Democratic Genre: Final Chapter - A Good Reader Also Creates

Here’s a collection of quotes that I noted while finishing up the last chapter and my thoughts on each of them:

“So fan fiction is a genre in which the boundary between readers and writers is shifting and easily crossed. The reader is unusually empowered and may…herself become a co-creator.”

Pugh starts out in this chapter with the idea that readers affect a fanfic story through their comments, encouragement, and understanding of the backstory and canon/fanon in which the author is working. But this idea is but one aspect of the notion that readers become co-creators.

“The feeling that there is no one right version, plus the reluctance to leave a universe they enjoy, both contribute to the fanfic writers’ habit of endlessly trying out alternative scenarios and relaying scenes from different viewpoints.”

I like this notion—that there is no one right version. A version (whether it be play, fiction, poem, or, I suppose, ballet or picture or sculpture) is one particular author’s view and way of telling a story that exists within a shared canon and culture. I’ve always aligned with the concept of archetypal stories that exist from time immemorial and Carl Jung and the idea of a collective unconscious has shaped a lot of how I look at story-telling and fiction and art.


“In a genre which grants the original author no particular primacy, it is perhaps unsurprising that collaboration is so widespread.”

Pugh points out that in profic, it is difficult to sell jointly authored works to agents and publishers, and presumably readers. Perhaps the last is a stretch as I can’t imagine a reader having a problem with a jointly-authored work. I imagine the bias in the publishing world toward singly-authored books has to do with cataloguing and marketing.

Within the fanfic world, authors become friends and not just rivals. While jealousy does exist, most authors recognize that many fanfic readers are insatiable. I’ve often wondered how they have time to read so much—I have never been able to follow more than one or two stories while working in the real world, writing, raising and being part of a family, reading non-fanfic, etc. etc.—but I digress. Authors become friends with fellow authors through the magic of message boards and beta reading and it is a not unusual step to co-author a story, usually a fun, quirky, or challenge-type story.

“The fact is that there are few headier pleasures than being an author, realizing that you can create and manipulate a universe and give life to the characters in it. And a great many people who were once content to be readers have found that out. Many of them did so accidently. It wasn’t, at the time, that they particularly wanted to be writers. It was that they wanted some fictional universe and/or characters not to come to an end, or to develop differently, or to reveal facets that were hidden. And since the original writers would not or could not oblige, they had to do it themselves.”

I didn’t know how much fun it was to create fiction until I tried. Pugh is right—writing is indeed one of the headier pleasures. Exercising creativity is life affirming and energizing. I am not alone among the readers who read a fanfic story and thought—‘hey, I can do that!’

The Democratic Genre: Speak for Yourself – Fanfic writers and individual voices

I really struggled with chapter 9. Whereas while reading most of the other sections I found myself nodding vigorously, during this one I shook my head instead. It’s clear that Pugh hasn’t near the familiarity with the Austen fandom as she does with the other five that she focuses on in the book. Where this became more apparent is when she discussed individual voice versus mimetic. She claims that most Austen fanfic authors strive to be true to Austen’s voice and so do not have or develop an individual voice: “Most of the denizens of the Republic of Pemberley and the Derbyshire Writers’ Guild wish to hear not their own voices nor those of their colleagues but as near an approximation as they can get to Jane Austen’s. Their mission statements make that clear.”

While this may be true of the authors who posted solely on the Republic of Pemberley’s (RoP) Bits of Ivory board, which is an archive site only these days and in its heyday accepted only stories true to the canon (no what-ifs, non-Regency settings, etc.), it certainly is not of the Derbyshire Writers’ Guild (DWG), whose authors are free to post pretty much any story, up to PG-13, whose characters have Austen names. Had Pugh spent much time at DWG, she would have known that. In fact, I noticed that virtually all, if not all, of her urls for Austen stories come from RoP, which reinforces the idea that her research into Austen fandom was minimal. She also refers to Hyacinth’s Garden site as a place where Austen authors can “take the characters and relationships and set them in another time, which immediately precludes using the trademark Austen voice." This is true, but at the time she published the book (i.e., 2005), DWG had been allowing stories like this for years.

