Published Fanfiction is Part of Literary History (For Better or Worse)

T.S. Eliot once wrote, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal. Bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” One could easily extend this perspective to the entirety of the written word. We are a species of storytellers, and we’ve always reinvented what came before us for new generations. Whether or not you believe Christopher Booker’s assertion that there are only seven basic plots to all narratives and we just reuse them over and over again, it’s undeniable that we love to utilize the sturdy foundations of tried and true stories that have stood the test of time. 

Jane Austen remains so popular because, while societal standards have greatly shifted since the Regency era, meddling families, battles of class, and the quest for love in the face of stifling conformity are ideas that have never stopped being relevant. The same goes for something like Sherlock Holmes because humans thrive on mysteries and the comforting closure of someone who can solve them. It’s no wonder Austen and Conan Doyle have had their works reinvented countless times over the decades. The fanfic-esque reinvention of, say, Pride and Prejudice, offers new points-of-view and challenges for writers. How does Lizzie and Darcy’s story change when the setting is moved to another country? What changes about their familial tensions when they are modern-day Muslims in Toronto? What about if the genders are swapped or it’s a same-gender romance? If the basic plot is good enough, you can do whatever you want with it, and there’s something magical about it. No wonder some of the most acclaimed writers on the planet have tried their hand at it, whether it’s Will Self’s reinvention of The Picture of Dorian Gray for the AIDS era or James Joyce’s Ulysses using The Odyssey as the basis for a wildly ambitious and stylistically malleable portrait of Dublin.

So, yes, this is all extremely fanficcy. There’s no denying it. But there is a difference between this and what followed, between playing around with the public domain and taking stories created in fandom spaces using major IPs into the mainstream as “original.” To get into that, we need to look at the modern concept of fandom. 

Much of what we came to more thoroughly define as fanfiction emerged through the original Star Trek fandom, the true granddaddy of the form. Dedicated Trekkies published fanzines that were sold at conventions and to other fans via mail order. The first of these zines, Spockanalia, contained some fic, and it didn’t take long for fans to be inspired. It was the ’70s, the series had been canceled, and it seemed like the future would be entirely Trek-less. This was how fans filled the void. It grew into something far bigger, with fanfic being celebrated with awards at cons and analyzed as seriously as the show that inspired it. As time passed and zines evolved into internet forums, fanfiction only grew in prominence. FanFiction.net was born in 1998, and one could say the rest is history.

It is, of course, pretty revealing that the blindingly white male dominance of the Western literary canon gets to reinvent classic works but the young, female, and heavily queer spaces of fandom are scorned for their tastes. Marginalized voices are drawn to fan spaces for a reason. Archive of Our Own, arguably the most important site for fan work, did a census in 2014 that revealed how 80% of users polled identified as female, with more users labeling themselves as genderqueer than cis male. The data also showed that only 38% of those asked identified as heterosexual. As Elizabeth Minkel explained in the New Statesman, “My preferred explanation is the idea that the vast majority of what we watch is from the male perspective – authored, directed, and filmed by men, and mostly straight white men at that. Fan fiction gives women and other marginalized groups the chance to subvert that perspective, to fracture a story and recast it in her own way. […] It often feels as if there isn’t much space for difference in the dominant cultural narratives; in fandom, by design, there’s space for all.”

Fanfiction is a great form of writing practice, a way for creators to strengthen their storytelling skills via the structures of pre-existing narratives. But it’s always been accompanied by legal entanglements. Many authors objected to fanfiction on the grounds of copyright infringement, such as George R.R. Martin. Anne Rice spent a large portion of her career vehemently opposing fanfiction, but softened her views in 2012. Neil Gaiman took a more common stance when he noted in 2010 that he was generally ambivalent but happy to let fans do their thing as long as it was “not for commercial exploitation.” And for a long time, that was the fandom status quo. You don’t break the fourth wall, you don’t show your fic to the creators, and you don’t try to profit from it. Attempts to do any of this were shut down quickly. And then along came SnowqueensIcedragon, better known as E.L. James.

The Fifty Shades trilogy was always known to be Twilight fanfiction. That was never concealed. Indeed, its initial marketing, when it was an indie title distributed through a company that almost exclusively published former Twi-fic, focused on the sparkly shadows of Bella and Edward looming overhead. Nothing changed from fic to “original” beyond character names and places, but it was derivative enough to pass the smell test and it became a phenomenon. Soon, “pull-to-publish” fics filled the market, such as Christina Lauren’s Beautiful Bastard and Sylvain Reynard’s Gabriel’s Inferno. Stephenie Meyer later expressed discomfort with James’ agenda, and even said that James getting ahead of her with a POV swap retelling of the series from Edward/Christian’s perspective was “a literal flip the table moment for me.” But she didn’t sue, and so the floodgates were opened. Fanfiction was now on the table for publishers. 

Anna Todd’s After series, a frighteningly long self-insert One Direction fanfic with Harry Styles as the romantic hero, became a best-seller with an entire movie series to its name. Ali Hazelwood took her Rey/Kylo Ren fanfic and spun it into The Love Hypothesis, which became a BookTok sensation. Reylo fandom has seen its fair share of fics pulled for publication, as well as ones more generally inspired by Adam Driver. 

The tangled legalities of this new market have yet to be fully explored, but the ethical ones are a source of much discourse among fandoms and authors alike. It’s certainly a sign of the times that we’ve gone from fearing being sued for writing fic to agents scouring AO3 for work that can quickly be translated to “original.” At what point is the line crossed? When you read a novel based on Adam Driver that proudly sells itself as such, it’s inevitable that you’ll feel somewhat uncomfortable by this hijacking of his life without his consent. The same goes for After, which turns Harry Styles into a monstrous little loser. Sure, the names are different but does that matter when everyone knows who it’s meant to be? Then there are the creative issues. The Love Hypothesis may not bear much resemblance to Star Wars but its basic character beats are dependent on one’s knowledge of the Reylo dynamic and its romantic evolution. A lot of the work is already done with fanfic, which is the point. It gives you the foundations to do more, but the foundations still aren’t yours. 

Fiction does not exist without the ability to reimagine that which has come before us. The best stories last forever and inspire others to continue the work. Nothing will stop us from doing that, and nor should it. The public domain exists to aid in this endeavor, but clashes against copyrighted material and real people’s lack of consent will eventually reach a tipping point. That won’t undo the influence of fanfiction or discourage agents from looking for an easy pitch. Still, surely fandom deserves to be something more than a well for the industry to drain? The limitless beauty of the written word is so much greater than the restrictions of the law, but cross those streams at your peril.

Kayleigh Donaldson is a critic and pop culture writer for Pajiba.com. Her work can also be found on IGN, Slashfilm, Uproxx, Little White Lies, Vulture, Roger Ebert, and other publications. She lives in Dundee.