Apparently, after Brokeback Mountain became a cultural phenomenon, the original writer of the short story Annie Proulx was inundated with fan fiction. She told an interviewer, "They constantly send ghastly manuscripts and pornish
rewrites of the story to me, expecting me to reply with praise and
applause for 'fixing' the story. They certainly don't get the message
that if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it. Most of these 'fix-it'
tales have the character Ennis finding a husky boyfriend and living
happily ever after, or discovering the character Jack is not really dead
after all, or having the two men's children meet and marry, etc., etc."On the one hand, I understand Proulx's reaction. A failure to respect the source material can lead to terrible misreadings--the result can be rather like Calvin & Hobbes' games where Calvin changes the rules every three seconds.
On other hand, I think she misses the affection behind much of this fan fiction.
 |
| Where does tribute break off and parody begin? |
I believe that fan fiction falls into two categories: fan fiction created out of love/interest/creative desire. And fan fiction as a useful tool for a practicing writer.
In the first case, the writer can do whatever he or she wants--why not? Writing this type of fan fiction is not necessarily the same thing as journal writing (hence the increase in Proulx's mail) but it also isn't the same thing as satire or irony. "Tribute" truly is the word here. Someone's story sparks someone else's creative impulse.
The only problematic issue is when the tribute-bearing writer demands affection and attention. It is one thing to say, "I wanted to thank you for what you wrote. It inspired me." It is something else to insist, "And you must like this!"There are thousands (millions) of Tolkien tributes packed to the margins with dwarfs, elves, orcs, maps, and weaponry. That doesn't mean they are all good (or all bad). I don't want to read them all. But I understand the impulse by the reader to DO/write something.
As a useful tool for a practicing writer, I think that fan fiction can be an incredibly fun challenge if the writer creates an addition or extension that (1) keeps the original characterizations; (2) keeps the original setting and time; (3) keeps the original tone.
Similar to painters practicing by copying the "greats," learning dialog by creating dialog like in the original is a disciplining technique. Likewise, trying to capture the tone of, say, Austen or the exposition of, say, Faulkner (good luck!) or the dialog of, say, The Thin Man, each attempt can be illuminating, even when it fails.
