READING AND WRITING INTERNET FAN FICTION by Juli J. Parrish AB, Bryn Mawr College, 1993 ...

196 Pages·2007·0.97 MB·English

by  Juli Parrish

INVENTING A UNIVERSE:
READING AND WRITING INTERNET FAN FICTION

by
Juli J. Parrish
A.B., Bryn Mawr College, 1993
M.A., Temple University, 1996

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
the School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

University of Pittsburgh

2007

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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

This dissertation was presented

by

Juli J. Parrish

It was defended on
July 26, 2007
and approved by
Nicholas Coles, Associate Professor, Department of English
Amanda J. Godley, Assistant Professor, School of Education
John Twyning, Associate Professor, Department of English
Dissertation Advisor: Jean Ferguson Carr, Associate Professor, Department of English

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Copyright © by Juli J. Parrish
2007
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INVENTING A UNIVERSE:
READING AND WRITING INTERNET FAN FICTION
Juli J. Parrish, PhD
University of Pittsburgh, 2007

Inventing a Universe examines the creative and critical writing of an internet fan fiction
archive. First, I suggest that persistent theories of fan writing, including the influential
notion of fans as “textual poachers,” have not adequately made visible the work of reading
and writing that goes in at such sites. I reframe internet fan fiction as the work of amateur
writers drawing on composition studies work on discourse communities and student writing
to offer new ways of reading these texts and textual practices. Second, analyzing the
discourse conventions and texts of a particular fan fiction archive, Different Colored Pens,
I argue that members of this site share an explicit collaborative project of using fan fiction
to help one another improve as readers and writers. This dissertation, which is among the
first academic efforts to focus on and analyze fan fiction feedback practices specifically,
will contribute to the rich and growing literature on the ways that online communities of
amateur writers, including fan fiction writers, collaboratively develop their writing skills.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS......................................................................................................VIII
1.0 INVENTING A UNIVERSE: INTERNET FAN FICTION IN CONTEXT..........1
1.1 DISCLAIMERS: DEFINING INTERNET FAN FICTION.....................11
1.2 DISTRIBUTION: SCOPE, COMMUNITIES, AND FANDOMS............21
1.3 SPOILERS: THE CONSEQUENCES OF “CANON”...............................28
1.4 FEEDBACK:
THE TEXTUAL WORK OF READING AND WRITING........................34
1.5 PAIRINGS AND RATINGS: FAN FICTION RELATIONSHIPS..........39
1.6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
THE WORK OF COMPOSITION STUDIES..............................................42
2.0 METAPHOR AS CANON: THE WORK OF TEXTUAL POACHING.........47
2.1 POACHERS AND POACHING....................................................................54
2.2 READING FAN FICTION CRITICALLY..................................................68
3.0 READING AND WRITING AT DIFFERENT COLORED PENS...................81
3.1 FORM AND FUNCTION AT DIFFERENT COLORED PENS...............86
3.2 “SEEING RED,” WRITING DESIRE.........................................................96
3.3 CRITICAL PROJECTS AT DIFFERENT COLORED PENS...............104
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4.0 “THE ART OF LEAVING FEEDBACK”: ENCOURAGING RESPONSE AT
DIFFERENT COLORED PENS...........................................................................118
4.1 INVITING FEEDBACK...............................................................................121
4.2 TALES OUT OF SCHOOL..........................................................................129
4.3 FOSTERING IMPROVEMENT.................................................................137
4.4 THE FEEDBACK LOOP..............................................................................144
5.0 CONCLUSION: WRITING RELATIONSHIPS THAT MATTER..............148
5.1 FAN FICTION MODELS FOR WRITING INSTRUCTION................153
5.1.1 Archives of Feedback..............................................................................154
5.1.2 Beta Reading............................................................................................157
5.1.3 Canonical Revision..................................................................................158
5.2 CONCLUSION: INVENTING THE UNIVERSE....................................159
BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................................165
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WEBSITES......................................................................................184
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LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Story Notes for Rosser’s “Sidestep Chronicle,” Different Colored Pens.......................9
Figure 2. Story Notes for Trom DeGrey’s “Laundry Diaries,” Different Colored Pens......10
Figure 3. Story Notes for Capt. Murdock’s “Equilibration,” Different Colored Pens.........10
Figure 4. Series of posts from “The Laundry Diaries,” Different Colored Pens..................36
