2nd Arts & Humanities Conference, Florence

COMMON ISSUES FACED BY FANFICTION WRITERS IN DEVELOPING A CANON CHARACTER

MARIIA PANTIUSHOVA

Abstract:

Nowadays the phenomenon of fanfiction has spread all over the world. Fanfiction is fiction written around previously established characters invented by other authors. The universe of the story is called canon. While developing canon characters, numerous mistakes have been made by fanfic authors (ficwriters). For this research we used fanfiction about Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. The goal of the present study was to discover how many fanfics contain wrong description of canon characters, classify the mistakes and determine general ways of avoiding the personage being Out of Character. For that we have done the following: collected statistics, described the most common mistakes, explained why they appear and determined what issues ficwriters face and how they cope with it. Statistics: 46 fanfics about Hermione were thoroughly scrutinized. 22 of them contained mistakes. Classification: Mistakes were divided in four groups: behaviour, personality, details and language. In order to explain why such mistakes appear, we conducted a survey of 452 fanfiction writers. In their opinion, the most important issue is sustaining the personality (274 votes). Avoiding Out of Character issue. 60% of ficwriters recommend studying the canon, 40% - reading articles and facts about the necessary character, also imagining yourself as this person. The importance of this paper: nowadays fanfiction is becoming a major part of contemporary literature, which helps new writers in creating their stories. Hence, this research can help in developing canon and original types of characters by using the examples of mistakes and the opinions of 452 ficwriters. This study has shown that 44% of published fanfics contain mistakes in describing canon characters. Ficwriters say that the problem itself is hard to deal with and recommend studying canon and imagining yourself as necessary personage. Those findings can also be used by non-ficwriters to improve their own characters.

Keywords: fanfiction, canon, developing a character, OOC

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