A brief history of Pern fandom and StarRise

I enjoy writing. I've enjoyed it for about 20 years now. I don't really examine my writing closely, or work hard to get it as close to perfect as possible. For me, writing is a hobby, a stress relief, an adventure I enjoy with friends. Occasionally I try to work on some original fiction, but most of my writing time and energy is devoted to fanfic. Fan fiction.

There aren't a lot of fandoms that I've written for. I've done two stories for Buffy: the Vampire Slayer. One was a crossover with Anita Blake. That one turned out quite well, I think. Blending the two different types of vampires and backgrounds was interesting, and chasing sundown took some planning. But it was fun and I enjoyed it.

I did a Stargate/Angel crossover, as well. It was 15-minute fic challenge. That one was fun, too! :)

I've played a bit in ElfQuest. I love Wendy Pini's artwork, and the characters and storyline she created are exceptional, in my opinion.

Most of the past twenty years, however, has been focused on Pern fanfic. Pern fanfic is different than a lot of the other fanfics. Pern fanfic has a decades long history. They're more like a writing group than is usually found. It started back in the early 80's, if not earlier. A group of friends got together and said, "What if...?" and the first fandom Weyr was created. Since then, Pern fandom went through a golden age: groups sprang up. People joined from all over the world. They created characters in the world Anne McCaffrey created, and they wrote stories. Those stories were collected and published by the group's leaders. Then the magazines - what we call fanzines - were sent out to all the members. And the next round of story writing and collecting began. At the time, most communication was through postal mail, so contact was slow. Feedback on the stories wasn't common. Coming to know the writers of the stories was almost impossible.

The golden age peaked around 1990-1990. Computers in the home were becoming more common, and Pern fandom found a home on GEnie. GEnie was similar to AOL, but text-based. Prodigy and Compuserve were other well-known online communities at the time. AOL was a newcomer viewed with some misgivings.

Then GEnie vanished. The communities there scrambled to find a new home. AOL served for a while, but between GEnie's death and some internal conflicts within the Pern pond, Pern fandom started a decline. As newbies had been warned for years, and continue to refuse to believe, involving Anne McCaffrey in fannish disputes is a Very Bad Idea. Ms. McCaffrey's response is that of a mother: if you can't play with the toys together nicely, then you can't play with the toys at all. New, stringent rules were laid down for her fan groups, and many fans became disillusioned.

Time was also taking its toll. Fans of the books, when they first came out or were still in their first decade or so of print, with a new book coming out each year, were aging. They were going to college, getting married, having kids, and finding less time for reading, writing, and keeping in touch.

Writing groups, now with strong online presences, but still sticking to their origins as paper fanzine groups, began to slow down and suffer. Submissions were reduced. Member involvement faded. Incoming memberships were less than expiring membership.

By 1997, the old fanzine based groups were being replaced and outnumbered by online-only groups. Computers were in more and more homes, communication was faster, if not instantaneous. And writing...was becoming less the goal than role playing. Stories weren't written as much, but oh, the pages and pages of drivel that two people online and chatting could churn out...!

I inherited the first Pern group I joined in 1997. I also inherited the directorship of Anne McCaffrey's program track at Dragon*Con. I became, in essence, a very big fish in a very small pond. Over the next three years, I became very active in several of the Pern groups, including becoming leader of at least two others. My goal was to make the entire world active in the same comprehensive timeline. I had such grand plans.

I should have focused all that energy and enthusiasm on my own original writing!

But time and inexperience were against me. By 1997, the fandom groups were fading. Even the online groups were struggling. The brief sanctuary on AOL didn't last. The rules for establishing your own Pern fandom group relaxed again to some extent in 2000. By 2001, I was one of two people who had been authorized by Anne McCaffrey to review new clubs and give them the stamp of approval or tell them that they were violating her copyright and what they needed to do to fix it. Today, I'm the only one, but it doesn't mean much now, since she essentially eliminated all the rules and said, "Do what you will, just don't make money on my intellectual property." But some people like to have that stamp of approval - and the opportunity to have a link to their group on her website.

StarRise, the group I had inherited, had been essentially inactive - not publishing its fanzine - for about three years at the point I took over. When I joined in 1990 or so, they had over 300 members, all around the world. When I took over and did a membership verification, we had 30 who responded. It was enough to go on with!

So I tried for a few years. There were some upsets, some highs and some lows, but eventually I had to admit that it was time to lay StarRise to sleep. I'd tried to change the form of the club to meet the current preference. I tried to make the fanzine an online-only publication. I tried to include live-chat RPs, and email RPs. I even tried eliminating the fanzine altogether and published stories as I received them on a story-only mailing list. Nothing worked. Life had moved on. It was time for StarRise to retire, and my heart broke at the loss.

About a year and a half ago, a friend approached me and said that she and a long-ago member of StarRise were going to start it again. I horned in on their co-leadership and made it a trio. :) What can I say? I'm possessive!

I'd tried co-leadership before. They failed miserably. I tried a board of directors, which became all the rage in Pern group leadership back in the mid-1990s. Failed abysmally, as far as I was concerned. But this triad...we fit.

We reduced the number of zines we produce a year from the original four, to two. With our busy adult lives, it's much easier for us and all our members to manage. We scheduled our deadlines to not interfere with school starts or ends, Christmas, or other major family holiday things, something that had been a problem before. We set firm deadlines, and we've stuck to them. Our first two zines were published on time, and our third is in the works now, with a publish date of March 1st. We'll make that date, too. StarRise is alive again, and my heart sings for it!

Why have I come to dwell today on StarRise, Pern fandom, and the history of both? I suppose it's because yesterday morning I officially shut down another writing group I'd started with a friend. It was a Pern group; it was ElfQuest based. But shutting it down, admitting I didn't have the time to nurture and grow it, reminded me of that hard decision I made for StarRise several years ago. Of that hard decision I made for several Pern groups over the years. I'm sad to give up Westering Holt. I love my characters there, and the ongoing stories I was weaving for them. I'll miss the interaction with other members, and writing with them. But most, I think, I regret my failure to keep the group active.

I started out this post with the intent to compare Pern fandom writers with fanfic writers, but the history of Pern fandom and StarRise took over. Now I'm not so much interested in comparing the two - other than saying readers of fanfic are a LOT more likely to give you feedback on your story than Pern fandom readers do. But then again - if Pern fandom readers like your story, they pounce you and say, "Hey, wanna do a story with your character and mine? I have a great idea!"

I guess that's even a better compliment to the writer, isn't it? :)