Defining Fanfiction

Home Forums Week 1 Forums Tuesday (6/23) Defining Fan Fiction Defining Fanfiction

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  • #288
    Danielle Puccio
    Participant

    Fanfiction is acknowledging already existing characters and stories while taking ownership of them and modifying them to fit preferences of yourself and others. People don’t write fic that just repeats canon, there would be no point. If there is fic that borders closely on just being the source material, it can often be in the form of internal dialogue or another narrative perspective that was not originally shown. Fanfic is a way to share our own stories about content that we already enjoy or to alter it when it’s not enjoyable. Adaptations feel similar to Alternate Universe (AU) fics to me because they imagine the same characters in different situations. One example is the 2018 Michael B. Jordan film “Fahrenheit 451,” based off of Ray Bradbury’s 1953 book. The overall story and characters were upheld, yet the sci-fi-applicable technological advances that had occurred in the over 70 years since the book was published were clearly reflected in a ‘fresh’ retelling of the story. Adaptations are varied retellings that commit to honoring the original content, and fanfic takes much more liberty to change characterization, situations, and more.

    #326
    Grant Glass
    Keymaster

    Hi Dani,

    Good point about repeating cannon! I think that is one distinction that might be made between adaptation and fanfiction, cannon.

    What did you think of that retelling? Honestly I didn’t like it, I know it was trying to say something about social media, but that wasn’t really what the source text was talking about.

    I thought something like Equilibrium was closer to an adaptation of Fahrenheit 451.

    #344
    Danielle Puccio
    Participant

    I didn’t really like the movie. I thought Jordan was fantastic as always but the ‘oooh evil social media surveillance’ concept was boring and missed a lot of good points from the book. The scenes where we get to see the people who have ‘become’ authors by memorizing literature were the most impactful in my opinion, and I really wish there had been more emphasis on that. I have never seen Equilibrium but what you said about retelling/adaptation made me think of my favorite musical, Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812! It is based on a 70-page chunk of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and shapes an entire story around the characters and events of that section; the original work (in English translation) is often quoted exactly in the lyrics, but the composer Dave Malloy does take some liberty in adding backstory or altering things.

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