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Date Posted: 07:57:45 08/11/02 Sun
Author: treacle antlers
Author Host/IP: host213-122-13-186.in-addr.btopenworld.com / 213.122.13.186
Subject: Jane Espenson quoted talking about Buffy Fan Fic

Just thought I'd post a few excerpts from an article that I found in last weeks 'Sunday Times' magazine here in England entitled 'When Hamlet Met The A-Team'. It's the first really encouraging and non-patronising article I've ever read about the phenomenon of fanfiction. Thought it might brighten the day of fanfic authors everywhere.

"Rewriting stories from an unusual viewpoint is a staple of fanfic [but] the device is not new. When Milton gave Satan's side of the story in 'Paradise Lost', Jean Rhys relates the history of Mrs Rochester in 'Wide Sargasso Sea' and the off-stage story of Hamlet is told in Tom Stoppard's 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead', it is called intertextual fiction.

As Stoppard, English teachers and fan fictioneers all know, using pre-existing characters lets writers play with preconceptions and leap straight into situations without the need for any pesky scene-setting. It also lets readers see beloved characters in new situations."

There's a whole section where Martin Amis searches for a Darcy/Elizabeth slash then this;

"All this begs the question: is fanfic any good? With so many stories out there, there is, inevitably, a lot of rubbish, but the hit rate is higher than you might expect. Pop culture icons such as 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' attract plenty of reasonable writers. The best way to find them is to start at one of the main archives (www.fanfiction.net) or links pages and hunt around until you have an idea of what you might enjoy.

It is easy to be condescending about this populist genre. The grammar and spelling are often dreadful [but] it's hard not to be impressed by a ten year old writing enormously long and complicated sequels to harry Potter. Online participation depends on writing and this is breeding a confidently literate group of followers. We can see people learning so let he whose schoolwork was perfect cast the first stone.

What is more a significant proportion of fan fiction is produced by talented adults who are deploying the well-established techniques of intertextual writing. A few are also developing highly lucrative skills. Popular American TV series tend to be written by teams that are hired after submitting sample scripts written about the established characters - just the type of efforts produced by fanfic authors.

Even though the fan-fiction Writer's University admits, reluctantly, that using characters without permission breaches copywright rules, Jane Espenson, who broke into television by writing a sample script for Star Trek: The Next Generation and is now a senior writer on 'Buffy The Vampire Slayer' says: "Fan fiction helps writers to learn how to master the voices of the characters which is one of the most important things in writing for television. I actively encourage it!"

Hope this brought as big a grin to your face as it did mine! And I certainly enjoyed the expression on my boyfriends face as he read it!!

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Replies:

[> If anyone would like the full article as a pdf, let me know! -- treacle antlers, 09:25:19 08/11/02 Sun (host213-122-151-31.in-addr.btopenworld.com/213.122.151.31)


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[> Yeah, I saw that article... -- Denorios, 12:00:30 08/11/02 Sun (webcacheB12a.cache.pol.co.uk/195.92.168.174)

It really surprised me actually -- you don't usually expect The Sunday Times to be even aware of the existence of fanfic, let alone write a two-page article on it! I was showing it to my friends going , 'See? I'm not weird - plenty of people do it!'


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[> Very Cool. Thanks for positng this. -- Kaylorin *suffering from hangover...Argh*, 12:09:59 08/11/02 Sun (pcp632159pcs.newhvn01.in.comcast.net/68.53.200.184)

It's funny actually. The woman I babysit for actually told me I should send in my fiction to Joss. I laughed of course.

It's cool to know that someone did that, and got a job out of it.


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[> TREACLE ANTLERS, I have been trying your email but it keeps getting returned. -- morgain, 11:22:34 08/12/02 Mon (B57-68.DAS.McGill.CA/198.168.182.70)

I am writing to you about the article you mentioned above. As you might know from BC&S I am an academic, and I proposed two months ago to my creativity research team that the online fanfic community would be a wonderful site to investigate social creativity. They gave me an odd look, as usual.
Having a print source that confirms this would bolster my point. If you could send the pdf file I would be most appreciative.


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