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• 1 2020-06-10T21:17:51+00:00 The "I" in Fanfic 5 plain 2020-07-15T21:55:49+00:00

  As any actor can tell you, you bring a little bit of yourself into every role you perform. Fanfiction is no different. This being said, the author can become visible in fanfiction in much more tangible ways than writing style or individual interpretation. In fanfiction, while grounded to varying degrees in the universe of the canon text, there is space for unimaginable exploration, modification, and expansion. In this section we explore two examples of this: the author’s note and the self-insert.

  The Author's Note

   

  
  As previously mentioned, the structure of most fanfiction archives allow for the interaction between authors and readers. Readers can leave comments or reviews and authors may, in turn, respond. The author’s note, if one is written, traditionally appears at the beginning or end of a chapter. Author’s notes can contain any number of things, lyrics to a song the author used as inspiration, responses to a string of criticisms or praises in comments or reviews, explanations of plot details, or even updates about the author’s personal life. The freedom provided by the author’s note allows fanfiction writers to perform not through the fanfiction story but as an author. 

  The author’s note can be labeled as “disclaimer” to acknowledge that the author is not attempting to pass off the canon text as their own and that the characters are not their own invention. These, although appearing to be used for protection against copyright suits, provide no legal protection. Despite the lack of substantive protection these disclaimers give, it is hard to find a story that doesn’t include one. Some sites even require that disclaimers are written for every story posted. Disclaimers, instead, function as a symbolic gesture, honoring the original author(s) of the work (mountainlily00).
  
  The author’s note can also function in a tangible way of simple content warning, which have become more popular and even required by some websites. The content warning is not always a part of the author’s note, indeed, debates surrounding their place in the author's notes have taken place. Archive of Our Own includes content warnings and advisories within their tags to prevent users from opening possibly triggering stories. 

  Despite the tangible functions of content warnings or disclaimers, a majority of author’s notes are used for other purposes. Author’s notes can be (and often are) used to reaffirm the authority of the author. The space of the author’s note is one in which the author can speak directly to the audience, asserting that what they have to say is important. While the proper format of an author’s note is discussed in fanfiction forums and blog posts bemoaning how distracting they can be (Herzog), authors still have the choice to put whatever they want in these spaces. 

  Author’s notes function as a form of “paratext,” originally conceived of by Gérard Genette as “between the inside and the outside” of a text, giving examples such as, “an author’s name, a title, a preface, [or] illustrations,” (Genette, 2). There is an irony, however, to the author’s note that goes beyond other forms of paratext in a fanfiction story like a title or description. Most notes that are not about the writer’s personal life or the ownership of the material are used to “frame the text” and give clues as to how it should be interpreted. Despite the fact that the materials used to craft these stories are written by others, fans claim authority over their individual interpretations of these borrowed materials. “They [the fans]” writes Herzog, “attempt to actively direct the story’s audience into a certain, premeditated reader position and thus to curtail the very sort of interpretive and agentive practices they themselves are engaged in while writing fanfiction,” (Herzog).
  
  
  As Herzog explains, Barthes’s notion of  “the death of the author” doesn’t hold when Author’s Notes are taken into consideration, or, at the very least, it needs reevaluation (Herzog). Through both celebrating the original text and asserting their right to their own interpretations, fanfiction writers uplift their own authorial intent while dismissing that of the individual producer’s. Perhaps, then, a better way to conceptualize the relationship between fanfiction writers and original producers, is through the director-playwright dynamic. With directors approaching the source text as a script with various interpretive frameworks, each performance bringing in something different, with a recognition that playwrights, though important, aren’t the only authority on their text. In which case, the author’s note exhibits a similar function to a director’s note in a playbill, a way for directors to perform alongside their actors and assert their version of the story is one worth telling. 

  The Self-Insert

  The fact that, in Hollywood, the norm still stands that directors generally don’t star in their own films leads us to the other “I” in fanfiction, the self-insert. In an art form devoted to re-using characters from popular media, there are still a large number of characters in fanfiction that are not featured in the original text, movie, or show. These are broadly labeled as Original Characters or OCs. It is important to highlight that not all OCs are self-inserts, but many are, and with that comes the debate about the author’s proper place in fanfiction.
  
  Part of the need for OC’s come from an insufficient number of characters in the original work. In Harry Potter, for example, while there are supposedly many students at Hogwarts, only a few are expanded upon in the novels. In the realm of the book series, this makes sense, not every student at Hogwarts has a direct impact on the protagonist’s life. In the realm of fanfiction, however, author’s may choose to focus on different aspects of the series that didn’t get as much coverage in the books. For example, a popular genre of Harry Potter fanfiction is called Marauders’ Era (named after the Marauder’s map) which focuses on the lives of Harry Potter’s parents and other characters that were students of Hogwarts at that time. As this era is not primarily focused on in the book series, there are few characters to write about in that time period, creating a need for OCs to fill the gaps (Blacksnowfalls06). 
  
