Spock the Sith Slayer

[Amerist]

Wired.com is right now running an article on Fan fiction called Spock the Sith Slayer

I didn't know it then, but I was trafficking in fan fiction. The genre's formal roots date back to the late '60s, when Star Trek enthusiasts, dismayed by the TV series' impending cancellation, began writing their own stories about the crew of the starship Enterprise. The tales were published in limited-run zines and given out at sci-fi conventions. It was a fringe movement, and it stayed that way for years.

In my hayday, I wrote stories based on White Wolf’s Vampire: the Masquerade gothic-punk universe and atmospheric setting. Way back when I was a full-time, no-holds-barred, member of the Malkavian Madness Network. While not as glamorous as writing reams of pages about animé series, popular TV shows, or even other books, using the ready-made RPG world of V:tM was tantamount of fanfic of its own type.

Fan fiction has gone from its dark green grass roots of the past and become a strange epidemic with the advent of the Internet. It has grown out of control and now can be found in every facet of online life. It has become a long touted tradition of hyperactive teenagers, self-insertion, and is believed to have given birth to the dreaded Mary Sue. While, I for one do not believe that fanfic is actually the origin of narcissistic fiction (something that has certainly existed since Homer,) the fanfic movement has certainly given her a good swaddling, clothing, and a very comfy place to live in the communal psyche of writers everywhere.

The ever growing pastime of Fan fiction has become so prevalent that there are now thousands of websites dedicated to it in all its forms, from broad sites like fanfiction.net to much more focused sites that only take Sailor Moon, Star Trek, or Star Wars fanfic. Communities that surround general media commonly have their share of recreational fanfic writers. The more popular a series the greater the likelihood that some fan will have a literary-feather tickle her soul and jot out some clever tale about the characters when nobody is looking.

Fanfic has also been a strange outlet for the fantasies of fans everywhere. Fanfics known as lemons—a term warning about the erotic nature of the fiction—are quite widespread, and they brought about their own categories within the community of fanfic itself. One such as slash. So-called because they are romance (often lemons) between two characters, the title often containing a slash (Kirk/Spock.) The fans who write fanfic are myriad and so are their tales.

Many have argued that fanfic is the death of fiction, the ultimate charnel pit of abortive literary fever dreams and a refuse heap for random ejecta. Oftentimes I run across rampant discussions plying the topic: “Is Fanfic Real Writing?” People wonder if fanfic is ruining literature as we know it. I myself don’t quite agree with that draconian belief that fanfic can really cause the ruination of literature. All great works and writers must start somewhere: even if they have to crawl their way out of the fiction charnel pit.

While I know that some authors dislike fanfic, see it as a plague and a dangerous encroachment on their worlds and copyrights, I myself currently would welcome it. Although, I’m sure that I would probably blanch at lemons involving Faylina and Alden, I’m not going to smite people for caressing creative. An author/artist popular enough to have fans who write fanfic has reached a milestone in their career—

Yes, I know, the first slash fic about my characters will not be an anniversary that I intend celebrate, but I will chuckle knowingly and nod sagely when someone brings it up.

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Taken from Over the Hills Authorspace : On Fan Fiction, by Kyt Dotson