Why fanfiction is taking over the world

With discussions from both professional and fan writers, on subjects from Star Trek to The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Harry Potter, Twilight, and beyond, Fic sheds light on the world s of fanfiction -- not only how fanfiction is transforming the literary landscape, but how it already has.

Read more Find a copy online Links to this item Table of contents. Allow this favorite library to be seen by others Keep this favorite library private. Save Cancel. Find a copy in the library Finding libraries that hold this item What is fanfiction, and what is it not? Reviews Editorial reviews. Publisher Synopsis "This definitive volume offers a rich immersion into fanfiction and is for anyone who has both loved and lived for the unique community of fandom, as well as for those who desire a look into this world or who are curious about the unexpected impact fic is having on the literary realm.

User-contributed reviews Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers. Be the first. Add a review and share your thoughts with other readers. Tags Add tags for "Fic : why fanfiction is taking over the world". Literature and the Internet. Fan fiction. Schreiben Fanfiction -- historia. User lists with this item 2 faandom items by marypierocarey updated All rights reserved. Please sign in to WorldCat Don't have an account? Remember me on this computer.

Cancel Forgot your password? Anne Elizabeth Jamison ; Lev Grossman. Print book : English View all editions and formats. Emotional landscapes of reading: fan fiction in the context of contemporary reading practices. Methodologically, its approach is at the intersection of literary theory, … Expand.

Fictional characters are often thought to exist in some form, though not in the same way many other objects in our world do. Though you cannot meet Sherlock Holmes in the street, he is nevertheless a … Expand.

Fifty shades of fandom: the intergenerational permeability of Twilight fan culture. Twilight, an ostensibly young adult YA series aimed at teenagers, has had a … Expand. The late s bore witness to a pivotal change in the way literary production and reception were perceived. When Roland Barthes declared traditional notions of authorial control to be null and void, … Expand. Because most early modern readers did not leave behind traces of their reading practices and thus remain anonymous, a more inclusive history of reading requires a willingness to engage in … Expand.

Related Papers. Abstract 71 Citations Related Papers. By clicking accept or continuing to use the site, you agree to the terms outlined in our Privacy Policy , Terms of Service , and Dataset License. Fanfiction is not something I hate or disrespect, but it's also not something I have an interest in and not something I care enough about to get through a whole book of dissertations on.

Fanfiction is not a part of my daily life - but I know it is for some people, and for those people or authors I would r I had to DNF this, on the simple basis that I just don't care enough. Fanfiction is not a part of my daily life - but I know it is for some people, and for those people or authors I would recommend this book.

View all 6 comments. Dec 29, Norielle rated it it was ok. Potentially a great book, in the end a big disappointment. Seeing a genuine academic has decided to write this book, I was expecting a more balanced and better reasoned elaborate on fanfiction and fandom.

Instead, the whole book flowed really slowly and by the end I was praying to finally finish it. The first half was good. The origins of fandom and fan writing, first three major fandoms, however the strong emphasis on slash and its authors was just quite uncomfortable to read. Then came Harry Po Potentially a great book, in the end a big disappointment. Then came Harry Potter fandom, which is the largest I guess and as other reviewers pointed out, it was done with quite fast.

And then came the Twilight fandom. God I was frustrated with this part of the book and there lies its problem. The author is also a fic fan and writer. She was singing praise about Twilight fandom and the quality of the writing. The parts about pulling for publishing were basically pro-pulling and I also really minded the part about one fanfiction author stealing whole scenes, word for word in HP fandom though in her fic.

The author thought that allright. The book is overall providing only positive aspects of fanfiction, encouraging writing fic as a great way of improving oneself, to become a good author of original works.

And here I would like to have some counter-arguments. The problems of characterisations once working outside the given scheme or even unhealthy time dedicated to fanfiction. The author is teaching a module where students are supposed to read Twilight fanfiction for God's sake, of course she would be biased regarding the fandom and consequent works, such as 50 shades Overall, fanfiction is a growing phenomenon of modern popculture and to me it should have been looked at in a more balanced way.

These are just ramblings of a fangirl, pretending to be a scholarly work. Apr 09, John Carter McKnight rated it it was amazing. Absolutely superb academic anthology on fanfiction.

It's well-structured, relevant, fascinating, and much more consistent in quality than academic anthologies tend to. It's one of the best works on the prehistory of fic, from unpublished juvenalia to Conan Doyle's remarkable tolerance of Holmes fic, through the zine culture of early modern media fandom.