It’s not a big deal, and I certainly don’t want to come across as taking it personally, but it reflects a shallowness that I hadn’t detected before in Pugh’s work and undercuts statements like this: “…mostly, writers in these two fanfic universes [i.e., Austen and Pratchett’s Discworld] are more mimetic than original, because they want to be, and they don’t very often try to subvert their canon writers because they like them too much.” Pamela Aiden’s trilogy, A Novel of Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman, springs to mind—if mimetic at all, Aiden’s voice is more of Georgette Heyer’s than Austen, it is well-laden with original characters, and it departs heavily from canon in the portrait of Darcy as a profoundly religious man.

With regards to striving to sound like Austen, with rare exceptions, I believe most Austen fanfic readers humbly acknowledge her genius and know, intuitively or otherwise, than trying to “sound like Austen” is impossible. Apart from borrowing her dialogue and occasionally turns of phrase—a practice more adaptation screenwriters would be smart to follow—most Austen fanfic authors I have read utilize plot structure and characters and invent everything else. Some write with a stronger, more individualized voice than others, but I think that has more to do with a writer’s maturity, confidence, talent, and experience than the particularities of the specific fanfic universe.

One more example of how Pugh got it wrong in this chapter: “Among Austen fics, the one which struck me as being most successful at developing a voice which, thought it suited Austen’s world, was not obsessed with trying to reproduce her voice exactly, was Martine’s Le long retour vers Donwell, originally written in French. It may be that the distance interposed by a different language makes an authorial voice seem less daunting and inevitable.” I haven’t read this story yet—it looks interesting, but I think it is a vast overstatement to stay that it is unique in demonstrating individual voice among Austen fanfic.

The Democratic Genre: Going There - Narrative Forms and Structures

Interesting discussion on micro stories—Drabbles (100-worders) and others—with the notion that the fanfic genre, with its shared canon, lends itself to this form because expository, backstory, scene setting, and characterization are not required. Pugh makes the point that in profic short stories, “’experimenting with how much I have to actually put on the paper and how much I can leave to happen in the reader’s head’ certainly does happen…” but the reader is left to fill in the backstory of the narrator with only the keyhole view of the story to provide the context.

Pugh also discusses at length the common fanfic practice of serially publishing a work in progress. I know there are many Austen writers who finish their story before commencing posting it, but they are alien creatures to me. I enjoyed Pugh’s anecdote about the poet who declined sharing a work in draft form: “the Muse is a lady and does not appear in her dressing gown.”

Publishing serially during the creation of a story means that readers can leave feedback, and this feedback can’t help but affect the creative process—perhaps not the story arc, but when readers love what you’re doing, it’s hard not to give them more of what they like. One of the authors that Pugh quotes on this topic is Kethni:

Sometimes readers pick up on things that I hadn’t consciously noticed but do make sense and really add to the story overall, so I steal them and pretend they were my idea all along!

The interesting thing about this somewhat self-deprecating remark is that those “things” are in the work, albeit unconsciously, so it’s not really stealing to play up and further explore what a reader remarks on. In fact, that’s what makes fanfic so dynamic and so different from profic. The audience is an active participant, helping to mold the story to some degree, helping to produce the story by providing constant motivation. Pugh does point out that in the research she did on this aspect of writer/reader interaction, no writer ever said that she went back and edited already posted chapters. Profic writers tend to rewrite, and rewrite, and rewrite…as Susan Kaye points out on her block: Good writing is rewriting. That may be true, but serialization doesn’t leave any room for reworking posted chapters. Sort of like jumping off a cliff.

The Democratic Genre: More on Fanfic Versus Profic

I resonated with Belatrix Carter, quoted at length by Pugh in ch7, when she was taking about her desire to write being thwarted by her seeming inability to create her own universes and people them and figure out what the people should do:

All my life, I’ve enjoyed writing…but I never had any ideas, at least not any good ones….Then I got into fan fiction, and suddenly, whaddaya know, I was getting ideas…they were all ideas that were very specifically related to these existing TV characters, in these existing TV universes…this is just how the creative part of my brain workd…I don’t much like writing plot...I do like writing very short things, often just character vignettes, which are designed to have a very sharp emotional punch…I find that in fanfic I have more confidence in the thought that I’m doing something original.

