In which art stands on the shoulders of giants

[zeborah]

Mere fanart? Can this painting be art if a viewer who doesn't know the source material can't understand it?

In the ongoing debate about fanfic, heleninwales said:
Fan fiction writers, however, don't bother to learn [how much backstory to include and how to insert it into the story] because they know they don't have to.

Which is not at all how I'd describe it. I'd say that fanfiction authors don't explain canon backstory because doing so would actively get in the way of the story they're trying to tell to their audience.

They do still have to learn what non-canon backstory to include and how to include it.

And moreover I don't think this is completely different from other fiction. All fiction walks the balance between the audience already understanding certain things but not knowing certain other things. Set a novel during the reign of Elizabeth I and bang, there's a whole heap of backstory you don't need to explain because people already know it. You don't need to explain who Elizabeth is and how she rose to power; or Walsingham, or Drake, or Mary of Guise, or... You can, of course, if you have a novel take on it, but otherwise most of the time you're better off not to and just getting on with the story.

It's the same with fanfic.

And though it's most obvious with historical novels (which are after all blatantly history fanfic), it's also true of other genres. In a science-fiction novel, unless you've got a novel take on faster-than-light travel, you can assume your readers are up with the flow. In a crime drama, you can assume your readers know how the criminal justice system works. If you set something in New York City, you can assume your readers know something about the geography. If you're writing a romance you can take shortcuts in explaining why the main characters belong to each other because you know the readers know that they're reading a romance. When producing a church play, I can assume the congregation understands why this guy's walking down the aisle with a cross on his shoulder. When titling this blogpost, I could assume that most of my readers would understand the allusion.

All fiction assumes that the reader shares some background knowledge with the reader. In fact, all communication relies on the same assumption. The only question is what that domain of knowledge is. It might be Arthuriana, or it might be Regency social mores, or it might be the seven books of Harry Potter, or it might be the details of a particular controversy in the Supernatural fandom.

The fact that a fanvid author doesn't explain certain kinds of backstory is no different from the fact that an original-fic author doesn't explain certain kinds of backstory. They've made a decision based on their assumed audience, is all.

heleninwales also said:
if anyone can point me to a fan fiction story that they consider good and that stands alone and works even for people who have no knowledge of the source fandoms, then I'll be happy to revise my opinion.

I haven't really been in fandom for a long time, but from my bookmarks I think:

• Lunch and Other Obscenities
• Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (in progress)
• A Beginner's Guide to Vulcan Sexual Practice (this is not only Star Trek fanfic, but also parody of a particular controversy in fandom around the time this was written. It stands alone even if you don't know anything about either.)

Fanvids:

• It Depends On What You Pay (trigger warning for dubcon, noncom, rape)
• Handlebars

[These both comment on the original source, which I hadn't seen before viewing the vid.]

Professional fanfic:

• deletes nascent list Just go read this list instead.

Comments

[dsgood]

I'd say you also need to give backstory if you're writing "This is what it was really like" fan fiction. (Or anti-fan fiction?) If in your story the Orcs were sensitive poets and pacifists till persecuted by Men, for example.

[zeborah]

Yes - and in that kind of fanfic you need to work out what's the same and needs no explanation, what's the same but needs to be said to be the same, and what's different and needs to be told.