The Case for Fan Fiction (feat. Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes) | It’s Lit
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2024
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For years writers of fan fiction were shamed, the butt of jokes, and even subject to copyright litigation. However, in the past few years, with the fan fiction writers of today becoming the published mainstream authors of today the past time is a celebrated benchmark of one’s climb to publication.
In the season two premiere of It’s Lit, we explore what happened and how fan fiction writers were able to come out of the proverbial closet of shame.
Hosted by Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes, It’s Lit! is a show about our favorite books, genres and why we love to read. It’s Lit has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor.
Interested in using this video as a teaching resource? Check it out on PBS LearningMedia: to.pbs.org/3yqKPqy
Hosted by: Lindsay Ellis and Princess Weekes
Written by: Angelina Meehan, Lindsay Ellis
Director: David Schulte
Executive Producer: Amanda Fox
Producer: Stephanie Noone
Editors: Sara Roma, Derek Borsheim
Writing Consultant: Alexis Soloski
Executive Producer (PBS): Adam Dylewski (PBS)
Editorial Producer (PBS): Niki Walker
Produced by Spotzen for PBS Digital Studios.
Follow us on Twitter:
/ thelindsayellis
/ weekesprincess
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So exciting! A big welcome to Lindsay and Princess. We're growing bigger and bigger with your help! And don't fret Monstrum fans, we'll be back in two weeks with a new episode. Stay tuned (and stay spooky!) -Dr. Z
PS: in case you missed it, check out the Storied announcement at the end of last week's Monstrum episode: th-cam.com/video/c_ywuNEEiVE/w-d-xo.html&t=552
I am concerned doc. I subscribed for unbiased deep dive analysis of the creatures of the night we relate to. Not how awesome fan fiction is.
@@anastasiagiannoulatou7460 I suggested to PBS having a beastiary channel for just monster content.
@@Demolitiondude i must agree.Not that i have a problem with these two young women but i only want notifications when Dr Zarka has something new.
Did yt need to be active???
If so I understand
Because to know and present it right all need more time to research and more time to write
You guy's don't know Lindsey yet, but she's absolutely amazing. Check out her stuff, like i'm gonna deep dive into windigo's and banshees ^_^
I'm a big proponent of TvTropes' motto: "90% of fanfiction is crud, but the remaining 10% is worth dying for." You know, just like regular writing.
I found some exciting reads there for sure. FanFicRecs is a good tab on Tvtropes to check out.
I agree. _Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality_ is not just the best fanfic I've ever read, but some of the best fiction I've ever read, period. It takes a leap of faith to get into genre(?) / medium(?) of fan fiction, but if the community is large enough, there's something for everyone.
I also have a fanfiction.net account where my (weird but mostly decent) fan fictions are made.
@@SlapstickGenius23 I have an account too. Though I don't write I used to read a lot. And i found some stories that are so much better than the canon
Disagree. 10% is too big a number.
Dante. . . the guy that literally inserted himself in an isekai fanfiction.
And Devil May Cry is an modern AU of the Divine Comedy with protagonist name stays the same and DMC: Devil May Cry (a game in an Ultimate Marvel-like continuity from 2013) is an UK AU (every Japanese franchisor has a fanfic that take place in the west)
DYING BC TRUE
Mental image of Dante being struck by speeding truck makes me smile.
Rich McGee He got struck by the Isekai truck while running from his enemies.
And made sure his self insert got to meet all his favourite celebrities
"As if the only good fiction is something that is 100% original." I'd wager the last time anything written by anyone was 100% original the text was in cuneiform, and you could easily convince me it was earlier than that.
werewolfassasyn the whole notion of “an idea” breakdowns went confronted with our conceptions and legal frameworks governing “originality.” No idea ever is original. They don’t come from some far off place, or spring from the ether. They come from the experiences of our material reality recombined and remixed with inherited ideas and then iterated and iterated over generations. Everything is a remix
well there's ancient egyptian texts lamenting that there is nothing new to write, that everything had already been written before :D also ancient scribes in egypt and mesopotamia don't really seem to have had a concept of authorship and didn't consider their work to be *their own original work*, they were just the person who happened to write down a text.
so '100% originality' was apparently never really a thing (at least in literature) :D
I met Robert Silverberg at a con once, and he was signing some books for me, one of which was "Science Fiction 101" and he asked if I was a writer, I saw "well no, just fanfic" and he told me that certainly counted as being a writer. It was a nice thing to hear.
That's one hell of a man
And remember kids, most of what we accept as Arthurian canon is fanfic. Lancelot? Fanfic. Search for the holy grail? Fanfic. Excalibur? Fanfic.
Arthur being English?
Fanfic²
@@hubertblastinoff9001 _Cymdeithas Cyfamod y Cymry Rhydd_ ?
@@danielm6341 great Welsh language comment!
My favorite fanfic is Dante's Divine Comedy.
I love how Princess's impression of Neil Gaiman was 35% Australian, 35% British and the rest American
She got the cadence though! He's got this melodic way of speaking that, I think, comes through in her impression.
And 100% rad.
