What Is Fanfiction and Why Are People Saying Such Nice Things

about It?
Bronwen Thomas

StoryWorlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, Volume 3, 2011, pp. 1-24

(Article)
Published by University of Nebraska Press
DOI: 10.1353/stw.2011.0001

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/stw/summary/v003/3.thomas.html

Access provided by Chicago Library (13 May 2013 19:01 GMT)

What Is Fanfiction and

Why Are People Saying
Such Nice Things about It?
Bronwen Thomas

The term fanfiction (sometimes abbreviated as fanfic)

refers to stories produced by fans based on plot lines
and characters from either a single source text or else
a canon of works; these fan-created narratives often
take the pre-existing storyworld in a new, sometimes
bizarre, direction. While the activities of fans may
take many forms, writing stories deriving from one or
more source texts has long been the most popular way
of concretizing and disseminating their passion for a
particular fictional universe. Fanfictions origins have
been traced back to science fiction magazines in the
1920s and 1930s, but links have also been drawn with
oral and mythic traditions; with traditions of collective interpretation, such as Jewish midrash (Derecho
2006); and with profics such as Jean Rhyss Wide
Sargasso Sea (Pugh 2005), which functions as a kind
of prequel for Charlotte Bronts Jane Eyre. Neverthe-

less, fanfiction remained a fairly underground and marginalized activity

until the advent of digital technologies and the World Wide Web. Now
fans can access vast communities of people who share their interests,
publish and get feedback on their stories almost instantaneously, and
challenge boundaries between authors and readers, creation and interpretation. Much excitement has greeted this explosion of fan activity, not only within particular fan communities but also within fields
of academic inquiry such as literary and narrative theory, ethnography,
feminism and queer theory, and cultural studies.
This article sets out to explore the many nice things that have been
said about fanfiction, revisitingand questioningsome of the utopian rhetoric found in earlier studies. I also ask what contribution narratology and literary studies might make to the research on fanfiction,
particularly with regard to understanding the processes involved in
fanfics production and reception. The converse question is equally relevant: how might coming to terms with fanfiction require a rethinking
of basic narratological methods and aims? Finally, I reexamine debates
about the quality and aesthetic value of stories emerging from communities of fans.
In the next section I provide a thumbnail history of work on fanfiction, discussing three waves of scholarship on this form of narrative practice. The subsequent section furnishes a programmatic outline
of key issues and directions for future work in the field, drawing on a
range of illustrative examples. I then zoom in on one instance of fanfiction to demonstrate the salience of the issues outlined in my survey of
the field and to sketch strategies for addressing those issues.

A Brief Overview of Fanfiction Studies

Up to now, the study of fanfiction has been dominated by media and
cultural studies, with some anthropological and psychoanalytical work
focusing on the behavior and motivations of fans. Issues of methodology and particularly the relationship between academic and fan tend
to dominate, and close textual analysis is often denigrated on the basis
that the identities and practices of fans cannot be abstracted from the
sorts of texts they write, but must be analyzed as socially situated prac2

storyworlds volume 3 2011

tices and activities. Perhaps because of the need to defend and rearticulate the previously castigated category of the fan, there is a tendency to
employ a rather idealistic rhetoricfor example, in Pughs (2005) claim
that fanfiction represents a democratic genre, or Stasis (2006) claim that
this kind of writing is canny, sophisticated and resonant with postmodern textuality (129). While studies such as these at least try to locate fanfiction alongside literary traditions and conventions, media studies approaches consciously steer clear of any attempt to evaluate fanfiction
based on the quality of the writing, the plotting, or the characterization,
for fear of being seen to be outside or above the object of study.
In his overview of fanfiction studies, Cornel Sandvoss (2005) claims
that the first wave of theory was heavily influenced by Marxism and
tended to assume a simple dichotomy of power in which the fans were
the powerless opposing the might of the franchises and corporations
that owned the rights to the characters and storylines fans loved and
wrote about. For example, in one of the earliest studies, John Fiske
(1987) writes about Madonnas empowering influence on her young female followers and sets up the influential category of the active audience. But it was Henry Jenkinss Textual Poachers (1992) that contributed more than any previous study to the establishment of a distinctive
sphere of fan studies, and it remains a seminal text. Jenkins draws on
Michel de Certeaus (1984) notion of the poacher to write about fans
not as dupes of dominant ideologies but as renegades and subversives
able to undermine commodification and corporatization through their
collective power. In subsequent studies and on his blog, Jenkins continues to contest the stereotype of the fan as a socially isolated weirdo, and
he draws on a wide range of theoretical sources; these sources include
narrative theory, in particular Janet Murrays (1998) concepts of encyclopedic narratives and procedural authorship.1 Referring to himself as
an Aca-Fan, Jenkins attempts to redefine the terms on which the activity of fans is understood, and he has claimed that the kind of participatory culture created by fans could offer a whole new model of cultural
production. While Jenkins does allow that not all fans are resisting readers, his rhetoric can seem overblown at times, especially when it comes
to his attempt to abolish the boundary between fan and academic.
Closely aligned with the emergence of audience studies, this first
Thomas: What Is Fanfiction?

