Now with the (widespread, but hardly universal) access to the Internet shared by writers and readers, actual access is a much simpler process. But I would say that figuratively, it remains an important element of the definition. Work that is marketed to a mass unknown audience (and by mass, I mean commercial audience of even a modest size), still differs from what is generated within fan communities through its presentation, its content, and its ability to be accessed by people who do not possess an insider’s knowledge of the topic. A lot of fanfic is still written by people with a known or imagined audience of just a few dozen people. Regardless of skill, it often contains a sort of informality in terms of presentation.

Also, while sexual content was frequently a strong divider in the past, marking fan content as separate from “official” content, the spread of fan fiction online, as well as the boom in sexual sites in general, is leading to a tentative but, I am positive, growing entrance by large commercial entities into the erotic writing market.

At the same time, content is often inhibited by what the local readership is likely to prefer reading, what they have likely already read, and even the debates they continue to have over the canon content. So I do think that authorial intent is important, but I feel that this is often seen within the text itself. Most fan fiction is quickly recognized as an “other” thing by people not immersed in the community — and rightly so, I believe. Commercial content doesn’t tend to produce such a strong reaction.

That some fan writers are essentially writing commercial work for a local audience is interesting largely in how it reveals the increasingly porous nature of amateur and professional work, but I don’t think it changes what fan fiction essentially is.

And thank you! It’s a fascinating and living debate, isn’t it? 🙂

However, the community I was posting to was a “Figure Federation” community, where people “acted out” their storylines using their action figures and then transcribed the results. And when I casually mentioned to someone that I didn’t follow this guideline, simply writing without the assistance of my boxes filled with plastic wrestlers, it resulted in a forum-wide debate which revealed clear distinctions between textual comparison (in that what I was writing was not fundamentally different from what others were writing) and the methods of creation.

In this example, the community expanded to include “Storyline” federations, but there was every chance that it could have created a spinoff forum, and that this difference could have outright divided the group based entirely on community reception rather than authorial intentions.

While larger organizations like the OTW facilitate these sorts of debate, micro-debates happen within fandoms on a regular basis, and I think authorial intent and self-definition can very easily become less important than reception and interpretation (although we can all agree that the lines are often blurred, and that mode of writing is woefully inadequate for such clarity).

Really compelling analysis, Kristina, and the fantastic discussion is evidence of that.

And yes, legal and economic positions do make a difference. Which is why I don’t worry that such a definition would suddenly open up the floodgates to let in all the tie-in novelists and professional fan writers.

[I think the biggest worry might indeed be original fiction (i.e., slash) writers using the site as a form of advertisement. But then fandom has been doing this for a long time as well, and I know I’ve followed writers to their original fiction…]

I think your question hits on a really important point, namely that the lines aren’t nice and clear, and may change over time. My personal position would be with Derek below, namely that the legal protection afforded “authorized fan fiction” and the often economic benefits do substantially change the status.

I’ve long tried to pinpoint aesthetic markers (Liz Woledge has a great essay where she compares fanfic turned profic and analyzes the stylistic differences), but in the ends, I don’t think they exist. Or rather, the spectrum of both is so large that it’s impossible to tell from the text alone a lot of times. At that point, I think the context, the paratext, the author situating the text really do make a difference.

You’ve actually hit the nail on the head with your author question. I spent many years battling Wimsatt and Beardsley’s affective fallacy via reader’response, reception aesthetics, audience studies. I’m more and more beginning to wonder whether we may need to slay the intentional fallacy as well. I know! Readers interpret texts. But if you consider just how important paratexts are and how much different authorial positions do affect our readings…I’m seriously wondering whether the authorial position/intent might need to be folded back into the text, after all.

But these are very tentative thoughts, so feel free to complicate them with me…