That's 30% American for the mathematically challenged
I honestly love it so much it makes me scream
Neil Gaiman once again proving that he is the best.
Yenu Not surprising, since his best novel is a massive crossover fic of EVERY God that ever existed, ever! (American Gods, and yes - it IS his best story, fight me.)
@@phastinemoon I'd be happy to fight you for another book's place
Emiko 123 Good luck - name it, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong
Second best. Sir Pratchett beats him out, even posthumously. And Gaiman would agree.🥰
Urgh
People who have never read fanfic and talk down to people who do read it really need to have an open mind. Honestly, there have been some fics I've read that are better than what you'll find at a bookstore. Some seriously topshelf stories. It's easy to laugh at the thought of Harry Potter or Twilight fanfics written by 12 year old tweens, but those aren't the only fandoms in existence and many authors are way older and much more mature than that stereotype demographic. I've read stuff that stays with me for /days/ cause the prose was so good. There are some quality fics I have bookmarked where I'll go back and re-read them and still get blown away but how well written it is. Some stuff I've read is so poetic in writing I feel like I just scored a free NY Times bestseller.
It's no surprise at all that many fanfic authors go on to publish original series'. I wouldn't be shocked at all if I found out an author I'm following on AO3 ended up with a book deal. Hell, I just recently found out that the author of a new book series I'm reading proudly wrote Homestuck fanfic.
Fanfic is gaining legitimacy and I'm here for it.
YES EXACTLY!!! I started reading fanfics on Wattpad and about three years later one of my favorite authors published her story from Wattpad into a series at Barnes & Noble. It was so gratifying and so amazing. On top of that I completely agree it sometimes fanfics are so much better than actual published books and there are ones that I go back and re-read from my One Direction fanfic day 6 years ago. I've outgrown those fics now but there's just some that are so good you can't help but reread them
I sincerely and honestly believe that I've read Harry Potter fanfiction that's better than canon. Straight up.
@@Scarleto ok so true!!! I adore Harry Potter books and movies but I read fanfic so much more that I genuinely lose sight of what's cannon and what's not. I have a hard time distinguishing what was something I read in a fanfic because it made so much more sense and was written so much better. I started reading fanfic before I watch the movies or read the books so there were things that I thought were part of Canon only to find out that the fandom hated the real Cannon so much that we made our own.
Dude, there are stories I read YEARS ago that I still think about as often as every week. I've read fanfics that have shaped me more than published books. Long live the fanfics.
I DON’T understand how people can get in to reading fan fiction, but I can VERY MUCH understand how people can get in to writing it. It’s an enjoyable hobby.
Virgil's Aeneid is literally just a fan-fiction expanded universe on Homer's epics. As for RPFs, Dante not only wrote into his poem his favorite author Virgil, he also self-inserts himself so he can buddy-buddy with his literary hero in the work. What haters think are ridiculous new trends are actually some of literature's oldest conventions.
Also many of the names of the people he notes as suffering eternal damnation in hell were often the names of actual enemies of his (or people he just disapproved of).
@@etanaedelman9011 Yeah, Dante wrote real fanfic, makeing himself true Mary Sue (flawless, getting girl he wanted and sending his enemies to hell)
I've always found RPFs weird and uncomfortable, it was weird and uncomfortable when Dante did it and it continues to be weird and uncomfortable when it's about One Direction
@@kristinaporter2629 Well, it was so uncomfortable in the Renaissance that they sent Dante into exile...
From what I heard even the Iliad and the Odyssey were originally just old oral tales.
I'm thirty, I still write fanfic and not planning to stop any time soon. I'm not embarrassed by my older works or ashamed of my current ones. Writing and reading fanfic to me is fun and enjoyable, and I have great interactions with my readers. I'd also say my writing is improving with time. Keep at it. A big thank you to the AO3 team and users for just existing, really
I'm nearly 40, still active as both a reader and an author, and only moderately embarrassed of my first few writing attempts. Not at all because they were fanfic, but because they were not very good. Still, the only way to get better is to practice.
I'm OVER 40 and still writing in various ways, original and fan-fic both.
BUT. Only now do I feel like it might actually be vaguely OK to share some of it. I've been laboring for decades under the notion that I need the work to be polished BEFORE submitting it for anyone - publisher, agent, or good friend.
Never too late, y'all. It's never EVER too late, or too early.
That's awesome :)
@@Beryllahawk I hope that you decide to post it! Go for it!!
Bless AO3 and all the writers of the world.
I love fanfiction. I read it at least once a week, and have done so for 15 years 👏 As a non English speaker, it helped me develop my vocabulary and made me want to become a writer.
Me too! I learned a lot of English with fanfic and eventually started reading the books in English too, it taught me more than any teacher ever did.
Same here. Learned English in school but never really enjoyed or used it until I started reading fanfiction. It improved my grammar and vocabulary immensly and today I can speak and write English fluently.
This! I'm so happy I've discovered fanfiction in my English beginner years, it helped me a lot with a general understanding of the English language as a whole and expanded my vocabulary. I wouldn't know half of the words I know today if it weren't for the countless hours and summer nights I've spent reading every "Slow Burn" tagged work on the AO3.
