In the literary community, fanfiction is almost uniformly dismissed as frivolous, associated a certain unseriousness that misogynists love to ascribe to teenage girls. And no doubt acquiescing to the character’s popular Jeff Goldblum portrayal in the film adaptation of Jurassic Park, Ian Malcom reappears as a character in Michael Creighton’s The Lost World even though the character had ostensibly died at the end of the previous novel. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle rescued Sherlock Holmes from death (classic fanfiction move) after fan outcry when he moved to retire the character. In short: it’s fanfiction.Īuthors writing fanfiction-esque versions of their own characters isn’t without precedent. It’s Rowell taking the characters that already exist and writing a story using them exactly as she herself wants to tell it. The book isn’t presented as though it was written by Cath, or by Gemma T. Both begin in media res, as Simon is returning to the Watford School of Magicks for his final year, and both center around a same-sex enemies-to-lovers romance, a favorite among online writers impatient with waiting for mainstream publishing to catch up with the kinds of “shipping” they want.īut Rowell’s Carry On isn’t the full version of the fanfic her character, Cath, wrote. Carry On, the book, does share certain (indelibly “fan-fiction-y”) qualities with Carry On, the fanfiction.

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