Fiction – Snopes

Fan Fiction and Parody

Iva Weidenkeller

From music to poetry and prose, the practice of artists sampling other artists’ work is nothing new.

Shrek(1)

When a song tops the Billboard charts, it is only a matter of time before it gets chewed up and spat back out in some variant form. The Monkees’ 1966 number one hit “I’m a Believer” was given new life in Smash Mouth’s early-2000’s rendition, featured in the movie Shrek. (I’m ashamed to say that for a long time I was unaware that this wasn’t originally Smash Mouth’s song). In 2009, American rapper Flo Rida produced his number one single “Right Round,” which was more than loosely based on the 80’s pop hit “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” by the British group Dead or Alive.

Similarly, popular books are often rewritten in various iterations. The old adage “if you build it, they will come” is never more true than in the case of literary franchises—if there is money to be made or fame to be had, there will be someone willing to make a remix or parody of a written work.

As explained by Chauncey Baker in a previous Snopes blog post, literary pastiche sometimes takes the form of “fan fiction.” Popular books are given new life, thereby generating new sales; the Twilight series becomes Fifty Shades of Grey one, two, and three, as well as Nightlight: A Parody, New Moan, etc. In a quest to fill the ever-expanding “paranormal romance” genre (aka vampire novels), Wuthering Heights becomes Wuthering Bites and Jane Eyre becomes Jane Slayre.

Beyond basic fan fiction, however, and more interesting still (in my opinion) are parodies of parodies. Itself a parody, Fifty Shades of Grey has morphed into its own franchise and spun in a multitude of directions, including Fifty Shades of Mr. Darcy, Fifty Shades of Alice in Wonderland, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey, Fifty Shades of Pink (complete with sparkles and unicorns!), A Coupla Shades of Taupe, and—my personal favorite—Fifty Shades of Chicken (a cookbook). Many of these seem to me like they’d be a stretch, at best…realistically, how big could the market for these books be? And yet no one would write them if the readers weren’t out there.

Why are we, as readers, so drawn to works that closely imitate other works? Do we value parodies as literary works in their own right? Or are we merely creatures of habit who are more comfortable with tried-and-true plotlines than original compositions? More to the point: is it even possible to still compose a truly original composition, or have all the “good ideas” been used up? Although parodies seem to catch a lot of flak (in spite of its shocking success, you’re apt to hear at least 5 people criticizing Fifty Shades for every one person who likes it), they also carry an undeniable appeal. Personally, I love a good parody. Last year, I bought my nephew Goodnight Moon…along with the more contemporary version, Goodnight iPad for Christmas. My brother and sister-in-law have also introduced me to Go the F**k to Sleep, a charming and hilarious just-for-adults parody of a typical children’s bedtime story. I am even the proud owner of a parody volume entitled Twitterature, in which literary classics (think Shakespeare, Salinger, Byron, Dostoyevsky) are told in a series of twenty (or fewer) tweets, each under 140 characters.

I’d love to hear your thoughts regarding any of the parodies above, or even parodies in general. Do you love literary parodies, or do you love to hate them? Do you have a favorite? Leave a response in the comments below!

The Rise of Fan Fiction

Chauncey Baker

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then perhaps Shakespeare didn’t roll over in his grave and groan when Dreamworks retold his classic play Twelfth Night in the form of a high school romantic comedy. Questions of authenticity and originality have been on the forefront of literary concern with works like Fifty Shades of Grey gaining a widespread fan base outside of its initially niche market of middle-aged housewives. Its popularity has little to do with its roots as an AU, or “alternate universe” Twilight fan fiction, originally published on the web and then picked up for publication. This is not the first instance of fan fiction being published reputably. Sherlock Holmes, a beloved character created by Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, became public domain and immediately short stories and books appeared using the famous the sleuth as a main or side character. People can publish books like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Holmes where an author would crossover two worlds of fiction for a greater depth of plot. More recently, an RPF, or “real person fiction”, written by a teenage girl about her imaginary adventures with the band One Direction was picked for publication. Obviously some names must be changed and certain details blurred, but that does not change the story’s origins.

Fan fiction is not just limited to the page as many works have been adapted and re-adapted for the big or small screen. Sherlock Holmes was recently reset in the modern era by the BBC, and CBS quickly followed with their hit show, Elementary. Is it a lack of imagination that leads us to reuse old plot devices or perhaps a simple fascination with untold stories that drives people to retell a story previously told? As far back as Ancient Greece, people have been using well-known stories for their own creative ends. Sophocles brought Oedipus to life on stage, but not a single audience member would have entered the theatre without any knowledge of the Oedipus story. They attended for the same reason people watch the fifth remake of Pride and Prejudice. A timeless story fascinates its audience to the point of inspiration.