@@bananapuding866 Oh I love me good slow burn! 👌
@@sarahreffstrupjrgensen7772 good slow burn is always an amazing read if you get to enjoy some time off :)
I find it interesting that discussions of fanfiction so often center around the writers. I've been an enthusiastic fanfic reader since I was a pre-teen, and I take it as seriously as I take reading traditionally published books, but I don't write it. It bothers me a little bit the way people talk about it as a "writing exercise," as if it exists only for the benefit of the writer, just because most fic writers don't make money off of it. Fanfiction is its own genre, with its own tropes and conventions, and its own fans. There are unique challenges in writing a character created by someone else, and it's a unique experience to return to the same characters over and over through different writers and genres. Part of what makes it good and special is that the economy of fanfic runs on appreciation and validation, not money, and that doesn't make it any better or worse than published fiction.
And many stories just could never exist as anything other than fanfic. There are some exquisite fanfics that could never exist as an original work because they hinge on outsider POV on the published characters. One VERY good fanfic that is better than a lot of published books could never exist as an original story, because the premise is that a character from a book gets therapy from the perspective of the therapist. Everything the character says and does is familiar to the reader, but puzzling to the therapist, and if the reader didn't know who the character was it would make no sense.
@@AnnekeOosterink ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT DEMONOLOGY AND THE TRIPHASIC MODULE OF TRAUMA--
@@kingsaracoon9594 YES I AM! :D :D IT's SO GOOD! :)
(although there are more therapy fics with more or less the same premise, I love this one the most, because bb Crowley finally acknowledging all his traumas and getting help dealing with them)
I love that this is how you chose to introduce Princess to the program. Two geek girls bonding over fanfics past. It warms my cold dead heart.
I enjoy fanfiction and there're many talented writers out there. To me knowing they do all this for free is awesome and really tells me they love what they're doing.
They didn't do it for free
They don't have a choice
But if they can they surely do it
Real person fanfiction makes me deeply uncomfortable. I've been a teenage girl and I would never shame anyone for writing it, but it kind of takes the commodification of public figures to eleven. It just feels a bit disrespectful to me.
Excellent episode. As a person who has been involved with the fanfiction subculture it's been interesting to see it become increasingly mainstream. Some of the words we used to gush over or throw shade at or neutrally categorize other works are used by everyone now.
Personally I find RPF really icky, it's treating a real flesh and blood human like a fictional character
I totally agree with this. Especially in explicit fics. Like putting real people in sexual situations explicitly for consumption is so gross. In visual pornography, at least they don’t use the actors’ real names
@@fangirlfortheages5940 I am not contesting your point, but photographic pornography of people who haven't given their consent is definitely worse. In fact it is illegal while simply using someones name is not. But honestly I think RPFs are much more a symptom of how companies and media commodify celebreties and encourage parasocial relationships than of people being morally bankrupt. It is kind of hard to grasp why you aren't allowed to write pwp about celebs when they are selling you 'intimate' photocards, or 'addressing you' through social media or objectifying themselves in sugestive music videos. I'm not saying RPFs are right, only that the media industry explicitly tells people to want celebrities and then shames women for expressing that desire.
For me, I'd say it really depends on the *type* of RPF a person is writing and what the subject matter is. The only time I feel truly uncomfortable with this type of fanfiction is when it involves shipping, or a person's sex life, or putting them in certain situations involving pain or humiliation, and sadly this is what most people think of when the topic of RPF comes up. My sister is really into K-pop, so I checked out a few fanfics out of curiosity, and some of the stuff these writers had these real-life group members doing was truly disgusting, although I can't honestly say how much the authors saw these young men as real people or as the public "characters" they present. I see how it can be a problem when that line between fiction and reality is so blurry, and celebrities and the corporations that back them certainly propagate these public personas, so it's not surprising that many fans see them as characters first and people second. I'm not saying it's right, but that *is* how the waters get muddied. Even so, I still think it's totally possible to write about a real-life figure in a perfectly innocent, respectful way, so long as you make sure not to cross certain boundaries, and so long as you know that there IS a difference between the real live person and the idealized "character" version of them you've created in your own mind.
RPF squicks me out too, and the way that it rolls over into people *insisting* that real humans must be secretly dating each other, particularly when one or both parties are already married to different people (I'm looking at you Supernatural fandom :/), is really invasive and can lead to people behaving like total psychopaths.
However, to play devil's advocate, I would say there's an argument to be made that the majority of RPF is not actually about the real people, it's about the fabricated characters that are those people's celebrity personas. Every celebrity sells a false image of themselves, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the person, so no RPF is ever written about the people so much as the caricature of them. That doesn't necessarily make it okay, but I can see where it would be justifiable.
