Today the lovely TJ posted a Cara Fi fic to AO3. Someone wrote fic for my first original show! I am a gif of Kermit flailing. I am a beam of pure light. I am rambling incoherently.
I am a fan of fanfic. I read so much of it that my favoured read-later app, Pocket, just informed me by email that I “made it to this year’s Top 1% of readers on Pocket!”. I read over 5 million words on my iphone in 2014, and a great portion of them were about Bucky Barnes.
I was a pre-internet fan of fanfic. I used to read X-Files fic ON PAPER, published in a FANZINE that got delivered TO MY HOUSE by A POSTMAN. Kids, back then we used to churn our own butter and use words like “fanzine”.
Once my family finally got dial-up internet, I immediately (slowly, because dial-up) sought out more X-Files fic, then Xena fic, then Buffy fic. I wrote my own, too. I never shared it, mainly because I was chicken. But also because for me, back then, the pleasure was more in the writing than the sharing. Hard to imagine now, when my professional writing is so audience-oriented. I delight in feedback. I am a glutton for good reviews. My sense of self worth is over-reliant on people digging my words. Validate me, I scream into the void.
Writing fic made me a better writer because writing regularly…makes you a better writer. But also, fic specifically trained me in all the skills I now use daily as a writer of TV. It taught me how to mimic the tone of an established show and the voices of established characters, while also making new stories my own. Writing and reading fic made me a more critical viewer of TV, teaching me why some stories worked better than others, and why some characters popped while others barely made an impact. Writing fic allowed me to make a lot of mistakes, and to learn from them, before I started showing my work to professionals. It taught me to appreciate fans, and the boundless love they bring to a show.
And it taught me that ultimately, a creator’s intentions are irrelevant; once a work is out in the world, it belongs to its viewers.
I’m delighted that Cara Fi even has viewers, let alone that one of them wanted to make the show her own for 5000 words. And excellent words they are too. Thanks TJ!
luv this:
“fic specifically trained me in all the skills I now use daily as a writer of TV. It taught me how to mimic the tone of an established show and the voices of established characters, while also making new stories my own.”
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