Kristina Busse

Intense Intertextuality: Derivative Works in Context

Media in Transition (May 2007)

Intro.

A recent Washington Post article described how child prodigy and world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell decided to take his art out of context and play for 45 minutes in a subway station. In the early morning rush, a handful of people noticed or gave him money while more than a thousand "hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look." Fan and professional writer Minisinoo uses this article to suggest that professional fiction provides a context that gets lost when sharing one's art outside of the evaluating professional structure: "Leave the name behind, and the professional packaging ... can I make it again? ... Fanfic may come with a built-in audience, but it can also be demanding in a different way. There may be little quality control in fanfic, but there's also no inherent validation of already having been selected from the agent/publisher slushpile" (LJ 4-10-07). What becomes central here is the question of context: does the same work of art function in the same way regardless of context? We certainly read the line "I have eaten the plums/ that were/ in the icebox// and which/ you were probably/ saving/ for breakfast" differently depending on whether we see it on our fridge or in the Norton Anthology.
Likewise, I want to suggest in the following that fan writing creates its own context that needs to be taken into account when looking at fan fiction written within fannish communities. In order to properly read and understand most fan texts, readers must be aware that the stories are highly intertextual with source text, cultural and literary context, and, most importantly, other derivative interpretive texts, including fan fiction and fan theory. Moreover, given the social community structure of fandom and its primarily written interaction in online fandom, many textual documents are parts of ongoing conversations. There are multiple ways in which the fannish community produces fiction whose central function may not be the artistic artifact itself, such as interactive storytelling, certain types of memes and challenges, and so-called issue fic (i.e., stories that are thinly disguised interventions in ongoing debates). Connected to this crucial component of fanfiction's near ephemeral intertextuality, there exists a difference in affect between different modes of sampling and remixing textual materials.

Since fan texts are always already social and intertextual, I neither want to ignore the texts in favor of focus on the community or the individual's psychology as many studies of fan fiction fandom have done, nor do I want to foreclose the community aspect by treating the fannish artifacts as if we could (or should) read them as isolated literary texts in their own right, without taking into consideration its cultural context. Instead, I want to propose an approach that acknowledges the artistic as well as the social aspect of most fan products by reading fannish artifacts as ephemeral traces of social engagements. I'm using Jose Esteban Munoz's concept of the “ephemeral trace,” which denotes the traces left behind, traces that both hint at and hide their originating performative event. Applying this notion to fan texts helps us remain aware that much of the text's meaning can be tied in with a specific place, time, and community in ways that make it difficult to read (let alone judge) these artifacts.

Clearly not all fanfiction relies strongly on intertextuality nor are other forms of writing always divorced from context; still, fanfiction in general relies more heavily on intertextuality and ephemerality. In fact, I'd argue we can look at it as a form of exemplary textual form in the sense that it foregrounds certain collective and intertextual aspects that traditional theories of reading and writing often like to ignore. All writing is intertextual and communal/performative to a degree; fanfiction just tends to be more so. [more fanfic does it and fanfic does it more.]

Indeed, recognizing the importance of intimacy and intertextuality in fan fiction helps explain why such texts often elicit popular (and even critical) anxieties when placed in positions usually reserved for commercial texts—whether as source text for new derivative creations or as decontextualized art to be evaluated by outsiders. Performing a "thick reading" (Geertz) of fan texts thus allows us to neither read the text through the cultural context only (as literary approaches would have it) nor to use the texts to elucidate the culture (as anthropological studies prefer), but rather allow an emphasis on the interplay between text and context, between the fan community and its fan texts.

Thesis

In the following essay, I want to look at three interrelated aspects that are not restricted to fanfiction but that tend to be more pronounced in amateur derivative works written within a specific community: (1) intertextuality, i.e., a given story"s dependence on community and fantext; (2) performativity, i.e., the conversational, community interaction component of many stories; and (3) intimacy, i.e., the emotional and, often sexual, openness and vulnerability readers and writers exhibit in the stories and surrounding interaction. Again, none of these aspects are particular to fanfiction alone, but, unlike in much other writing, they are such a central component that the stories divorced from their context—textual, social, and emotional—may not be fully comprehensible.

