This is probably going to be a really long post. I wanted to start this blog with a bit of background, some of the things I've been looking at and what's so compelling about them. There's a spread between writing, craft and community. I'm also interested in how people take something that exists and learn by making something else out of it. So this is my disclaimer for being a bit all over the place. But after all, that's the purpose of this blog--to pull some of the ideas together through writing and to find new directions to follow.
I read a lot of children's books and YA literature. A couple of teen novels intrigued me because the authors (or at least their marketers) were making great use of online technologies, which extended the print world in fantastic ways. The book Sloppy Firsts, for example, consists of journal entries by a girl named Jess, and copies of emails and letters she sent to her best friend, Hope, over the year that Hope moved to another state. This is fairly standard for a teen novel, which some authors accomplish better than others. The cool online extension was that "Hope's outbox" was put online, so fans could read Hope's side of the story via her email responses to Jess in an interface that looked just like an email client.
Then there was the The Black Book: Diary of a Teenage Stud series. I felt compelled to read a book from this series when I stumbled across a bboard of girls arguing over whether or not Jonah Black, the protagonist, is real. In true Lemony Snicket style, the book is published as a diary under the name of the protagonist. The book also mentions that Jonah's best friend sets up a website for him. Of course, a website exists under Jonah's name. These girls were analyzing the text, pulling pieces out, researching the town where the story takes place, etc. etc. to support or debunk Jonah's reality. (The website says that the characters are fictional, by the way, and a few girls read the fine print. Some believed it, others had conspiracy theories to explain it :) )
The Gossip Girl series also blends print and online technologies. The series is written by an anonymous society girl (think Paris Hilton) who tells stories about her circle of friends in the novel and updates her website with the latest gossip. This series is obviously fictional since the author's name is on the cover, but still plays with the technologies.
Author/fan relationships have also changed more directly. For example Neil Gaiman writes an addictive blog where he posts random thoughts and life events like a typical journal writer, gives updates on his writing and speaking engagements, posts links that interest him and answers some of the emails he's received from readers.
Then there are the various forms of fan fiction, from single-author novels to collaboratively constructed stories.
Henry Jenkins has written extensively and subtly about fan fiction. He's written more about the traditional kind, one person, one story, although he discusses fan cultures in depth, such as fan gatherings to watch a show or attend conferences. He describes networks of fans who all write and share fiction.
Blog-based role-playing games interest me because they present a new form of story construction. Individuals play characters, as in an RPG, and interact within a community. As Sherry Turkle mentions, characters play out issues in RPGs, or bring things that are happening in their lives into the game to work them out. However, interactions in blog-based RPGs are documented and archived. There's a written history that can be read by others, so it's more public, and individuals can know entire stories even when their characters don't.
These RPGs generally combine a variety of technologies, so characters can maintain personal character blogs, post to community blogs and also IM each other in character, then either post their conversations or refer to events within their journals. For the most part, "traditional" RPGs have been location-based, with characters running into each other and speaking in a particular space. Here, the characters don't just "run into" each other. Run-ins are written in, with stories organized by character instead of space.
Game moderators determine the rules of how characters fit into the author's world. Are the characters canon or can players change the way the author created the character? Can new characters be added? If the game started before the last book/show of the series was released, do they take the author's changes into account in the game or just keep it divergent?
Anyone who writes fanfic makes these decisions before writing. In a shared game environment, these rules must be explicit, along with the consequences of breaking the rules. How will the mods and other players deal with a player who breaks the stated rules?
Many of the blog-based rpg communities have in character and out of character spaces where these kinds of discussions can take place, along with introductions of new characters or clarifications of rules.
As Henry has repeatedly stated, fans participate in critical "reading" of a "text," whether that text is written or viewed. For me, the compelling part of fan fiction is that readers take this material, then create something with it, either on their own or collaboratively. They think about every aspect of a text. In a Harry Potter blog-based RPG for example, players determine everything from an overall class schedule based on the courses their characters are taking to how that character will be represented in a visual icon. Will the movie character be used or some other famous person or maybe an anime-style sketch of the character?
Fan communities also have a means of disseminating rules and jargon. There are some sites devoted to providing definitions for newcomers as to what "canon" means or "slash," what comprises a "mary sue" character and what makes them so terrible. Someone new to the world of fanfic, or at least to the fanfic community, can use those as a reference to enter into the language of the community.
There's also a fairly stringent review process for many who share fanfic online. Some spaces allow reader feedback, such as fanfiction.net, so readers can tell fanfic authors exactly what is good or bad about a story. Some websites provide space for fanfic readers to post the worst fanfic they can find so others can tear them apart while others extol favorite fanfic authors (besides creators of the original world).
On a slightly different note, I started to look at craft communities in relation to fanfic communities and found a number of intersecting points. There are numerous online communities popping up around crafts--from dolling to knitting (which of course is extremely popular right now). Again, some spaces provide information, such as "how to knit" or "how to make a doll" while others share portfolios of what they've created or patterns to make your own. Many of these spaces are blogs, as well.
Naturally this is different from fanfic since there's a different type of craft involved. Issues of copyright still emerge as people discuss ownership of patterns or icons they've created. The nature of the shared world is different, knitters don't share a fictional works, although participants are very aware of being part of some type of subculture with its own literature and referents.
One remarkable aspect of online craft communities is the cross-generational nature. Teens to grandmothers participate within this space, teaching and learning from each other. Fanfic is cross-generational, although I don't think the spread is nearly as varied, although I may be wrong about that. Blog-based RPGs seem to be populated mostly by teens, whereas individually written fanfic seems to vary more. Other forms of collaborative fanfic, such as taking turns adding to a story or "the letter game" where people create a story by exchanging letters in character, seem to occur within age groups. This makes sense since direct collaborations occur between peers. However, with craft communities at least, the members of the community are predominantly female. Many of the blog-based RPGs seem to have more females, as well, althouth I can't back that statement with hard fact. This is just through playing and reading OOC blogs on various games. I don't know the break-up of the more traditional fan fiction writing community.
The craft communities provide interesting spaces for learning and also support. Some people have created software for making dolls or for creating new knitting patterns or calculating adjustments if different gauge needles are used or different yarn. Others have provided step-by-step instructions with illustrations on learning a new craft, while others teach through online videos or animations. The support comes from others within the community with varied experiences. Experts can discuss problems while beginners can share frustrations or ask for help. Distance/online learning specialists and researchers can learn quite a bit from observing these types of communities and what makes them such successful learning environments.
Okay, that's all for now. Following posts will focus on one interesting aspect of this stuff or another. Please comment on where you think I'm being vague, superficial or silly and what you think I should follow-up on. Also, comments on methodology would be very helpful since so far I've just been observing various communities and would like to do a real study. Feel free to email me with comments if you don't want to go public, although I'd appreciate public comments that others can respond to :)
