Jane Austen fan fiction skewered by NYT
An essay in the New York Times about literary Web sites zeroes in on one of the more notorious pieces of Jane Austen fan fiction at Fanfiction.net: the infamous Darcy/Wickham slash piece.
You probably finished ”Pride and Prejudice” thinking, ”That was fine, but I’d have liked at least one hot encounter between Darcy and Wickham, especially if it involved exposed chests and a healthy slathering of cheap cologne.” Reader, they’ve written it.
Another site mentioned is Godawful Fan Fiction, not coincidentally related to the above, because they’ve skewered the Darcy/Wickham slash. (Unladylike Language Warning, though if you’re reading the slash anyway, a few Bad Words probably aren’t going to throw you.)
While the AustenBlog staff enjoys fandom wankage as much as anyone, we could not help but wonder why a whole weblog dedicated to Jane Austen doesn’t even merit a mention in this article, though of course the allure of Darcy/Wickham slash and cheap cologne cannot be overlooked, one supposes.
October 3rd, 2004 at 10:33 pm
I hadn’t heard that such a thing as Darcy/Wickham slash existed. I think that I need a few moment to wrap my mind around this fact.
I wanted to say that I snickered– even possibly guffawed– at your last sentence. And yes, I agree, AustenBlog should not have been overlooked!
October 3rd, 2004 at 10:56 pm
I think it’s just the one story (which I have not read, being not much interested in OOC fan fiction, which this cannot but be). I’ve heard rumors of Darcy/Bingley slash, though. I don’t know if any cheap cologne was involved, however. (Would Darcy WEAR cheap cologne? Would Wickham, for that matter?)
October 4th, 2004 at 10:50 pm
Pardon my ignorance, but what pray tell does OOC mean?
October 4th, 2004 at 11:43 pm
Out Of Character, or Out Of Canon sometimes. I like JA stories placed in different settings, that sort of thing, but they’re most successful when the author stays true to the spirit of the original and especially to the characterizations. Even when a writer messes with the plot(which I’ve done) a story will work better when the writer is strict with the characterizations, in my opinion. The idea (for me, anyway) is to take the same characters and place them in a different situation and see how they react, which, if you change the way the characters behave, sort of wrecks the whole point of the exercise.
And now I have gone on far too long.
Of course, different people have different ideas about these things, but I’ve been writing JA fan fiction for six years now so I’ve learned a few things on the way.
October 6th, 2004 at 12:33 am
Hmm..you mean like most of the Austen sequels I’ve read!