wave of research on fanfiction has recently come in for criticism on the

grounds of its naivety and its tendency to talk about the audience as a
homogenous group, rather than as a loose affiliation of conflicting and
competing positions and voices. For example, Jonathan Gray, Cornel
Sandvoss, and S. Lee Herrington (2007) somewhat mockingly label the
first wave Fandom is Beautiful and reject the tendency of these theorists to treat fans as some kind of worthy cause. Meanwhile, Alan McKee
(2004) accuses first-wave theorists of perpetuating a powerless/powerful binary and of focusing unduly on the texts of fan culture, rather
than acknowledging that those texts and the way they are perceived are
themselves the result of larger discursive formations.
The second and third waves of fanfiction studies take a more complex approach to the issue of power, influenced by Foucault and Bourdieu. The second wave, exemplified by studies such as Cheryl Harris
(1998) and Mark Jancovich (2002), is mainly preoccupied with responding to the emergence of new media forms that contributed to an explosion in fan activity and that facilitated all sorts of new possibilities
and interactions between fans. Charting the movement of fans into the
mainstream, second-wave theory sees fans not so much operating outside of social hierarchies as themselves participating in the construction
and maintenance of the uneven distribution of power.
Influenced by poststructuralism, the third wave is distinguished by
a greater self-reflexivity about the theorists own motives and positions
and by a shift in emphasis toward exploring the contributions of fans
to contemporary culture. Theorists reflect in a much more personal way about their own engagement with fandoms and with fan texts,
and instead of fans being seen as isolated or marginal, their activities
are treated as a fundamental aspect of everyday life. Prominent theorists of the third wave such as Matt Hills and Jonathan Gray are much
more prepared to critique both existing terminology for fan studies and
also the practices of fanspractices that may run counter to the rather utopian visions found in earlier studies. Third-wave theorists often
draw on Nicholas Abercrombie and Brian Longhursts (1998) continuum model of fan involvement to more precisely understand the diverse
forms that fan engagement may take, and they contest divisions such
as those between high and low culture by exploring fans of Bach
4

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or Chekhov alongside Trekkies or Potterheads (Pearson 2007; Tulloch

2007). There is also a renewed emphasis on exposing fan-tagonisms
(Johnson 2007) within and across fandoms, on understanding how fan
affiliations change and mutate (Hills 2005), and on exploring how the
activities and practices of anti-fans (Gray 2003) may merit close attention.2 Third-wave theory turns its attention to fandoms paratexts and
attempts to examine fan engagement as part of an ongoing experience.
For example, Jonathan Gray and Jason Mittell (2007) examine the place
of spoilers within fan communities and adopt a phenomenological approach to better understand how a well-told tale lives and thrives after
its telling (18).
In the spirit of the third wave, this essay revisits some of the key
claims that have been made about the extent to which fanfiction may
challenge existing notions of narrative and storytelling. At the same
time, I explore how scholarship on narrative might offer new insights
into fanfiction or new methodologies for its analysisand conversely
what is entailed by adding fanfiction to the corpus of narratives considered by scholars of story. While studies by such authors as Karen
Hellekson and Kristina Busse (2006) proudly locate themselves as coming out of a tradition of English studies dominated by close reading, in
practice these studies sacrifice depth for breadth and only rarely engage
with specific narrative techniques. There is also a tendency to want to
turn fans into critics or even amateur narratologists (Gray and Mittell
2007) and to highlight and celebrate only those interpretative abilities
that are shared by critic and fan alike. In my own studies of fanfiction
to date, I have combined textual analysis with a focus on the processes involved in producing and disseminating stories. Attending to these
processes can illuminate how fans interact with and interpret the storyworlds to which they keep returning, whereas focusing on the text
itself without understanding how it is being responded to and used by
fans leaves much unexplained. Furthermore, if we are to take seriously
the challenges posed by fanfiction, it is important to start by looking at
what fans are doing, rather than trying to impose terms and values on
their activities.
In the discussion that follows, most of my examples are drawn from
fanfiction based on Jane Austens Pride and Prejudice, a novel that has
Thomas: What Is Fanfiction?

spawned one of the most prolific of literary fandoms online. The case
studies I consider bring into the foreground issues of aesthetic value
or quality as well as issues arising from the relationship of the fan text
to its source. While Austen fandoms might be seen to pose a challenge
to the notion of the fan as textual poacher, because they tend to be
quite conservative and fiercely protective of the Austen legacy, in actuality these fandoms exemplify the variety of communities existing online.
Here too we find plenty of diversity in the modes of engagement that
fans display and in how they participate in processes of creation and
reception.

