Fan, Flash, and Slash

I have recently been drawn, with car-crash-like fascination, into the world of fanfiction. The interwebs are crawling with home-penned tales of sequels, prequels, long-lost unknown characters, and soft porn (and, occasionally, hard porn) that is somehow connected to popular fiction/TV/movies.

Today's case study: Harry Potter fanfic. Once you dip into this genre, you'll realize that a little over 99% of fanfic is pretty bad, but what a range of badness there is. Random sample sentence: "His insides imploded, and a single tear escape from his emotionless eyes." That's nowhere near the bottom of the barrel, which should give you an idea.

A lot of it also overlaps with the genre of flash fiction, which is fiction of usually 500-1500 words. Straightup flash fiction can be a good and useful exercise for the writer, and often a fun read, but fan-flashfic is often short because the author's imagination is...well, limited. Example: a short scene in which Hermione discovers that her cat, Crookshanks, has impregnated Filch's cat, Mrs. Norris. The end.

Then there is the more sinister/hilarious subgenre of slash fiction. Named for the slash between the two main characters' names, as in Harry/Snape. Draco/Harry. Kirk/Spock. Holmes/Watson. Ad nauseum. Notice that all characters are male, usually involving some tense antagonism/interpersonal dynamics. This is because slashfic always deals with a gay relationship between its two primaries, usually--but not always--accompanied by plenty of BDSM. (Male/female sex is called hetfic, never slashfic). While some put emphasis on the emotional complexities of the relationship (those tend to be ok, though be warned there are toxic levels of angst), slash is usually synonymous with sex.

It's worth a read. One of the most fascinating things about slashfic is that a LOT of it appears to be written by girls/young women. You can read more about that here. Again, a lot of fanfic and slashfic is pretty awful: contrived, poorly spelled and punctuated, devolving into one-dimensional stereotypes and rehashes. And some of it's truly disturbing, particularly the ones that feature Uncle Vernon as a raging drunk who beats the crap out of Harry. It makes you wonder what's going on in some of these kids' lives. But every now and then, you come across a gem: some people really do nail the voice and style of the piece they're working from, so that you end up wondering what they'd be capable of if they did their own original stuff.

And now, presenting the absolute best slashfic on the web - it's about 1/3 of the way down the comment thread for the AV Club's review of the 2008 film Frost/Nixon. Come on, it was begging for it. You know you want it.


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