Fanfic vs. Profic

[lunabee34]

When I reviewed The Democratic Genre a couple posts back, some of the comments turned to a discussion of fanfic vs. profic. executrix suggested I take that convo top-level, so here I am. Doing that. *g*

Anyway, I said that I think that fanfic and profic are equally challenging to read and write, and I don't privilege one over the other. I also said that fanfic and profic often have different aims and pull out different tools from the toolbox.

Now, I can't speak very much about the writing of profic, as I've never had anything published. However, I *read* a lot of profic, and some of my RL friends are writers and one of them in particular has been encouraging me to do some writing of original pieces (*nudge nudge* krayat). So, from my position of dubious experience, here's a handful of comments about fanfic and profic.

I think that fanfic provides someone who's not interested in world building a way to write stories without having to worry about or spend time creating from whole cloth a universe for her characters to inhabit.

I think fanfic provides an excellent opportunity for creativity. Because the infrastructure already exists, doing something truly novel and shocking and intriguing takes a heck of a lot of work. Taking those bones and building something unexpected and different from the original model (or even just the original model from a different angle) on top of them makes for damn good reading. And because your readership is familiar with the original model, making it leaner or showing it only from the ass side immediately creates tension. Fanfic is, for me, all about subversion. Taking this thing that already exists and wringing the hell out of it--sometimes as Pugh says to make more of it and sometime to get more from it.

I know with this original fiction story I'm making pages of notes on and creating outlines and Venn diagrams for writing, I couldn't decide what to write about at first. And then I thought, "Wait! I'm an interesting person. All kinds of traumatic interesting things have happened to me. I'll just fanfic my life." And what I meant by that was, okay, I can take the bare bones of an event from my life and then fictionalize around that foundation. And I know it sounds like I'm calling fanfic a crutch here, but I'm really not. I *am* saying that reading/writing fanfic creates a different way of approaching reading/writing profic, at least for me.

Most profic I think also necessarily has to contain more descriptive passages than fanfic. For instance, most fanfic doesn't spend a lot of time describing characters physically because we all know what the characters look like. Same with, oh, the library in Sunndale or the lobby of the Hyperion. (0f course, always exceptions to the rule)

What do you guys think?

Comments

[gloss]

Fabulous questions here.


The difficulty in comparing and contrasting profic and fanfic is that there are so many competing and divergent definitions of each.

Commercialism: Profic is written and published for a profit while fanfic is inherently non-profit (unless you're Lori Jareo).

Affective/libidinal investment: Fanfic is said to be written out of, and directed toward, the id or what-have-you. Apparently profic *isn't*.

Derivation: Fanfic is derivative work, while profic is supposed to be original.

Interpretive argument: A definition you see *a lot* less often than the others, whereby fanfic is a creative argument stemming from a particular interpretation of canon. Profic claims to have no canon, so the relationship to canon or its absence is the defining factor.

Like all binary oppositions, these depend on each other and undercut themselves and yaddayadda post-structuralism. *g* I can think of any number of profics that are anti-commercial or affectively-driven or derivative/responsive to other texts (isn't that what modernism *is*?), just as I can name a whole set of fanfics that aren't libidinally indulgent or very derivative at all (like bodyfic AUs and the like).

Of course, all this *also* depends on what fics we're talking about -- both original and fan. Small-press restrained suburban angst short stories are very different from mass-market supernatural romances are very different from sprawling multi-generational family sagas, you know? Just as fics can be vignettes, virtual series, novellas, slash, gen, whatever.

*sigh*

For *me*? The only significant difference between fanfic and original fic (and I've done both and published both) is that *my* (not all) fanfic is an interpretive argument from/to/about canon. It makes the most sense when read against canon, because it was written as part of a conversation with canon; my fanfic is, in part, a puzzle made out of canon and other pieces.

This isn't the case with other fanfic writers, so...

[executrix.livejournal.com]

replying to glossing: but even if there were a universally agreed-upon definition of AUs, and even if we were talking only about non-AU fic, the way that people see canon and especially characterization is so very different that there's no single thing called canon that can be nailed down!

It just occurred to me that in a sense profic is like RPF: i.e., the "canon" is something like "living in suburban Michigan in the 1970s." There are also a lot of genres where the tropes are so well-established that they might as well have episode numbers--e.g., fantasy trilogies or chicklit or ladlit or cozy detective stories.

[gloss]

there's no single thing called canon that can be nailed down!
I agree entirely; I didn't mean to suggest otherwise.

profic is like RPF
Ahahahahaha, yes.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Replying to gloss' post upthread: true, one of the elements in a fair use defense of fanfic is that it is non-commercial. However, profic is usually written on spec, and if you look at the pitiful advance proffered for the average first novel, and which doesn't even earn out that advance, you can't really call it much of a profit motive.

Another complicating factor is the prevalence of profic series (some of which, in fact, are authorized fanfic, e.g., Trek novelizations)--there's certainly Nancy Drew canon, for example, or Poirot canon or Vorverse or Spenser canon.

And, to an extent, fans are people who would be reading lots of short stories in Fantasy & Science Fiction, or EQMM, or the Saturday Evening Post and dozens of pulps if they were still publishing; being able to read 'em online and free is a bonus, but it sure doesn't help beginning writers not to have lots of markets for their work.

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

profic is like RPF:

*grins*

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Fanfic is derivative work, while profic is supposed to be original.

This is one of those binaries that Pugh talks about at length, and I really agree with her take on it. *Everything* is derivative. Homer already told all the good stories, you know? LOL

I really like what you say here about fanfic as an interpretative argument. One of the reasons I think I find myself participating in fandom with increasing frequency rather than turning my thoughts to my diss and other academic pursuits like I ought, is that fandom really is that conversation that academia purports to be but isn't. When I read and write meta posts and discuss fic in club_joss and read and write fanfic, I really feel like I'm participating in this huge conversation, some parts of which I may not be privy to or even interested in, but I'm still one voice in a chorus. I have no delusions that my academic writing will do anything other than take up space on my hard drive. LOL

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Someone has a "National Write My Goddamn Thesis Month" icon.

I'm only going by hearsay, never having gone to grad school myself, but isn't the whole point of being expected to master the entire literature on your subject, and then of being expected to publish regularly (and probably to present at a lot of conferences) that there's supposed to be a Choir Invisible of collaborating scholars?

[lunabee34.livejournal.com]

Yup. That's the whole point. Except that it's a big fat lie. Even if I get something published, there's really no guarantee that it's going to become part of the conversation in any meaningful way. In order for that to happen, it would have to be responded to by some big name. When it's validated by that person, then it's part of the discussion. And there are so many of us grad students, it's just beyond unlikely that we all are gonna get that recognition.