Harry Potter and the Fanfiction Community

Here I am three years after the release of the last book in the Harry Potter series, writing about the still strong Harry Potter Fanfiction Community. I thought it would have died by now or have become irrelevant to many fans who have been satisfied by the completion of the series. I was wrong.

Where do I fit in to all of this? I loved Harry Potter Fanfiction back in the day when we only had four books in the series. It was fun to be able to turn to a source to get more Harry Potter to read. Now, the writing was not as good and sometimes the story lines were ridiculous, but it was comforting to just find more to read. Also, when the series was only half over, fanfiction was a way to play with the 'what-ifs'. What will happen? What does this one clue mean? Authors could explore it through fanfiction, be wrong, and then be able to market their story as "Alternate Universe."

So, what are some common traits of the fanfiction community?

Shame/Pride/Anonymity

For this ethnography, I spoke to a good friend who used to read fanfiction at the same time as me. We both discussed how embarrassed we were about it. It was our kind of secret that we didn't want to tell anyone. We were teenagers at this time, using our family's computers. We would both delete the browser history because we were too embarrassed to be confronted by the rest of the family - even though the rest of the family would have absolutely no idea what that text meant. Strangely enough, my friend and I would never talk about what we read together - we just knew we both read fanfiction. It was too personal to talk about the alternate universes we imagined, but I think it's because we felt some shame about our dream hook-ups. Why? Well, they were so improbably and not based on the books that it was silly. Draco is not going to be sensitive, people.

However, in visiting the fanfiction world outside my circle, I see a sense of anonymous pride. Authors hide behind the constructed identities of screen names and avatars, but there is a sense of community. For example, fanfiction.net has a forums section that is split up among what kind of situations (or relationships) people like to read. Each of these forums has thousands of posts relating to writing challenges (ideas for authors), recommendations (I am a reader and I just read this great story; you should read it too!). For the most part, people involved in the fanfiction community seem to view their participation in the community necessary for keeping it alive. It is not a self-sufficient place. Members are needed to promote stories, keep the community alive through non-fanfiction communication and by keeping writers writing through story ideas and challenges. Most importantly, the goal of the Harry Potter fanfiction community seems to be keeping the series alive. We were all disappointed that the series ended, especially since the epilogue was disappointing to a lot of people who participate(d) in the fanfiction community. It's their duty to erase the epilogue and keep it the series alive in some strange alternate reality.

A Chance to Write and Not Develop

Now, I can honestly say I've never written fanfiction. I was always a passive user, but that's because I had too much shame to write anything. However, what I have noticed in a lot of fanfiction writers is the lure of being able to write a story and not have the develop the characters. It's a great entry and practice for developing writers. They do not have to give the characters any attributes because we know them already. They don't have to describe most of the setting, because we know it already. The truth is, all they have to do is write a coherent plot and it's a readable story for many people.

However, a lot of the characterization introduced in the actual series gets ignored. Or explained. Draco may be sensitive in a fanfiction and that is explained away because "Harry just didn't know the real Draco." The reader suspends his belief and accepts it, because honestly, we don't want to read a story about a shamelessly mean person anyway, but we are intrigued by his character. Most fanfiction doesn't exactly match up with the real series, in either characterization or content, but that's alright since it's a fantasy world spurned by a fantasy world. Fanfiction isn't really viewed as a knock-off of books, it's more of an exploration or a chance to say, "What if?" It's a way to get that awful epilogue out of your brain.