisted by the lovely Mavis, a Yorkie-Bichon cross with a bark several sizes larger than she is but no opinion whatsoever on the placement of semi-colons.
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