This is completely how I see myself as a writer, again. I haven’t written much over the past few years, partly due to time constraints and partly because I stopped believing I was a writer. That is, I figured that if I couldn’t plot original stories, I had no business calling myself a writer. I do miss the adrenaline that comes from creating a story, which means fanfic is calling me back, I guess. And part of embracing rather than denying the love of writing, means facing the fact that the writing I do will not enable me to leave my day job. Rather than bemoaning this fact, I can relish in the idea that I am part of a noble tradition.

Quoting Pugh, quoting Jane Mortimer in her online essay, The Advantages of Fan Fiction as an Art Form:

There was a time when "amateur" was a compliment. Pursuing something for love was admired, while doing it for filthy lucre was despised. We live in a harsher age, when values have turned around, and if there's no immediate money from a project, writers are urged to abandon it. I find it reassuring to know the artistic impulse remains this strong, that people will still invest in something for sheer pleasure in its creation, and the hell with what the rest of the world may say.

I encourage you to read Mortimer’s essay—she has a lot to say about the robust quality of fan fiction, a literary form that is ancient…

Once upon a time, people told stories for love as well as for money (just as they do today). Achilles died before the gates of Troy ten thousand times over, as older brothers told the tale to younger ones, parents to children; and Camelot rose and fell again every sunset. People and stories. It was the same scene in tribal gatherings, in cramped peasants' huts, in the hall of Henry II.

Which is to say, there was no television.

And every time a story was told by a new voice, there was a slightly different spin on it. Ovid's gods and goddesses played the same games they had always played, but this time their dance through the familiar landscape seemed a bit more petty than it had been. Lancelot met Guinivere for the first time, and the meeting was comic, or tragic, or resentful, or admiring; it foreshadowed what was to come, it gave no hint as to what was to come. Merlin was wise; Merlin was foolish. The characters passed through the distinctive voices of thousands of people, each of whom took the tale inside themselves, loved it, and passed it on with new insights, new subtleties.

Both Mortimer and Pugh mention numerous fanfic writers who are also profic writers, and the fanfic they produce, like all fanfic, is done out of love…for the characters, for the process (unencumbered by the strictures of the publishing world), for the audience.

There's an old adage that when you turn your hobby into work, it ceases to be fun. F. Scott Fitzgerald was a great writer--even during the Depression, the Saturday Evening Post paid him $4000 per story. But, I wonder, given his demons, whether he loved to write and whether he loved his stories and audience. On the other hand, there's the notion of vocation--doing the work you are best suited to do. And then, the flip side of that other hand, will anyone pay you to do the work you're best suited to do, and can you and your family live on that pay?

I love the notion that Mortimer mentions in her essay and Pugh alludes to...fanfic is folk art. I love folk art.

The Democratic Genre: Across the Borderline – Fanfic and Profic

Chapter 7 is so rich with interesting tidbits as well as ahas that I expect to need a few blog entries to do it justice. Just thumbing through the pages shows that I have bits of post-it notes on virtually every page, reminding me of something to mention.

“Filing off the serial numbers” is fanfic lingo for taking a fanfic story and changing the names, and perhaps setting and other canon details, and marketing it as profic. Again, it’s interesting, and a bit surprising, that I went down this path myself, all the while thinking I was so clever in doing so. What’s interesting about this is not that writers try to leverage existing limited-market stories to a larger market, or to make the leap from fanfic to profic, but that Pugh claims that fanfic themes and trends actually precede and influence profic themes and trends.

She cites several examples of slash fanfic that has been republished as gay lit, and she also discusses how the popularity of fanfic, which often comes down to its intense focus on character and relationship, drove profic and litfic writers, including writers of TV series, to turn more to character development and less to plot since fanfic took off in the 1970s and 80s.

Pugh points out that when slash fanfic really took off, in the mid-70s, “this phenomenon—women writing about and exploring the emotions of men in homoerotic relationships—had few parallels in litfic…the only female writing who was making a specialty of this theme then was the novelist Mary Renault.” Pugh goes on to say that these days, “…if I wanted examples of women writing about men…I should not have far to look.” The point being that the interest in reading and writing slash extends far beyond fanfic.

The Democratic Genre: Communal Online Sandpit

First off, I love this chapter title, and apparently it’s fanfic jargon to refer to drawing on a fandom (or a mythology or some other canon) as playing in a communal sandpit. Nice image! The subtitle is “Collaboration and Support,” and that is part of what makes fanfic special—the relationship of readers and writers.

