Yet another fandom (and a Britney dream)

I've spent the past few days immersing myself in Smallville slash. Not that I've ever seen a single episode in my life, but that's okay--when I first started reading boyband slash, I had only the vaguest idea of who the Backstreet Boys were and had never heard of 'N Sync.

Oh, and so I don't forget, I dreamt that I was in the Weasleys' house looking for a room in which to have sex with Harry, and we kicked the twins out of their bedroom. And then the dream shifted and Britney was having a sleepover with me and my sisters and their friends. In the morning she put on this horrendous outfit consisting of blue panties and a see-through black tulle skirt, and I adjusted the skirt for her so that the underwear didn't show at the waist and tucked in her tag. I was looking for something to wear myself, but all of my clothes were tatty-looking, and my only good pair of jeans had a rip in the knee. Which is pretty much the state of my clothing in RL, but in my dream Britney was standing there looking all pretty--even in her godawful outfit--and 'N Sync was coming over later so they would make the comparison, too. I hate it when my dreams get all meaningful. Though, on the plus side, I got to feel up Britney!

Legitimate Fiction

I do think that, in the final analysis, all a writer really has to give is the stuff that only she or he can give the world and no-one else can. That the sooner you sound like you and tell the stories only you can tell, for good or for ill, the better. And from that point of view, I suppose I think of fan-fiction as training wheels. Sooner or later you have to take them off the bike and start wobbling down the street on your own.
--Neil Gaiman, from his online journal

During my past two years as a slash writer, I've had a number of friends and family try to tell me this same thing, and after putting quite a bit of thought into it I have to say that I reject the entire premise. The slash stories that I write are stories that only I can tell; the characters may be universal--at least to the audience for whom I'm writing--but my interpretation of the characters and the situations I place them in are purely mine. Are coauthors of a novel or, to consider a greater extreme, scriptwriters for TV programs stifling their vision because their works are collaborative? For that matter, are Shakespeare's historical plays any less the "stuff that only...he can give the world" than his comedies? Should we consider King Lear primarily as a derivative work, based on an oft-told fairy tale, or do we instead value it as one of the most brilliant and masterful works of English literature?

Yes, fanfiction can be a crutch. It can be far easier to write stories that resonate with readers when they already feel an emotional connection to the characters you're using. I'm grateful for this--I think it's one of the reasons that the proportion of good to bad slash is often higher than that of good to bad published fiction, and I know it's one of the reasons that I can write slash stories of which I'm proud. But where is it stated that struggle is a necessary part of the process of writing good fiction?

Judging each author and each story on its own merits, I think most slashers would feel as I do: in addition to all the merely competent and good and even excellent slash writers, there are some who are surpassingly brilliant and on par with the most celebrated of published authors. And as for the rest of us...we may not be the Michael Ondaatjes or the Zadie Smiths of the slash world, but that doesn't make our contributions meaningless. We're still sharing our unique perspectives with the world and telling the stories that only we can tell. The only difference I can see between slash and original fiction is that when I write slash, the world will actually choose to read it.