Fanfiction is a genre on the rise. Internet has made things much easier for it: it has given it an organized, concentrated audience —that is, fandoms—, and also the means to reach out to those readers. Websites like fanfiction.net o Wattpad are swarming with fan-written stories based on books, films, or TV shows, even starring famous artists. Some of these texts can reach up to one million read (or sometimes more!)
But what happens when fanfiction leaves the Internet and becomes a book? These’s no shortage of cases of women writers who became famous for their fanfiction and, thanks to that, signed up with major publishers. Maybe the story of E.L. James, author of 50 Shades of Grey is the most common example, partly also because her success showed the industry this market’s potential. But she is by no means the only success story there is.
What Is Fanfiction?
Let’s start from the beginning: a fanfiction can be any type of fiction written by fans about preexisting works or people. In general, these productions have a place within a fandom, which is a community of aficionados (the word is a mixture between the words “fan” and “kingdom”.) This definition is necessarily vague and problematic, because the intertextuality and quotation are mechanisms that are very incorporated into literature in general. If we were to follow these rules to the letter, Virgil’s Aeneid would be a fanfic of the Iliad, for example.
Truth is all genres have blurred limits. In any case, in terms of market and circulation, we can place the beginnings of modern fanfiction in the mid-twentieth century, a moment of emergence of the many fanzines dedicated to science fiction that circulated in the Anglo-Saxon world at that time. In several of these publications appeared stories written by fans, starring the characters of their favorite fictions in some cases.
Fanfiction Predecessors
Throughout history, there are many cases of enthusiastic readers who decide to become writers (that is, at some point, the origin story of all authors.) It is known that the second part of Don Quixote, published ten years after the first, was largely driven by an apocryphal second volume, written by an unknown author. We can assume that a fan of the novel, not content with the ending Cervantes had given it, had decided to continue it (and make some money in the process, why not.) For his part, Cervantes was well aware of this false sequel, to the point that, in the authentic second part, the characters read it!
A little closer in time, we can find in Sherlock Holmes another character related to fanfiction. Hundreds of writers have appropriated the character for their own works, even while Arthur Conan Doyle was still alive. These appropriations were largely triggered by the death of the fictional character in 1893: thousands of fans were outraged by the author’s decision ―Arthur Conan Doyle even received death threats― and decided to continue with the work by their own means. The pressure was such that, ten years later, Sherlock Holmes was officially revived, in the suspiciously timely story “The Adventure of the Empty House.”
Fanfiction: Success Stories
Many writers started out by writing fanfics. In some cases, it was just a medium where they could make their first literary experiments; in others, fanfiction was a space where they gained popularity, so much so that they attrackted the attention of large publishers. In any case, it is odd that for these texts to get published without any changes, for that would infringe copywright. It is expected that authors will modify it substantially, of even publish something entirely different, taking advantage of their existing community of followers.
E.L. James – Fifty Shades of Grey
Fifty Shades of Grey is the emblematic case of a fanfic turned into a book. This novel by E.L. James originally starred te characters of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, but also included explicit sex secnes (something very common in fanfiction.) For this worldwide success, the text was heavily rewritten to avoid copyright issues.
Cassandra Clare – The Shadowhunter Chronicles
Judith Lewis wrote the Shadowhunters saga under the pseudonym Cassandra Clare. Under an almost identical name ―Cassandra Claire―, she published The Draco Trilogy, a fanfiction based on the Harry Potter universe that was very popular in the early 2000s. Lewis deleted all her fanfiction from the Internet shortly before publishing her first standalone novel, City of Bones.
Anna Todd – After
After’s series won a lot of popularity recently thanks to its film adaptation. Initiallym the novel was a Wattpad fanfiction starring Harry Styles, one of the ex members of One Direction. Logically, for its official publication, Anna Todd had to change the character’s name to Hardin Scorr.
Lois Mcmaster Bujold – Vorkosigan
Lois McMaster Bujold is one of the most decorated science fiction authors in the world. She has four Hugo awards for best novel, all ―except one― received within her Vorkosigan series. None of these texts has arisen specifically as fanfic, but Bujold has always defended the genre, in part because that is where she originated as a writer. During the 1960s, when modern fanfiction was just beginning, Bujold wrote and published several stories based on the Star Trek universe or starring Sherlock Holmes.
Conclusion
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