Interesting item—in the fanfic world, the plural of fan is not “fans” but “fen.” Why? Pugh reports two answers— one reason is man/men, woman/women, fan/fen…cute. The second reason is slightly more complex: fen is used to “’differentiate it from the mainstream world’s derogatory use of the term’…Fanfic writers get this in spades, particularly if they happen also to be profic writers or academics who choose not to use ‘original characters’ and the low value set by academics and critics on genre fiction of any kind.”

Mega interesting item: according to Pugh, Terry Pratchett, “in a talk at the 2003 Hay Festival…claimed to have once written a Lord of the Rings/Pride and Prejudice crossover in which “orcs attack Hunsford Parsonage.” I googled and couldn’t find any reference to this, so if anyone can provide a link…please do so!

In this chapter, Pugh points out a “deeply illogical” phenomenon in fanfic—this is when a fanfic author will ask another fanfic author if he/she can “borrow” an original character from the latter’s stories. This is illogical because fanfic authors are already using a whole canon’s worth of characters without permission from the original author, but I think there is logic to this in that the relationship of readers and writers is so much stronger in a fandom than in the world of published fiction. Fanfic authors are justifiably concerned about ticking off a fellow fanfic writer, who is very likely a reader and has an immediate access to a very public way of venting any displeasure at a fellow writer playing too much in their own particular corner of the sandpit. A few years ago on the DWG, someone suggested that the unfinished works in the Epilogue Abbey and Fanstasia Gallery be opened up to other authors to finish. This idea was hastily shut down, and I was relieved, having more than one unfinished story that I would hate to have anyone else finish.

Thinking about the notion of a fandom being a “sandpit,” I know from having kids and cats that it’s very important that everyone understand the rules of the sandpit. Playing together is good, in fact, it’s usually better than playing alone…but don’t kick sand, especially when it’s windy, don’t hog all the toys, don’t kick someone else’s meticulously crafted sandcastle down, and whatever you do, don’t let the cats in!

Democratic Genre: Slash or lack thereof in Austenland

Ch 5 was interesting in that I knew nothing about slash before I read it—now I have a clinical understanding. I had assumed, naively, that slash meant knife violence…silly me. It actually denotes a sexual relationship between male characters in a fandom. The evolution of the term is also interesting. In the Star Trek fandom, the code for a story about Kirk and Uhura was K-H if the relationship was non-sexual, and K/(i.e, slash)U if it was sexual. So a K/S story would be one in which Kirk and Spock had a sexual relationship, and this quickly evolved to slash being used to refer only to male/male stories. Just to complete the lesson, female/female stories are typically referred to as fem slash, and non same-sex sexual relationship stories are generally referred to as het. Everything else, I think, is gen (for general).

With regards to Austen fandom, in 2005 when Pugh’s book was published she reports that she found virtually no slash. And she wasn’t surprised by this. Apart from Darcy and Wickham being friends when they were young and loathing each other as adults, there aren’t obvious slash situations to explore. I suppose a Willoughby/Brandon story might be one, Darcy/Bingley, Knightley/Churchill, Wentworth/Musgrove….nah, more likely Wentworth/Harville/Benwick. Regardless, it hasn’t been explored in fanfic, and it’s not because most of the readers and writers are women.

The vast majority of fanfic writers are women, and the vast majority of fanfic readers and writers of slash (regardless of the fandom) are women. And, it’s not the historical timeframe—as Pugh points out, “…that something was illegal and carried heavy penalties has never actually stopped people doing it, and in fact from a slash writer’s viewpoint the legal and social situation just adds to the potential angst quotient.” Pugh goes on to reason that the “problem with Austen [with regards to slash] is one of voice, or rather the fact that most Austen fanfic writers feel obliged to approximate her voice, which to a great extent is also that of her characters. The mimetic difficulty of keeping up an Austen voice is enough in gen fanfic; considering how to phrase slash material in the said voice is daunting.” To say the least!

I think part of the reason for minimal Austen slash is that it would seem out of character, and regardless of the story or situation, canon characters must stay in character…if they don’t readers won’t read.

