There’s a storm coming fanart posted with permission from Dumblyd0re http://dumblyd0re.deviantart.com/art/There-s-a-storm-coming-315866735
As a librarian and fan of reading (hehe – did you see what I did there), I happily endorse fanfiction reading to my borrowers and anyone that asks. Actually, in the whole readers’ advisory process, I think that librarians need to look outside of our published book centered recommendations and we should be recommending reading choices in non-profit areas of reading/writing too. I have heard people use the “quality” writing argument here. How, as librarians, could we endorse a story that is not of a high literary quality? My answer is that this is EASY. Reading appeals is NOT about quality reading. It is about engaged, pleasurable reading. As a reader, I have given up on many well written stories that lacked the heart and soul that I seek out when I am reading yet I have found wonderful stories in fanfiction that have sparked my interest or they have challenged me to look at a certain story in a different way. As a reader, I am not stupid. If a story is completely unreadable, the pace, the diction or the writing is completely out of place – I will move on. Just as I have sent may a book to my DNF pile, I have sent many fanfiction stories to that pile too. Of course, there are times that I prefer my commercial fiction as someone else has had to deal with the slush pile (thanks publishers) but if I am looking for an extension of characters who I love and want to see how someone else imagines them, I can’t go past fanfics. Reading fanfic is a bit risky.
A teen I was speaking to last week said he hated it because he was reading this wonderful Harry Potter’s twin fanfic, he was loving the story and then he discovered that the writer quit the story. Just like that. No warning. Just a message saying “Thanks but I won’t be continuing”. This teen was a tad bitter (this amused me to no end). Another reader told me they were thrilled because a fave story came back to life after an 18 month hiatus. They received an alert on their phone and they screamed out in joy that the writer had returned 🙂
I find FanArt just as interesting. Fanart is similar to fanfiction but they are fan imaginings of what characters look like or they put they characters into scenes that they would love to see them in. Fanart is similar to fanfiction but they are fan imaginings of what characters look like or they put they characters into scenes that they would love to see them in. I know that there is a lot of comic, anime and manga fanart out there but I was particularly taken by the tweet from Sleepy Hollow (another fab fanfic creation) writers with fanart posted on their walls. Writers don’t ignore fanart. As it doesn’t mess with their head canon (as fanfiction can do) fanart tends to be enjoyed more.
There is a delightful webseries called Kissing in the Rain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kMIcdMe56s. The director has called for fans to write fics and create fanart. This fan created posters for every episode and I absolutely adore the book art another fan created. The director of Kissing in the Rain also made her own fanfiction snippet of her favourite section in Fangirl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZIocgXdGrw
And of course, the BEST thing about fandoms/fanfiction/fanart are the ships. Shipping is when you love love love a certain character pairing that you want them to have a relationship. There are lots of Urban Dictionary definitions for shipping but when it comes down to it , shipping is as simple as lurve. Romance for characters whose viewers or readers believe there is a lot of love between them. Spock and Kirk, Draco and Harry, Ichabod and Abbie. And they all have their own Brangelina type names. I might just leave the squeeeeing over shipping for another post.
Shallowreader 