My goal then is twofold: I want to show how any literary and artistic approach to fanfiction must contain an awareness and acknowledgment of the community that produces, disseminates and receives these artifacts, and, in so doing, I want to both recognize the genre"s artistic potential and suggest that our readings of all texts in general might profit from an awareness of interpretations that retains its cultural traces. Fanfiction in that reading then becomes an exemplary instantiation of reader response based approaches, not only because the source texts" readers clearly and literally respond but also because any reading of these responses requires a complex reading model that cannot separate text from reader and author. All writing, of course, is intertextual, communal, and performative; fanfiction in general just tends to be more so. As such, fanfiction can be seen as an exemplary textual form in the sense that it foregrounds certain collective and intertextual aspects that traditional theories of reading and writing often ignore.

Arcana In this paper, I want to look at a particular incident that occurred in fandom about a year ago and exemplifies the complexities of properly reading, analyzing, and evaluating fan fiction and the dangers when a fan text loses its specific context. Last May the first fanfiction was longlisted for a professional fiction award, namely, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, an "annual literary prize for science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender.” In the wake of the announcement the feminist SF community surrounding WisCon, a feminist science fiction convention at which the award is given, began debating the story's appropriateness and literary merit. The story in question was Em Brunson's Arcana, a Harry Potter/CSI mpreg crossover slash crack challenge response. In other words, Arcana was a fan story that romantically connected male characters from Harry Potter and the crime drama CSI and featured a male pregnancy; moreover, the story was a direct response to a particular request within a community and was meant to be ultimately humorous and self mocking, and, finally, the story was a Work in Progress, unfinished at the time of nomination.

Very quickly professional and fan writers began debating the aesthetic quality of the story and whether >Arcana should ever have been nominated in the first place. Beyond the to-be-expected discussions about fanfiction as copyright infringement and the questions of whether a humorous treatment of male pregnancy actually expanded or explored "our understanding of gender," the debate soon moved into fanfiction criticism, where issues of intended audiences, close(d) communities, interpretive contexts, and shame became central.

Intertextuality

I want to suggest that the first central issue of Arcana's reception was intertextuality. Beyond their obvious intertextuality with the source text, most fan stories are also intertextual with one another. Every fan story is in conversation not only with the source text but usually also with other stories in the fandom and the discussions that permeate the community. As such, it seems useful not to look at a story as if it were a distinct and isolated piece of art but acknowledge its social and communicative aspects. No writing occurs in a vacuum, instead drawing from and responding to previous texts and the writer's cultural context. Fan stories, however, tend to do so to a much greater degree: they are always a response to the source text, often are produced in communication with several other fans, and likely to be part of a conversation with other stories and discussions. In fact, while some stories are written to last and can be read by anyone unfamiliar with the source text, a large (if not larger) number of stories rely on an audience that is familiar with the source text if not the fantext.

In Arcana's case, there are multiple contexts necessary for understanding the story: (1) the two source texts of children's book Harry Potter and forensic procedural CSI; (2) the fan communities surrounding these shows; (3)general fannish tropes such as slash itself and mpreg and the rules of crossovers; and, more specifically (4) the very particular circumstances of the story, including the community in which it was posted and the challenge to which it responded. Oh_No_Nicky is an LJ community that was created in response to the Season Five finale of CSI in which Nick Stokes was abducted and buried alive. The community defines its central purpose at “organized flailing" and self-defines itself as a "place where folks can come to be googly and crazy and cry and go wild about Nicky and all things CSI and no one will judge." Tone and diction indicate clearly a specific reading of the characters and the show as well as a focus on particular types of stories.