I remember about ten years ago actual history professors wrote hetalia fan fiction. Honestly i will never understand people saying that fan fiction isn’t writing like... it literally is? I’m all for fan fiction and actively encourage people who are shy about it
Ngl I want to read that fanfic
As a fanfiction writer, I am so glad you did this. I feel no shame for it. I enjoy it, others enjoy it. That's all I care about it
What, no comment about how the Arthurian Mythos is like 90% Fanficiton and that Lancelot sucking was cuz one of the authors pretty much wrote a bash fic? I am disappointed
Edit: Also if people claim that Fanfiction is creatively bereft they need to read some good Crossover Fics
Most of the Grail stuff is fanfic of Chretien de Troyes, after all...
Lancelot himself was first a self-insert character by a French dude obsessed with courtly love. The original Marty Stu - good at everything, everyone loves/admires him, he gets to bang the main character's hot wife.
@@jaciem and then later on, someone else decided they did not approve of his banging a married woman and wrote a fic where he falls from grace really really hard. Some versions have him killing himself in shame, but I don't know when that part was added. So somebody wrote a bash fic about someone else's self-insert
Crossovers aren't really my thing but you do have to admit that people who write fanfics crossovers are so talented. Not only do you have to get the characters and the personalities correct from the primary fandom but you also have to insert them or insert characters of another fandom into their Universe with the correct characters and the correct personalities to match. It takes a lot of time and talent to do that
@@chelsey8737 Going beyond just the characters you have to get the universes to mesh well, which can be a real pain
as somebody actively writing fanfiction, I enjoyed this. The air of legitimacy given by the admittance of big name authors saying they're part of the community is great, almost all of my reading in the last eight or so years has been fanfiction. I find that the freedom from worrying about things like marketability allows people to talk about a wide array of topics and gives rise to unique and interesting perspectives and styles. I've been absolutely gushing to anyone who would listen about a Harry Potter fanfiction that seeks to capture the feeling of Pride and Prejudice orbiting post-Hogwarts Draco and Hermione. I love visiting Long, Dead Fics, labors of love that someone eventually fell out with, it's really a special feeling to watch the evolution not only of the writer over the course but of the characters as they twist in the author's mind.
The point about Long Dead Fics is a good one. There is a special insight to be gained from reading a sufficient volume of abandoned fanfics; an experience that normal readers of conventionally published works won't have: The occult sensation of all stories, perhaps all realities, being merely an ephemeral iceberg-like peek into ongoing narratives. You get to see creators and audiences as participating together in a grand play of constantly seeded and discarded narratives, dipping above and below waves of public discourse like dolphins - occurring in any medium - books, TH-cam, music, political rallies, and so on. Perhaps the internet _is_ the democratising force academics assumed it would be; only taking the long way around.
what's it called?
There's one more element. "Official" fan fiction. Whoever picked up the "The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo" series, and those Twisted Disney novels. And then there's the Star Trek Paperbacks. Or that Peter Pan sequel "Peter Pan in Scarlet" (fun read, by the way).
All the "Han Solo Adventures" paperbacks I read as a kid back in the 80's. I remember those with great fondness, btw.
Let’s be real, all these new Star Wars and marvel movies are really just professional fan fiction lmao
Or when a living author invites other authors to write short stories in their own universe, or even to write novels in their timeline.
and any official expanded universe novels written in franchises decades after the franchise came out, when the fans have all grown up to become writers for official media...
@@dirgniflesuoh7950 just like LOVECRAFT did ironically there's a company that claims to own the Copyright who tries to shake people down for using cthulhu et al
Anne Rice was no joke back in the day. I remember those times. I remember when AO3 was brand-new and rebellious.
I almost cried watching this. I'm a middle schooler introvert at the moment, and I write fanfiction. I once said to a classmate "I write fanfiction, usually angst" and he laughed. It really hurt. When I talk to people about my writing, I pretend it isn't fanfiction. Even if there isn't people that I know and/or have met in person and know as a friend, I'm happy to know there are people out there. When I first started publishing my "one-shots" I got lots of support from fellow fans. I felt appreciated. I felt like my writing was something people loved. For a kid with a low self-esteem, that felt good. I think fanfiction shouldn't be shamed. I still to this day don't talk to people about fanfiction. They say it's cringey. They say it just can't be good. I disagree. I've developed into a good author from fanfiction. It's who I am. I learned character development skills and observation skills and how to give people emotions based on how I saw characters in shows and books and movies. Before I wrote fanfiction, I'd attempted writing novels. Every time I failed, and when I started writing fanfiction, I developed into a writer who could come up with a plot, and see the good and bad of characters, and really write in a meaningful and good way.
I see the term "introvert" misused a lot, so I'm going to tell you about it here - forgive me if you know this already. "Introvert" just means that spending time with people drains your energy and you need some time alone to recharge. "Extravert/Extrovert" means spending time alone drains your energy and you need to spend time with people to recharge. Neither of these terms has anything to do with whether you're shy or outgoing, and introvert =/= socially anxious or low self-esteem. You can be an outgoing introvert or a shy extrovert. It may be more common to be a shy introvert or an outgoing extrovert, but that's just because you get more or less social experience based on your energy needs.
Anyway, middle school sucks. My condolences on being that age - things usually get better as you get older.
