Fanfiction, Part II

Hooray! Internet again!

The Highlights Whole Novel Workshop was an amazing experience, and much thanks goes out to the instructors and the conferees, who’ve put me back on track with my MS Bad Light (sample chapters still under revision, but the pitch is up on my “Books” page). And New York was great, both for doing research and hanging out with cousins. Last but not least, here’s a little teaser for those of you who keep noodging me about a certain event this summer:

Phew! And now on to what’s actually rattling around in my mind this week: can reading fanfiction spoil a “real” story? This somewhat disingenuous (ooh! big word!) question is the one I’d like to try to answer in this blog. The reason I’m calling it “disingenuous” is because the question really has little to do with the effects of reading fanfiction and more to do with what we mean by “spoiling” a story. So, really, what I’m asking is, “What is spoiling a story?” by means of lengthy ramblings about fanfiction.

First: the obvious definition. When something on the Internet (or even in a printed review) is marked as a “spoiler”, it usually means that the writer has given away a piece of information not intended by the storytellers to be consumed as part of the story experience prior to experiencing the story.

(Yeah, I know it’s a nitpicky mouthful, but I wanted to get the difference between spoilers and, say, previews, trailers, and back-cover copy. Trailers are what the storytellers use to encourage you to experience the story; spoiler clips can come directly from the producers/directors/writers, but they’re meant to be consumed differently.)

Anyway, fanfiction can definitely spoil a story in this sense. There’s always the chance that the author is further along in the story than you are and has included some canonical fact in their fic or its summary that gives away some of what “really” happens next. Considerate fic-authors mark stuff like this, but you never know. And even marking it can be a giveaway: “Spoilers for last episode. CHARACTER DEATH.” implies something about what happened last episode.

But if you think about why releasing plot/character information “spoils” the story, then fanfic can spoil stories even when the author has no idea how the “real” story plays out. When you know what’s going to happen, you know more than the main characters do, and in most stories, that can set you at an emotional distance. If you know Darth Vader is Luke’s dad and Luke doesn’t, it’s harder to sympathize with him. Moreover, the story is set up for an audience that doesn’t know about Luke and Leia’s parentage.

So if, say, an author with no clue what happens next writes a story in which Luke and Leia are brother and sister and Darth Vader is their father before the last couple first-trilogy Star Wars movies come out, it can still spoil the story. True, just reading a fanfic about what might happen next doesn’t help you to know what happens next. But it does mean you’re psychologically prepared for the big reveal in a way a non-fanfic-reading viewer is not.

Maybe a concrete example would be more helpful. There was an Internet buttload of Harry Potter fanfiction before the seventh book came out. One of the questions fans were wondering about this book was what had motivated Snape to turn from the Death Eaters to the Order of the Phoenix during the first Voldemort War. Now, many fans wrote fics that gave the “correct” answer: (spoiler alert) Snape betrayed the bad guys because he was in love with Lily, Harry’s mother.

Did authors who wrote LE/SS stories know what J. K. Rowling intended to write? No, although there were a couple fairly strong hints in the previous books. But did their stories spoil the real scenario in Deathly Hallows? Well, for me, yes. Why? First of all, they made the Snape-loves-Lily subplot more plausible and hence more forseeable. Reading a well written fanfic can be like reading a well argued essay. A good fanfic author can convince you to take his or her perspective on canon characters and events by showing you through narrative. (For instance, even if you don’t see any chemistry between two characters in the canonical story, a really good author can convince you of it by writing a story in which they’re believably attracted to one another.) So each well written story about Snape and Lily’s doomed relationship takes its reader one step closer to believing in it before Rowling’s big reveal.

I keep repeating “well written”, and that brings me to the second reason predictive fanfic can spoil the real thing. Look, there are thousands of fanfic authors out there. There’s only one real author. Chances are that most of those fanfic authors are going to be beginners or hobbyists, and that’s okay. But chances are also that there are going to be a handful of really talented fanfic writers out there, whose genius lies in re-imagining other people’s worlds. There are Harry Potter and Sherlock Holmes fanfics I enjoy way more than canon, because the author is using Rowling or Conan Doyle’s creations to do something new without losing the core essence that makes them them.

When you read some dazzling fanfics about next season, and it turns out a couple were right on the money, it’s  possible that the real thing won’t measure up. For instance, The X Files handled the resolution of Mulder and Scully’s relationship in an offscreen, unsatisfying way, but dozens of fanfics provided much more engaging romances. Reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince disappointed me because I’d seen the political consequences of Voldemort’s return done so much better by fanfic writers. Strange as it may seem, fanfic’s execution of the same plotlines had given me a higher standard that the canonical works didn’t meet.

But is it only the fanfic that turns out to be “right” that can spoil a story? I don’t think so – and here’s where I decide what being spoilered really means to me. When I watch or read or hear a story, I want what happens to seem inevitable. Not that I don’t want to be surprised: I love well done twists and turns. But once I’ve consumed the story, I want the version its teller gives me to be so authentic and satisfying and brilliant that it’s the only way I can imagine the plot going. If I don’t know and can’t guess the real ending, point storyteller: he or she has the advantage of novelty.

But if I’m watching Star Trek, and I find myself thinking, “Well… this episode is okay, but that fanfic where Spock actually married T’Pring was more interesting than this show where he doesn’t…” or “You know, so-and-so’s darker characterization of McCoy was way cooler than this one…” then I might as well have known what was going to happen, for all the emotional impact it had on me. So being spoiled can have nothing to do with being prepared for what happens next.

What really matters is being made aware of better possible stories.