Doctor Who fan fiction
From Fan History Wiki
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
Fans, like Nikki White, had begun to write fan fiction based on the show during its first season on television. (White) The stories these early writers created remained in their drawers or were privately distributed by hand. It would be a number of years before they would be published in fanzines. One of the influences in getting them out of the drawers was the influence of Star Trek fans. By the 1970s, they were clearly a force in the community.
By the early 1980s, Star Trek fen had migrated to the Doctor Who. In doing so, they brought with them publishing traditions, critique habits and their terminology. This included use of the term Mary Sue, the concept of slash, etc.
Graeme Burk offered a synopsis of the 1990s Doctor Who fan fiction community in the article Doctor Who Fandom: An A to Z dated July 20, 2000:
During the 1990s, the authors of the various forms of Doctor Who fiction alone are responsible for Doctor Who as we know it these days. As it's a form of Doctor Who without actors, directors, set designers, etc., the authors alone get to be in the limelight for making the series continue to happen in some form. At US conventions, in fact, they were treated like rock stars by fans, which can explain the yearly migration from Heathrow Airport to a hotel in Van Nuys, California every February. Online and off, fans are enchanted by the authorial community's seeming foreignness, their charm and the fact that one of their own (more or less their own age) has managed to directly influence the ongoing story of "official" Doctor Who. Fans collect their books, defer the balances of power on newsgroups over to them, and follow them on-line as virtual groupies. More than all this, though, fans want to be them, and they keep sending their scribblings chock full of angst and continuity to the last Lawrence Miles book to the slush pile in Wood Lane in the hope that they too can receive adulation via e-mail and a hospitality suite at the Airtel Plaza Hotel.
[edit] Archives
The Doctor Who fan fiction community utilizes a number of fan fiction archives. They have generally fallen into five categories: Author created personal archives, mailing list or Usenet archives of stories posted to them, multi-fandom fan fiction archives, general Doctor Who fan fiction archives, and specific Doctor Who character, pairing, kink or other interest archives.
[edit] General Doctor Who fan fiction archives
The following are Doctor Who fan fiction archives which were around in August 2000: XSF [1], and One Way Ticket to the End of the Line. [2]
In 2003, Panatropic.Net Doctor Who.Creative Archives was the "principal archive of Doctor Who fanfiction on the 'net, including submissions to Alt.DrWho.Creative." [3]
A Teaspoon and an Open Mind [4] opened in August 2003.
[edit] Multifandom fan fiction archives
There are a number of multifandom archives which house Doctor Who fan fiction. They include FanFiction.Net, FanLib and FicWad. FanFiction.Net is the oldest and largest archive of this type, having been founded on October 15, 1998, and
[edit] Awards
Fans have created a number of awards for fan fiction writers. Below is a partial timeline of various awards, sorted by year, given out in the Doctor Who fan fiction community.
[edit] 1995
[edit] CDA and COPPA
The Communication Decency Act of 1998 was the first attempt by the United States congress to address pornography on the Internet. The impact of this legislation was felt in the Doctor Who fandom. Moderators of mailing lists which might have adult content made a concentrated effort to keep minors out in order to protect themselves from legal trouble. This attitude of trying to lock minors out would not end up around 2001, as a result of pressure from archives like FanFiction.Net which readily made available adult content to minors.
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 required that "a Web site operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety online." [5] The legislation defined a child as a person under 13. Most sites, in order to be compliant and not collect personal information, as defined by the US government, from children under 13, did not allow thirteen year olds to join. This meant that some sites, like FanFiction.Net and LiveJournal which allowed members of all ages to join, banned and did not allow new members under the age of 13. If you were found to have lied about your age, they would suspend your account.
[edit] Drabbles
According to TheForce.Net's Fan Fiction Archive: Lexicon, the drabble craze started around 1987. This tradition was based on a Monty Python skit. It started in the Doctor Who fan fiction community before spreading to the Star Trek, Star Wars and other fan fiction communities by the end of the year.
By September of 1993, this had become such a mainstay among Whovians that a professional book of Doctor Who drabbles was published. David Howe and David Ware were the editors of the this book aptly titled "Drabble Who."
[edit] Fanzines
Fanzines were a popular way to publish and distribute Doctor Who fan fiction that dates back to the 1970s. This tradition continues on to the present, with Doctor Who fanzines containing fan fiction continuing to be published and sold at conventions like MediaWest.
Doctor Who fan fiction appeared in several types of fanzines. The most common were fanzines dedicated to fan fiction and in fanclub zines. And example of fan club who published fan fiction in their fanzine was the Midlands based fan club SRS. The organization produced a fanzine called Think Tank which contained a number of examples of fan fiction.
See also Doctor Who fanzines for a list of Doctor Who fanzines published by year.
[edit] Historical Community Size
The size of the community fluctuates as migration happens, depending on things like canon release and other variables. Below are fan fiction oriented archive and community sizes as of specific dates.
[edit] July 2007
As of July 25, 2007, there are 9796 stories and 1485 authors on A Teaspoon and an Open Mind and 7,352 stories on FanFiction.Net.
