Not going to lie, when I first read the description for Refill Your Hearts: Fandom Librarians Recommend Stories to Get You Through the Bad Times, I was a little skeptical. The panel was meant to be a group of fannish librarians providing personalized reading and viewing recommendations for the audience. According to the description, they would focus on uplifting fanfiction, online and self-published fiction, webcomics, tv shows, movies, and other media created by and centered on women; queer, trans-, and nonbinary people; people of color; neurodiverse people; and other marginalized groups. As someone who has read fanfiction for over sixteen years, I was specifically doubtful that the panelists would have read enough fanfiction in enough fandoms to make useful recommendations to the audience. I did love the idea that they might have a couple story suggestions that would fit my preferences, though, and I wanted to see how the panel would play out, so I gave it a try.
If there’s one thing nerds love, it’s stories: reading them, watching them, playing them, and for many of us, writing them. At GeekGirlCon ‘14, we have so many writing-related panels that you will need a Time-Turner to attend them all!
Have you ever wondered what geekdom would be like if it weren’t dominated by male heroic-journey sagas? B.J. “Lex” Priester of Fangirl Blog takes us on “The Heroine’s Journey: Moving Beyond Campbell’s Monomyth,” exploring how female-focused sci-fi and fantasy such as The Hunger Games, The Legend of Korra, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Disney’s Frozen differ from the established archetypes, and what that means for the stories they tell.
Kill your darlings! No, not literally; you must have been reading too many classic sci-fi short stories. Instead, join a professional editor and learn “Editing 101 for Writers,” skills that every writer needs whether they are writing for publication or for personal pleasure.
For the YA lover, we have two dedicated programming events. There’s the “Fierce Reads Young Adult Author Panel,” featuring four science fiction and fantasy authors talking about getting their work published. There’s also “Diversity in YA,” which will tackle the dearth of protagonists of colour, and LGBT protagonists (among others) in young adult fiction. For writers–and readers–who want to see more diversity, what are the current issues, and what can we do about it?
If your kid is an aspiring writer, or a natural storyteller, you might be interested in “Imaginary Worlds (for Kids).” Author and spoken word artist Danika Dinsmore leads an interactive story time for families, which is sure to inspire young imaginations!
As we’ve mentioned lately on the GeekGirlCon blog, fanfic is going mainstream. No longer the dirty little secret that you stay up indulging after everyone else has gone to bed, it’s now cool to share fanfic recommendations–gasp!–in public, to own up to being an author, even to get work published. But where does the law stand on this? Commercial publishers’ and authors’ stances range from, “I’m flattered when people play in my worlds,” through, “Do it, but I’ll avoid looking at it,” all the way to, “Cease and Desist.” Our panel “Fan Fiction: Sharing, Creating, and the Law” explores the nuances of copyright law for fanfic authors.
In this context, slash fic has its own specific problems. Now that it’s being acknowledged in the works that inspire it, how much of that acknowledgement is genuine recognition, and how much is exploitation, tokenism designed to hush the calls for diversity and meaningful representation? “21st Century Boys: Slash in the Mainstream” delves into these questions.
Finally, in “If You Can Write, You Can Make Games,” discover how easy it is to make interactive fiction using free, open-source programs you can find online. Take your existing writing skills and expand them into a whole new medium.
There’s something for every writer, storyteller, and daydreamer at GeekGirlCon ‘14–we’ll see you there!
Okay, world, I’m putting it out there for all to see.
Hi, my name’s Kat and I write fanfiction.
That, my fellow geeks, is a sentence I never thought I would write, at least not in a very public setting. You see, I’ve always been a fan, especially of television. My love of TV actually led me to work in the industry itself. But as I worked hard day after day to be a part of creating new stories for television, I harbored a dirty little secret: I read fanfiction. A lot. As a recent similar confession on the GeekGirlCon Blog notes, reading fanfiction can be addicting!