It's moronic to think of fanfiction as "not real writing" and not even good training. It doesn't matter what you write about, it's simply writing that gives you the training.
Yay Lindsay Ellis! Rarely you find a more thoughtful and funny analysis on story, cinema and literature on youtube. Glad to see a followup to it's lit
I've read fanfiction stories longer than novels, with plot, character, and talent on-par with any professional writer. I myself have written numerous multi-chapter works over 100,000 words and that I think are pretty good, and in the process of writing have honed my writing skills as a whole, both on a creative level and on a technical level. I've written for fifteen years, I have been writing fanfiction for a significant chunk of my life. And while it has changed my as a person and a professional, I know most people would roll their eyes if I told them that.
I hope the stigma over fanfiction continues to fade as time goes on and it comes to be respected as a legitimate form of creative expression. It's no different than fanart - it display real talent to draw great fanart, after all, so why should fanfiction not be seen in the same way?
Who's the Nabokov of fan-fiction?.
@@mcoffely Who?
And if those people who wrote fanfic had sat down to create their own stories would likely be successful and financially secure authors instead of stealing someone else's work and hiding it because they know they can't ever publish without being sued.
@@diannebdee did you watch the video? Shakespeare himself basically did the equivalent of modern day fanfiction, same with Joyce, not to mention how lots of lyrics and stories were literally taken from the Bible, and books from the Bible also took inspiration from other ancient literature. Fanfiction isn’t stealing. It’s just what humans have been doing since we have the written language, and very likely way before that as well
Great video. I remember that my friend and I in high school read the original fanfic that 50 Shades was based on. My friend and I read some of 50 shades, and were like "what a minute, I think I read this before", and then we realized, we read the original fan fic.
0:31 seconds in and then Princess sums up every fandom ever in a single sentence
The Law: You can't make money from fanfics.
Cassandra Clare: *Laughs in Mortal Instruments*
Honestly, it's really just Infernal Devices that takes from it. And mainly in the sense that the Protagonists' personalities are based off of her Draco, Harry, and Hermione.
@@callianr6980 I actually found the Infernal Devices characters much more original and likeable than the previous series. Dare I say, the way she handled the love triangle even felt..... rather subversive.
Wasn't she in a lawsuit because she plagiarized those books from another existing book series?
I came to Cassie Clare for Malec, and since then she has grown so much more as a writer than that Clace and the infernal thruple.
Fatma Nouili She was sewed a few years back by an author claiming Clare plagiarized a book back in the 1990s but Clare won the suit as no evidence of plagiarism was found.
What is this? A Crossover Episode?....apparently Yes, yes it is.
Great to see talented people working together.
Ha! Bojack reference
Calm down Mr. PeanutButter
LOOK AT ALL THE POSITIVITY IN THE COMMENTS!!! Is this really TH-cam? 💜
I have quite literally grown up watching these women since late middle school to high school and have always wanted them to do a collaboration. The fact that it has finally culminated in such a reality discussing my favorite topic...I was not ready y'all.
As a classics major specializing in Latin, you become very aware that one of the most influential works of Western literature, the Aeneid, is pretty much just an Iliad/Odyssey fanfic. And that the writer of this fanfic, Vergil, went on to star in another famous self-insert fanfic, namely Dante's Divine Comedy. It pleases me to no end to picture my favorite classical Western authors publishing and tagging their works on AO3, getting into flame wars within their fandoms about their favorite ships.
Katherine Pagan 500 year later in Japan a bunch of guys are going to come together to bring those two into a whole new story, a fanfic if you would
it’s just that I’ve very rarely seen someone use the medium of action adventure video game for their fanfic outside of Devil May Cry
@@phoenixfritzinger9185 BURY THE LIGHT DEEP WITHIN!!!
CAST ASIDE THERES NO GOING HOME!!!
WE’RE BURNING CHAOS IN THE WIND!!!
DRIFTING IN THE OCEAN ALL ALONE!!!
I took a medieval lit class in undergrad and one of the things we read were some English Mystery Plays and they're basically biblical story fanfic created for live performance
Woah new format in which Lindsay seems even more delightfully bitter than ever before
Technically, Lancelot and many well-known elements of Arthurian legend are the result of French fan fiction.
You’re right, and if I remember correctly, he was originally a “Mary Sue” character, a young attractive knight who shows up, turns out to be related to the Lady of the Lake, becomes the best at everything, and even seduces Arthur’s wife.
Other writers later changed him into a sort of tragic antagonist whose romance with Guinevere indirectly cause the fall of Camelot. Far more interesting if you ask me.
I am under the thought process that once it is published then your baby is grown up. It can go hang out with other people and influence them.
I mean, I’ve always viewed fanfiction as a good practice for “original” writing. You have a world and characters gift-wrapped for you so you can work on more technical aspects like story structure and mood.
I love Princess’s and Lindsay’s work! Happy that Princess is collaborating with Lindsay on this show!
going to use this opportunity to publicly declare that writing les miserables modern au fanfiction taught me how to write
the Les mis fandom was so influential its insane
One of the things I like the most about fanfictions is how being able to use the characters you can use them to make new, better, and some even more compelling than the original material. I have to admit that I prefer reading Fics to most modern literature, I'm a sucker for really long,150K words or longer, stories and that it's difficult to find IRL out of the fandoms.