Figure 5. Screenshot from Greenwoman’s Fanfiction website with Jenkins epigraph ........62
Figure 6. Screenshot from The Force.net with Jenkins epigraph...........................................64
Figure 7. General index for The Kitten, the Witches, and the Bad Wardrobe..............................88
Figure 8. Excerpt of Different Colored Pens index......................................................................92
Figure 9. Excerpt from first post of Antigone Unbound’s “On Second Thought,” Pens.............95
Figure 10. Quoted excerpts of all feedback for part 1 of Trom DeGrey’s “Laundry Diaries”...112
Figure 11. Quoted excerpts of all feedback for part 2 of Trom DeGrey’s “Laundry Diaries”...113
Figure 12. Sample feedback post by Grimlock72 in “The Sidestep Chronicle”........................143
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to a great many people for their support of this dissertation.
I want to thank the readers and writers at Different Colored Pens whose collegiality,
whimsy, insight, and writing taught me so much of what I know about fan fiction and the
critical reading and writing practices that frame it: Antigone Unbound, AutumnT,
Bagheera, Blameburner, BoredNow99, Capt. Murdock, darkmagicwillow, Forrister,
Grimaldi, Indygo, Jdcioffi, Jomarch, Katharyn, Kieli, La, Leather Queen, Lipkandy, Loco2,
MadeinNZ, Magrat70, Mariacomet, Mollyig, Molsongrrrl, Mrs. Vertigo, Pikachu1060,
Puff, Rally, RalSt31, Ruby, Sassette, Scout, Sheridan, Sister Bertrille, Slayer Sydney,
Slayer747, Snippygal, The Big IT, Tiggrscorpio, Tommo, Trom DeGrey, Vamp No 12,
Vix84, Web Warlock, Willa1975, Wizpup, Xita, and Zahir al Daoud.
My advisor, Jean Ferguson Carr, has taught me how to ask questions, how to read
generously, how to keep student writing at the center of the page and the mind, and how to attend
to the nuances of a complicated project. John Twyning encouraged me to write with conviction
and commitment, and I hope that I have begun to live up to this task. Nick Coles and Amanda
Godley helped me to see the importance of multiple contexts and asked questions that will
greatly improve successive versions of this work.
I am indebted to other professors at the University of Pittsburgh who taught me so
much of what I know about the intricacy and energy of work in composition studies: Dave
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Bartholomae, Joseph Harris, James Seitz, and Mariolina Salvatori. I also am grateful to my
colleagues Chris Boettcher, Paul Kameen, Jennifer Lee, and Brenda Whitney, who have
reminded me every fall semester of the value of choosing to teach first-year writing,
choosing to see student writing as the product of hard work and intellectual engagement.
Fellow graduate students Brenda Glascott, Tara Lockhart, and Maggie Rehm all
suggestions, questions, and valuable insight. And I am proud to have worked over the
years with so many energetic students; in particular, I extend my sincere thanks to Brian
Corlett, Eileen Hsu, Denise Mayes, and Chuck Romanchock, who work hard and write
harder. Everyone should be so lucky as to learn from writers like these.
I thank Amy Murray Twyning for her theoretical mind and her understanding of my
project; we started our PhD program together, and she has been, for 11 years, my partner in
intellectual crime. I thank Jean Grace for her vast knowledge of composition studies, her
unending generosity, and her ability to see the work at the heart of a tangle of sentences.
And I thank Geeta Kothari for teaching me how to sit in the chair and write; her discipline
and commitment to the work has been a model and a gift.
I am grateful to the family and friends who supported me during the writing. Erin
Parrish Dickson and Doug Dickson, Christine O’Neill and Dawn McCormick, Jeanne and
Joe Horvath, and Eileen Dumm all cooked meals, provided quiet rooms for writing and
porches for relaxing, and were patient with unreturned phone calls. My late grandfather,
Walter Dumm, contributed many a competitive game of Scrabble. Emily Aubele read
multiple drafts, helped me to refine many of my ideas, and taught me to kayak. Finally,
Hannah, Andrew, and Lilah Sahud moved to town, fed body and soul, and generally
improved my quality of life. My work is the better for all these contributions.
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1.0 INVENTING A UNIVERSE: INTERNET FAN FICTION IN CONTEXT
Do you know just when you realize a seemingly ordinary moment in your life
is, in fact, truly extraordinary? Before you even ponder that question, let me
just answer it—after the fact. Well after the fact.
Let me begin by telling you I'm not like most people. You won't see
me reading in the park or having a light lunch at a local cafe in the early
afternoon sun. You won't cross paths with me at the grocery store with your
cart full of screaming kids. I take Vitamin E like it's going out of style. I
have a special ultraviolet light at my desk at both home and work. Heavy
tapestry curtains line my windows, and my bedroom door has sound proofing
padding on it.
In other words, I work third shift.
—Trom DeGrey, “The Laundry Diaries,” Different Colored Pens

The black car, with its spray painted windows, thundered past the sign that
marked the city limits of the half-assed town known as Sunnydale on the
maps, but the driver was guessing the residents now referred to it as “this
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