Fanfiction as an Archive
If fanfiction is just fiction derived from other fiction, though, how do we begin to define it? Derivative works predate the invention of the novel itself. Folklore, in a form, is derivative fiction, passed down between people, given new details and slants with each retelling (Hellekson & Busse, 6, 21; Coppa, 2017). There’s nothing inherently wrong with tracing fanfiction back that far, but what do we lose in the process?
Tracing fanfiction back to early storytelling shows that the behavior of retelling and reinterpreting stories is far from new, but it hides a key element of fanfiction today. Our relationship with stories has changed. Through copyright law and mass media, stories that may have a profoundly personal meaning to us are mitigated through commercial means (Coppa, 2017, 7; Jenkins, 2014; Bacon-Smith)
“It is only in such a system- where storytelling has been industrialized to the point that our shared culture is owned by others- that a category like “fanfiction” makes sense. Everyone’s always surprised by how huge the world of fanfiction is; I am not. Fanfiction is what happened to folk culture: to the appropriation of fables and retellings of local legends, to the elaborations of tall tales and drinking songs and ghost stories told ‘round the campfire,'" (Coppa, 2017, 7).
The fact that "our shared culture is owned by others" also has implications for how fanfiction exists. A majority of fanfiction remains unpublished, existing in archives on the internet. Before the internet, fanfiction existed as fanzines passed along during conventions and through mailing lists (Hellekson & Busse; LaChev; Coppa, 2017; Bacon-Smith). Either way, the stories exist within a community for a community and each community has its own rules and tropes. Not only are fanfiction stories referential to the canon text, but they are referential to the history and culture of the fan community itself (Coppa, 2017, 7-12). Fanfiction is incredibly specific in its classification, having its own language, specific to the fan community. Genres of fanfiction also have their own language associated with them.
Below is an example of results filtering on a prominent fanfiction website, Fanfiction.net.
Fanfiction, then, is not simply derivative stories, but archival in nature. Communities of writers not only work with source texts in new and interpretive ways, but these works are documented in archives, providing frameworks in which to situate their stories. It's no wonder one of the most popular fanfiction sites created, in part, by fanfiction academic Francesca Coppa, is called Archive of Our Own.
