fan_writers | What happened to the DVD Commentary?

mific posting in

Remember the "DVD commentaries" that fanfic writers used to do? They were often fun and I wonder why they've almost died out. Maybe as DVDs are very nearly a thing of the past?

If you haven't seen one, it's where a fanfic author, a while after posting a fic, posts a version of the fic with their comments interleaved - about why they wrote particular lines that way or what they wanted to convey about the characters or situation, or what inspired a particular section. Kind of like a self-meta discussion interwoven with their story. It's interesting, and useful to see the writer's process or thoughts with concrete examples. Here's an excerpt from Synecdochic's commentary on Freedom's Just Another Word For Nothing Left to Lose (SGA), to show what they're like.

SGC finally stops calling him by December. Rodney celebrates by writing a final exam for his relativity class so difficult that it reduces four students to tears in the exam hall. Upon reflection, he decides to be merciful and offer partial credit.

(Commentary) This, to me, was where the story started to turn. I hadn't at all realized that I'd been building up all these little details of an ordinary life, hinting at all the major changes that would lead to it, until I caught myself typing that first sentence. At the time I didn't know where it was going, or why Rodney had cut ties with the SGC so completely and thorougly; I just knew that he had.

A lot of this story worked like that for me. I tend to write in a very linear fashion -- I have the starting image and I know where I want to get it, but the entire middle is this vague unsurmounted wasteland, until I get there and the story tells me where it wants to be going. This is a perfect example of how that works, because I was putting in semi-ominous hints and foreshadowing before I had any idea where it was leading

Here's another entertaining example: Gozer's DVD commentary on LtLJ's Raiders of the Seven Systems - also SGA. This one was written and posted with LtLJ's permission - doing these commentaries on other peoples' stories was encouraged by specific challenges at the time, but it was a bit more common overall for authors to do a DVD commentary on their own work, sharing their internal processes while writing, and their reactions. In the comments of this example by minxy on a Janet Fraiser-centric SG1 story there are links to other DVD commentaries, and to this list - it's old though, so many of the LJs with these commentaries have gone.

One thing I noticed was in a DVD commentary on Hindsight, where Rageprufrock mentions having gotten critical comments after posting the fic - about characterisation or other details - and sometimes explains these choices. That brought home how much fandom etiquette's progressed in the last 20 years (in fan-spaces where I play, anyway) so it's now not OK to criticise a writer's posted work unless they specifically request it - and mostly not then. A DVD commentary done by someone not the author these days would need to be reactions to the story, speculations about where it's going, and positive comments - which is what they generally were, back in the day. I think I've only ever seen an actual author comment negatively on their writing in retrospect, but I haven't read a lot of them.

Actually, there's one place where this style of commentary still happens - in podfic. It's not uncommon for podficcers to make a podfic with their readers notes and chatty reactions to the fic interwoven through the recording - and it's often part of the annual Voiceteam challenge. Kisahawklin both recorded and transcribed an Untamed RPF story containing a lot of commentary and chat. There's quite a history of this - e.g. general_jinjur's DVD commentary on their reading of Your Cowboy Days Are Over by M. - although this is an interleaved written commentary, not a podfic recording that includes commentary. Here's a sample:

At the first knock his body snaps to alertness, and he drops Teyla's shirt in the sink. The peephole doesn't reveal much more than a short shadow standing in the corridor. John drilled the hole himself, but the door's skin-steel keeps trying to heal over it. (Commentary) Nice juxtaposition of high-tech and squalor, again.

Returning to fic again, I guess the fanfic DVD commentary was a thing of its time as there haven't been any posted to AO3 since 2011 - the recent ones are all podfic commentaries, and a few works tagged as commentary because of an author's start or end-note. Here, I'm talking about the older style of (almost) line-by-line, interwoven fic and commentary. I find these old commentaries interesting when they're in one of my fandoms. It's especially fascinating to see the thoughts, inspirations and processes that happened for the author, as they react to their own fic.

Have you ever made a DVD commentary of your own or someone else's fic? Know one that you like, and can link to? Do you think we could revisit the DVD commentary as a way to reflect on our writing, or would it be seen as too self-indulgent and a thing of the past?

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From:

guildrone

I…never actually knew of these to be much of a prolific thing in ficdom, funnily enough (for as much as it may show my youth to admit)—that being said, this sort of authorial insight/self-analysis is absolutely right up my alley to get such an intricate look into!

…Not that I ever see myself being in the business of offering such up, unfortunately; as per my whole self-enforced ‘authorial suicide’ shtick, I’m very much opposed to publicly ‘defining’ my own work beyond whatever ideas may have informed it, so I can’t imagine what I’d even be able to offer with a line-by-line breakdown beyond “I like this sentence a lot.” and “Picking out this turn of phrase was a pain.”

Though, I suppose seeing my stuff be so thoroughly commentated by someone else is another artistic dream of mine now…

Edited Date: 2025-08-09 11:48 pm (UTC)

From:

mific

Huh, the "authorial suicide" thing is a good point. Probably a lot of people would prefer to let readers form their own conclusions and interpretations themselves. But I guess it can be interesting to see how your own take on a fic compares to the author's? And there are a few complex stories I've read where I'd be really keen to read the writer's commentary to see what they were intending, and their process.

An exchange challenge where writers did commentaries on each other's works would be interesting to take part in, as long as the rules were that the commentary focus had to be meta discussion and positive reactions, not critical.

What happened to the DVD Commentary?

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