Fan Fiction

I started reading fan fiction fairly recently, which is astonishing when you consider that my first fannish experience was in 1973 with the granddaddy of fan fiction, the original “Star Trek.”

Brenda Watts and I would hurry home every afternoon, eager to plant ourselves in front of WIBW channel 13 to watch.  Brenda was a stalwart Kirk fan, I was in love with McCoy.  We knew every episode, and could tell within the first 5 seconds of the teaser which one we were to be treated with that day.  We loved the Trouble with Tribbles and Spectre of the Gun, we loathed The Ultimate Computer.

Now that I think of it, we did “write” fan fiction even then, as each recess period witnessed us talking together, telling stories that we said were “dreams” we’d had.  Brenda’s may have been dreams, certainly, but mine were pure made up fantasy.

Star Trek was replaced on the channel by “Wild, Wild West,” which took over our storytelling (needing only the substitution of Jim and Artie for Kirk and McCoy); then,”Lost in Space” (the horror!).  Ten years before VCR’s became ubiquitous, I was forced to cherish the memories, and the scratchy audio tapes I had made of Star Trek episodes.  I went through several fannish phases after that, featuring the Osmonds, the Beatles, and a few others that I don’t really recollect at this point.  My friends and I told each other “stories” that would go on, chapter after chapter, day after day, featuring our favorite characters, actors and musicians in romantic situations with us.

I was content, as a young working adult, with enjoying the official “canon” of my favorite shows and movies, never looking far for further adventures.  Even when my favorite, Quantum Leap, ended with a whimper and not a bang, I never took up my adolescent storytelling hobby to concoct adventures for Sam and Al.  I watched Star Trek the Next Generation and read the plentiful supply of novels about it and my adored original that had by that time started filling bookstore shelves.  The pattern continued with Deep Space Nine and Voyager, to hit a rather significant snag with Enterprise.

This is not an attempt to debate the merits of Jonathan Archer’s crew over Kirk’s, Picard’s, or Janeway’s, so I’ll save any comments I have for another time.  I will say that I thought the recipe was perfect for me:  Star Trek plus Scott Bakula definitely equals love.

I’m afraid that the writers of the show and the publishers of the Star Trek novels did not share my love.  Poor Archer was shunted to the side in favor of Trip and T’Pol, and novels were thin on the ground.  I watched and re-watched every episode that featured even a hint of Archer getting lucky, but the writers were sadly neglectful of the good captain’s libido.  The time was ripe for me to discover fan fiction.

Trusty Google led me to the Warp 5 complex, a strong community of Enterprise fan fiction writers.  I neglected home, hearth, children, husband, and work to read and read and read these wonderful, creative stories by people that not only weren’t being paid, but had no prospect of being paid.  I also discovered the primary advantage of fan fiction over professional novels.

Explicit sex like WHOA.  I had found my people.

Although my first searches for fiction were of the heterosexual variety, reading story after story featuring Archer and T’Pol, or Archer and Hoshi, I soon discovered, through some mechanism that I have forgotten, SLASH.

Suddenly, my favorites were Archer/Tucker, Reed/Tucker, Archer/Reed, Archer/Tucker/Reed.  My husband wondered what a 40ish straight woman got out of reading explicit gay porn.  He was even more bamboozled when I explained that we not only read it, but we wrote most of it.  As with many of my little hobbies, he stopped trying to understand.

A guest appearance by Connor Trineer of Enterprise as a recurring bad guy on Stargate Atlantis led me to that fandom, where I have been happily ensconced ever since.  I finally made the transition from avid reader to hesitant writer in the Fall of 2008, with a tagathon challenge.  I accepted a challenge to write an episode-related fic for every episode of Season 5.  Thus began the journey…

Clarification, Warnings and Disclaimer:

Fan fiction is, by definition, written by and for fans of a particular television show, movie, book, band, actor, comic book, etc.  It presupposes that the audience knows the characters and situations and can easily understand what is not explicitly stated in the story.  In the case of an episode fic, this is even more pronounced, as it presumes that the reader will be familiar with the plot of the episode from which it springs.

That said, it is possible (I am living proof!) to enjoy fan fiction even without a working knowledge of the material upon which it is based.  Dialog, characterizations, and plot are just as important in fan fiction as they are in every other type of fiction.  When I write a story, even if it is primarily for the fan audience, I am hopeful I have done a good enough job writing it as a story for a neophyte to appreciate and enjoy it.

Any fic here might have explicit sexual content, including erotic scenes between two or more consenting adults of the same or opposite gender.  Any fic here may have a dark or disturbing theme.  If any of this bothers you, please read elsewhere.

All characters, settings and history are the property of others.  I am writing here for my own joy and fun, and that of my readers.  I make no profit from any story in my fan fiction section.