What Fandom Has Meant to Me

[paulamcg]

The first challenge: introduce yourself in your own space. This turned out to be for the second challenge: In your own space, talk about your fannish history!



Thanks to pauraque I’ve understood what I want my introduction post to be like. Not all about my Harry Potter – or rather Remus Lupin – fanfic as such, or about me and my wider interests. Just about what fandom has meant to me. My history.

I was… well, around canon-era Remus’s age when I discovered the fandom. I’d started writing fiction when I was ten, shifted to poetry as a young adult, made the mistake of having a family – and that lead me to not only putting writing on hiatus, but to enjoying children’s books and fantasy worlds again. I’d missed Professor Lupin after PoA and started imagining an opening scene with him saving Harry from the Dursleys’ before I got to read OotP. Moved by OotP – and moved by and partly disappointed with Remus and Sirius’s roles in the book – I yearned to discuss it, googled for Harry Potter, and found my first fandom home.

The Snitch Forums hosted discussions and included a section for fanfiction, towards which I was suspicious. After a month someone sent me a personal message, begging me to read her fic. It was a simple scene with Harry waiting for his OWL results. Immediately after leaving some encouraging feedback, I composed the opening I had imagined before reading OotP, and now set it in July 1996. That was how I started writing a Remus-POV novel, which I was to complete seven years later.

The interaction on the Snitch Forums turned me into a fiction writer who believes that fiction like all art is finalised only in active recipients’ interpretation. Most of us posted WiPs, and readers commenting on a fanfic thread pumped the fic to the top of the fanfic section, more visible for everyone. (The second page was called the graveyard.) There was competition for attention, and reciprocity, and solidarity. We wrote long emails to each other and gathered in a chat room to both chat and to brainstorm. Oh, I miss the friends I made (and whose contacts I lost when the Forums were eventually closed). There was a crack fic in which some of us most well-known writers featured as characters, entering Hogwarts.

Yes, I became a well-known one in those small circles. Some writers, when posting a new installment, thanked those who had commented on the previous one. I started the practice of including a detailed reply to everyone who’d given me feedback. And I read all kinds of fics, offered encouragement and – discreetly in personal messages – constructive criticism. I started discussion threads about tense-consistency, perspective, lycanthropy… I got ever more enthusiastic about building the community, after as soon as in summer 2004 we lost all our contents because of a hacker. I reposted my fic quickly and remained one of the few “old” writers still active.

At the same time, in autumn 2004, seeking more readers for my first short stories, I discovered FictionAlley. That platform (although I don’t think we used such a term then) made me more ambitious and discerning about the quality of fic. You couldn’t even get your fic uploaded if you followed an alternative way of punctuating dialogue or didn’t capitalise canon terms in the same way JKR did.

There were review exchange threads, where you could choose what to read and comment on, and offer your own fic. I wrote and recieved long, detailed, not totally positive reviews. I found excellent fic, with amazing world-building and JKR’s minor characters developed like OCs. Praised a fic I adored and, sure that the writer would appreciate mine, waited for reciprocity, and got harsh advice not to ever write a poor Remus or first-person POV – and cried, and decided to go on doing just that but doing it better. On FA there were discussion threads, named like diesel-engined ships: M/S… That’s where I found Wolfstar and realised I wasn’t the only one to interpret and extrapolate that Remus and Sirius were lovers.

The Snitch was not slash-friendly, and I felt ashamed of that afterwards. I didn’t particularly like romance-centred fic (although I read anything), and I explained – even declared it, jokingly – that I had more than enough romance in my real life. There was a lot that was wrong for me in my real life, and writing fic was not just escapist but also a way of processing it. My early writing was a gen novel and short fic mainly set in periods when Sirius was physically absent from Remus’s life. That’s how I wanted, or needed to write back then. But I also advocated accepting slash on the Snitch, and eventually succeeded.

Eventually I also gained some recognition on FA. A Sirius’s-first-person-POV-and-present-tense story depicting his post-Azkaban mind and subtly referring to childhood experiences of sexual abuse got Niffled. And quite as significantly, I participated in inspiring conversations on a thread called something like Adult Male Writers’ Lounge – where you didn’t have to be a male (and I knew I wasn’t) to become a member, but still… Could you imagine a group named like that now!

One of those “males” introduced live journal to me in early 2005. There it all turned into building your own space and trying to attract people to notice it and enter. So as to be able to post also in R/S communities, I started labeling my fic Remus/Sirius slash, although I still would have preferred to keep the subtly depicted relationship open for readers’ interpretations. I got invited to an exclusive genfic community Omniocular and greedily tried to pimp my fic as both slash and gen.

I never gained a huge following, but made loyal friends, for instance with an R/S writer who did have a huge readership but was always worried if a fic got a less enthusiastic reception (like fewer than 100 comments or so). I guess we could never be satisfied. I still enjoyed writing about other people’s fic, but chose to read less and less widely, according to my preference, low-rated R/S, and mainly by writers who wrote really well but were not too popular and had time to reply to the comments. Live journal interaction inspired me to writing more short stories, while I was still wotking painstakingly on my novel, which I could share only on the Snitch (because I decided it needed editing and I wanted to publish it on lj and FA only upon completion).