[edit] December 2007
As of December 15, 2007, there are 412 works listed on FanWorksFinder [6], 0 on FanWorks.Org [7] and 16 on MediaMiner.Org. [8]
[edit] February 2008
As of February 14, 2008, there are 9,406 stories on FanFiction.Net, [9] 82 stories on FicWad [10], 137 stories, 10 videos, 2 poems, 2 images and 1 screenplay were on FanLib. [11]
[edit] The Internet
Bryn Mawr College had an active fan fiction community using the campus's VAX network. Fandoms represented include Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Star Trek and Transformers. [12] [13]- group fiction.txt This was one of the earliest appearances of Doctor Who fan fiction on the Internet.
[edit] LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a popular place for a segment of the Doctor Who fan fiction community to share their stories. The fan fiction community that exists on LiveJournal is served by a number of different communities.
One type of community are multifandom communities like allcrossovers and beta_search, both founded in 2003.
Another type of community which serves the Doctor Who community are general Who fan fiction communities. Below is a partial timeline of community creation for general fan fiction communities.
- On September 6, 2003, the dwfiction [14] LiveJournal community was created.
There are also LiveJournal communities which serve fan fiction reading and writing shippers. Below is a partial timeine of the creation of the creation.
- On January 19, 2006, the otp_probably [15] Doctor/Romana livejournal community was created.
- On May 25, 2006, the fireplace_man [16] Doctor/Reinette livejournal community was created.
- On June 15, 2006, the two_love [17] Second Doctor livejournal community created.
People have created reference communities, to help writers do research for their stories. Below is a partial timeline for this type of community.
- January 22nd: dw_britglish [18] livejournal community created, for britpicking help for DW fic.
See also Doctor Who LiveJournal communities.
[edit] Usenet
In 1990, there was debate about the creation of the following Usenet groups: rec.arts.sf-creative, and rec.arts.sf-creative.d. Some of the fandoms that were suggested as being served by the creation of these groups included Star Trek, Doctor Who, Dune, Buck Rogers and Berserkers.
On May 23, 1993, alt.drwho.creative was created for the purpose of Doctor Who fans having a place to post their Doctor Who fan fiction. Prior to this, fan fiction had been posted to alt.drwho and elsewhere. By 2005, most of the Usenet based fan fiction activity had stopped.
[edit] Media References
- In February 1998, Sci-Fi Entertainment ran an article on fan fiction. It referenced the Doctor Who fan fiction community. An extract of a relevant section of the article says:
- There's also high-volume activity associated with Star Trek (referred to here as a aggregate for all four series, although currently Voyager seems to be leading to the greatest fanfic response ) and Lois and Clark: The New Adventure of Superman. But there are other, too: Star Wars, Babylon 5, Sliders, Xena, Dr. Who, Quantum Leap, Highlander, SeaQuest DSV, Beauty and the Beast - all of these popular science fiction and fantasy series have sites dedicated to the stories and characters of those universes.
[edit] Migration
Doctor Who fan fiction writers came from others fandoms and went to other fandoms. As writers traveled from community to community, they carried their practices and histories with them.
Doctor Who fans were involved early on in the X-Files fandom. This can be seen in August 1994, when the Doctor Who fan Cliff Chen posted one of the first X-Files fan fiction stories to the Internet. It was a Doctor Who, Anne Rice, X-Files crossover. The story was titled "Birds of a Feather."
[edit] Non-English Fan Fiction Communities
[edit] French
On May 10, 2006, Not happily ever after by Sunny angel became the first French language Doctor Who story published on FanFiction.Net. [19][20]
[edit] Norwegian
On May 28, 2007, Betrayal Svik by Angelus-Cantus became the first Norwegian language Doctor Who story published on FanFiction.Net. [21][22]
[edit] Portuguese
On July 20, 2007, Martha Jones by Mica-Chan became the first Portuguese language Doctor Who story published on FanFiction.Net. [23][24]
[edit] Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a recurring problem in the Doctor Who fandom. The problem appears to have gotten worse in the 2000s as the community welcomed new members and it became easier to do with out fearing repercussions.
[edit] Slash
During the 1990s, slash had a relatively small fanbase inside the Doctor Who fandom.
Bog Off 86.3% fanzine published in 1994. It contained slash, which at that time represented a small portion of the fandom. (Sarah J Groenewegen, [25])
The slash community began to gain size, visibility, acceptance and momentum in the 2000s with the creation of communities like dw_slash which was founded on April 21, 2005.
[edit] Influential Stories
A Quiet Night Out
- On January 23, 1998, Tyler Dion posted A Quiet Night Out to the newsgroup alt.drwho.creative. This was the story that introduced This Time Round, a Subreality-style alternate universe that has remained popular with the newsgroup's authors to this day. See the This Time Round FAQ for more details.
[edit] External Links
- Doctor Who fan fiction: FanWorksFinder
- A Teaspoon and an Open Mind : an archive for Doctor Who stories