The Democratic Genre: From Canon to Silly Novels by Lady Novelists

Ch 4 is all about characters. I loved how Pugh compared writing within a fandom to ancient authors writing within the canon of mythology, “…writers of medieval morality plays with their cast of Bible characters,” and even historical novelists using figures such as QEI or Napoleon. The last struck me as a bit excessive—while historical fact might be considered as canon, many historical novelists blithely ignore well-established facts…Phillipa Gregory springs to mind here. I think her Anne Boleyn could be considered more of an OC (i.e., original character) than historical. But then, Pugh goes on to say that “…if you consider canon, like history, as raw material for fiction…you can create AU [i.e., alternate universes] or missing scenes.”

With regards to voice, Pugh points out that until recently virtually all fanfic was written in the third person because writing in the first-person demands “complete control of the voice.” However, an increasing amount of fanfic is being written in first person, and surprising to me, Pugh polled various sites and lit mailing lists and discovered that many readers do not like stories (and novels) written in the first person. As an author, I love to write in the first person—I find it more fun to try to channel another person’s psyche than to play the role of omniscient narrator, getting inside everyone’s head. This might be a symptom of my immaturity as a writer, though, because I’ve found that one person’s inner life is much easier to handle than even two or three. By the same token, I don’t seem to have a preference for reading third person over first, or vice versa.

Pugh notes that with regards to first person, there are more examples of this POV in TV-based fanfic stories than book-based, and her reasoning is that TV-based stories spring from screenplays that are exclusively dialogue. The only problem with this reasoning is that Austen’s novels are so rich in dialogue that sections are practically plays in themselves. Pugh does say that the first-person fanfic that does exist in Austen fandom tends to be epistolary, and she goes on to discuss Mags’ A Clandestine Correspondence, which is a series of letters between Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney during their engagement.

Another interesting point in this discussion of character is how so much fanfic is really not about what else happens in a story, but how a character copes with it, which explains why angst fiction is so prevalent in fanfic stories. A variation of angst is the “hurt/comfort” genre, in which “a character is systematically taken to bits emotionally (and sometimes physically too) before being consoled and sometimes rehabilitated by another character. This tends to happen most in fanfic to those canon characters who seem the most self-controlled and reticent about showing their feelings…”

With regards to Mary-Sues (i.e., original characters who are basically idealized versions of the author who swoop in and solve all the problems of the canon characters and earn their love before dying themselves), I was fascinated to find that Pugh cites George Eliot complaining about “’silly novels by lady novelists’” back in the 1850’s:

Her eyes and her wit are both dazzling; her nose and her morals are alike free from any tendency to irregularity; she has a superb contralto and a superb intellect; she is perfectly well-dressed and perfectly religious; she dances like a sylph, and reads the Bible in the original tongues.

The Democratic Genre: What Else and What If – notes on ch3

Right off the bat, Pugh presents what is to me a novel idea—i.e., there’s more fanfic about P&P than any of the other Austen novels because “…despite Austen’s assurances at the end that all is well, it is easier to see something going wrong for Elizabeth and Darcy than for most of Austen’s married couples.” She points out that they are the most mismatched in terms of wealth and status, he has friends and relatives who dislike her, and he will probably never be comfortable around her family, especially her mother. If you’re interested in reading the story that Pugh cites as a good example of this type of story, here’s the link to Lou’s Cure for the Common Marriage.

There’s no question that there is more fanfic about P&P by acres, in fact, and this could very well be one of the reasons, but not the only. P&P has the richest set of supporting characters, all of whom need to have their place in the sun via fanfic. For example, Pugh comments on the surprisingly high number of stories that explore the character of Anne deBourgh as well as those that pair her with Colonel Fitzwilliam, which to Pugh, strikes her as “…hard luck on the Colonel.”

Another interesting difference between Austen fandom and ongoing-TV fandom is how the later can suddenly change with the departure of a character or a revelation of backstory hitherto unknown. An example of this is when the Hornblower character, Archie Kennedy, who is but a mention in the books but a main character in the A&E movies, dies. This effectively ends the Archie portion of the Hornblower world and requires writers dealing with Archie in a way different from what they could before he died. Austen fandom is closed in that no more is coming from Austen herself, although the adaptations provide new aspects that can morph into fanon. But, Austen fanfic writers have a solid canon from which to draw, not an evolving one.