Approaches to Fanfiction
fanfiction and participatory culture
Perhaps one of the main reasons why people are saying such nice things
about fanfiction is that it takes us away from the notion of texts as static, isolated objects and instead reminds us that storyworlds are generated and experienced within specific social and cultural environments
that are subject to constant change. In online environments where accessibility and participation seem almost to be taken for granted, fanfiction is about far more than the writing and reading of stories, as fans
engage in all kinds of social networking and community building not
only within the terms set by specific sites but also frequently beyond
and against these, as when fans set up their own subcultures and special interest groups. For example, Austen fans can buy Team Darcy
merchandise online and even purchase patterns for creating their own
finger puppet versions of Darcy and Elizabeth, closely resembling Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle from the 1995 BBC adaptation. Although
some purists bemoan the hamster-wheel of posthumous productivity
(Bowles 2003: 16) that has turned Jane Austen into a commodity in this
manner, others (e.g., Thompson 2008) have celebrated such activities
as continuing the best traditions of the cottage industry model and as
confirming the limitless creativity of fans seeking out ways to display
their devotion to and passion for their favored storyworlds.
In short, fanfiction highlights the motivations and desires of readersin ways theorists of narrative need to take into account. In tra6

storyworlds volume 3 2011

ditional literary criticism and even many reader-response approaches,

the reader is discussed as a monolithic entity, and hypotheses about
his or her responses derive mainly from the critics own interpretation
of the text. Further, fanfiction has the potential to reveal why certain
kinds of readers are drawn to certain kinds of texts. As mentioned earlier, scholars such as Camille Bacon-Smith (1992) have turned to psychoanalytical theory in attempts to understand why it is that so many
women and young girls write and read slash fiction, a variety of fanfiction based on constructing same-sex relationships between characters,
and also why fans enjoy returning to familiar storyworlds and characters time after time. Other theorists point to the complex and even contradictory motivations of fans. For example, Jenkins (1992) argues that
they are torn between fascination and frustration, while Sheenagh Pugh
(2005) claims that fans want both more of and more from the fictional worlds they endlessly revisit.
Work along these lines suggests that fans should by no means be
viewed as purely passive consumers; instead fans desires are active and
indeed excessive, spilling over into the kind of powerful and transgressive force given expression in Barthess notion of jouissance (Fiske
1987). Fanfiction thus poses an important challenge to conceptualizations of storyworlds that focus on their universality and familiarity,
demonstrating that, in fact, readers and audiences relations with those
worlds are diverse and sometimes conflicting. These fan-produced narratives also underscore that work focusing on how storyworlds are triggered by textual cues must be supplemented with research addressing the whole question of what readers and audiences do with those
worldshow they inhabit them, transform them, make them their own.

fanfiction as transgressive practice

Because of the ways it gives readers such transformative powers, fanfiction has also been hailed as a transgressive force, offering a voice for
marginalized groups and revealing the subversive potential of seemingly safe or familiar storyworlds. The sense of transgression may be felt
even more powerfully where the source text is a canonical work of literature like Pride and Prejudice. Fanfiction stories often provocatively play
with the various elements of the storyworlds on which they are based.
Thomas: What Is Fanfiction?

The language employed by fanfiction communities amply displays their

disdain for convention (PWP = Plot, What Plot?), while the system of
classification used across many fanfiction sites openly acknowledges
the potential for fan-created texts to cause offense. Slash fiction provides many examples of these more controversial transgressionsfor
instance, stories based on Darcy/Wickham or Darcy/Bingley pairings
or ships in Austen fandoms.3 For their part, Alternate Universe stories
transgress boundaries of space and time, perhaps relocating Darcy and
Elizabeth to a high school or college in the United States (Ten Years by
alice-in-vunderland at FanFiction.Net) or Aunt Cathy (Lady Catherine
de Bourgh) to the Sunny Acres nursing home (Delusions of Grandeur
by Jennifer H at Derbyshire Writers Guild). And cross-over fanfics take
the characters from one fictional world and cross them with another.
Examples of cross-over fictions featuring Pride and Prejudice at FanFiction.Net include stories crossing the novel with the Twilight, Harry Potter, and X-Men franchises.
Fans display no regard for boundaries when it comes to medium,
and so a canon may encompass film adaptations of a text, interviews
with the author or cast, and even merchandising and marketing. For
many fans of Austens novel, Colin Firths portrayal of Mr. Darcy in the
1995 BBC adaptation was so definitive that it is almost unthinkable not
to use the actors mannerisms and physical characteristics when writing
or reading about Darcy.4 Notoriously, Andrew Daviess adaptation included scenes of Mr. Darcy in the bath and emerging in a wet shirt from
the lake at Pemberleyscenes that never appeared in Austens novel.
These adaptations have now become part of the canon for many fans of
Austen, representing an expansion of the novels metaverse (Gwenllian-Jones 2004); in turn, this expansion has arguably helped to attract
a whole new audience to Austens writing. There is even a fansite dedicated to Colin Firth in his role as Darcy (www.firthness.com), featuring
a Pond section where fans can post messages and news.
Fanfiction also breaks down the boundaries between authors and
readers, since on most fanfiction sites people who post stories also comment on and review stories posted by others. Indeed, it is quite common for fans to progress from reading and reviewing fanfic to writing
it themselves. While fans debate and even police elements of the canon,
for example by complaining that a story is OOC (Out of Character),
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the term fanon is used to refer to the process whereby over time certain
plot or character elements become established within the fan communityeven when those elements never appeared in the source text, or
radically depart from it.
Fanfiction is often highly reflexive about the transgressing of these
boundaries and displays little or no anxiety about what Linda Hutcheon (2005) terms the hermeneutic paradox, whereby readers [. . .]
are forced to acknowledge the artifice of what they are reading, while at
the same time becoming active co-creators of the meaning of the work
(494). Indeed, fans seem to enjoy flaunting the artificiality and surreality of their stories while also continuing to be engaged and immersed
in the fictional worlds they help to flesh out and concretize. However,
in an effort to develop more sober and responsible assessments of fan
practices, recent fanfiction theory has revisited both the idea of the fan
as a subversive force for the good and utopian visions of the community, suggesting that certain hierarchies and boundaries still exist. For example, my own research on The Republic of Pemberley website (Thomas
2007) focuses on the ways in which the self-appointed committee members who maintain the site portray themselves as guardians of Austens
legacy. Many other sites ban certain kinds of fanfic altogether (especially
Real Person Fiction, or fiction in which real-world celebrities and personages figure), and reserve the right to exclude members if their posts
or behavior are deemed unacceptable.

