When I found out that a local writers’ group was going to be holding one of their regular reading get-togethers specifically for fanfiction, at first I was excited. I would love to meet some local authors who write fic, and here was one of the big groups reaching out and inviting us into their circle. Yay! I was considering submitting “Relocation” and seeing if they’d accept it – it’s a bit over their max suggested word limit, but the reading was to be held right before Halloween so I thought that particular story would be perfect.
And then I started checking the original post to see who else was responding, to see if anyone was asking questions I hadn’t thought of or starting an ice-breaking discussion I could get in on. They weren’t. By that evening I was annoyed and frustrated, and I still am – another group I’m nominally part of tried to drum up interest again yesterday, and last I checked they weren’t getting any either. Why didn’t I jump in and try to get things going myself? Well, you already knew I was going to tell you. Or at least I hope you did. If you didn’t: Hi! First time here, huh? Welcome to my blog!
Anyway, the people organizing this event seem like nice, fun, interesting people who are really working hard to get local writers more involved in the community. They’re trying to use this as a Halloween-themed gimmick to convince their regulars to explore something new (fanfiction) and that’s great, I’m all for that. They’re also making a show of reaching out to an underserved segment of the local writing community, and normally that would be great too…if it wasn’t for the lack of understanding I’m seeing in that invitation with regards to fanfiction and the people who write it and the huge, diverse, vibrantly engaged community those people already belong to. Joking references to bad writing here, a crack about not needing to hide the fact that you write fic anymore over there. A little dig about writing fic being something you grow out of, and a sincere assertion that fanfiction is an ‘ignored’ form of storytelling and community-building. Just little things, but to my mind very telling ones in that they show just how much the group doesn’t know about the people they’re reaching out to. And I think that a lot of us are frustrated by the fact that we keep on getting hit with these ridiculous stereotypes even though people – namely other writers – should know better by now. If for no other reason than this being the decade of reboots, reimaginings, remixes and retellings, and fanfiction writers have been on top of that game since before Hollywood even existed. 😉
So the upshot of all this is that after more than a week of deliberation, I have decided not to participate in this event I was originally really excited about. Not because I’m afraid to do a live reading (done them before – I used to do readers’ theater, in fact) or because I’m afraid of criticism (seriously, I know I’m good at what I do, so someone else’s opinion is just that) but because I personally just don’t feel like trying to connect with people who think what I do is a joke. I may not always take myself too seriously…but my writing is a different story entirely.
UPDATE 25Sep16: The day after I posted this, a whole bunch of fanfic writers in my local NaNo group apparently started commenting on the event announcement over on FB and they’ve got a nice active little discussion going now. Still not going myself – especially not after today’s ‘feedback’ on AO3 – but I think it’s great that a bunch of people are now planning to participate in the event and are really excited about it.