青少年作者的网络理想国：记同人文学的发展
希望以后能够完善，我还马达马达……
The Digital Camelot for Adolescent Writers:
On the Development of Fanfiction
Fanfiction, also known as fanfic or fic, is the unauthorized rewriting or adaptation of particular works, utilizing original characters, plots, settings, and other devices to make up a new narrative of the writer. In recent decades, fanfiction has developed swiftly all over the world, especially favored by adolescents. It is frequently posted on the Internet, and under these circumstances, a great number of online fanfiction platforms such as FanFiction.net, Organization for Transformative Works or Archive of Our Own (AO3), which has even won the Hugo Award for Best Related Work in 2019, have emerged.
In Europe and the United States, the mature subculture landscape appeared before the popularity of the Internet (Li Yuchen, 2015). In 1967, fans of Star Trek published the first collection of their fanfiction. While in the 1980s, Japanese fanfiction began to develop (Cao Ran, 2013), which promoted the birth of Comic Market, the largest exhibition and market place for selling self-publishing works in Japan. Also, over the past few years, fanfiction in China has gradually formed a certain scale. For plenty of young writers all over the world, those fanfiction platforms have become their digital Utopia, on which they are able to freely publish their works and write their own stories.
A great deal of scholars acknowledge the significance of the fanfiction and the fanfiction platforms. Diana Floegel (2020) points out that fanfiction draws attention to dynamic creative and meaning-making practices that people constantly perform when interacting with information. Meanwhile, online fanfiction communities bring people together around a shared passion for a particular fandom and in which people share and critique each other’s amateur fanfiction writing (Sarah Evans, et al., 2017).
Some research has proved that fanfiction is of great help to the second language learning. Through the online interactions between writers and readers, both native and non-native English speakers alike to use multiple languages, social Discourses, and school-based forms of writing, as well as knowledge of popular culture, in socially and linguistically appropriate ways (Rebecca W. Black, 2006).
In addition, due to the dependence of fanfiction on original works, the question of whether fan fiction constitutes copyright infringement is becoming controversial (Baiwei, 2016). Numerous domestic scholars have put forward their views on the legal nature of fanfiction. Li Shibing (2016) states that fanfiction may well infringe upon the right of signature, the right of integrity and the right of adaptation. For instance, in 2016, Louis Cha sued Yang Zhi, who published his fanfiction using the characters in Cha’s novels, for infringement and claimed that the latter violated the Copyright Law and Unfair Competition Law.
On the reasons why people write their own fanfiction, Neil Gaiman, the author of American Gods, once said: “The point is Fanfiction exists so that you can imagine, enjoy and fill in the gaps. The point is that you can change things and have fun with them. And the stories are absolutely true ... for you.” Fanfiction gives people possibility and freedom to define another world. The fanfiction writers know that this Utopian World will not exist in real life, but they still yearn for it. It is a parallel universe integrating numerous fantasies and expectations. By writing the fanfiction, writers can alter the ending of the original character and bring the dead back to life. In OTW Guest Post, fanfiction writer Lauren Rouse said that she hated how Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince had ended, so she took to her Word document to rewrite the end of Dumbledore’s life and Harry’s time at Hogwarts.
The popularity of the Internet is a significant reason to promote the development of fanfiction. The AO3, launching in November 2009, took 54 months before the platform reached the first million fanworks in February 2014. While the gaps between the milestones have been decreasing ever since, in May 2020, it hits six million posted works. In China, there are also a great number of platforms similar to Fanfiction.net or AO3, such as 2015, Mtslash.me, and District 10. In recent years, due to the popularity of intelligent phones, the influence of traditional forums has gradually declined, and some mobile apps where the writers can share their fanfiction, such as Lofter, have emerged. In addition, micro fanfiction has become a new form due to the word limit of Weibo, requiring the writer narrate a complete story within 140 words. The development of fanfiction is still on the rise. Every day, transformative works from all over the world in different languages are uploaded to relevant websites. Fanfiction promotes worldwide communication. After reading fanfiction on the English website, some Chinese readers will translate it into Chinese, and post it on the Chinese forums or apps for other fans to read.
On the other hand, adolescents have a strong desire to write. When young people find school spaces limiting, those passionate about writing turn to other spaces -- the online fanfiction spaces (Jayne C. Lammers, Valerie L. Marsh, 2015). Most adolescents have their favorite works including anime, movies, comics or literature. When they create their own fanfiction world, they also express their writing desire. For native speaker, creating fanfiction helps to improve their writing skills. For those who are non-native, it can also promote their English ability. Therefore, some teachers also encourage their students to write their fanfiction. Sa-chan14, a fanfiction writer on Fanfiction.net, said that her English teacher has checked the grammar and the spelling of the words in her works.
Besides, there are countless famous works which are actually fanfiction. For example, Notebook of Tomb Theft, one of a best-selling novel in China, is the fanfiction of the novel The Ghouls, and is originally serialized on the online community Tieba. With this series of novels, Xu Lei, the author, became the second richest Chinese writer in 2011, according to Writers Rich List. Furthermore, Fifty Shades of Grey, the fastest-selling paperback of all time, is the fanfiction of Twilight. In a broad sense, even Paradise Lost, Ulysses, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Journey to the West, can be seen as fanfiction. The success of those works has also inspired young people to write their own fanfiction. Although it still has the label of minority hobby or subculture, fanfiction has obtained positive results in many fields and becomes popular gradually.
As Naomi Novic, one of the founding members of AO3, said at the Hugo Award Ceremony, fanfiction “centers the idea that art happens not in isolation but in community.” For adolescent writers, fanfiction is like the digital Camelot. While writing fanfiction, they are able to enjoy things that do not exist in reality. Owing to the rapid development of the network, young fanfiction writers can connect with one another and construct their own spiritual home together.
To share the fanfiction on the Internet, all the writers need to do is sign up for an account. Therefore, everyone is eligible for publishing their own stories. The entire point of those fanfiction platforms is that it would meet fans’ needs rather than attempt to leverage them to the benefit of outsiders (Judith Fathallah, 2018). In a sense, fanfiction reminds people of the original intention of writing -- just to write the stories they are interested in and willing to write.
References
Black, R. (2006). Language, Culture, and Identity in Online Fanfiction. E-Learning, (03), 170-184.
Evans, S and Davis, K and Evans, A and Campbell, J and Randall, D and Yin, K and Aragon, C. (2017). More Than Peer Production: Fanfiction Communities as Sites of Distributed Mentoring. Association for Computing Machinery, (17), 259–272.
Fathallah, J. (2018). Digital fanfic in negotiation: LiveJournal, Archive of Our Own, and the affordances of read–write platforms. Convergence, 1354856518806674.
Floegel, D. (2020). “Write the Story You Want to Read”: World-queering Through Slash Fanfiction Creation. Journal of Documentation, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print.
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