fan fiction as work in progress

Perhaps one of the main reasons theorists have been saying such nice
things about fanfiction is that Fan research has been institutionally and
personally convenient (Gray 2003: 67). In particular, online fanfiction
is ripe for analysis because it makes visible the process of creation and
reception as authors and their readers engage in ongoing interactions
about their stories. The process of updating that takes place on many of
these sites (Thomas forthcoming) also contributes to what Hellekson
and Busse (2006) see as a defining feature of fanfiction: namely, its selfproclaimed status as work in progress. Fanfiction is usually published
in installments or chapters, and on sites such as FanFiction.Net readers can track when stories are updated. Readers are thus likely to view
Thomas: What Is Fanfiction?

entries as works in progress, and inevitably many stories are left unfinished. While fans might urge each other on to bring a story to its climax, it is undoubtedly the case that continuity is preferred over closure.
Many of the biggest fandoms online are related to serial narratives
that trade on the idea of plot as an infinitely extended middle (Fiske
1987). However, even with narratives such as Austens Pride and Prejudice, which seemingly closes on the most conventional of happy endings, the climax is, of course, as much a beginning as it is an ending,
since Darcy and Elizabeth are just setting out on married life. A good
deal of Pride and Prejudice fanfiction takes this ending as its point of
departure, as fans imagine not only what the married life of the couple
might be like but also how Darcy in particular copes with parenthood,
or how the children turn out.
Though fanfiction is often dismissed as derivative and unoriginal,
fan communities proudly boast about the influence they have on peoples engagement with the storyworlds about which they write. What
this illustrates is that the relationship between source text and its reinventions is not unidirectional, but dialogic. Authors such as J. K. Rowling and Neil Gaiman have maintained a close relationship with their
fans through contributing interviews and setting up competitions.5
Meanwhile, TV shows such as Smallville or the Doctor Who spin-off
Torchwood are widely believed to have emerged from ideas and storylines developed on fanfiction sites, and Seth Grahame-Smiths Pride and
Prejudice and Zombies (2009) clearly owes a debt to the cross-over genre
of fanfiction. For fanfiction theorists, such a move into the mainstream
can arouse anxiety that fan communities resistance to dominant cultural norms and practices is being diluted, and that commercial success and corporatization are in effect wresting these storyworlds away
from their fans. But we might equally see the interest shown by the creative industries as testament to the contribution made by fans and as a
demonstration of the durability and elasticity of the storyworlds about
which they write.

the narrative structure of fanfiction

While fanfiction studies often draw on narratological terminology, there
has been very little cross-fertilization to date between narrative theo10

storyworlds volume 3 2011

ry and media studies vis--vis stories written by communities of fans.