Authors are allowed to publish novel “remixes” like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies using a great deal of the original works text and adding passages of their own. Works like this are not derivative. They are extensions of a pre-existing, already created universe manipulated to meet a new artist’s needs. Some works have elements of fan fiction but cannot be classified as such since the original artist has given permission for alterations. This occurs in the adaptation of book to film. The Lord of the Rings films are not fan fiction. They may have previously nonexistent elements that someone has arbitrarily decided to include, but these changes are also the casualties caused by the transfer from one medium to another.

Fan fiction, and fan works, pervade the modern entertainment spheres. New books retelling fairy tales and re-imagining classic novels are being written every day with varying degrees of success. I have The Eyre Affair and Death Comes to Pemberley patiently waiting on my Kindle for a rainy day and even though neither Austen nor Brontë had a hand in the crafting of these novels, I’m still pretty excited to read them.

– Chauncey Baker

John Ehle’s The Winter People

R.T. Smith

I was recently re-reading John Ehle’s The Winter People, one of the novels I regrettably had to omit from my “Appalachian Literature: Idea and Identity” syllabus. It just missed the cut, and my memories of it (from about a decade ago) were fond. I also watched the film version in which a young Kurt Russell plays the clockmaker Wayland Jackson and Kelly McGillis portrays Collie Wright, the woman at the center of the book’s pivotal conflicts. The two versions vary greatly, and in matters of character development, I mostly preferred the novel, while in matters of sheer plottery, I favored the movie. Probably that’s as it should be, a good screen writer can make a virtue of the necessity of thrift — trimming, melding and telescoping — but a good novelist (and Ehle is that) can reveal both the clarities and ambiguities of a personality.

What I would praise in both versions is the artists’ reluctance to portray the highland folk as backward or simple. The narrator of Poe’s “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains,” set in the hill country of western Virginia, says, “I remembered, too, strange stories told about these Ragged Hills, and of the uncouth and fierce races of men who tenanted their groves and caverns.” Of course, Poe’s narrator also claims to have seen a hyena in those environs, but he was expressing the view of Appalachians that has long outlived any excuse we have for maintaining it. Ehle certainly offers a picture of the fierce class, in this novel represented by the Campbells, who seem about as far from urbane as anyone who builds chimneys, reads scripture and hunts with firearms might be, but even among their number there are those who aspire to more than woodcrafting and roughhousing. The Wrights constitute the other side of the spectrum, with overlap, of course. They are presented as storekeepers, blacksmiths, led by a deeply reflective patriarch with a keen sense of the ambiguities involved where ethics are concerned. Into the delicate truce between these two clans stumbles the widowed clockmaker, who soon falls for an unmarried Wright with an infant. I should stop summarizing here, as mysteries which will hover for a hundred pages follow in close order.

It’s common practice to imagine mountain people, “winter people,” as lacking initiative, resistant to change, disinclined to consider or deliberate. John Ehle is a writer dedicated to revealing Appalachians in their deliberateness, their attentiveness (which anyone who can follow a trail must have) to nuance and shading. As in his other works The Journey of August King and The Widow’s Trial, Ehle concentrates much of his own attention on the conversations and considerations of the characters, but he does it as much with their speech and actions as with their thoughts, so his stories never stall, even in the prolonged trials or family councils he recounts. And when he narrates the process of a wild mountain bear hunt, he has a cinematic eye and the right word hoard to rivet even a woods-dumb reader (And the good sense to borrow some bits from Horace Kephart).

Another of Ehle’s convictions appears to be that people don’t come as Good or Bad, but as mixed. We’re like metamorphic rock in that respect, and what we perceive will depend on how we turn a piece and where the light strikes it. He keeps showing facet after facet, layer after layer, until he reminds us that, in the matter of 3-D language, can compete with film. The flaw that runs through the movie is Wayland’s consistent (though not rigid) generosity and courage; he’s too much the steady pendulum that keeps the clock, the story, on time and on track. The novel is more rewarding for revealing his shadow side, but his rendering in the film is not enough awry to spoil its suspense or authenticity.

Granted, both Ehle and screenwriter Carol Sobieski (Fried Green Tomatoes) make some compromises to assist the audience, but for a story that combines romance, violence and suspense against a backdrop of dangerously beautiful mountains (filmed in Anson County, N.C.) and hard-wrought existence, The Winter People ranks high on my list. Its complications and refusals to take the easy path make it not just a drama but a genuine tragedy. The film is available from Netflix and the paperback version (hardback was from Harper & Row, 1982) of the book from Down Home Press.