It is in this context that Arcana's initial parts were posted to an mpreg challenge, i.e., the story was expected to include male pregnancy and a particular fannish version of Nick as protagonist. Losing this particular intertextual context makes it difficult for readers to comprehend or enjoy the story—after all, they weren't its audience. In her involved post that spawned expansive discussion, Matociquala describes the specificity and often quite limited audience of fanfiction as follows: “Fanfiction [unlike pro fiction] is written in the expectation of being enjoyed in an open membership but tight-knit community, and the writer has an expectation of being included in the enjoyment and discussion. It is the difference, in other words, between throwing a fair on the high road, and a party in a back yard. Sure, you might be able to see what's going on from the street, but you're expected not to stare” (Matociquala 5-18-06).

Performativity

The party metaphor epitomizes my central argument of ephemerality, namely the fact that we should be careful as observers of fandom not to take the resulting artifacts for the thing itself. Like any anthropological recovery, the artistic products may need to be studied as artistic artifact and as ephemeral trace, i.e., Arcana, for example is both a story that can be read and evaluated in its own right, but for its author and its initial audience the story may be something quite different. What I want to suggest then is that fanfiction (possibly more so than published derivative fiction) requires us to be aware of the fact that we may only see traces rather than the entire textual and community engagement.

In Arcana's case some of the contextual ephemerality is the particular community and challenge response I already addressed, as well as the partaking in a communal activity, the posting of parts that people responded to, the shared enjoyment over a particular version of Nick Stokes and the back and forth within the feedback comments. Just like this mpreg challenge, much of fannish writing is part of a dialog. As such, fiction can easily serve other purposes, ranging from personal interaction like a gift or making a person feel better to responding to issues in the source text or intervening in fannish canon debates.

An example is challenges that are temporally and spatially bound such as stories with imposed word limit structures or requests for prompts that get immediately filled. A writer or artist may post a request in their journal "My brain's dead from work. Distract me. Choose one of my pairing and an object situation, and I'll write a ficlet." While the results may indeed be excellent, the event itself, the back and forth between writer and requester is often more central as a social engagement than the actual product, i.e., the few sentences of fictional prose. Likewise role-playing games follow a similar logic where the actual "play" is the event itself with the textual traces leaving a remnant, a hint toward the event but not encompassing the event in its entirety.

Often fans themselves substitute one for the other, happily posting chat transcripts, hoping that the textual trace might allow the after-the-fact reader to share the joke or fannish enjoyment; it rarely succeeds, however. In fact, LJ's interface itself provides varying degrees of ephemerality. For one, journals are set up in such a way that older posts and comments disappear off the clearly visible top page and can only be recovered with some difficulty; furthermore, the rhizomatic structure of the Internet and LJ in particular supports the concurrence of multiple conversations, often over varying journals. As such, going back to a given post later on can make it difficult to understand all contributing aspects, since only parts are available.

It may be that very ephemerality, the fact that stories are remnants of the actual emotional and social engagement that make fans seem embarrassed at times. Or it may be the fact that fanfiction often tailors to our very desires, our innermost fantasies, sexual or not—or it may be the interplay between those two. As such, Arcana far from being a bad representative for fandom is actually exemplary in that it testifies to the very focused narrowness of much of our writing. It may not be a story that easily translates, that can be effortlessly or even enjoyably read by people outside of the community for whom it was written, but then they aren't its audience. Shalott addresses this issue when she points out, "So, you know, a crackfic CSI/HP mpreg angst-heavy h/c crossover is not the poster child I would have picked, … but as a representative of the way we are getting down in the muck of the id with dirt under our fingernails over here, I'm not sure that it's wrong.” (Shalott 5-18-06)

