gender and fanfic

[martasfic]

My last post has me thinking a little about gender and fanfic. At least in the Tolkien fandom, it seemed like conventional wisdom that most fanfic writers are women. Not all of them; I can think of three offhand who I'm fairly share are male, though I'm hesitant to name names since their pennames don't make this obvious. But it does seem there's a higher proportion of women in fandom than in society at large or even among professional writers, at least in my experience.

I'm less sure about the why. So here are some questions floating around I'd like to see answered:

1. Why do you write fanfic?
2. Are you male or female? Want to describe that further? (i.e. I'm a girl but something of a tomboy)
3. What effect, if any, do you think your gender has on your decision to write fanfic? Are there other more important factors? Less important ones?
4. If it were possible to write fiction and have it published professionally (Sherlock Holmes pastiches, Star Wars tie-in novels, etc.), would you? Why or why not?
5. Do you think your gender has anything to do with <i>this</i> decision? Explain.

But those are just suggestions. If you have thoughts on this topic, feel free to share it however you like. And do feel free to spread the link to this to anyone you know.

I may do a post on this at some point, in which case I may quote comments made here. Or I may not; this may be just for my interest. So if you'd rather me not do that, just mention you don't want to be quoted and I'll respect that.   

Comments

[shirebound]

1. I started writing fanfic because I was reading stories about Frodo being tenderly cared for (something missing, in canon, in many places I longed for it), and I wanted to write stories that would make other people feel as warm and happy as those stories were making me feel. I also loved the idea of the 'give and take' (review and response) between author and readers, something that Livejournal gives me as well. As I continued writing, the urge to fill in 'gaps' in the Professor's tale also began to take over my life.

2. Female, but not a girly-girl.

3. I always assumed that there were more female than male fanfic writers because women tend to want to explore the emotional and caregiving aspects of the characters more than men might.

4. I would adore to have my entire "Quarantined" AU series published. It's a complete tale from beginning to end.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Your feelings are very much like mine.Have you ever thought of putting your "Quarantined" series on a personal website in chronological order like I have my stories? Your stories always make me feel warm and happy.

[shirebound]

I love that idea, but wouldn't have a clue how to do it. I've never learned how to make or maintain websites.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I'm as dim as they come with coding and stuff but my website is simply copy/paste and no harder to use than LJ.Sadly Yola only offer limited free sites now but I think Webs
http://www.webs.com/
is very similiar. I love being able to display my stories as a unified whole which is how I think of them.

[shirebound]

Thanks, Linda. :)