Years ago, in my terribly misspent teenage years, I had the experience of going with friends to a midnight showing of the Wizard of Oz. No, not synced to Pink Floyd, just the Wizard of Oz. I suspect as wanton and callow youth are inclined, I may have been under the influence of some controlled substance. I do though vividly remember sitting in this darkened theater, as this movie which I had seem dozens, if not hundreds, of times as a kid unfolded yet again before me.
However, this viewing of the movie was strangely different from all those childhood occasions. I knew the munchkins and witches and all their stories and was aware of them playing out their parts in the foreground. My interest though was completely preoccupied with the background. There were these completely cheesy, painted studio backgrounds of distant mountains. And I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. I knew all about the Emerald City and the Yellow Brick Road. What I wanted to know was what the heck was over those mountains.
This we may say is the inspiration for that experience known as fanfiction. It is a DIY art through which fans tell their own story within the larger framework of the world created by an established work of art and entertainment. This is nothing new; it’s been going on for ages. In the sixties though it did become something of a subcultural phenomenon. Both The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek became the sources for all kinds of creative fanfiction efforts. They reimagined the stories in ways that were beyond the scope, inclination or legal ability of the original show: Klingons could conquer the universe or Kirk and Spock could be gay lovers. This was indeed boldly going where no staff writer had gone before.
Initially the fiction was circulated in fanzines. These were mimeographed and collated collections posted out to subscribers composed of enthusiasts, aficionados and conference attendees. In the age of the Internet, and the World Wide Web, the 1990s brought a whole new dimension to fanfiction. There has been a major growth in the availability of video materials from the original shows that the aspiring fan creator can now draw upon, edit and reframe in various ways, to tell their own story. And this can be done in the quiet of your own room, late at night, with nothing more than a laptop and a ham sandwich. This was yet another path to get over the top of those distant mountains.
The shows upon which the fan creators based their efforts always left passages unexplored. There were rooms never seen, alleys next entered, action never taken, hopes never spoken. The original show can only wind through but a single plot line. In doing so, though, countless other portals to new possibilities are left open, unexplored. It is these that the fanfiction creators explore. In the case of The Walking Dead this has been a pretty fertile undertaking. Fanfiction.net to cite just one case has over two thousand stories within the world of the walkers. And that’s just skimming the surface of what is out there.
Probably the most common theme in the Walking Dead fanfiction is the deeper exploration of the biography and psychology of characters. Daryl and Andrea are popular choices for such attention. Others though look out over the mountains from Munchkin Land, as it were, and discover the lives of their own characters, facing the same world as Rick Grimes’ crew, but far from the lenses of the AMC cameras. In some cases, this is purely fictive, though, in others, one suspects, the authors have simply parachuted themselves in, imagining how they would respond to the challenges of the world of The Walking Dead. And then there’s some far out adventures, such as exploring whether the zombies might have thoughts. And if so what they might be like.
The Walking Dead fanfiction is a great resource for exploring the multilayered possibilities of the show’s world. It is a testament to the creativity of the fan base and just a whole lot of fun. But, in closing, there is the question of why there is such fan fascination with the context of the show.
Is it possible that this fascination in fact reveals something in the show that captures the zeitgeist of our time? If you want to know more about that, you need to check out our further thoughts on the topic, at Pretty Much Dead Already.
Mickey Jhonny is lead writer at The Walking Dead celebration site: http://prettymuchdeadalready.com He also writes for the Mad Men celebration cite: http://dondraperhaircut.com http://dondraperhaircut.com/