R. T. Smith has edited Shenandoah since 1995 and serves as Writer-in-Residence at Washington & Lee. His forthcoming books are Doves in Flight: 13 Fictions and Summoning Shades: New Poems, both due in 2017.

Alyson Hagy’s BOLETO

R.T. Smith

“She had a good head. There was nothing goat nosed or weak chinned about her. Her jaw was a fine crescent that transitioned into a neat, clean mouth. Her throat arced gracefully away from her jaw into a long, but not too long, neck. She’d fill out moere in the neck as she aged, but he could already tell she’d never be too thick there. And she’d never be spindly either. He was surprised by the hue of her neck and face. She was one of the deeper blood bays he’d laid eyes on in a long time. He realized he had never asked Campion what color she was. The question hadn’t even come to mind. Color wasn’t important to him. But her color — if she kept it — would make her one to remember. Oxblood to old copper, that’s how he would describe it.”

Alyson Hagy knows words the way that Will Testerman knows horses, from the inside out. She knows people, too.

Coming soon to our Recommended Reading column in the current issue: a brief but enthusiastic explanation of why you should read this new novel right away. For another exhibit of evidence, see Alyson Hagy’s “Self Portrait as a Trailer Full of Mules” in Shenandoah 61, No. 1.

R. T. Smith on SHERBURNE

R.T. Smith

Chloe Bellomy interviews Washington and Lee Writer-in-Residence R. T. Smith on his new collection of stories, Sherburne.

http://vimeo.com/39848442

R. T. Smith reading from Sherburne:

http://youtu.be/Q0VSJRNND6g

Print or iPad?

blackeyd12

With graduation on the horizon, a number of questions are burning and a subsequent number of decisions will soon need to be made. One such decision I have already begun to probe is in what form will an English major graduate like myself continue her reading.

As I have maneuvered through my college courses , I have made myself very familiar with the pros and cons to reading both printed texts and texts on an iPad. Now, considering my future financial insecurity, I realize the days are numbered where I have the luxury of utilizing both forms of text.

In line with nearly every print advocate, I find the physical tangibility of a text enjoyable and comforting. Additionally, through my studies it has been essential to be equipped with a physical copy of a text to highlight, underline, and annotate. Yet, next year, I do not see myself writing many notes in the columns to bring up during class discussion or see the need to mark important quotes that I will not be later incorporating into a paper. Plus, printed texts are just more expensive.

For me, all signs point to the iPad. Not only is it just one, small device equipped with an endless library of texts, it can do things a printed text simply cannot; it can read to me , it can look up a word I am not familiar with, and if I do want to mark a page that I find particularly interesting, it allows me to do that as well. It seems that while nostalgia may tempt me to hold on to the printed text, the iPad is the answer for now.

April Fools

Mary Olive Keller

In light of yesterday, I thought a post honoring some of my favorite tricksters in literature couldn’t be more appropriate. At an early age, my parents would rock me to sleep with tales of Brer Rabbit and Puss and Boots. In middle school, I first met Shakespeare’s Puck, whose clever schemes single-handedly convinced me that the playwright wasn’t as boring as he seemed. Last year, I was surprised to encounter these folk in my course on Medieval Literature. As we read Sir Tomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, it seemed like almost every quest contained at least one disguised knight. None of these examples, however, compares to the tricks conjured up by Twain in Huck Finn (at least for me). The Duke and the King’s cons, among others, will forever make the novel synonymous with trickery.

Enough about me. Do you have any other favorite trickster characters, novels, or films? Has anyone ever played a memorable joke on you?

Putting Recreational Reading to “The Flannery O’Connor Test”

Timothy McAleenan

Flannery O’Connor once said that she stops reading a book the moment that she “would not feel a sense of loss if she were to quit reading.” Professor Smith has mentioned that he regularly reads a twenty to thirty page story and thinks something to the effect of, “This story really begins on page eight.” For the past four years, the English majors have been living in a bubble in the sense that we do not get to decide whether we want to continue reading the work or not—if a teacher assigns a work, we’re obligated to finish it.

