After a brainstorming during the tutorial on Monday, I decided to conduct an intervention in which I let people compare the difference between slash-fic and actual literature.
I initiated a starter intervention on Nov.9th by picking a fanfic that portrays Mary Bonnet in Our Flag Means Death and paired that up with a dialogue of Sense and Sensibility. I asked 4 of my friends to read two short excerpts of those 2 works, and then guess which one is the fanfiction and which one is the original. The results were pretty unerving…all four of them guessed it correctly.
Info of Our Flag Means Death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Flag_Means_Death
Reflecting on the starter intervention, I realised that I hadn’t controlled the variates of the excerpts, and the genre of original fiction and fanfiction was similar only in portraying a female character, for Our Flag Means Death is a pirate comedy, and Sense and Sensibility is a romance novel.
Since different fanfic writers research in remotely different areas when writing different genres(Spotify, 2022), I decided to pair original works and fanfics of the same genre together. Because I was working on a time limit, I decided to search for 4 main genres of fiction based on the top 10 most popular fiction genres: Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-fi and Romance.
The intervention consisted of 3 stages.
Stage 1: Pre-Intervention Questionnaire
Stage 2: Intervention
Based on the 4 most popular genres from the pre-intervention survey, I searched for 4 different novels, paired them up, and sent them to the corresponding participants.
Here is an example of the 2 excerpts from the genre “FANTASY”.
Here are the 4 pairings I chose.
Fantasy: (from The Hobbit) Correct aswer: A
Adventure: (from Treasure Island) Correct aswer: A
Romance: from Wuthering Heights Correct aswer: A
Sci-Fi: from Dune Correct aswer: B
Stage 3: Post-Intervention Questionnaire
REFLECTION: The results from both rounds clearly showed that fanfiction is often seen as lower quality compared to original literature, reinforcing a common stereotype about fan-created works. At first, I might have seen this as a failure. But now, I’m approaching it from a broader perspective. It really highlights the uphill battle in shifting people’s perceptions of fanfiction as a legitimate art form.
Before this course I would have marked this intervention as “failed”, but I chose to look at the results from a more holistic perspective. This demonstrates a prevailing challenge in changing perceptions about fanfiction’s artistic value. Moreover, many fans praised the fanfic they read, saying that they enjoyed reading the excerpts, however “low quality” they were because they loved the plot and characters in the original work and enjoyed the stories that were retold and continued.
Despite the perception of “low quality,” a lot of fans genuinely enjoyed reading the excerpts. They appreciated the fanfiction not because it was polished or literary, but because it brought beloved plots and characters to life in new and creative ways. The familiarity and emotional connection they had with the original works made these stories meaningful and fun for them. This shows that fanfiction doesn’t just succeed or fail based on traditional literary standards—it’s more about the passion and joy it brings to fans, which is a huge part of its cultural value.
EVALUATION: My reflection suggests that comparing fanfiction to original literature is not about superiority but about recognizing fanfiction’s unique participatory state and the importance of exposing the diversity and range of stories within fanfiction. It’s much more useful to give exposure to the range of stories that exist within fandom.