However, its real strength is in an area I'd never thought I'd be interested in reading about, its long section on Twilight fandom. Twilight, ap Absolutely superb academic anthology on fanfiction. Twilight, apparently, was a "rogue fandom," largely ignorant of the long history, social values, and technological platforms of media fandom. It not just reinvented the wheel, but speciated, and the anthology is excellent at documenting Twilight fandom's innovations, misunderstanding, and conflicts, particularly between a view of fannish audiences as a test market for publication versus a gift-exchange community.

It's absolutely great stuff. I really can't recommend this collection highly enough: it's comprehensive, superb scholarship, interesting, insightful, and never a slog.

Dec 04, Carey rated it it was amazing. Back in the late 90s, I was reading X-Files my first major fandom fanfic without knowing the word "fanfic". After learning how dirty the word fanfic was, I stopped reading it all together. Then, I became a writer and the idea of fanfic made me so mad.

I would have hated the idea of someone else reappropriating characters that I created just to make them do gross things to each other - things that they would never do. I'm still kind of repulsed by this idea but that's mostly because I am obsess Back in the late 90s, I was reading X-Files my first major fandom fanfic without knowing the word "fanfic".

I'm still kind of repulsed by this idea but that's mostly because I am obsessed with cannon. I don't have a problem with characters doing filthy things to each other, if it fits within cannon. My intense love of cannon prevents me from accepting fanfiction.

Anyway, I read this book for two reasons. First, I'm a YA librarian and I help run a writing workshop for teens, and they sure do love fanfic.

Second, I was curious. I don't have to like fanfic, but if I'm going to work with teens and their intense fandom loves, then I was determined to at least understand it.

I give this volume five stars because reading it has made me understand why people read and write fanfic. I have more compassion for fanfic.

I feel beter equipped to talk about fanfic with my teens and I won't even make the face I make when I smell something awful. Reading this was enlightening. I'm probably not going to become a fic reader or writer, but I will now defend most fic as a valid form of artistic expression. Oct 21, Thomas Edmund rated it liked it Shelves: books-on-writing. This book intrigued me from the moment I saw it. I must admit first of all that I have a very hesitant opinion of fanfiction.

While I understand that people want to expand, explore or twist fictional or celebrity universes and share their thoughts, there is another part of me that rankles at the thought of writing about characters and a world that someone else slaved to create. If anything this book did give me some things to think about, such as comparing mainstream adaptations such as Sherl This book intrigued me from the moment I saw it.

If anything this book did give me some things to think about, such as comparing mainstream adaptations such as Sherlock to fan-fic and asking the question How is this different? Unfortunately the meandering subjects, overblown writing which I fear may be similar to the fanfic discussed made the book feel unprofessional and half-baked.

I did enjoy the vague exploration of the rationale of fanfic, and the chapters linking specific fiction and television to fanfic were the strongest. It was mildly annoying that the book did not explore in more depth the response of authors to fanfic controversy is always entertaining and I felt many topics such as the large amounts of sex were only touched about tangentially. The most difficult thing about the book was the constant in-joke style of reference, the author frequently referring to events and subjects briefly, obviously with an expectation that the reader knew what they were talking about.

So is this book recommended - only if you are very interested in the subject. Nov 08, Frankie Brown rated it it was amazing. So refreshing to read an academic work on fanfiction. Highly recommended -- especially for Sherlockians. Jan 12, Melody rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction.

I discovered fanfiction over a decade ago, and my life has been significantly altered by this fact. That is approximately half my life, over half my reading life, and encompasses all of my transformative years. I am interested in how fanfiction, and the fanfiction community, alters ones world views. I think looking at fan communities from a largely enthographic standpoint is fascinating.

Overall, this book pushed the right buttons for me and got me thinking in a good way. Was it perfect? But I discovered fanfiction over a decade ago, and my life has been significantly altered by this fact. But fanfiction, taken from the perspective of all the varying fandoms, is a lot to cover. I am slightly disappointed that the Twilight fandom by and large got the largest section. I do not quarrel with much of it, as the publishing industry has definitely been impacted, even if some of the articles about this impact could feel repetitive toward the end.

Rather than giving Twilight less attention, I wish another fandom had been given more as well. This is largely due to the facts pointed out in the book that in many ways the Twilight fandom reinvented the wheel. I will be interested to see what my friends who aren't as familiar with fanfiction as me, but have expressed interest in the book, think in terms of its accessibility to the culture.