Reception theory and the notion of gap filling sometimes feature in
the literature (Sandvoss 2007), and Gray (2003) cites Fishs work on
the interpretative process as a useful reference point for re-examining
how fans engage with the texts they endlessly revisit. Meanwhile, Gray
(2003) and Gray and Mittell (2007) draw extensively on Grard Genettes (1997) concept of the paratext in accounting for the various forms
fan activity may take, while Barthess notion of the writerly text figures
prominently in the work of Fiske (1987) and in Hellekson and Busses
study (2006). Matt Hills (2002) also borrows from narrative theory in
his development of the concept of hyperdiegesis, defined as the creation
of a vast and detailed narrative space, only a fraction of which is ever
directly seen or encountered within the text, but which nevertheless appears to operate according to principles of internal logic and extension
(137). Hills explicitly links his term to Murrays (1998) notion of the encyclopedic narrative and to the possibility of theorizing what he calls
an implied narrative world. The term has been extensively employed in
fanfiction studies to account for the ways in which continuity and coherence may exist across texts associated with particular fandoms, and
to provide a means of encompassing the multifarious ways in which
fans connect to various sectors and inhabitants of the narrative spaces
to which they return.
In her analysis of fanfiction and fanvids, Tisha Turk (2010) focuses
on metalepsis, or the conflation or entanglement of narrative levels, and
argues that Genettes (1980) original theory requires modification to account for how metalepsis works within participatory cultures and extends beyond the borders of the text. Turks analysis of specific fan texts
demonstrates the centrality of metaleptic transgressions of diegetic levels, especially where the fans extradiegetic desires are allowed to intrude
or impose on the storyworld. Though Turk, like many other fanfiction
theorists, is perhaps guilty at times of overstating the sophistication of
fans, her analysis does demonstrate how narratological concepts such as
metalepsis can throw light on the complex modes of engagement that
help drive this form of narrative.
Sara Gwenllian-Joness (2004) analysis of the metaverses of fantasy
and science fiction suggests other strategies for promoting a closer diThomas: What Is Fanfiction?

11

alogue between media studies and narrative theory when it comes to

fanfiction. Gwenllian-Jones argues that fictional worlds, of necessity,
always exceed the texts that describe them, relying on large part on the
reader who must import exterior information to and imaginatively engage with the text in order to actualize its latent aspects. The recovery
of the fictional world from its fragmented and partial textual presence
is a dynamic cognitive process in which textual data, knowledge of the
real world, and imagination are all marshalled (92). Such an approach
opens up the possibility that postclassical narratologys movement beyond the confines of the text, and particularly the work of cognitive
narratology, can contribute to our understanding of how readers process narratives and of how storyworlds in turn connect with and actualize all sorts of latent desires and needs.
Cognitive narratologys focus on how readers process narratives, and
construct mental models that take the shape of storyworlds, is ideally
situated to account for many of the activities and forms of engagement
that we find in fanfiction communities. In particular, Richard Gerrigs
focus on how words become worlds (2005: 474) and his suggestion that
narrative transports readers into other times and other places (1993)
provide an obvious starting point for this kind of approach. Equally,
the idea that storyworlds are themselves subject to constant revision by
those who participate in their construction allows us to go beyond textual blueprints to the worlds that are made and remade on the basis of
those blueprints. As David Herman (2005) puts it, storyworlds offer us
mentally and emotionally projected environments in which interpreters are called upon to live out complex blends of cognitive and imaginative response (570). Although the focus of such approaches is still
perhaps on how texts provoke such a response, rather than on mapping
out and engaging with the environments in which those responses are
enacted, work of this sort does offer the possibility of combining textual analysis with some consideration of what readers do with the worlds
they fashion and refashionand also of what motivates fans to stay
with and expand the storyworlds they choose to enter.
Joseph Tabbi (2003) has challenged narratology to come up with a
way of dealing with what he calls the processual text, and he relishes
the prospect of a return to a focus on narrative as journey rather than
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goal, hailing this release from future-orientation as potentially liberating. Similarly, Peter Lunenfeld (2000: 20) has hypothesized the possibility of what he calls an aesthetic of unfinish, again placing the emphasis on process rather than goal and suggesting thereby a new approach
to the analysis of narrative. Certainly, this kind of aesthetic might find
support from postmodern theory, where the idea that creativity must
involve originality has been fundamentally questioned, and where the
pleasures of repetition and repurposing may be celebrated. It might
also help explain why what keeps fans coming back is not necessarily
suspense, strong characterization, or good style so much as what David Black (2004) calls in-filling: that is, the process of fleshing out the
backstory behind characters, situations, and events, or slightly shifting
the perspective from which the familiar is to be enjoyed.

toward an aesthetic of fanfiction

More generally, engaging with issues of aesthetic value and judgment is
necessary if we are to move away from the current dilemma facing theorists of this mode of narrative practice. The dilemma is that it has become impossible to criticize fanfiction for fear of being accused of importing values and criteria from elsewhere and stifling the creativity and
forms of resistance displayed by fans. Yet being too nice about fanfiction
may also prove counterproductive if, as Charlotte Brunsdon (1997) has
argued, this only leaves the field clear for the pronouncements of others. Similarly, Toby Miller (2004) makes the point that by turning fans
into aficionados and heaping praise on their ability to do the kind of
interpretative work valued by the academy, we may be covertly replicating the kinds of evaluative discourse that claim to be able to distinguish between good and bad stories or storytelling practices. In media studies circles, such binaries have long been contested, and instead
Gray (2003) proposes that we focus on a range of values that allows for
challenge and change, and that may be modulated according to genre,
medium, and so forthrather than continue to use debates about quality as a barrier to engagement. It seems, therefore, that when it comes to
trying to talk about the aesthetics of fanfiction, we may need to explore
a new understanding of aesthetic value that reflects the decentralization
of contemporary culture. At the same time, this approach to aesthetic
Thomas: What Is Fanfiction?