Plus the interactive aspect of writing a comment on a story you love so much and receiving an answer is the best.
My favorite professional fan fiction that was published was The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. It’s about the mad woman in the attic from Jane Eyre. It came out in 1966, and it’s a book that broke my heart, and one of my favorite books of all time.
Yes, I loved that one too. We were assigned that in school, after reading Jane Eyre.
Didn't Shakespear reuse a lot of material from older plays for some of his writing? Like Amleth -> Hamlet, or Romeus and Juliet -> Romeo and Juliet. His most famous plays are all adaptations.
Abram Thiessen I think that was the point of the comment, that none of the people they mentioned actually had original content
That was princesses point. Sooooooo much of his work is basically fanfic. He’s one of my favorite examples
“The phantom...not the billy Zane but the bad one” 😂😂😂 gold!!!
I find I enjoy reading fan fic more then regular books. I think it is mostly because I can control what I'm reading much more. If I feel like something sweet where the characters just have fun and enjoy life I read fluff. If I need to deal with an emotion I'm having trouble with I read angst of a fic dealing with that one particularly. If I just need some connection that I'm not feeling in real life or a reminder that their is joy in relationship I'll read a heavily romantic fic. If I'm pinning I'll real a pinning fic or a getting together fic. And if I need to avoid a subject like abuse or sex or self harm I can EASILY! I can't do that with regular book unless I've already read them! And I don't reread for at least a year! When regular book have tags I'll read them more.
Oh yes, the tagging and filtering system of AO3 allows you to read exactly what you want and ngl I’ve become so used to it that reading actual books seems a chore
Keren I don’t want to know that Yvette in Green Bay thinks that this is “a modern classic surely to be remembered through the ages” or that Peter Hujabicsawhat for the San Diego whatever found this book to be “Riviting”
I just wanna know if there’s like child abuse or something in this book
+1 to Zutara 4-ever
I’ve only recently in the last two years gotten into writing fanfiction, and I love it! It’s a fun way to explore new avenues with characters that might not otherwise go the route you hope for (specifically romantic ones), and this is especially true with ongoing series that don’t have an end in sight yet. I think it’s a great way for people to be creative and join communities as a whole and bond over characters, worlds, and circumstances together.
This explains so much about the main characters in Mortal Instruments.
I like that fanfic is becoming more "acceptable" so to speak. I never would've admitted to anyone I read it when I was in junior high/high school and now I know people in their 40's that openly talk about reading it. For someone who felt a bit ashamed about it, it's nice.
Lindsay’s necklace says “Bi Rights!”
I wouldn't have ever expected PBS to do a segment on Fanfiction. I am pleasantly surprised.
Almost all stories before copyright became a thing would be "fan-fiction" by today's standards. Case and point, all of Arthurian legend.
As a lover of Fan Fiction, I LOVE this video!
I rarely ever comment, but two of my favorite content creators coming together is something to celebrate. You are both amazing!
So glad to see It's Lit back!
I wasn’t familiar with Princess’ work before, but now I’ve got a new channel to subscribe to! Thanks for such a good video :)
This video makes me so happy! As a middle/high schooler I was obsessed with reading and writing fanfiction, and people outside my friend group would make fun of me for it, but years later that much character analysis has helped me so much in my pursuit of acting. I haven't written in a while, but I'm still a huge fan of reading fanfic
If I recall correctly, my first fanfiction was a Wind in the Willows one when I was around six...I've always been a fan of, 'okay, that happened, but what if this happened instead?' Then I eventually realized it could be a fun way to play around with characters of my own in settings that were not theirs, or my own world(s) with folks from outside of it. You can learn a lot about a character or setting that.
"The Willows in Winter" is a published sequel to WitW, and it's basically a fanfic by a different author.
When she started doing a Neil Gaiman voice 💀
I'm biased because I know the people involved, but my favorite "author allows fan fiction" story is definitely Jim Butcher. If you ask him in a panel about the Dresden Files fan films, he'll loudly say, "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT." Meanwhile, he's IN one of the films...and now married to the woman who played Lea in another one.
I DID NOT KNOW THIS AND I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!! 🥰♥️ I needed to know this, thank you for sharing!!
I loved the Dresden Files so much I watched - and then BOUGHT - the tv show as well 😂
I've been writing fanfiction since I was 12. I'm 30 now and I have no intention on stopping. I'm adamant about fanfiction as a learning tool, both to impart life lessons to younger readers in a way that's highly accessible and personal, and as such for learning to write and what is or isn't an effective choice. That feedback works both ways, after all. It's also a great tool for exploring themes that empower you to live life happily. A lot of my work is reflective of trauma I've experienced and it's allowed me to recognize that my trauma doesn't mean I'm a bad person, and that my trauma responses can be constructively coped with and grown passed so I don't take out my trauma on others. I'm happily planning my first actual novel and I firmly believe fanfiction has empowered me to do so.
