When is fiction art, and when is it not? If you're writing about your own life, can it still be literature? What if you're writing about, as Wren calls Simon and Baz, "gay magicians," plucked from someone else's canon? Professor Piper puts her foot down when Cath tries the latter, answering the "but is it art" question with a resounding no.
Fanfiction is what really gets Cath's writing brain rolling, but creating her own characters and interjecting her personal experiences feels like slogging through Jell-O. Professor Piper argues that the slogging is how you know you're doing important work—and by the end of Fangirl, we think Cath just might agree with her.
Questions About Literature and Writing
- Is fanfiction plagiarism? (You knew that was going to be the big one.)
- While we're at it, can fanfiction be literature?
- Why is it easier for Cath to write Gemma T. Leslie's characters than her own?
- What are the elements of good fiction? Of good fanfiction? Are they different?
- Rowell briefly mentions Harry Potter in Fangirl, as if we're supposed to assume both he and Simon Snow exist in the same world. Did that make the book more or less believable for you?
Chew on This
Fanfiction may be wildly popular on the Internet, but it has no place in the classroom.
As Pablo Picasso famously said, "Bad artists copy. Good artists steal." In other words—in some way—all literature is fanfiction.