Time to read: 3 minutes
Interviews were conducted in one of three ways: written (list of questions sent through online form), a thirty-minute Zoom interview, and a one-hour Zoom interview. While optional for the written version, interviewees with the one-hour interview were asked to provide their own fanfiction (one or more, nor more than 10k words total) for us to discuss. Though more time intensive, I included three options because I acknowledge that face-to-face interviews may not be comfortable for all participants, nor is sharing their fanfiction something everyone is willing to do.
I conducted eight written interviews, two thirty-minute interviews, and two hour-long interviews for a total of twelve interviews to supplement the survey results. While still a great number of interviews, it pales in comparison to the amount of people that expressed interest on the survey. Nearly 50% of participants responded Yes or Maybe when asked if interested in being interviewed. Despite the vulnerability required during an interview, I am glad so many people wanted their voices heard and were excited to share their perspectives, or at least gush about their favorite characters!
The opportunity this project has provided for participants to discuss their knowledge and experiences with aro/ace fanfiction is monumental, even just for this small slice of fanfic writers.
Interviewees were selected with multiple factors in mind that would increase the variety of experiences and opinions. Race, gender, sexuality, and age were all first considerations. But most importantly, I focused on the amount of aro/ace fanfic they’ve written as this might also influence how long they’ve been writing, what fandoms they’ve written for, and what types of fanfic they write.
Interviews went in-depth on how and why they write characters as aro/ace and how it relates to their own romantic/sexual orientations. A few questions were pre-scripted while others were based on their individual survey responses. Additionally, I used a responsive, flexible style (Rubin & Rubin, 2012) in which other questions could arise during the interview depending on the conversation.
While initially worried about keeping the interviews on track due to the nature of fans excitedly talking about their fan objects, the Zoom interviews were consistently well-paced with plenty of time for my questions without cutting into their thoughts. The interviewees also had a friendly nature, part of which may be due to my familiarity with fanfiction conventions as well as my curiosity with their specific fandoms.
Sample questions are as follows:
- When writing a character as aro/ace, are there traits or moments within the source material that you use to create your headcanon and/or write your fanfiction?
- Tell me about your knowledge of aromanticism and asexuality.
- How does it feel when you are actively writing a fic?
- How do other people respond to your fics and/or aro/ace headcanons?
- What type of aro/ace rep would you want to see in media?
A Note on Participant Confidentiality
Fans, in general, are a vulnerable population. When researching, this means that their identities should be protected to prevent unwanted or negative responses, comments, and backlash. Protecting their privacy is a foundational ethical concern that I and other researchers take very seriously. I follow guidelines set by other fan researchers, and as a fan myself, I treat the participants how I would like to be treated (Busse, 2018; Hills, 2012). As such, participants in this survey are anonymized and assigned a number due to the sheer amount of responses received. Interview participants are given pseudonyms and any references to their work are done with permission.
Aromanticism & Asexuality in Fanfiction Writing 