By Jessica N. Bowles-Martinez
Fan Fiction on the Net is an online guide to fan fiction websites.
It provides links to newsgroups, mailing lists, web pages, and ftp
sites that contain stories created by fans. The site is divided up
into sections for books, movies, television, comics, and specific
television shows. Shows like Star Trek, which are known for having
a devoted and perhaps obsessive fan base, and as a result have a lot
of fan fiction, are given their own area.
The site is text only, and does not provide any real content itself.
Yet, its job is to provide a fast way to find fan resources online,
and it does a great job of it. The lack of graphics makes the site
load extremely fast. It also uses various methods to organize its
site, either alphabetical or by topic, making it easy to find sites
on almost everything I was looking for.
The biggest downside was that the site had quite a few links that
no longer existed or were much different than what their description
indicated. The site said that the author had been sick for some time
and not had time to update the site. I tried to be more patient after
learning this, but I still found myself frustrated with the expired
links.
Personal experiences writing my own fan fiction is the reason that
I appreciate what this relatively simple site has to offer. In high
school, my boyfriend and I watched as promising movies degraded themselves
to Hollywood-style endings and the television shows we loved died
out or took a ridiculous plot turn to increase ratings. After whining
for a bit we would tell one another how we would have ended it if
we were the writers. We would often make comics or long stories that
we often posted on a local BBS. Occasionally people would respond
to our writings, but most didn't care at all about what we were writing
about. Only later did I find out about newsgroups where such ideas
could be posted and discussed with people who had mutual interests.
My boyfriend who had been writing a soap opera type version of Star
Trek found others to join in and help create ridiculous episodes that
played up what they perceived to be homoerotic references in the show.
It was only by luck that we were able to find some of the sites that
we contributed to, and often it was frustrating when no site could
be found. A simple site like this one would have encouraged me to
write about more obscure shows and movies since I would be able to
find an appropriate forum for my stores. Instead, I found that I was
writing on somewhat narrow themes or only about the shows that had
an established following, as those were the only ones with pages I
could find. I wish I had known about this site, so I could have an
outlet for my frustrations with the entertainment industry.
I hope that this site will be updated and perhaps expanded upon, because
I think it provides a valuable service to those who want to do more
than just passively consume the plots given to them.