(from The Guardian
by David Barnett)
Journalist and author Caitlin Moran has earned the ire of the fan fiction community by encouraging actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman to read out a slice of Sherlock/Watson slash fiction on stage at the British Film Institute.
The occasion was a preview on Sunday evening of the much-anticipated new episode of Sherlock, which will air on BBC1 on New Year's Day. The slash in question was an edited excerpt from a piece posted on the fan fiction site Archive of Our Own, entitled Tea, and written by a user called Mildredandbobbin.
Fan fiction is written by amateur authors using characters from (usually) the published authors' works, TV shows or movies. Slash takes fan fiction to another level: it imagines relationships – often sexual – between those characters that were never intended by the original authors. Slash takes its name from the punctuation between characters' names to denote sexual content and probably dates back to the 1970s, when it came to prominence with Captain Kirk and Mr Spock, in the original Star Trek series. There's a possibly apocryphal tale, which I like to believe is true, purporting that William Shatner asked Spock actor Leonard Nimoy what this Kirk/Spock stuff was all about. Nimoy apparently replied: "It's you and me, Bill. Fucking."
Since then, with a little help from the internet, fan fiction and slash fiction have become massive, with huge online communities sharing their work. Hence the angry response to Moran using a piece of Sherlock/Watson slash to – in the perception of the community – poke fun at the genre.
The excerpt from Tea envisions a disillusioned Watson returning to the 221B Baker Street after an uninspiring date, sad because what he really wants is Sherlock:
'I can give that to you,' he said, his voice uncommonly rough. 'Let me.'
John's tongue darted out to wet his lips. 'Let you …'
Sherlock solemnly began unbuttoning his cardigan. 'You need to be touched. Let me.'
John gave a shuddering sigh and leaned his forehead back against Sherlock's. Their noses bumped, cheeks grazed, and then John lifted his hand to Sherlock's cheek and their mouths crushed together.
There does, it has to be said, seem to be something inherently funny about writing erotic fiction based on established fictional characters. Like people who knit daleks or create huge model railway layouts, fan fiction writers are seen as gently mockable; slash writers even more so.
However, on Tuesday, Mildredandbobbin wrote an open letter to Caitlin Moran saying:
In a rather spectacular manner, you managed to antagonise an entire fandom made up almost entirely of young, liberal-minded women like me, AKA your core readership. How did you accomplish this? On paper, it doesn't sound like much: you picked an erotic Sherlock fan fic off the Internet and made the stars of the show read an extract aloud for shits and giggles. But, while it was most certainly shit, it wasn't giggles for anyone, and least of all for us.
When people come out from behind their hobbies, the mockery seems more churlish. At its worst, fan fic is harmless; at its best, it can lead to much bigger things. Let's not forget that Fifty Shades of Grey originally began life as fan fiction using characters from Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Now it's author EL James who is laughing, all the way to the bank.
Game of Thrones author George RR Martin is famously against the genre, saying that he and writers who share his view "are doing it to protect ourselves and our creations". But many authors are more than happy to let amateur scribblers play in their toyboxes – JK Rowling among them, providing the fan output is not for profit and not sexually explicit.
And even more admit to what many writers must have done in their childhoods – writing stories using other people's characters. The Princess Diaries author Meg Cabot said: "I myself used to write Star Wars fan fiction when I was a tween." And Cassandra Clare, author of the recently filmed Mortal Instruments series, started off writing Harry Potter fan fiction and Lord of the Rings parodies.
As a writer myself, I'd be honoured if someone found my characters compelling enough to want to write about them. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and just as a bad adaptation of a movie or a continuation of a dead author's series doesn't detract from the original work, so fan fiction can't do any real harm – while at the same time it makes some people very happy.
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