Contemplating on the practices of fan-fiction

Following on my commentary on Klastrup article, I would like to follow up with some insights I gain from interviewing a player about his practice of writing fan-fiction. Let's give him the name BoyX. Now, Boyx had been writing fan-fiction of a game called MU Online for a long time.

Background:

MU Online was the first MMORPG BoyX played. The fiction consists of a number of pieces he wrote over a period of time and he wrote them in his own language. He uploaded the pieces in a game forum. But he did not complete the story because he had lost interest and could not bear the demand for a new chapter (readers ask him to continue writing). He found it stressful to continue writing.

BoyX was happy to find that people had copied his writings to their websites. He made a google search lately and found them on other forums too. A google for his fiction reveals more than one millions search results. However, except for two people, the rest did not make reference of his writings back to him. Still, he feels happy but a little disappointed when many people did not give him due credit for his works. The very least, he said, they did not claim those works theirs. He reasoned that his unfinished fiction had received the most views because it was too long and people have to read a lot of time to get the story. He shared that only one forum reader found out who he was in the game.

The interesting parts are here.

Boyx admited that he wrote because he loved the game, and when he stopped playing, he lost interest and could not write anymore. He admits that he may finish the fiction someday. He stopped playing MU Online because of bad administrator. He agreed that writing fan-fiction did not affect how he play MU Online (i.e. it does not make him wanting him to play MU Online more) but acknowledges that playing the game makes him wanting to write.

So BoyX, in Klastrup’s words, “continuous presence…helps keep the fiction of the world alive”, and for him personally, he continued writing so long as he was playing the game”. When his stopped playing, naturally he stopped mediating on the fiction of the gameworld and the fictions players create which are impacted by his presence and gamepay. He also ceased to become "part of the many "texts" which enable the collective and ongoing (re)creation of the world".

BoyX did write fan-fiction for GE because he has no time to do so. He also does not do fan art because he says that he has no talent for that. He admitted that his English is not fluent and even if he has the time, he may not write in English because of this. He felt that knowing how to write well is more important than having time to write. To him it is important to write something that people would read and he would make sure that someone likes his writing. He agreed that he writes with having the audience at the back of his mind, i.e. to serve the audience.

So participation in the "collective andd ongoing (re)creation of the world" are also mediated by non-game related factors. I wonder too whether did writing make him play the game differently. Like did his play to suit the story line of his writings?