Unfortunately, even though many people who work in television began their journey the same way I did – as a TV fan – fanfiction is not exactly something that’s…acceptable as part of the culture. After all, we were creating the “real thing.” Here are the general ideas many in the TV biz have about fanfiction:
Written exclusively by lonely internet crazies and/or teenage girls
Nothing but characters in, um, adult situations
Absolutely no quality writing whatsoever
They’re mooching off what we created because they’re not good enough to write “original” works
Can get us in trouble if we coincidentally come up with something similar
We didn’t give our consent. Fan fiction is illegal and unethical
(Note: the legality and ethics of writing fanfiction is a whole topic unto itself which isn’t clear cut, and is worthy of healthy debate and exploration. For more info on that and a TON of other insight on reading and writing fic, I highly recommend Anne Jamison’s bookFic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World.)
Of course, many of these assumptions are generalizations that aren’t fair and aren’t true. Unfortunately, what they are is widespread, and not just in the television industry (though the industry does openly make fun of fic writers now and then). Add to that the fact that these stereotypes – especially the one writing fic off as the domain of crazy people (read: crazy women) and teen girls – are sometimes outright sexist. Now, most fic writers are in fact women, but gender has no bearing on the merits of any kind of writing. Regardless of author gender, however, there are, in fact, some terrible fics out there that play into a variety of stereotypes. But no stereotypes ever tell the whole story, and there are many, many fics that defy them.
Still, because of the stigma around fic, reinforced in the comedy world especially, I was essentially ashamed that I read it, even though it brought me joy and helped me cope with the long, trying hours as an assistant vying for a chance to be TV writer.
Five years in, I was fortunate enough to have co-written two episodes of a show, but I’d gotten so burned out on the TV industry that I decided to change careers. As someone who was and is such a passionate fan of TV, it was the last thing I ever expected I would do. I was confident in and happy with my decision, but knowing that being in the industry was no longer the right choice for my life broke my heart a little bit. What broke my heart even more was the fact I had grown to almost resent writing stories (for any medium).
This was me. Photo credit.
You see, I’d felt so much pressure to make my writing something that could sustain me financially that it stopped being fun. Being a storyteller is a big part of who I am, and I needed to rediscover the excitement of creating characters, of envisioning new worlds, of finding just the right words. I needed to remember those swirly, bright feelings of inspiration – the ones that made me beg my mom to let me use her PowerBook when I was seven to pound out a story about a kid who found a dinosaur egg.
I needed to fall back in love with writing.
(By the way, the approximately 100-word masterpiece “Dinosaurs in Time” is unfortunately still in search of a publisher. Preferably one who doesn’t mind reading a half-page manuscript featuring several typos and a barely discernible narrative structure.)
On the plus side, the story also features plenty of wish fulfillment. Photo credit.
To fall back in love with writing, I knew had to take the pressure off. But that would be easier said than done. Every time I sat down to write, there was a part of me that couldn’t shake the expectations – this had better be good enough to get you an agent. This plot isn’t marketable; come up with a new one. The “financially sustainable writing” monsters in my head hadn’t quite been vanquished yet. I had to fight them with something new, with stories they couldn’t touch. But what sort of writing is done just for the sheer joy of writing and sharing stories, with no expectations as far as career advancement or paying the bills? What sort of writing is done simply to celebrate beloved characters and worlds? The answer, of course, is fanfiction. I hesitated; surely this was “beneath” a “real” writer, which is what I wanted to be. However, despite my reservations, I admitted that fic just might be my ticket to really enjoying writing again.
Turns out, I was right. As soon as I decided to start writing fic, a flood of ideas raced into my head. I scribbled them in a notebook so that the plot bunnies couldn’t hop away, and I took to my computer to get going on my first story. An hour or so later, I was done. You know the feeling you get when you step outside on a crisp spring day and that first breath of fresh air fills your lungs? That was this moment. I felt happy, I felt renewed, and I felt like me again.
What was most refreshing about this was that for the first time in a very long time, I didn’t hate the writing process. It wasn’t arduous or overwrought. In fact, I had so. Much. Fun. My “dirty little secret,” it turns out, was the thing that made me realize that I am a “real writer” just like I wanted to be. For a while there, I had simply forgotten what a writer is:
A writer writes, plain and simple. Reasons don’t matter. Platform doesn’t matter. Money really doesn’t matter.
And you know what? I love being a writer.
Thanks, fanfic.
Kat Heiden is a writer, nonprofit development professional, communications grad student, and proud geek girl. She and her equally geeky husband make their home in Los Angeles as they await their invitation to move onto the TARDIS.
