Essay: The Decline of B/W Fan Fiction

["Cilia" <cilia@xxxxx>]

The Decline of B/W Fan Fiction

Sunday 25th of November 2001

I would like to begin this essay by quoting a dear friend of mine who's been
a reader of fan fiction longer then I've been writing it. "Get creative
Spike just joined a monastery so get a new fricken ship already!"

I've been getting the feeling that some of my fellow authors have been
thrown into a loop since it came apparent at least to me that Willow is
turning to the dark side during this season on Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Although this does affect writers in different ways, those who rely heavily
on canon are perhaps more affected by this latest trick Joss has decided to
play on us.

I'm all for change and I usually try to embrace when it comes about, but why
then do I feel a longing for the golden age of B/W fan fiction? When the
readers seemed actually interested in what happened in the story and the
stories themselves were somehow 'better'.

Not to say that there were just got stories back in the day, there will
always be those not as gifted, but whom too burn with creative ideas, those
writers are a part of the writer community and should be saluted for their
efforts, but pointing out flaws is no crime and doing so does not make the
reader a bad person.

This brings to the question that I'm facing as an writer, is my story good
or is it as good as it used to be? You see I was used to get all sorts of
feedback ranging from; "You paint pictures with your words" to "You killed
Willow you filthy SOB". Still now a day the only feedback I read if any is;
good work and keep it up. And this does not just apply to me, a seasoned
writer, but it also applies those who are just starting out in this world of
fan fiction, this does not encourage growth. I may be secure in the quality
of my work, but who is to say that those who missed out on the Golden age
are equally secure in theirs?

I know I'm straying from my subject, but perhaps not. Has it become so that
we are more concerned with bulk then quality? When stories are posted just
for the sake of posting them and small ideas explode into grant epics
hammered out and immediately posted without a thought to structure or form.
Is this for the better? Are we witnessing the decline of B/W fan fiction?
Has our *Silver Age come at last?

This brings me to the quote I started this with, have we become stuck in our
own ship? Is the ship, no pun intended, sinking beneath us as we continue to
pump out the same drabbles as were written back in the early days? Where do
we draw the line between the fan and the fiction?

Writing a story about two girls, named Buffy and Willow, finding love in
good times and bad, this is at the core of what we write about. There have
been many variations on this theme and it's been set against backdrops that
vary in time and in space. Written by writers many of whom have great skills
and talents, whose works I have enjoyed over the years and through their
stories we have experience the lives and times of Buffy and Willow, over and
over again.

Although this as at the core of our stories, just like an apple there is
more to it then just the core. So has come to that, have we gone from having
a few shining apples to having a basket full of cores? Is that what we want,
does the story matter less then having the complementary Buffy and Willow
love scene with a few scraps of plot thrown in there for plots sake? I do
not have the answers, but perhaps you do?

Take care,
Cilia

*The Silver Age is a comic industry reference, it describes a period when
comics became darker and lost much of their luster of old. Heroes became
psychopaths with mother fixations and the same stories were recycled over
and over again, with carnage and flat characters that were more then often
inter changeable being the only constants, it took the industry decades to
recover, a process that's still going on today.