The Tradëscan Codex

I don't know if it used to be not true that most fanfic was written in a community. I of course wasn't around one way or another, but I don't know--nor do I know how anyone could know--how much fic was written completely ferally, without any connection to the fandom. I mean I understand the impulses that could encourage someone to write a Kirk/Spock (or Blake/Avon or whatever) WIP having never previously heard of fanfiction and then never show it to anyone, but is there any reason to assume that it was really going on? Fanfiction--not just having the ideas in one's head, but writing them down--isn't all that intuitive a concept.

And if the person never joins fandom or becomes aware of it, then no one's going to call it fanfic, and it become a tree falling in the forest, did gay people exist in antiquity-type conversation.

And the thing about conceptual analyses is that someone can carve up the posssibilities some way (drawerfic isn't fanfic, for example) and if everyone doesn't share the same intuitions there's not much way to argue with someone who seems idiosyncratic in their definitions.

I don't think community can work as a magic dividing line any more than anything else (although I do think it's crucial), but I think the dividing line between professional vs. amateur is just as problematic, in part because I'm not sure where the dividing line is. If I sold my yuletide story would it stop being fanfic? Hell, what if Joss Whedon bought my Buffy fic? (Both sets of answers make equal sense to me.)