A glossary of fanfiction terms may have been a helpful bonus, even if they're quickly explained in the text. However, the conundrum of a Mary Sue goes far beyond self-insertion at this point. This doesn't cover everything, but it covers a lot. And hopefully will get some people thinking. Jul 03, Savannah rated it it was amazing Shelves: fandom , fanfic , writing , nonfiction , fiction. Husband's comment after looking at me reading just the introduction: "Pencil and highlighter and sticky notes?

What are you reading? It's another great big hard novel like Parade's End again, isn't it? Jamison has done a good, if not definitive she herself admits that some writers she hoped to include refused either initially or once they saw who else was included job o Husband's comment after looking at me reading just the introduction: "Pencil and highlighter and sticky notes? Jamison has done a good, if not definitive she herself admits that some writers she hoped to include refused either initially or once they saw who else was included job of covering the growth and major history of fanfiction by focusing on a limited number of large fandoms and tracking important trends and controversies in fictionalizing those 'verses.

She deals in passing, with appropriate legal disclaimer, with the legal issues of copyright and public domain, pointing out that within fandom it's the fans themselves who hold the most restrictive views of ownership.

She also places fanfiction solidly and thoughtfully within modern literary context rather than the titter-fraught writing apartheid that is more generally applied to fan efforts. This book was released at the perfect time to benefit my preparation of a presentation for our state library association at their annual conference, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I may end up looking like nothing so much as a fangirl of this book.

So be it: it deserves it. Nov 24, Margaret Sankey rated it liked it. How the hell did I not know about Wold Newton? Seriously, this piece of continuity restores order and meaning to my life. Jamison begins this cultural examination of the phenomena of fanfiction by finding examples as far back as the 18th century Jane Austen was an early writer of revisions of Shakespeare as well as parodies , but things really took off when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle let fans carry on after Reichenbach Falls.

TV ushered in new fields of fandom, with Star Trek at the center of fan-produced mimeographed and mailed out newsletters, filk songs and slash pairings. But the real unleashing came with the internet--creating vast archives of every imaginable form of writing built on an existing narrative. Jamison interviews some of the most popular writers, digs into the tropes of leading fandoms Supernatural, X-Files, Buffy, Harry Potter, Twilight and documents what happens when actors find fanfiction about themselves and themselves as their characters , when the characters on the show mention fan fiction about themselves double-meta?

I've officially given up on this one - I just haven't been in the mood to read academic writing. Might never be in the mood to do that, actually. Nov 11, Julie Bozza rated it really liked it Shelves: writing-and-publishing , from-bruce , fandom. An interesting and thorough look at fanfiction and fandom across time, starting with a whole lot of historical practices that are almost but not quite entirely un like fic.

Sherlock Holmes is presented as the ur-fandom for how we think of fic today. Then we examine fic and fandom through the Huge Fandoms across more recent decades, and finish off by looking at a few modern-day practices that are also almost but not quite entirely un like fic. It's all a tad US-focused, but when one's dealing w An interesting and thorough look at fanfiction and fandom across time, starting with a whole lot of historical practices that are almost but not quite entirely un like fic.

It's all a tad US-focused, but when one's dealing with such a large subject, a line needs to be drawn somewhere. Jamison contributes a good half or two-thirds of the text, with guest essays and interviews focusing on a good range of various details. As you might have seen through my updates, an aspect of one guest essay infuriated me, but that was me taking something personally, and I realise that my principles are only mine. Another guest essay disappointed me, but again if I can't take a bit of reality with my fancies then that's my problem alone.

Otherwise, I was really interested to share this journey with Jamison. Dec 31, Nadia Elisa rated it it was ok. Yes and no. Thank you for your effort but, no thank you. I'm not big on writing very long, in-depth reviews so just a few thoughts; take it or leave it. The HP part was over so quickly. I was expecting a lot more elaboration on this subject given its immense online presence. Then she started praising the Twilight fan fiction and books She completely lost me there.

Clearly in favor of publishing fan fiction works as original, and although yes I have read some ff stories that are orig Yes and no. Clearly in favor of publishing fan fiction works as original, and although yes I have read some ff stories that are original enough that they completely deserve to be published as original work i. Do NOT even get me started on that disaster of a book I must admit after a while I found myself flipping pages and not really reading it so I can't say I read all of it.

I suppose I read enough to know that it wasn't my cup of tea. I don't think she has spent enough time in fan fiction at all to really know what she's on about. All in all I was expecting a lot more from this book. I like that she touches on slash a bit but As a slash reader myself, I feel that it fell short. Big time. Perhaps I was expecting too much from this book, it wasn't terrible, but it wasn't excellent either.