  The impulse to create new characters is not purely a logistical one. Issues of race, sexuality, religion, and representation also affect writers’ reasons for adding OCs. Finally, some people simply want to experiment with creating their own characters to practice writing or to see themselves in a story they love. The latter, is the reasoning for most self-inserted characters. The self insert not only allows for the author to perform as an authority on the text, but as a character in their own story. 
• 1 2020-06-10T21:17:48+00:00 Cora 4 image_header 2020-07-15T22:22:05+00:00
  Just as not every Mary Sue is an original character, not every original character is a Mary Sue. Even characters that can be seen as an insertion of the authors do not always take over the story in ways that promote damaging expectations or force other characters to the sidelines. “The Chances We Take” explores the way Lily and James Potter fell in love during their time at Hogwarts. It was set in what is called by the Harry Potter fanfiction community the “Marauders Era.” This time period was between the 70s to early 80s before Harry Potter was born, and covers the lives of Harry Potter’s parents and their peers (Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, and Severus Snape) in the years preceding their death, which occurs at the beginning of the Harry Potter series. Along with Harry’s parents and their peers named in the books, the story covers the lives of two other students: Cora and Kyra, both are comparatively minor characters, but they both have a fair amount of emotional depth. 
  
  Cora is Lily and Kyra’s best friend. She’s shy and never described as particularly attractive. She’s intensely loyal to her friends, but she’s also a realistic character. For a side character, she is incredibly complex. She seems to be the lovable but shy character that finds a way to put a positive spin on anything, but the fanfiction reveals that she struggles deeply with depression. At first glance tragedy seems to follow her: both her parents and her brother were murdered by Death Eaters (Blacksnowfalls06). This, however, is not out of place in the story. Both James and Lily’s parents were killed by Death Eaters and, during a time of war that is heavily emblematic of the Holocaust, the constant death surrounding the characters is an integral part of the story. Cora, can be, at times, infuriating. She refuses to open up to her friends mostly due to her own insecurity. This representation, however, is a realistic one. She bottles up her emotions in an unhealthy way that isn’t uncommon. Even when Lily finds out about Cora’s struggles, Cora is uncomfortable with the situation and therefore erases Lily’s memory of the encounter altogether. The only person that seems to be able to break down Cora’s hard exterior is Remus Lupin, a fellow troubled teenage soul (Blacksnowfalls06).
  
  Cora’s character, though shy and usually not given a lot of attention by other characters, has exceptional dueling abilities, something that draws the attention of both Death Eaters and Dumbledore himself. Dumbledore explains that she has the option of going to a special school for dueling in France after her time at Hogwarts, and she is asked to join the Death Eaters by some of her fellow students. Both of these parties give her the option of playing a much larger role – of becoming either the hero of the story or a misunderstood villain. In the end, she is shown applying to the school in France, but it is not a huge plot point. She is also seen refusing to join the Death Eaters, showing her bravery (Blacksnowfalls06).

  “‘Our master wants you to join his ranks’
  Cora’s eyes widened, the Dark Lord wanted here to become a death eater. Which meant that these people talking to her were death eaters. She didn’t know he was recruiting people not even out of school. 
  ‘As a gift for becoming one of us, Master has agreed to give you and your family protection from the killings of this war.’
  Cora opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. She didn’t want to join their side. They were the reason her parents were dead, she didn’t want to be a part of that cause. She couldn’t stand having the guilt of being the reason for children crying over their parents’ death. She didn’t want people to suffer like her.
  ‘Do you have an answer or not? Not that you have a real choice,’ the man said. 
  Cora worked up all her courage, she didn’t realize until that moment that she had any, “Never,’” (Blacksnowfalls06)

  This scene shows the courage that characters can have. Cora is shy, she’s not seen as exceptional by her friends or romantic interests. Throughout the beginning of the fanfiction she is written as a side character who doesn’t get much attention, especially in comparison to Kyra and Lily who are written as more outgoing and popular students. Still Cora has enough strength to not be swayed by the evil characters, even when threatened. This moment is more powerful because Cora isn’t a perfect character. She’s a character with which readers can identify. In response to a review written by a reader of her fanfiction, the author wrote of Cora: “she’s a character I think a lot of people can relate to at one time or another. She also proves the point that James and Lily did not live in a perfect world,” (Blacksnowfalls06).
  
  By creating a relatable character, the writer was able to both explore the pain and darker side of adolescence through an original character, and to make her realistic enough for other readers to identify with. One reviewer wrote of the story: “I have never read a HP fanfic with this much reality to it. You really want Cora to realize that by shutting out Lily and Kyra, she's not protecting them. But then you have to realize that if she did figure that out, she'd be too...plastic. Robotic and predictable. So Cora...Cora is good right now,” (PadfootandProngs91). One reader commented that she understood Lily’s perspective as a concerned friend. She saw her friend go through a lot of the same situations as Cora’s character and was happy the author drew attention to it (Jami).

  
  
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