13

value could build on models that, like David Bleichs (1978) and Patrick
Colm Hogans (forthcoming), embrace subjectivity and affect, rather
than marginalizing or ignoring such aspects of readerly engagement.
What I have described as the third wave of fanfiction studies has
brought issues of aesthetic judgment to the forefront, fostering some
welcome skepticism about earlier theorists elevation of the reader to a
position of absolute supremacy. In particular, Sandvoss (2007) directly
confronts media studies tendency to shy away from such debates, and
argues that much is to be gained from engaging with literary-theoretical
approaches and models. At the same time, Sandvoss makes the point
that whereas literary texts are often valued for their ability to defamiliarize the everyday, fans seek out texts that give them the pleasure of familiarity and that fulfill rather than challenge their expectations. Yet he
also stresses that it is problematic to try to stipulate what sorts of stories
fans seek out and what meanings they find in those stories. Sandvoss
points out that the notion of what constitutes a text for fans may itself
be contentious, and calls for what he terms a functionalist definition of
value in which we focus on what texts are for; from this perspective, any
discussion of value must engage closely with what actual readers and
audiences do, as manifested by their participation in fan communities.
Sandvosss focus is on what he calls the affective bond between text and
reader, and he calls for an approach that captures the full complexity
and dynamism of the process of reading, rather than smoothing over
disagreements or forcibly aligning contradictions and complexities in
readers ongoing responses to texts and their intertexts.
In the same volume that contains Sandvosss study, Hills (2007) attacks what he calls the distant reading tradition of media studies; in
this tradition, according to Hills, it is acceptable to comment on media
texts without actually bothering to watch or read them. Hills also points
to the problems of using an approach in which the scholar is meant to
be objective or detached in order to study fan communities in which
enthusiasms may be excessive and beyond control. Indeed, academics
who are also fans (or aca-fans) are likely, according to Hills, to project
their own interpretations onto the fan texts being analyzed.
Interestingly, the fanfiction community itself displays no scruples
about hunting down and exposing examples of badfic, with sites such
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as Fandom Wank and Crack Van directing users toward the good stuff
while reveling in the worst excesses of the bad. But these assessments
are not premised on a centrally held set of criteria; rather, they grow
out of an ongoing debate and discussion about what merits reccing
(recommending) and what does not. Hence participants always have
a right to reply and an opportunity to contest and challenge the values
and interpretations of others. Once again, if an aesthetics is constructed purely on the basis of what fanfictions are, rather than on the basis
of what fans do with these texts, then the only options remain a kind of
whitewashing, where we pretend that the writing really is not as bad as
it seems, or a crude selection policy, according to which we only consider for discussion those examples of fanfiction that meet the mark in
terms of specific sets of criteria that must by their very nature be inflexible. A more productive approach is suggested by Sandvoss (2007),
whereby instead of focusing on the value of a specific text, or abandoning altogether any notion of value, we focus instead on what he calls
the spectrum of textuality (31) to encompass the broader effects and
influences that the text may have and go on to have. Thus, rather than
imposing a set of values, analysts can focus on what makes this kind of
narrative practice distinctivefor example, by exploring how it provides different perspectives on a familiar fictional world or set of events
or allows fans happily to move in and out of various storyworlds and
also between the storyworld and the real world of their day-to-day
existence.
With fanfiction it is also important to recognize that what may be
valued by one community or fandom may not hold equal value for another. For example, my studies of The Republic of Pemberley website
(Thomas 2007) or fans of the author Mark Danielewski (Thomas 2011)
have shown that these fans are quite prepared to pass judgment not just
on the merits of the texts they discuss but also on others responses to
and interpretations of those texts. While other fandoms may be much
less hawkish and intimidating, nevertheless reviewing and critiquing
are an intrinsic part of all of the fanfiction sites that I have visited, and
indeed the constant dialogue between authors and their readers, and
the fact that these roles are so readily interchangeable, make it impossible to fully appreciate fanfiction without looking at how the stories
Thomas: What Is Fanfiction?

15

are received and talked about within the specific communities in which
they are located.
In the illustrative analysis that follows, I use a fanfiction based on
Austens Pride and Prejudice to weave together many of the strands of
my discussion up to this point. I also aim to demonstrate how an integrated analysisone that combines close attention to the text and
a focus on the wider processes of production and receptioncan offer valuable insights into what fanfiction is for and what it does vis-vis those who are involved with its production, interpretation, and
recontextualization.