That said I'm still jealously side-eyeing 50 Shades and it will forever haunt me.
PS I'm reading FF7 fanfiction as I watch this, whoops.
NEW ITS LIT!!!!!! WOOOOO
I like how there was this pause before Lindsay said Phantom, like we all didn't know this before clicking.
It infuriates me that George RR Martin disproves of fan fiction, when he himself has written fan fiction. Bit of a hypocritical stance to say he doesn't want people making off with his children, than he proceeds to make fun of Robert Jordan's Children. Hypocritical much George?
I think it's just a bit of possessiveness. He doesn't want others to write fanfic, but he knows it's selfish...
I think he hate cause the fanfiction community can give his books a satisfactory ending. Come on, after 10 years without a new book, that is not even the last one, fanfic writers (some of them) are delivering for free what the majority of fandom is waiting for.
I suppose fan fic of a series that isn't finished can feel weird. But both authors and the fanfic community can get over that hurdle easily enough. It was not uncommon for some Harry Potter fanfics to be tagged "Pre-DH (AU)" or similar, if they were begun before or preferred the narrative assumptions valid before a given book in the series was released. For those who've read any fanfics, the canon author saying Dumbledore is gay or Hermione is black, is old hat. Want to shock me? Out do the Hagrid/Dobby slashfics. (Yes, that's a thing)
This was so validating thank you lol
Loved this video! I've been in one fandom or another since 1997, and seeing the evolution of fandom from being this hidden, scorned thing to something accepted has been amazing. I've read many fanfics over the years that are vastly better than many traditionally published novels.
I wrote fanfics before I knew there was a term for it. I took breaks (often due to RL things such as being employed in an office job that followed me home), but always went back to it.
In 2015 I found there IS a name for it - and comes with a place where the stories I want will never end. 200 million ways of how 'the ship set sail' on your favourite pairing? Yes. 100 Million Alternate Universes, from poor to excellent? Sure there. That one fanfic that inspired you so much that you end up writing a fanfic of a fanfic based on the fan-drawing someone made? It happens.
Like all media - not all will be great. Some fanfics are the proverbial child's drawing on the fridge.
But I am grateful for the medium, and the fandoms that come with it.
I wrote a paper on fanfiction for my Readers Advisory class at library school. It was mostly about how librarians and teachers work together to use fanfic to encourage illiterate/reluctant readers to read, write, and critique stories. The teacher had never had a student do that topic in over 30 years of teaching!
Right here, at 4:09, I think is an undersung virtue of fanfiction. As you might tell from the avatar, I read a lot of MLP fanfiction, and I've written some myself. There are stories on FimFiction that tackle subject matter so particular and personal that no publisher would take it and as a reader, you might shy away from for being too painful. But I've seen people use cute ponies to humanize schizophrenia and people who live with it. I've read chillingly realistic depictions of the slow slide of addiction in a Fimfic about a unicorn and her magic book. I've heard from people who saw their own relationship in a FimFic about abuse, and began to question if they were in something unhealthy. The list could go on and on.
And it comes as a reminder of one of the main reasons humans are driven to tell stories at all: to understand themselves, and understand life, to place something that's beyond their understanding in a context where it can be seen clearly. If that's being done with characters you already feel for, and that extra layer of comfort allows you do approach things you otherwise couldn't, that's no flaw.
Don't forget Dante has a self insert in his La Comedia
Thank you for doing this video. I do wish you had gone into a little bit more about the history of fanfiction, since it dates back thousands of years if not necessarily known as 'fanfiction' back then.
At any rate, I, too, am a long time fanfiction reader and writer. Once I'm done with my current epic, I intend on switching gears to more original works in the hope of being published. It's good to know there are plenty of other authors who were able to make that leap.
Another good point in favor of fan fic (they might have said it already) is it can train a writer how to work with characters who already exist and keep them in character! Especially important for anyone who wants to write for comic books, screen writing, or script writing for video games! All of those can have and often do have characters who have whole histories, personalities, and character arcs. And ignoring them or rewriting them your way can and does get fans very angry and will cause problems and revenue loss. Ex: who knows and follows Batman's arc? Last time I checked I got so lost and confused I tried to chart it and then gave up. Or a famous ex, Hydra Captain America! The writer who did that is blacklisted by fans and marvel had to backpedal so hard that they just shut it down. Not to mention what happened with magneto joining. I still have friends that will rant for a good 2 hours about it. Knowing and learning to respect a character is a good skill. And fandom will help alot. It can also show what the fans actually want and like about your characters.
This comment deserves more attention because YES
@@jenkinsjrjenkins thank you
Now I’m imagining authors at marvel studios publishing fanfics to test the waters and see how fans may react to things that they may attempt to put in commercial publication.
Dante's Inferno (and pergatorio and paradiso) are all self insert fanfiction for the bible.
Lol
As far as I could tell pretty much ALL the published authors they named as examples (Shakespeare, Homer etc etc) wrote stories based on already existing characters/plots.