INTIMACY It is this celebration of the id that spawned the embarrassment driving much of the discussions around Arcana within fandom. In a discussion a few years back, Ellen Fremedon coined the term "Id Vortex" by which she means that very tailored and customized writing that caters to the writers' and/or readers' kinks, that creates stories that not only move us emotionally because we already care about the characters but also because it uses tropes, characterizations, scenes that appeal very viscerally. She says: "in fandom, we've all got this agreement to just suspend shame. I mean, a lot of what we write is masturbation material, and we all know it, and so we can't really pretend that we're only trying to write for our readers' most rarefied sensibilities, you know? We all know right where the Id Vortex is, and we have this agreement to approach it with caution, but without any shame at all.” (Ellen Fremedon 12-2-04)

Writing stories for a particular sexual kink may be the most obvious way fans tailor stories to their own (or others') desires, but in general, fan stories often seem to be more immediate, more intimate, more revealing than most published writing. One fan, who writes both pro and fan fiction, describes her more distanced emotional involvement with her professional writing as follows, "when I'm writing for money, limit my emotional investment in the material I produce. [U]ltimately what I am producing does not belong to me. Someone else is buying it and I am serving their needs, not my own” (St_Crispins 8-27-06).

Moreover, fans tend to be immensely emotionally attached to their characters with which they've often spent years already. In other words, even if Jean Rhys had been strongly emotionally invested in Jane and Rochester, I'd suggest that the investment may have differed (in degree at least) from fan writers who not only obsessively rewatch their show and discuss it in detail but write stories upon stories in that universe. Fan writers do not earn money from their writing and, as a result, do not have to follow any external demands (though many certainly follow community desires for increased readership). In fact, as my discussion of challenges suggests, often writing purposefully is tailored toward narrow audiences, trying to perfectly please one person rather than kind of making it enjoyable for many. An example for that is Yuletide, the yearly Rare Fandom challenge where often participants ask for stories in a fandom that only they would like to read.

In fact, in the wake of the Arcana debate, Lucy Cereta bemoaned how the fan community, contrary to culture at large which tends to equate mass appeal with low brow generally does not value things written for narrow audience: “In a culture that consistently assigns higher artistic value to works that appeal to a narrower audience over works that appeal to a broader audience, I'm always a little surprised that fandom has as much trouble as it does with the idea of writing to a narrow audience" (Cereta 5-19-06). In fact, fandom really ought to celebrate appeal to narrow audiences, given that it is one of the cornerstones of fannish engagement, and yet, the events surrounding Arcana clearly suggest that wide appeal remains a quality for many even within fandom.

Now, I don't want to suggest that this intense emotional investment in one's writing is either necessary for fanfiction or absent from pro writing. Nevertheless, I think that the context of production, dissemination, and reception differs substantially with fan fiction purposefully encouraging and thriving on intimacy, on exposing and pleasing the Id Vortex, whereas much of the editorial process in pro writing distances the writer from her story. It's important for us as fan scholars to remember that this NC-17 porn snippet might just feature someone's very explicit sexual fantasy, and the courage to expose that in public, to share it with others who might enjoy the same kink, is an important aspect that might overwhelm in that instance the comma splice or awkward word choice.

So, while fandom does produce artistic artifacts that can easily be judged valuable by traditional literary aesthetic values (often modernist and emphasizing complexity), we would miss large sections of fannish creation and its effects if those were the only criteria we employed. Fans themselves are often all too eager to attain status by adopting outside value systems, even as their reading patterns clearly suggest to them that taste and enjoyment are immensely idiosyncratic: may if not most fans often prefer a “lesser” story in their fandom, pairing, genre over a "better" one where the emotional investment in the characters is lacking and the story line doesn't appeal. For me, personally, that's one of the biggest appeals of fannish writing: Where else can I ask for my specific kink with my favorite characters written in a certain way and shape and style—and if i'm lucky someone will write it for me? Where else can I be in the middle of a theoretical debate and someone will prove their point by performing a “writer response theory” moment, creating a story that proves their very argument? Taking all of these stories out of context, requiring them to live up to an arbitrary standard which they may not have been meant to follow, is a disservice both to endeavors of objectively evaluating fiction and to fanfiction fandom at large.