Pugh points out that Austen prequels are far less common than sequels—her main characters get married young (except for those Ancients, Colonel Brandon and Mr. Knightley) and so don’t have much of a backstory themselves. Pugh does mention Dee Dee’s story, Poor Miss Taylor, as a good, moving example of an Emma prequel.

In her section on crossovers (i.e., stories that “…involve characters from one fictional universe crossing into another”), she cites Green Eggs and Hamlet…Googling on this revealed that there are several offerings with this title. This movie looks like the best: Green Eggs and Hamlet.

Finally it’s always amusing to read about reactions to Emma Tennant sequels, and Pugh doesn’t disappoint: “Some of the most vituperative reviews you will ever read are those written by Austen fans about the various Emma Tennant Austen sequels, and the reason for the animosity is that fans do not feel they are true to the characters.” She goes on to say that the “…canon is for bending and shaping according to the fanfic writer’s preference, but the ‘love’—i.e., the basic respect for it—is important.” She closes with the notion that “if too many readers feel ‘that’s not them’; then the story will have failed as fanfic, however else it may succeed.”

Which gets back to the definition of fanfic—to me, it’s anything that is derivative, regardless of whether it is in print or on the web or in a fanzine or passed around amongst friends. Tennant’s books are fanfic, and they fail because too many readers say “that’s not them!”

The Democratic Genre: Canon, Fanon, and Hornblower

More on Chapter 2, “The Knowledge,” which is basically dealing with the canon—Pugh compares the Republic of Pemberley’s now archive-only Bits of Ivory with Derbyshire Writers Guild (DWG). As most Austen fanfic readers and writers know, DWG spun off from RoP and provided a place where there were far fewer rules associated with sticking to the canon. I loved reading Pugh’s comments on Elspeth’s At the Club, in which all of Austen’s heroes meet to drown their sorrows and gnash their teeth. As Pugh puts it, “…putting characters who never met in the same room is a fanfic speciality and often gives the reader a new light on them; in this case Tilney’s utter refusal to be impressed by Darcy’s loftiness was an insightful observation on both of them.”

Pugh also says that “the Republic’s rigid criteria work against creativity and quality…it is not easy to sound like Austen for page after page…if you are simply writing pastiche, every perceived departure from the idiom will jar your readers ferociously and convince them that they would be better reading the real thing.” Pugh also goes on to discuss Skylar’s An Unlikely Missionary, which is no longer available on DWG where it was first posted as the author is negotiating a contract for its publication.

With regards to canon, I learned a new term—i.e., “fanon,” which is when a writer’s addition to canon seems so natural that it becomes generally accepted and used by other writers as if it were canon. Pugh says that in Austen fandom, the features of the actors who played the leads in the most popular film and TV adaptations are becoming fanon. Although with the recent S&S from the BBC and the new P&P movie, this may not prove altogether true.

I’m finding myself skimming the parts of the book that don’t relate directly to either Austen or Hornblower. Pugh focuses primarily on five fandoms: Austen (Austen’s own works as well as the various adaptations), Hornblower (C.S. Forster’s books and the A&W movies), Blakes 7 (a BBC sci-fi series from 1978-81), The Bill (long-running ITV police series), Terry Pratchett’s Discworld (books only). I’m thinking I may start reading some Hornblower fanfic…is this the best place to start: http://www.hhfic.com/ ?

Shakespeare: Reading the Canon

About 18 months ago, I started on a quest to read/watch all of Shakespeare's plays, roughly in order.

I am nearing the end. I have only The Winters Tale, The Tempest, and Henry VIII left to go. Then, I have to do Titus Andronicus--it's one of the earliest plays, but I heard such dreadful things about it, I put it off until the end. I haven't decided whether to read Two Noble Kinsmen or not, as most agree that Shakespeare didn't really write much of it if any at all.

I have thoroughly enjoyed this project--I majored in English in college and came from a family in which my parents would listen to recordings of the plays and drag me off to the movies when they came to the art cinema when I was a kid, so I had read probably two-thirds of the plays before I started...but that was a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

Austen really got me started on this project. I had reread Mansfield Park and was wondering why on earth she would have Henry Crawford read from Henry VIII, since I had never read the play and it's never been all that popular. So, I decided I needed to relearn everything I had forgotten about Shakespeare, and then some.

