Opinions wanted!

[facetofcathy]

Edited to add, January 11, 2010:  I did some tweaking to the usage section of the page.  I tied the dictionary cite into the part about aca usage, so that it now clearly says that the fan fiction usage is correct in academia and American publishing.  I shamelessly borrowed some phrasing from this conversation.  I found some cites, but there is no cite for the idea that the fan fiction usage denotes aca or noob anywhere other than here, and the talk page itself.  Anyone got one?

Go check it out and edit that page or something else while you're there--if the urge hits, that is. 

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As I found out on the OTW news site, fan fiction has hit the dictionary.  There is a discussion on the Fan Fiction page from a while back about usage on the page itself, and about what that usage says about the person using the, er, usage. 

We could really use (had to, sorry) some fresh opinions, and even some cites on this. 

Should the Fan Fiction page use the term fanfiction, or fan fiction?  Does writing it as fan fiction make people think you're a noob or even an acafan in disguise?  Should I have made this a poll?

Opinions here, or on the talk page at Fanlore would be appreciated. 

Comments

[cesperanza]

Hee--I think its great to note that "fan fiction" is the "accepted, 'correct'" usage while noting that many fans have never striven to be either accepted or correct! *g* I personally say fanfiction, but then again, I don't have to be consistent--I wouldn't say fanvid or fanart, for instance, though I would say fanworks.

(Hm. Actually I went and looked and--I seem to say fiction, fanfic, or fic rather than either fanfiction or fan fiction! My page is called Speranza's Fiction, which--uh, surprised me. And when I looked at my last year's year in review, I had categories for fiction and vids, and I referred to fanfic. So who knows!)

[sqbr]

Huh. I say fanart and fanvids too. Fan art and fan vids sound like they could just be art or vids made by fans (like a picture I drew of a tree, say)

[cesperanza]

Ah, but is it a fannish tree? *g* (I ask this coming from SGA, where hey, John Sheppard could be a tree... In fact, there's a J.Flan acting joke in there somewhere. *G*)

I've seen all of these usages--I'm just saying, I think most people don't care if they're consistent (I don't!) in the way editors typically have to. (More annoying, the editor of a multiple essay collection has to make each writer use the same word, otherwise it looks like one of them made a typo.

YES, it makes no real sense--as Andrew Jackson said, "It's a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word!"--but there you go.

[sqbr]

Heh. No, I do not mean making a picture/vid about John Sheppard as a tree, just a regular non-fandom related tree.

And I didn't mean to say your usage was wrong, or that you were saying mine was. I just found it interesting that they're different :)

[cesperanza]

OMG. I totally forgot about this. Oh, SGA, you are hyperbole-defeating! Nothing can be as strange as you just naturally were!

[sqbr]

It's certainly a remarkably varied fandom, I don't even like SGA much and yet while I was pondering a panel every time I tried to think of an example for a different weird type of meta vid the first one that came to mind was from SGA :)

[facetofcathy]

I really like the idea of noting that fans have never striven to be accepted, correct or homogeneous in the fan fiction page itself. It reads like an either or right now, and I know I use both depending on the whim of my fingers on the keys.

[cesperanza]

Yeah, and even OTW and TWC have different practices--and why not?