filing off the seriAl nuMbers
73
because they are based on the work of other fans as well: “Most of the original
fans are actually very happy for the author because it’s almost like they’ve
helped [them] achieve financial success and are also curious to see how the
book is going to be different from the original fanfiction.” 43 The process of
comparing the pre-text to the adaptation in the reading process is therefore
not necessarily erased in the relation between fanfictions and their novel
adaptations, even though many readers of these books are initially not aware
of their fanfiction past. On social media sites like Goodreads, where users
catalogue their reading, criticize, and discuss books with others, readers
who encountered the narrative first as a novel then search for pdf files of
the preceding fanfiction to compare Fifty Shades of Grey with Master of the
Universe and The Mortal Instruments with The Draco Trilogy. Obviously,
though, there remains a huge section of the audience that does not read
these novels as adaptations at all.
Beyond the question of whether it is ethically questionable to transpose
fanfiction to the book market, it is interesting to consider how the meaning
of fanfiction changes when it is stripped of its context. Abigail de Kosnik has
argued that the media change of narratives affects the meaning of fanfiction
focusing on the representation of gender, sexuality, and relationships. De
Kosnik explains that active fandoms create a collection of texts that “rework
a common set of elements again and again, through multiple stories.” 44 Like
romances, while often being derided as banal and derivative exactly for their
repetitiveness, fanfiction actually presents a complex process of production
and reception in which this corpus offers a diversity of relationship models,
gender identities, and sexuality. De Kosnik explains that this archive of texts
allows “readers to make selections from numerous scenarios and versions
of romance, sexuality, connection, binding, yearning, denial, rejection,
and release” and offers readers, mostly women, different choices at different times. These texts then open up a diverse multitude of narratives and
identity options for specific characters and thereby the chance to “explore
manifold trajectories for womanhood and for personhood.” 45 Outside of
the fanfiction context, and no longer read as one of many adaptations that
play with familiar figures, events and worlds, de Kosnik explains that the
43 Ting Lipton.
44 Abigail de Kosnik, “Fifty Shades and the Archive of Women’s Culture,” Cinema Journal 54,
no. 3 (2015): 117.
45 De Kosnik, 122. I have made a similar argument in the exploration of identity options in vast
narratives with a large cast of characters such as fanfiction and soap operas; see Bettina Soller,
“Fan Fiction and Soap Operas: On the Seriality of Vast Narratives,” Serial Narratives. Special Issue
of Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 47, no. 1–2, edited by Kathleen Loock, (2014): 191–205.
73
because they are based on the work of other fans as well: “Most of the original
fans are actually very happy for the author because it’s almost like they’ve
helped [them] achieve financial success and are also curious to see how the
book is going to be different from the original fanfiction.” 43 The process of
comparing the pre-text to the adaptation in the reading process is therefore
not necessarily erased in the relation between fanfictions and their novel
adaptations, even though many readers of these books are initially not aware
of their fanfiction past. On social media sites like Goodreads, where users
catalogue their reading, criticize, and discuss books with others, readers
who encountered the narrative first as a novel then search for pdf files of
the preceding fanfiction to compare Fifty Shades of Grey with Master of the
Universe and The Mortal Instruments with The Draco Trilogy. Obviously,
though, there remains a huge section of the audience that does not read
these novels as adaptations at all.
Beyond the question of whether it is ethically questionable to transpose
fanfiction to the book market, it is interesting to consider how the meaning
of fanfiction changes when it is stripped of its context. Abigail de Kosnik has
argued that the media change of narratives affects the meaning of fanfiction
focusing on the representation of gender, sexuality, and relationships. De
Kosnik explains that active fandoms create a collection of texts that “rework
a common set of elements again and again, through multiple stories.” 44 Like
romances, while often being derided as banal and derivative exactly for their
repetitiveness, fanfiction actually presents a complex process of production
and reception in which this corpus offers a diversity of relationship models,
gender identities, and sexuality. De Kosnik explains that this archive of texts
allows “readers to make selections from numerous scenarios and versions
of romance, sexuality, connection, binding, yearning, denial, rejection,
and release” and offers readers, mostly women, different choices at different times. These texts then open up a diverse multitude of narratives and
identity options for specific characters and thereby the chance to “explore
manifold trajectories for womanhood and for personhood.” 45 Outside of
the fanfiction context, and no longer read as one of many adaptations that
play with familiar figures, events and worlds, de Kosnik explains that the
43 Ting Lipton.
44 Abigail de Kosnik, “Fifty Shades and the Archive of Women’s Culture,” Cinema Journal 54,
no. 3 (2015): 117.
45 De Kosnik, 122. I have made a similar argument in the exploration of identity options in vast
narratives with a large cast of characters such as fanfiction and soap operas; see Bettina Soller,
“Fan Fiction and Soap Operas: On the Seriality of Vast Narratives,” Serial Narratives. Special Issue
of Literatur in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 47, no. 1–2, edited by Kathleen Loock, (2014): 191–205.