Fri, 9 Dec 2022 20:10:02 +1100
Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>
<https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/12/27/131111/online-fan-fiction-learning-communities/>
"When I was 10, I was a lonely, geeky girl, a first-generation Latina growing
up in a small town in Indiana. I happened across J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy
trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, and immediately became enraptured by the
richly woven world of elves, orcs, and small but heroic hobbits fighting
against impossible odds to combat a powerful enemy.
But one thing disturbed me: the lack of female characters. The main party of
adventurers accompanying the hobbit protagonist, Frodo, didn’t contain a single
female. Not only did I feel shut out—the way I sometimes did in school when my
teachers told me that girls weren’t supposed to be good at math—but it offended
my sense of fairness. Surely girls and women could have adventures and take on
risky challenges too?
So I sat down with a spiral notebook and rewrote the story, re-gendering a
couple of the main characters and adding new scenes, such as one where a female
hobbit devised a clever plan to foil the Balrog, a gruesome monster who threw
one of my favorite characters, the wizard Gandalf, into a bottomless pit.
By reimagining Tolkien’s fantasy world, I was creating a place where someone
like me could feel at home. Writing my story gave me comfort. It also taught me
about the effort involved in creating a narrative. I never shared that spiral
notebook with anyone, but if I’d been able to get constructive feedback on it,
I might have learned even more about writing.
What I didn’t realize then is I was writing fan fiction—a story based on
characters or settings from another’s work—and that I was not alone. Fan
fiction has many literary precedents. John Milton wrote Paradise Lost using
characters from the Bible. Shakespeare retold ancient folk stories. Today,
millions of young people are writing and sharing fan fiction on a variety of
websites. They are giving and receiving feedback and teaching each other how to
write. They’re not only learning about writing; they’re finding community,
establishing identity, and exploring new trends that have not yet found
mainstream acceptance."
Via Esther Schindler.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
"When I was 10, I was a lonely, geeky girl, a first-generation Latina growing
up in a small town in Indiana. I happened across J.R.R. Tolkien’s fantasy
trilogy, The Lord of the Rings, and immediately became enraptured by the
richly woven world of elves, orcs, and small but heroic hobbits fighting
against impossible odds to combat a powerful enemy.
But one thing disturbed me: the lack of female characters. The main party of
adventurers accompanying the hobbit protagonist, Frodo, didn’t contain a single
female. Not only did I feel shut out—the way I sometimes did in school when my
teachers told me that girls weren’t supposed to be good at math—but it offended
my sense of fairness. Surely girls and women could have adventures and take on
risky challenges too?
So I sat down with a spiral notebook and rewrote the story, re-gendering a
couple of the main characters and adding new scenes, such as one where a female
hobbit devised a clever plan to foil the Balrog, a gruesome monster who threw
one of my favorite characters, the wizard Gandalf, into a bottomless pit.
By reimagining Tolkien’s fantasy world, I was creating a place where someone
like me could feel at home. Writing my story gave me comfort. It also taught me
about the effort involved in creating a narrative. I never shared that spiral
notebook with anyone, but if I’d been able to get constructive feedback on it,
I might have learned even more about writing.
What I didn’t realize then is I was writing fan fiction—a story based on
characters or settings from another’s work—and that I was not alone. Fan
fiction has many literary precedents. John Milton wrote Paradise Lost using
characters from the Bible. Shakespeare retold ancient folk stories. Today,
millions of young people are writing and sharing fan fiction on a variety of
websites. They are giving and receiving feedback and teaching each other how to
write. They’re not only learning about writing; they’re finding community,
establishing identity, and exploring new trends that have not yet found
mainstream acceptance."
Via Esther Schindler.
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