Illustrative Analysis: Ae Fond Kiss

The story Ae Fond Kiss appears on Mrs. Darcys Story Site; this site lists
twenty-one female authors of fanfictions based on Pride and Prejudice
and includes, in addition, special features, a store, and a message forum where users can post their reviews and comments. The site also
features stills from movie adaptations of Austens work as well as links
to various sites that explore aspects of her life and works. The community appears tight-knit, referring to each other as dears, but the site is
in many ways less open than others, since it does not explicitly invite
contributions or make visible its guidelines and protocols.
Ae Fond Kiss, which first appeared on the site in 2006, is categorized as WIP (work in progress) and R (restricted, has some adult content). Systems of categorization are common across fanfiction sites and
help users to navigate in terms of genre, favored pairings of characters,
and so on. Ae Fond Kiss falls into the category of AU (Alternate Universe stories): it imagines Elizabeth Bennet working as a schoolteacher
in present-day Glasgow, while Jane Bennet is recast as a social worker, and Bill Collins is an irritating mature student whom Elizabeth
meets at a training college. Twenty-one chapters of the story were posted before the author, Carol, mysteriously disappeared. Subsequent
message forums record appeals for her to get in touch as well as readers disappointment that the story has been left incomplete. The last
chapter posted introduces an unexpected complication in the Elizabeth/William (Darcy) relationship, with Elizabeth suspecting William
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of becoming involved with Caroline Bingley. This turn of events might

explain why those posting on the message boards are so desperate for
Carol to continue, despite the fact that we last hear from Carol in 2007.
Indeed, messages were still being left for her in January 2010, demonstrating the tenacity of the fans as well as their commitment to the idea
of community. What is more, it appears that for users of the site tracking Carols story and interacting on the message boards, the updates
on her health are as much a part of the story as the chapters that she
posted on the site.
Unlike some other fanfiction sites, which provide biographies and
links to authors websites, Mrs. Darcys Story Site simply lists the first
names of the writers and provides a link to the stories they have authored. Similarly, while other fansites separate complete from incomplete stories, Mrs. Darcys Story Site does not; nor does it provide information about when a story was posted or updated, although this can be
deduced from the message boards. As was suggested earlier, for fanfiction readers, being able to track the evolution of a story seems to be at
least as important as having access to the completed version, once again
suggesting the importance of process in this kind of narrativeat multiple levels.
While the site does not give explicit information about Carol, references to specific locations in Glasgow and the storys use of Scots dialect suggest some familiarity with the locale, and on the message boards
Carol reveals that she was born in Aberfeldy. There is also plenty of
evidence to indicate that the author is very familiar with the teaching
profession. Compared to, for example, most of the contributions to
www.fanfiction.net, Ae Fond Kiss displays a very mature and confident writing style and makes informed references to many other literary
works (Shakespeare, Norman McCaig, the Burns song of the title), as
well as to Austens larger oeuvre. The story also makes extratextual references to real people, such as the actor Iain Glen, and to rock bands
such as Pearl Jam and Bad Company, resulting in the kinds of metalepsis Turk (2010) notes in her analysis of fanvids.
In keeping with a lot of AU fanfiction based on classic texts, the language is a mix of homages to Austen and contemporary slang (Mr arsehole Darcy; SOB), and the story also resembles other fanfics in its
Thomas: What Is Fanfiction?

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knowing humor (for example, recasting Mary Bennet as a goth). In

terms of the aesthetics of the form, therefore, it is important to recognize that what might otherwise appear as clumsy gaffes and anachronisms are in fact deliberate, and as Turk (2010) has argued, it is exactly this clash of diegetic levels that contributes so much to the pleasure
to be derived from such stories. Rather than being wholly transported
(Gerrig 1993) into another world, the fan keeps one toe in the realm of
the real world, with the banal and the mundane rubbing up against
the fantastical and the surreal.
An examination of the structural and stylistic features of Ae Fond
Kiss confirms that it is a relatively typical fanfiction. Although most
fanfiction is written in the first person, Ae Fond Kiss is told in the
third person and shifts between focalizers, both male and female,
though Elizabeths is by far the most dominant perspective. Ae Fond
Kiss also includes many examples of in-filling (Black 2004), particularly in its fleshing out of minor characters such as Georgie (Darcys
sister) and Mrs. Reynolds (Darcys housekeeper). The story also relies
on a number of plot twists (Elizabeth is seeing Charles, Jane is with
William Darcy) and expansions (new characters such as Roddie Graham, Elizabeth narrowly escaping being raped by George Wickham, a
sex scene involving Darcy and Elizabeth).
Readers responses to the story are a mix of the intimate and the
playful, as when Rene O confesses that due to the Scottish setting now
I see Colin Firth in kilt all the time (November 13, 2006). The comments also reveal the intensity of the readers engagement with the charactersto the point where the boundaries between the textual and the
extratextual threaten once more to collapse, as when one contributor
advises Carol about the correct management of Elizabeths frizzy hair.
In line with reviews on other fanfiction sites (see Thomas 2011), most of
the comments are complimentary, with many readers commenting that
the story has convinced them that modern takes on Pride and Prejudice
can work well. But although many of the comments may appear rather
superficial, they do bear out the claims of theorists such as Turk (2010)
and Debra Journet (2010). These scholars argue that in formulating
their responses to and engaging in discussions about specific texts, fans
frequently engage in the kind of analysis preferred by literary critics,
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particularly where they attempt to back up their interpretations with