But what happens when you enter the realm of recreational reading? If the book isn’t interesting, should we stop reading and turn on Mad Men, or should we work our way through it, and earn our way to the meat of the novel, as if we’re eating lobster? In my personal experience, I feel that way about William Faulkner’s work. I really like the idea of William Faulkner, and I have a great interest in many of the themes, motifs, and sense of nostalgia that animates his texts. But with the exceptions of the short story A Rose for Emily and The Sound and the Fury, I haven’t particularly enjoyed the experience of reading a William Faulkner work—getting through Flags in the Dust felt more like a chore to me than an exhilarating reading experience. Yet, once I was done with the work, I was glad that I read it.

I was willing to slog through Flags in the Dust because I was aware of Faulkner’s reputation and I had a good idea of the subject matter at hand before I even read it. But what happens when we’re dealing with no-named authors writing on topics we’re not familiar with? At that point, it’s like picking a piece in the box of chocolates, but some of the options…aren’t chocolate.

If you’re fifty pages into a novel that’s yet to impress you, what do you do? Do you work your way through it, hoping to find the nugget that makes the experience worthwhile, or do you adopt the “life’s too short mentality” and simply give up on it? My attitude on the matter is this: if the author has a well-earned reputation for quality, I’m going to be charitable and give the book a couple chances to capture my interest. But if I’m doing the equivalent of perusing a book on the rack at a bookstore by some Johnny Come Lately, then I’m much more inclined to move on to the next option, as if I’m cable surfing on the television.

Movies and Literature

skitskoc12

We have recently been talking quite a bit about Young Adult Fiction, both in our blogs and in class. In her earlier blog “When Young Adult is too Adult” Lauren Starnes questioned whether the Hunger Games was an appropriate book for the age group which it targets. I have both read the Hunger Games and seen the movie. The movie appears to be geared towards a similar age group, with a rating of PG13 and yet all ages have been clamoring to see it. It was interesting to see how the film makers managed to make the movie both appropriate for the younger ages and appealing to the older ones. The violence was definitely more subdued on screen than it was on the page. Peeta’s leg that has to be amputated in the book is miraculously healed. The muscular Katniss does not look at all to be on the brink of starvation when Peeta throws her the burned bread. We do not hear the agonized screams of Cato as he is being savagely ripped apart for a seemingly never ending amount of time. The children watching the movie are somewhat protected from all of the unpleasantness that the Games suggest.

Usually, these omissions would make an older audience shy away. They want the gritty stuff. But in this case it doesn’t. Critics adore the movie; people are raving about it. One of the main things the movie had made is to make the characters more mature. Katniss Everdeen is no longer the young stripling she is in the book. In the movie she is played by Jennifer Lawrence, whose 22 years makes her much more of an adult that 16 year old Katniss. All of the actors are older than their counterparts in the novels. This makes their emotions and their actions suddenly more believable (especially Katniss’s). In trying to make the movie more attractive to all ages, the film company has actually done the books a favor. They have brought the series and entirely different audience who will now want to read the rest of the series, for with an established cast of mature characters in mind, adults will not think of it as reading a children’s book- the Hunger Games becomes more appropriate for their age group as well.

What other movies have you seen that you thought made the book better?

Illustration and literature: Can they mix?

Zoe Yarborough

We are studying the genre of memoir in my four-person capstone class currently. The course began with Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home—the title ironically encapsulates the story of a dysfunctional family and its funeral home business. The graphic novel is something I have had very little exposure to before reading Fun Home. Perhaps it is due to my constant inclination toward words, but I found myself skimming and sometimes wholly ignoring the illustrations that ran through and around the text. The multidimensional technique behind Fun Home as well as Howard Cruse’s Stuck Rubber Baby is no doubt laudably crafted and intriguing. The illustrations, however, distract me. They too often make it so that the words are not presented on the page in a discernable order. Dialogue jumps around ambiguously, and there are sometimes a dozen frames of pictures to comprehend. How close of attention should the reader pay to studying the succession of illustrations? What is a good ratio of time spent on the words versus the visual?

As is true of every term as an upper-level English major, my classes have intersected in their content and conversation. In one of our Shenandoah intern meetings we discussed the Virginia Quarterly Review and some of its peculiar facets. What struck me was its incorporation of lots of color, more modern and “hip” typography, pictures, and even comics. A few of my peers voiced opposition to the comics, saying things like they cheapened the review and made it less serious or less academic. I tend to agree with this view. When I read a novel or a literary review, I primarily want words. Occasional photographs and art are wonderful, and can even help transition, set the tone, or change the pace. But I have found I do not mesh well with comics or graphic novels. Maybe a reader like my brother and his Calvin-and-Hobbes-filled childhood would have a different opinion. Or maybe I need more practice and exposure.