The Fan Fiction Studies Reader

7. Training New Members

7 TrainingNewMembers Camille Bacon-Smith TheFanzines At Shore Leave, Judy Segal led me through the fanzine rooms. In 1983 there were four parlor rooms filled with the fanzines for sale. She guided me to the more general work, and I bought fanzines from Roberta Rogow, who specializes in, among other things, fanzines for new writers; from Johanna Cantor, an articulate feminist; and from others, while eschewing some of the more controversial genres. This is typical for new members brought into the community. Mentors, particularly for complete neophytes like myself, are often more traditional members of the community and act as gatekeepers. They lead the new member to the art and literature that either requires minimal decoding for an outsider, or that will not shock the sensibilities of a reader who has not yet learned to decode the messages embedded in the community’s product. Judy mentioned the hurt-comfort genre as one she found personally troubling; she dismissed the relatively new homoerotic fiction. We met Lois Welling and Judith Gran outside the fanzine rooms, and here I was introduced to one of the most widespread practices in fandom— “talking story.” Talking story is literally verbal narrative of the community’s fiction. The story so “talked” may be one the talker has written, or plans to write, or one that she has read and particularly liked. Fans likewise talk the episodes of their favorite source products—narrating orally the episodes for fans who may have missed them, or to attract new fans to a particular source product. At Shore Leave, Lois talked her novella, The Displaced. In my identity as a researcher Lois and Judith told me what it means to write these stories: how writing stories works out real-life problems and Camille Bacon-Smith 139 concerns about the life the writer leads both inside and outside of the fan community, and how writing is a form of reaching out to others, of making contact. As someone perceived to be an initiate, however, I am led only into those areas of the literature for which I am deemed to be prepared, primarily those stories that deal with women sharing adventures and relationships with the characters of Star Trek.1 Here I began my study of the troubled and troubling history of these genres. Re-creatingtheAdolescentSelf:MarySue Writing about women would seem to be the natural project of a women’s community, but in fact the set of genres dealing with women have had a troubled history, and none more so than “Mary Sue.” Mary Sue is the youngest officer ever to serve on the starship Enterprise. She is a teenager, tall and slim, with clear skin and straight teeth. If she is not blond, Mary Sue is half Vulcan, her ears delicately pointed. But Mary Sue is not just another pretty face. She is usually highly educated, with degrees from universities throughout the known universe in all fields of technical and cultural studies (or an equivalent head of her class in Starfleet Academy). She can mend the Enterprise with a hairpin, save the lives of the crew through wit, courage, and, occasionally, the sacrifice of her virtue. If the formula is strictly followed, Lieutenant Mary Sue dies in the last paragraph of the story, leaving behind a grieving but safe crew and ship.2 Mary Sue is also the most universally denigrated genre in the entire canon of fan fiction. I first encountered the genre by reputation, because although fanzine editors no longer will publish stories about her, the controversy over her continues vigorously to this day in both the fanzines and in group discussions. Paula Smith coined the term in a brief version of the formula exaggerated for humor.3 Her story, “A Trekkie’s Tale,” first appeared in 1974 in an issue of the fanzine Menagerie. In 1980, Johanna Cantor used the story with permission of the author to demonstrate the genre characteristics as part of a debate on the Mary Sue controversy in Archives V.4 Here in its entirety is the story that coined the term “Mary Sue”: “Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky,” thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. “Here I am, the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet—only fifteen and half years old.” Captain Kirk came up to her. 140 chapter 7 “Oh, Lieutenant, I love you madly. Will you come to bed with me?” “Captain! I am...