Storyworlds across Media: Toward a Media-Conscious Narratology

14 Transmedial Narration and Fan Fiction

315 14 Transmedial Narration and Fan Fiction The Storyworld of The Vampire Diaries maria lindgren leavenworth An ever-increasing number of Internet-published fan fictions (fanfic) based on the transmedial storyworld of The Vampire Diaries (tvd) evidences a desire to present alternatives to the narrative or to fill in perceived gaps. In their stories, fanfic authors in subtle or profound ways change conditions, plotlines, or characterizations, and in these ways they contribute new associations and interpretations to the extended storyworld . Despite increased academic interest in fan activities, there are still tendencies to see the relation between production and consumption as hierarchical. While the sanctioned products, in fanfic vernacular referred to as “canon,” inspires a desire for interaction, the resulting fan products are not necessarily perceived as on par with the “original” or incorporated into processes of meaning making. The term “canon” works in relation to “fanon,” or the fan-produced, unsanctioned developments of plot and character that over time acquire legitimacy within the fan community even though they may contest or be incompatible with canon elements. In what follows, it is argued that the concept of storyworld holds great potential for allowing a leveling of hierarchies between sanctioned and unsanctioned products. To rethink different contributions , especially in light of the contemporary stress on audience participation , is productive when seeing fan fiction as part of a larger archive. Rather than presenting logically consistent, essentially compatible narratives along the lines of a traditionally defined storyworld, tvd illustrates alternative narrative developments and characterizations in its transmedial instantiations, the novels written by L. J. Smith and the tv series produced by Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, that in some ways may seem to complicate the notion of tvd as one cohesive storyworld.1 Adding the variations, alternatives, and sometimes critical commen- 316 Lindgren-Leavenworth tary found in fan fiction further suggests the possibility of a collapse of any inherent logical narrative consistency. However, both the openness of tvd in terms of fan investment and general tendencies in global convergence culture that encourage audience participation would seem to point at the necessity of a more encompassing notion of storyworld. As Bronwen Thomas argues, “storyworlds are generated and experienced within specific social and cultural environments that are subject to constant change” (6). Considering the specificities of tvd in terms of origin and fan participation, contradictions and incompatibilities are bound to surface and rise to the point where they become intrinsic to the storyworld itself. Although the storyworld is in a state of flux, on a concrete level fan fiction is still a fairly static text form, which in this case is based on likewise fairly static text forms such as written novels and a tv series. Interest thus further lies in what affordances and limitations the concepts of interactivity have and in what aspects specific to tvd need to be taken into account to better understand what goes on between authorized, sanctioned products and fan responses. Finally, four fan fictions are analyzed; two of which are connected to the storyworld’s written instantiations, and two of which take the tv series as their starting point (all published in 2011). At focus are the ways in which the fanfic authors negotiate assignations and portrayals of good and evil and how they criticize cultural norms influencing contemporary romance, all adding new interpretations and new associations to an ever-expanding storyworld archive. The Transmedial tvd Storyworld tvd is designated as transmedial here in accordance with the simplest possible definition: the narrative is dispersed across different media forms. However, it is not a cohesive storyworld in which each instantiation contributes pieces to the overall puzzle, contains exactly the same characters, or presents identical ontologies. In Henry Jenkins’s definition of an “ideal” storyworld, the Wachowski siblings’ The Matrix trilogy is used as an example of how, in addition to “multiple media platforms [. . .] each new text [should make] a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole” and how “[r]eading across media” theoretically can result in a full understanding (Convergence 95–96). The instantiations in tvd, rather than contributing to the whole, veer off in different directions. Transmedial Narration and Fan Fiction 317 Viewers of the cw Television Network’s tv series cannot turn to L. J. Smith’s novels to find answers to all questions (although they can get answers to some) and vice versa.2 Differences are, however, likely the result of a conscious transmedial strategy to...