Then, in summer 2007, a brilliantly wise and sensitive reader started falling in love, first with my fiction, and becoming a very special person who’d change my life. In the end, only some of the desired change took place, and the only happy end was that I was inspired and supported to complete the novel in summer 2010. Around that time I found femslash and fic about older HP characters, and got amazing feedback on all the chapters of the novel on my live journal from an excellent writer of such HP fic. Finally I even got to read and praise a fic about an asexual character, but that was because I requested it in a fest.

I left the fandom, feeling that there weren’t interest in fic which didn’t comply with HBP, DH and JKR’s statements outside the novels, and that I had nothing to add to the single, extensive story to which I’d devoted myself for years. At least I’d got rid of also the wrong kind of romance in my life. Some burdens remained, but I wrote only diary and sought solace in learning some Polish, then some belly-dancing, watercolour painting, playing a computer game (Witcher the Wild Hunt), playing the kantele (a string instrument), making origami, acting in a community theatre troop – new hobbies, but no passion like… A year ago I read through all my fanfic and still loved it. At least I haven’t lost the stories, although I lost the friends.

When I caught myself crafting a scene with a rather miserable Remus (still poor, against that advice given to me fifteen years earlier), I decided to post it on my live journal but was not surprised there was no sign of possible interaction.

Now when I’ve started connecting again, I try not to be too much focused on desperately desiring readers for my fic. I hope I’ll get a chance to offer something in a community.

Comments

[fadedwings]

What a journey you've had through this fandom. I wish you well on your next leg of it.

[paulamcg]

Thank you! I went to your journal, and… squirrels! And HP, too, is there among your fandom (not current loves though). Unless you, as a mod, get too many offers, I’d love to add you.

[fadedwings]

I'm glad you enjoyed the squirrels! You are more than welcome to add me. I will add you back :) I do love HP, I'm just not very active in the fandom, though I do read HP fic from time to time, I've never written in that fandom.

[paulamcg]

Yay, friends! And a squirrel icon! And I’m glad you love and read HP!

[pauraque]

Wow, this is REALLY interesting to me. As you saw in my post, I only ever participated in HP through LJ and DW. I did know there were other forums somewhere out there -- I'd heard their names -- but I knew almost nothing about them. A lot of fans on LJ were pretty dismissive of those other places and told me I wasn't missing anything by not going there, which makes complete sense now that I understand they weren't always welcoming to slash. Most of my friends on LJ were slashers, so they would have had no interest in venues where they would have had to fight an uphill battle to even post their work.

The top-down moderation probably wouldn't have worked well for them (or me) either. The genius of LJ was in everyone having their own space where they could post what they wanted, so that readers could curate their experience and set their own standards (both of content and of literary merit).

readers commenting on a fanfic thread pumped the fic to the top of the fanfic section, more visible for everyone

This is so foreign to me! When I was on mailing lists and Usenet, it was generally considered bad form to post feedback in public, partly because it would bump fics for more attention. You were supposed to send feedback privately, and you'd only find out which authors and fics were popular by hearing people talk about them in discussion threads and seeing them listed on recs pages. When I came to LJ, it was an adjustment just to get used to public comments on fics. I can only imagine how different it would have been for fics that didn't get immediate attention to basically fall off the radar.

Male Writers’ Lounge – where you didn’t have to be a male (and I knew I wasn’t) to become a member

This also really puzzles me! What was the purpose of it?

Thanks for sharing all of this. It's fascinating how we all have our own fannish stories shaped by the places we went and the people we met.

[paulamcg]

You’re now making me ever more glad that I’ve shared this. Your post inspired me to write my fandom history partly for myself and partly because I knew that there was at least one person out there who’d be interested. After replying here, I’m going back to reread your post and probably ask some questions.

Having written this I asked myself if I lost my fandom friends because I kept moving on. But no, I didn’t leave the Snitch or FA, just became active somewhere else, too, and then those earlier places got more and more quiet. It seems people didn’t move to the other direction. Back then I didn’t think of such terms as “own space”, and only now do I see clearly all the benefits of live journal (by the way, I remember never capitalising that name).

As for bumping fic, there was an etiquette on the Snitch. You were not supposed to bump anyone else’s fic by commenting on the same installment again with only “Please post more”, or your fic without an actual story update. But some popular writers got comments and further bumping when they posted to only complain about their writer’s block or other ailments. Oh, am I still bitter! That was the situation when I arrived, but perhaps all public commenting on fics was still new, although the forum format was good for discussing anything – and cruel to those whose (fic or other) initiative got buried on the graveyard. It’s really interesting to learn that some fanfic writers started when/where all feedback was private.

