Fanfiction is A Part of Literature

In this era, the world is dominated by fans from various fields. Most of them are from the art field, especially music industry. Various music fields in the world have a large number of fans, Western, K-Pop, C-Pop, etc. This phenomenon is also supported by the main character that the fans love besides the music. The artist is the main character that plays an important role in this phenomenon. The artist itself has characteristics and visuals that the fans love. It’s become an object of the imagination of fans, because of their curiosity about the artist. And they have created an opus called “Fan-fiction” to fulfill their imagination.

• Fanfiction in Literature

Definition of Fanfiction is a story involving popular fictional characters that are written by fans and often posted on the Internet. Fans who make the story always called "the author/the writer". The characteristics that the artist already possesses are being developed based on the author’s imagination, the artist's profession, residence, and even the people around them. After the role is formed, the author (fans) will determine the theme, plot, and storyline. Even sometimes, the writer just used the artist's name and makes a different genre of story.

            “Fan-fiction deserves to be called its own genre as much as noir mystery and pulp fiction do: it’s a body of work that shares similar themes, tropes, and clichés.” (Webling, 2020). Why Fanfiction deserves to be a part of literature? Because it is writing product. The five genres of literature itself are Poetry, Drama, Prose, Nonfiction, and Media. Fanfiction can be categorized as prose because it has character, setting, plot, point of view, and mood. Just like other literature, Fanfiction also needs a good phrase to attract the reader.

            Fan fiction aids in the development of the author. It provides them with valuable characterization and style development experience, which they will need to learn to create their own creative works. Writers interact more deeply with the works they make than the typical reader, and this is true regardless of genre, in order to write for a character or setting, the author must first understand it.

            Essentially, literature evaluated in terms of a set of works that have been judges by worthy and noteworthy academic study. When trying to find a defining quality of what a work of art is, English art critic Clive Bell argued:

“Any system of aesthetics which pretends to be based on some objective truth is so palpably ridiculous as not to be worth discussing. We have no other means of recognizing a work of art than our feeling for it. The objects that provoke aesthetic emotion vary with each individual.” (1914)

So, there is no point in judging art by objective parameters because art is subjective and totally based on personal experiences or imagination. Fanfic author is their own editors, allowing them to write about whatever they want and in whichever style they wish. Fans write fanfics not to gain money, but to write about what they enjoy without the pressures and constraints of regular publishing.

• Fanfiction existences

             Fanfiction already exists since the 1200 century, Dante’s Divine Comedy is a fanfiction about the Bible and Dante’s favorite classical writer Virgil in Italian culture. John Milton’s Paradise Lost is also Biblical fan fiction. Then, the advent of the Internet, which allow anybody to freely publish text, and the arrival of such all kind of fandom from another field, which increased the number and availability of fan fiction. Professionally published novelists are now frequently interested in fan fiction. Rainbow Rowell’s novel “Carry On” published in 2015 was inspired by imaginary fan fiction of a fictional series, described in Rowell’s earlier novel “Fangirl”.

            Currently, fanfiction being facilitated by numerous internet platforms that have many fanfiction authors in it. At the beginning of 2010, it starts from a blog and develops into some applications and sites on smartphone-like Wattpad, Kindle, Archive of Our Own, Tumblr, etc.  

• Conclusion

            All written works can be used as literary works, it must be has a meaning for the author and the readers. As long as the purpose of the work is good, all community needs to appreciate the creator works. Fanfiction can be a fresh start to some people for gaining their writing skills and show their feelings and imagination to the community. There are no rules in art.