I decided to watch/read the BBC productions because they don't cut much--so, I listen and read along. That really helps me with the plays I don't know well or haven't encountered--I like this method better than just reading because of the interpretation. Shakespeare has very few stage directions, so hearing the lines whilst reading them helps me understand more than just reading would. Then, I often watch (not read along) other movies and adaptations (modern and otherwise). The contrast in how various parts are played is fascinating.

After my initial viewing of the BBC production, I usually read from Goddard's two-volume set of essays on the plays, and listen to a lecture from the Teaching Company on the play I'm currently on. Peter Saccio's lectures are just wonderful. Early on I also read Asimov's historical context of the plays, but that got tedious after awhile. I am looking forward to Harold Bloom's book which I've promised myself after I finish reading the last of the plays. Then, I'm going to read Will in the World. I read Ackroyd's bio before I started, so that'll be a nice way to round it out.

Surprises
1) How much I liked the War of the Roses cycle. I have always enjoyed English history, but the BBC did a superb job on these, using a troupe of actors that played consistent roles from RII though RIII. They weren't written chronologically, so that was a little weird...i.e., not to read them in historical order, but it was interesting to see how Shakespeare the playwright matured from HVI pt 2 until HV. I also enjoyed Merry Wives of Windsor much more than I thought I would.

2) How much I liked the early comedies - again, I had heard how Comedy of Errors and Love's Labours Lost were labored, but I enjoyed the productions I watched. Two Gentlemen of Verona was pretty bad though

3) The tragedies really are wonderful--I did not appreciate them at 21, or 17 for that matter! They are truly wonderful works and can be read repeatedly.

The Best so Far

Midsummer Night's Dream--It's like Pride and Prejudice in that it is timeless and wonderful and enchanting. Though I remember loving The Tempest in college, so maybe in a month or so I'll be singing a different tune.

The other cool thing about reading the canon from end to end is seeing how Shakespeare latched onto an idea and worked it in several different ways, from comedy to tragedy. Elements from Merchant of Venice reappear in Othello, for example. Finally, this project sparked an interest in the ancient world, because in reading Shakespeare I found that I didn't know near enough about Greek and Roman mythology and history to get a lot of the references, so I've been learning about that as well via lectures, novels, Archeology magazine, etc.

FanFic: Reading "The Democratic Genre" by Sheenagh Pugh

The subtitle to The Democratic Genre is "Fan fiction in a literary context," and so far it's a fascinating look at the fanfic genre. Having been a member of the Austen fanfic community since 1999 it's interesting to find out that the approach I took instinctively with my writing followed a track that can be written about as a genre.

Best Bits

I love the notion that authors like Austen or Pratchett and characters like Sherlock Holmes and TV shows like Star Trek have created or are creating modern mythology that can be tapped to create new literature. This notion flies in the face of Anne Rice's plea that authors should create stories using only original characters--the implication being that "real literature" does not plunder another's works. Pugh points out that "Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and successors happily plundered classical, English and European history for plots and characters," and goes on to describe mythology (classical and modern) and history as a resource for all to use in the creation of stories.

The other best bit in the opening chapters is the notion that fanfic readers are looking for either "more of" a story or character(s) or "more from" the same. With regards to the Austen world, both are true. The Austen canon is quite small--6 books, with most fanfic focused on Pride and Prejudice, both Austen's version and Andrew Davies' version. When stories have classic comedic endings as Austen's do, modern readers crave to know what happened after the wedding...how did things turn out...did those awful issues that kept the couple apart reemerge to wreak havoc on the marriage? That's the "more of" category. Despite Austen's manifest genius, readers of Austen fanfic also want "more from" characters like Fanny Price and Caroline Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy. What really is his or her story--there is so much under the surface that can be probed and analyzed and discussed...in story form.I started writing fanfic because I found it a way to control the argument. That is, I could say, in story form, that I think Lady Russell has been given the shaft by a century's worth of readers for persuading Anne Elliot not to marry Captain Wentworth. I found that I was better at making my point via a story, in this case, Three Sisters, than by quoting chapter and verse in a discussion group. I found it was more powerful to give Mrs. Bennet's point of view in a story, The Last Baby, than to argue that despite being poked fun at since 1813, she might be less to blame for the Bennet family troubles than Mr. Bennet.