Long live net-neutrality and a "free" internet. Oct 21, Elisabeth rated it it was amazing Shelves: fandom , non-fiction. I would like to give this book many more stars. It is fascinating, insightful, compassionate, well-researched, wide-ranging, and frequently quite funny.

For all that it barely scratches the surface of the world it describes. When most people hear fanfiction, they think either 'porn' or 'theft. And interesting. I have written a little and read a very little - I c I would like to give this book many more stars.

I have written a little and read a very little - I can't find the exact quote, but the author's comment on the invariability of new readers finding the absolute worst possible stuff to read is spot on fanfiction. New to fandom as a passion in my late thirties, I am fascinated by the idea that something you watch or read can generate in you a whole new set of ideas and inspirations never before imagined. Five years ago I would have shrugged it off as 'weird.

It's also thrilling; worlds are possible that never were before. This book is an honest, accessible look at that thing, whatever it is, and what it makes possible in the world. If you are a fan, or know a fan, read this. If you are interested in stories and storytelling, and how they both change and stay the same over time and technology, read this. If you are intrigued by the limitless creativity of the human mind, read this. You won't be sorry.

Nov 18, Kifflie rated it really liked it Shelves: adult-nonfiction. I need to lead off with two disclaimers: 1 I personally know the publisher of this book; 2 I am a write and consumer of fanfic.

This was much more book than I was expecting, to be honest. There are scads of essays by all sorts of people within all sorts of fandoms. I thought it was well organized by Anne Jamison, who added some excellent commentary of her own. I especially appreciated her discussion around the issue of "pulling" fic off of fansites to "file off the serial numbers" i.

It was dismaying to watch how a certain fandom came apart over Fifty Shades of Grey and how another one got nasty over Mortal Instruments. Frankly, I'm not crazy about Cassandra Clare's writing, and I couldn't even get through one chapter of Shades without major cringing -- but I agree that these women had the right to try to make a living for their work, and at least not be abused for that action.

Criticize their lack of writing skill -- sure. Call them "whores" or "sellouts" -- not okay. But I digress. We are legit. We are legion. And we have been around for a long time. Long may we continue to transform. Dec 26, Cris rated it it was ok Shelves: non-fiction , sherlock-holmes , literary-crit.

I found the subject--fandom, fanfiction and the ongoing change in the relationship between fans and published media--very interesting. The actual book Jamison has written, not so much. I wasn't bored, but I was never riveted and when I set the book down, I didn't feel any particular desire to pick it back up again. Jamison tried to accomplish several tasks simultaneously: explain fanfiction to a general audience, validate fan fiction and discuss how fanfiction has and continues to change the medi I found the subject--fandom, fanfiction and the ongoing change in the relationship between fans and published media--very interesting.

Unfortunately, these tasks didn't always mesh together. Jamison's formal, academic, tone used when validating fanfiction and explaining its historical context often clashed with her more casual tone when attempting to explain fanfiction and fandom to the general public not involved in fandom.

Moreover, I felt Jamison was trying to hard to assure any fans who read Fic that she was one of them. The inclusion of essays by professional and fan writers proved a mixed bag.

Some of the essays integrated well with Jamison's current topic. Some essays seemed almost random. May 13, Whitney Borup rated it it was amazing Shelves: non-fiction. It was absolutely fascinating to learn so much about this community I knew almost nothing about with the exception of some completely clueless X-Philes fic I wrote as a kid, I haven't ever belonged to a fandom.

And some of the reviews here are equally fascinating. Jamison warns about the anger and vitriol in fan communities the reason I feel a lot of nerds are scared to get involved , and these goodreads comments are a great illustration of that kind of passion.

It actually reminds me a lot o It was absolutely fascinating to learn so much about this community I knew almost nothing about with the exception of some completely clueless X-Philes fic I wrote as a kid, I haven't ever belonged to a fandom. It actually reminds me a lot of the early reactions to academic work on superheroes and comic books - people afraid of academic appropriation, of elitist attitudes towards their beloved medium, or the creation of some kind of artistic hierarchy within comics culture.

Since I read this on a kindle and the pictures were too small to really see, it was nice to see these examples play out in the goodreads comments section!

View 1 comment. Nov 13, Dana rated it liked it. This is a good overview of fanfiction; I like that Jamison calls it "an important grassroots cultural activity.