In Defense Of Fan Fiction

For hundreds of years, fan fiction has been a sort of taboo subject, but it’s been around ever since 1726 with the publication of Gulliver's Travels, arguably before that if you count works like Paradise Lost as Bible fanfiction. One of the main reasons for this is the disapproval of authors. Some authors, such as JK Rowling, have even gone so far as to attempt to sue fanfiction authors. 

But times are changing. It’s becoming more socially acceptable to read, discuss, and write fanfics - one of the icebreaker questions in one of my friend groups was actually, “so, what’s your favorite fanfic?” (The answer is “World Ain't Ready” by idiopathicsmile). The forum it’s posted on, Archive of Our Own (AO3), has actually won a Hugo award in 2019 for Best Related Work. 

It’s strange to me that authors would disapprove of fanfiction. People tend to start out by writing fanfiction before their own unique works as fanfiction gives you the upside of not having to fully develop your own characters. It’s pure storyline and helps authors practice writing without the hassle of fleshing out characters. Most authors want to encourage others to write as well, right? If that’s the case, why hate fanfiction?

The answer is simple: it could easily become a widespread interpretation of their work that they do not approve of. Now, there are two major ways of interpreting a text. First, you could decide that you care about what the author was intending with the book - this is called authorial intent. The second way is to throw what the author intended out the window, known as the death of the author. Most fanfiction authors subscribe to the death of the author’s ideas, as these ideas would support their own version of the same story. 

I fully agree with the “death of the author” viewpoint, and here is why: if I were to write a book, and someone had an interpretation of it that meant something different than what I had intended, who am I to stop that from happening? Why would I want to? Sure, I have something specific planned for the book, but my version of events is not the only one to be had. 

Just because a story is told one way does not mean that it cannot be told another.

By Mika Abney