You make me also realise that my path through those platforms meant fighting for attention, proving the correctness and literary value of my fic, fighting for my slash – and its subtlety and ambiguity – to be accepted. And confronting puzzling phenomena…

I’m not sure I can remember clearly or if I ever found out, but I think the Adult Male Writers’ Lounge could have been originally just a discussion thread started by two blokes. It was no official section or anything, and perhaps the thread was always restarted with that name as a joke, when like-minded people kept posting there in a discussion on topics that interested typically more mature fans (social and political aspects of the Wizarding world, characters like Mundungus, also in m/m pairings). They (we) may have had stereotypical ideas of other fans and their interests, when it seemed that many threads were dominated by squeeing about teen-age romance. (I was a bit disappointed when on lj mature seemed to mean only explicit sex.)

Comparing my fannish story with other people’s stories can help me understand differences in our fannish behaviour. Perhaps my very first experiences in the fandom have made public recognition so important to me that while I’m somehow ashamed of my need for feedback, I’ve expected all fanfic writers to value detailed discussion on their fic in the same way. Thank you so much for this interaction!

[sperrywink]

Nice fannish journey. I remember FictionAlley, but never really hung out there since I found it confusing. I started my life at LJ, so I missed the mailing list days.

Sounds like you found some nice hobbies in the intervening years, but I'm happy you found fandom again and are hoping to build readership and community.

[paulamcg]

Thank you!

In fact, I, too, never experienced mailing lists. Participating in a small forum with sections for discussion on HP canon and – also discussion on – fanfic was my first interaction in the internet. Now you make me wonder how I learnt to navigate FictionAlley so quickly. It was a more demanding environment in several ways, as it was both forums (FA Park) and a strictly moderated archive. But that was an era of learning for me. (I had suddenly become a writer of fiction in English a year earlier, in September 2003, at the same time when I was writing the thesis for my second degree.)

Yes, a rewarding journey, which entailed also struggle, disappointment, perseverance. And the hobbies might be nice, but I’ve never taken them as seriously as my writing. I’m glad I’ve found my way back. However, I hardly have high hopes for readership, just enjoy any bit of interaction.

[cerberusia]

This is such a fascinating look at fandom before LJ really took hold - thank you so much for sharing it!

I started on Mugglenet's fanfic archive, though the few fics I posted have been thankfully lost to the mists of time. I only really got into posting fic when I got onto LJ, though I remember I did look at FictionAlley - maybe even registered an account? I remember being a bit intimidated, and I don't think I ever posted.

R/S always makes me think of Azkaban's Lair, where I whiled away many happy hours reading Wolfstar.

I'm glad you've come back to fandom, after that break ♥

[paulamcg]

Oh, I’m glad you’ve found this interesting!

I remember the name Mugglenet, but I was never active there, hardly remember taking a look. I was so old and took my writing immediately so seriously that I didn’t want lose any of my fics to the mists of time. And now you made me remember how sad I was when losing the first year’s comments on my fic, when the Snitch was hacked! After that I’ve always saved all feedback on my computer.

FictionAlley was intimidating, yes. I remember feeling very brave when I submitted my first short story and then offered it on a review thread. You bring back more memories.

But did I ever find my way to Azkaban’s Lair? I wonder why not. I didn’t like reading high-rated fic, but still… I wish all those forums and archives could still be there even if not active.

Thank you. Perhaps I’ll learn to know these new platforms. At least DW which is mercifully similar to lj.

[kelly_chambliss]

Fascinating post! I love reading about people's fanfic journeys.

I came fairly late to HP (2008), when LJ and IJ seemed to be the dominant platforms. When I was in the first flush of my HP fanfic obsession and was desperate to find good fic, I read stories at other archives like FictionAlley and Petulant Poetess and Sycophant Hex. But I never participated in discussions there. I remember the first time I left a piece of feedback on a Minerva story that someone had posted on LJ -- I was quite nervous, not sure if it would be considered rude or inappropriate to barge uninvited into someone's personal journal. But they responded nicely, and then I found the fest where they had originally posted the story, and I was on my way to finding out how it all worked. (Very different from my first fandom experience, Star Trek, which was conducted on usernet newsgroups when I first started and then in specialized YahooGroups and other platforms, where you joined groups based on their stated focus, whether specific pairings or genres or whatever.

[paulamcg]

Thank you!

It’s interesting how our different fandom backgrounds affected the way we experienced entering LJ HP fandom. I’m eager to read the longer version of your fannish history.

I was lucky that you arrived on LJ in time before I completed my novel and left, and that you were still looking around and gave a try to my fic, too. As far as I can remember, it was to a big extent thanks to you that I paid some more attention to femslash and older-people fic before I left. But not enough to join Hoggywartyxmas when it was founded.

I’m happy to be here now, although during these couple of weeks I’ve also wondered why I do this to myself. I seek interaction through my fiction and get disappointed. But I’m determined to enjoy other ways in which I can participate in the community. And after these fest-season efforts, perhaps I can go back to being enthusiastic about writing my fic in the way I did from February to October.

Oh, I wanted to add (and perhaps it’s at least as good to do it here as in my reply on journal) that I thought I might comment on every Hoggywartyxmas entry, but then I got a bit less enthusiastic when at the same time small_gifts got more and more quiet. I’m sorry if I haven’t even read your fic, but I think I’ll go back after the reveals.