Holi shiet it's lit is hereee yesss
I remember in an 18th century British lit class reading Pamela, and then Shamela, and Joesph Andrews. Someone in the class mentioned this was Fan fiction. Which then led to us explaining to the professor what Fan Fic was, and she immediately agreed Yes. It was. And it wasn't the only example. She actually brought up the fact that in the 18th century it was rather common for authors to base their works on characters and stories that were already popular at the time.
i am only ashamed of the first fanfictions I've wrote bc the ones o wrote like, at least two years ago are just **chef's kiss**
I've often wondered if the reason Star Trek, to say nothing of other science fiction, served to popularize fanfiction and a lot of the core terminology and concepts of fandoms (such as the Mary Sue) had to do with how it was originally written. Sci-fi as a genre prides itself on creative worldbuilding, but due to limitations of book length and screentime, the audience is always conscious that they're seeing very little of an exciting alternate world.
This is particularly noticeable in Star Trek: TOS, which features standard episodes that introduce an entire race or hint at broader Federation history/society/science, and then barely explore them. (Before Star Trek II, none of Kirk's enemies had appeared in more than one episode, and while we had hints at the Klingons' and Romulans' relationships with the Federation, they were never fully fleshed out.) Odder still, while the ship had a reasonably-sized cast, only three characters ever got the spotlight, and you seldom saw the triad working separately. As a result, anyone who wanted to explore Vulcan culture, or Scotty's backstory, or what a medical relief away mission would look like, or what the hell happened on Triskelion after they left, had to use their imagination.
My favorite fanfic story is that Matt Smith wrote a fanfic where the doctor went on a crazy adventure with Albert Einstein in order to figure out how he wanted to be the Doctor.
I really enjoy fan-fiction (particularly RPF AUs) BECAUSE the way that most of the writers I encounter write is so atmospheric and really my jam. Specifically about RPFs, I find that since the writers never really know the people, they still have to build characters for those names (think of the OOC masterpiece that THROAM is), and if it's an AU, they also have to do world-building and relationship-building, as well as the entire plot. The only thing they don't have to try as hard on (in my opinion) is naming and describing characters. It's more like a really nice story that happens to have a familiar and pretty face involved. Ugh. Works of ART, bro.
I love writing fanfic. It’s so therapeutic and relaxing for me.
1- YEAH! 2- some of the best writing, best literature I’ve ever read has been fanfics. Thank you for this.
Super Excited for this series!
I studied fanfic as a big part of my bachelors and I am super interested in further studying it!
(if anyone has any suggestions on how to go about doing that, I'd love to know)
Fanfiction is the gate way of creativity for young writers to begin writing. Falling in love with a fandom and the characters motivates people to continue on the great story we love so much. And every one has their own creative ideas about how a story should be continued and there is no right or wrong version.
Congratulations girls, you have totally changed my mind about fan fiction. Thank you!!!
Fanfiction is as old as storytelling itself... Dante's 'Inferno' is literally an oc self-insert fic about Dante's senpai noticing him.
Princess is going to be a terrific co-host for this series.
Love fanfic love. I might be the most voracious reader in my friend circle, but since it's 92% fanfiction, I never mention it. So many talented writers out there, and so many unique takes on established words. I just can't get enough.
I relate to this so hard
Yes! This is the 'It's Lit!' video I have been hoping and praying for!
It's Lit! Great choice for the first episode back! Loving this!
Love the Star Trek mention, can't really escape being reminded about Star Trek.
My ladies! Been following content from both of you for over a decade now-so great to see you both getting these kinds of gigs, let alone getting them together. Congratulations ladies ❤️
I really like the tone of this new season and the levity of banter between hosts. Thank you.
I had this conversation with my friend recently:
"-- Did you published something on Ao3 already?
-- Yeah
-- Then congratulations on getting Hugo" xD
I know it doesn't work that way, but it's still funny.
As for published fanfics with changed names, in Poland one fantasy author published her HP fanfics as alternate universes fantasy stories. Weren't that good as fanfics ('cause some of parody was lost) but still pretty funny.
And still, most of the fanfiction is trash, because it's so much easier to make something awful (especially if you don't have proof reader) but I still rememeber that Harry Potter and methods of rationality was in my "best book I read this year" category
I wouldn’t it trash. I’d just say mediocre. Most fanfics are mediocre.
I’m currently writing my first fanfic just for funsies and it’s actually really fun! crazy to think there’s such a history behind it lol
"you need to write your own 100% original ideas !" *Roland Barthes egregiously cackling in the background*
Fan fiction is like fan art. You learn the basics and fundamentals of the craft through being inspired and using another design.
YAY LJ reference! I was there back in the day...
The way I see it, saying you aren't really writing when you write fanfiction is like saying you're not really cooking when you're following a recipe.
Cooking, and you're adapting your favourite dish without a recipe; but it doesn't count as actual cooking somehow because you aren't getting paid to do it.
Thank you for this! As an almost 40 year old who has dabbled in fanfic since college, I feel validated! 😂
Also Lindsay, I pre-ordered your book!
This was great! Really informative, engaging and entertaining. The hosts' impersonations were particularly good. Thanks!