Erotica By Helen E. H. Madden

This is the last post on my adventures at Shore Leave. The con was over a month ago, and I know I'm slow getting these posts up, but that's mainly because they've taken so long to write. Anyway, here we go...

The most interesting panel I attended at Shore Leave 29 was the panel on slash fan fiction, subtitled "Are The Powers That Be (PTB) Co-opting Fan Fic?" The panel was held in a small room with the door closed, making it very warm for the 30 women and one guy present, but nobody was interested in leaving. In fact, this was the most interested group of panel attendees I'd ever seen. Everywhere I looked, I saw t-shirts with pictures of Kirk and Spock, as well as several K/S pendants. The discussion was moderated by two women who were selling the slash fiction in the dealers' room at the con. The main points of their discussion focused on how certain entities, like Yahoo, where trying to find a way to make a profit off of fan fiction. Apparently Yahoo's brain child is a little website called FanLib, an online library of fan fiction. Okay, so it's not so little. It actually looks huge to me. FanLib bills itself as a place for fan fic writers to meet other writers, make friends, and showcase their work. The people at the slash fic panel, however, stated that what FanLib is really looking for is ways to use fan fiction for their own ends. Basically, FanLib has set up a website, solicited fan fic writers to post their stuff without offering any sort of reimbursement, and then has turned around to advertisers and said, "See? We have all these people on the site that you can advertise to!" FanLib gets paid by the advertisers. The advertisers get an audience of potential buyers. The fan fic writers get a place to post their stuff. All well and good, right?

Except that the fan fic writers already have plenty of places to post their stuff.
Hmmm. Most fan fic writers aren't going to make money off of their work anyway, and those that do aren't going to make enough to pay the bills. So why worry about FanLib's plan to use of their work to generate ad revenue that they don't intend to share with the writers? The fan fic writers retain whatever rights they can legally claim on their stories. However, according to the members of the panel, FanLib has boasted to its advertisers and investors that by setting up this site, they've got a way to get fan fic writers to "color within the lines." And that had everyone in the panel at Shore Leave spitting mad.

If fan fic writers were the kind of people who colored within the lines in the first place, they would not be writing fan fic. It's that simple. And the people in the panel definitely did not seem to like the idea that someone wanted to use them to make a profit. Fan fic writers want to do what fan fic writers want to do, and slash writers are probably the most rebellious of the bunch, reshaping a story to suit their wants and needs, not the needs of some corporate fat cat who thinks, "Hey, these guys are writing all this stuff for free anyway, so why can't **I** make a profit off of it?" (Apparently said fat cat never saw the dealers' room at Shore Leave.)

To further inflame the sensibilities of the slash fic writers, FanLib also doesn't take any responsibility if a writer gets sued for what they posted. It seems they want all of the benefits of fan fic, but with none of the risks. Granted, they're not the first business to use such practices. Blogger is the same way, as are plenty of other sites. They provide the forum for your content, hook it up with advertisers, and then deny culpability should things turn sour. It's a business model we've all seen many times before. So often in fact that I think it's standard practice.

Of course, having taken a quick look at FanLib, I don't think the K/S folks are going to hang out there anyway. It's mostly dominated by Harry Potter (a fact they complained about at the panel), there's very little Star Trek there, and the rating scheme is limited to only two choices - "All ages" and "13+." And I've read the "13+" stuff. So far, haven't found anything even remotely scandalous. So there's nothing really there to tempt the prurient minded fan.

The K/S people at the panel basically agreed they had better things to do and better places to go for their fic, so the panel then moved on to other issues, like who's writing slash. Women, they state, which makes me think that slash, yaoi, and m/m erotica really have a lot in common. I remember attending a GLTB panel at the last EPICon where the panelists included six women, gay and straight, and one gay man who was very surprised to see how many women (gay and straight) were into writing m/m erotica. He was the only one surprised, of course.

Towards the end of the slash panel, I asked a few questions, stating up front that I was not a slash writer or reader, but that I wrote erotic fiction and I wanted to know more about what people enjoyed about fan fiction and slash. Specifically, if it was erotic content these people wanted, did they have to get it from fan fic, or would original fiction with original characters be just as enjoyable for them? Hands down, everyone in the room declared, "Fan fic!" Why, I asked. Because...

First, they like having intimate knowledge of a story's characters and the universe those characters live in. It provides a detailed background, so the readers can drop into a fan fic or slash story and already know what's going on. Plus, if they've seen the movie or TV show, or read the book, they've got that knowledge and they already know what they're going to like. No wasting time having to learn a new character or new universe from the ground up. With fan fic, they can just jump in and add their own unique twist to something they already like.

Second, fan fic people want DON'T want to see the books/movies/TV shows they love come to an end. The people at the panel stated that they become very emotionally invested in what they read and watch, and they hate to see a good thing end. That's something I think everyone can understand. Honestly, did you ever like seeing your favorite show wrap up after so many seasons? Personally, it killed me to see "Farscape" cancelled. Fan fic is a way to keep those shows alive. It lets the writers and readers continue to have a relationship with something they love. As one panelist put it, fan fic (and slash) fulfills a need for the fan.

This leads me to a third note. Fan fic people want to see the characters they love so much go through all the ups and downs of life, especially the things that don't get covered in the book/movie/show. Or as it's more often stated, they want to see the 'hurt/comfort' of a character. Hurt/comfort refers to a character suffering, either mentally or physically, and then being nursed, comforted and/or coddled back to a state of happiness and well-being. Why this particular theme is so popular I'm not sure, but I certainly intend to look into it.

After discussing all this, one of the panelists pointed out that if I were to write a series that gave them all that they looked for in the shows and books they write about, they might be interested in reading it. In other words, if I wrote a series that included: a detailed background and setting; fully fleshed out characters; a plot that put those characters through the wringer, but allowed them the opportunity for comfort and reward; then I might have something they'd want to read. And maybe write about too. All of which makes sense. Think about it. Before you had K/S fan fic, you had Star Trek. Before you had Snupin (Snape/Lupin) fan fic, you had Harry Potter. All fan fic is derived from an original source. I'm thinking that if you understand why the original source appeals to the fan fic reader and writer, what it is that inspires them to write about it or draw about it, then you're well on your way to being able to write fiction that sells.

Anyway, that's my two cents on fan fiction and slash.

Labels: Conventions And Appearances, Fandom

Friday, August 10, 2007

Notes From Shore Leave 29: Part III - Are The Powers That Be Co-opting Fan Fic? And What Can Erotica Writers Learn From Slash?