reference to the text or to existing scholarship. For example, Margaret F
(January 22, 2007) offers a nuanced analysis of the character of Fanny
Bennet and contrasts the depiction of the character in Ae Fond Kiss
with those found elsewhere. Thus, while I have argued that fans powers of analysis have perhaps been exaggerated, and that there is a danger
of elevating such skills at the expense of other strategies for engaging
with texts, the evidence suggests that fans take their role as reviewers
seriously.
In her interactions with her readers, Carol reveals some of the inspiration for her ideas and also shows a willingness to respond to her
readers comments and suggestions (Now why didnt I think of that,
February 8, 2007). A close affective bond of the kind described by Sandvoss (2007) is established between the author and her readers, based
on a complex mixture of sympathy for Carols real-world problems, on
the one hand, and dependence on her as the source of further installments, on the other hand. As on many other fanfiction sites, comments
are interlaced with emoticons and a liberal sprinkling of exclamation
marks, compensating for the lack of face-to-face contact and helping to
reinforce the intensity of the exchanges. The message boards therefore
provide us with invaluable insight into the emotional journey that the
readers undergo and suggest that their engagement with the narrative
entails much more than merely processing the words on the page, encompassing their interactions with the author and with each other as
the discussions unfold. Indeed, the fans may be said to participate in a
form of collective intelligence (Jenkins 2006), as they work through
elements of the plotting or share insights into aspects of the Scottish
setting that may be unfamiliar to others. In male-dominated fan communities built around texts that present readers with some kind of puzzle, this collective intelligence can mask a certain amount of competitiveness and point scoring (see Thomas 2011). In predominantly female
fan communities, however, collectivity is as much about emotional support as it is about intelligence, and on Mrs. Darcys Story Site fans are
careful to welcome new members and seem genuinely to look out for
one another, as is evident in the concern displayed for Carol when she
drops out of contact.
Thomas: What Is Fanfiction?

19

Conclusion
What my analysis of Ae Fond Kiss demonstrates is the inappropriateness and impossibility of focusing solely on the fanfiction text, without
taking into account how aspects of the interface and website design impact upon the reading experience, or how that experience is shaped by
the responses and discussions generated by the stories. Both the writing
and reading of fanfiction demonstrate how narrative is additive (Perez
2000); in other words, wanting more of (Pugh 2005) the storyworld
that is the object of the fans devotion can hardly be sated by just one
narrative, and the design and navigation of fanfiction sites is all about
selecting and reading across stories, often in a random rather than a directed fashion. The notion of the inexhaustible story (Douglas 2001)
thus poses a challenge to models of narrative that insist on defining the
story text as a stable and finite thing. As I suggest as well, the processual, malleable quality of fanfictions also has implications for how we
assess the quality of narratives. In this context judgments made about
story design, characterization, and writing style cannot be made in the
abstract, without recognizing the significance that these narrative elements may have for a particular community of readers, thanks to the
contexts of production and reception in which a given narrative circulates. Nor can assumptions be made about how all fans engage with the
storyworlds at issue. For all the fans who actively participate and interact on these sites, there are others who simply lurk or who flit from one
story and one fandom to another without displaying any particular attachment or commitment.
But perhaps the largest lesson of fanfiction is that it is time to call a
halt to the mutual suspicion that still seems to persist between narratology, which emphasizes fine-grained analysis of textual features and patterns, and media and cultural studies, which have traditionally focused
more on audiences, reception processes, and issues of ideology and the
place of textual practices within broader social formations. In particular, dialogue between these fields would seem to be productive in allowing us to debate the aesthetic value of new media forms and explore
how storyworlds are put to use as well as constructed and processed.
For fanfiction studies, this sort of dialogue might result in a middle
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ground emerging between those who have perhaps exaggerated the potential significance of fanfiction and those who dismiss it as adolescent
trash. What is undeniable is that many of the challenges posed by fanfiction are replicated across other kinds of new-media narratives, and so
we ignore these challenges at our own peril.
Notes
1. See Henry Jenkins, Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry
Jenkins, <http://www.henryjenkins.org/>.
2. Examples of anti-fan activity can be found at I Hate Harry Potter, <http://www
.ihateharrypotter.com>, or I Hate Star Wars Club, <http://ihatestarwarsclub.
blogspot.com>.
3. Examples of Darcy/Wickham slash are much more common. See, for example,
Truth Discovered by Jadecastle6 or Two Sides of the Same Coin by Lizard2,
both on FanFiction.Net. For an example of Darcy/Bingley slash see Concerning the Pianaforte by DragonRawr, also at FanFiction.Net.
4. Whysuddenly admits to having Colin Firth in mind when composing The
Wedding Night and Conversation in the Morning, published together at
FanFiction.Net.
5. See R. Lyle Skains (2010) for a discussion of interactions between authors and
their readers online.

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Firthness. <http://www.firthness.com>.
Mrs. Darcys Story Site. <http://www.mrsdarcy.com>.
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