Interesting post re: fanfic

[pegkerr]

From the ever quotable scott_lynch, here posting about Robin Hobb's rant against fanfic here. The discussion continues on metaquotes here.

I offer this without comment since I know many on my f-list are fanfic readers and writers; the discussion is getting very lively. If you chime in, please be polite, people.

Comments

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

Actually, this kind of relates to something I've been meaning to ask for a while, purely out of curiosity: as a published writer, what's your "policy" with respect to reading fanfiction, if indeed you read it? Or do you avoid talking about your personal fannish tendencies altogether? As a fanfiction reader and writer with aspirations of one day being published, these are very real issues to me, and it would be interesting to hear your thoughts.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Or do you avoid talking about your personal fannish tendencies altogether?

Bingo. That's pretty much my policy. Sorry!

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

Hm. It's just discouraging sometimes, I guess, to find such a rift between the two disciplines, as it were.

[cornfields.livejournal.com]

I really don't get it. A lot of the serial spin-off series novels (X-Files, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek) are basically fan fiction. It's where many people get their starts. Hell, the strength of someone's fanfic alone has been enough to land them a legit writing job.

I can see an author asking people not to write fanfic based on their creations, and I even respect that. I don't write Vampire Chronicals fanfic, or Pern fanfic. Most fanfic I've written or been involved with has been based on television shows, in any case. Harry Potter is the one current exception.

I believe I'd find it flattering if there were people interested (or obsessed) enough with my creation to write fanfic based on it. But I'm also very jaded, and inured to the drivel and madness that fandom cranks out each day. I think I'd be more bummed out because I wouldn't be able to participate or read in my own self-created fandom out of fear that I would be accused of plagiarising my own intellectual property. And I'd probably hate how my characters would be portrayed half the time, but I'd never forget where I got my own start. I've been writing fanfiction since grade school, before I even knew what fanfiction was.

It's really a touchy subject. I hope, above all else, that fandom demonstrates a deep love and appreciation for the original creation. That's how I approach it, anyway. I'm interested in hearing how you feel about the subject.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

See above. I will stick to a demure silence for now.

[lkw18.livejournal.com]

I should tell you that i'm in the community ask_me_anything and someone asked "who is the coolest person on your flist" or something to the effect of "recommened me a journal to read" and two people said scott_lynch. I thought his name looked somewhat familiar, and alas he's on your flist!

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

The poor bastard's list of people who've friended him has exploded since he got his publishing deal....

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

I have the damnedest time keeping track of everyone! I just run around now meeping like Beaker, while the lab equipment catches fire and explodes around me...

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Well, he's also just a very funny guy who writes very interesting journal entries.

[cloudscudding.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. But his friends list stayed reasonably contained up to that point.

[verstehen.livejournal.com]

I always feel the strangest need to explain myself when I comment on someone's journal that I've mostly lurked at before, so apologies if this is gauche or forward.

I find the irony of the fanfiction debate interesting because both in high school and college courses, often one of the very first few assignments given in any type of writing course was a type of fanfiction. I remember being 15 and having, as a weekly assignment, to write a twenty page "epilogue" chapter to Grapes of Wrath. Is this acceptable because Steinbeck is, for example, no longer alive to object whereas Hobb or Rice are? Because one is "educational" and the other is "recreational"?

I suppose it boils down to the fact that the communal aspect of creative works is what makes things spicy, so to speak.

[pinkfinity.livejournal.com]

That irony is especially interesting to me these days because my site, fictionalley, has been deemed sufficiently educational by the IRS for us to hold 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. It's like that bit in Miracle on 34th St where the federal government recognizes santa claus...

[tenebris.livejournal.com]

Wow, the fanfic issue has really blown up recently, hasn't it? It may just be coincidence that it's come up on my f-list many times this week, but...still, interesting times for an interesting issue.

I've liked Robin Hobb's books, but I find this to be a rant--as she states in the beginning--and one that lacks credibility in places. Fanfic apparently only counts if you get paid for it, and the fact that creative writing and literature courses use that method to teach students about writing and that author's writing is something she's never heard of before. Mind you, those writing exercises rarely get disseminated about the web, but it still doesn't help her point that writing fanfic teaches you nothing. (I have a feeling the slash issue is one that has really stuck in her craw.)

[naomikritzer]

Lois McMaster Bujold has an essay about her years of obsessive Star Trek fandom, and how what she and her friends loved was not so much the show itself, as the ways that they themselves filled in the blank spaces that the show left.

She notes in that same essay that her readers are generous enough to fill in the blanks in her own work.

I respect an individual writer's preference not to allow others to come play in their world. But I think that rants like this one, which express utter contempt for the very idea of fanfic, offer disrespect to the inherent participation that the reader brings to the books they read.

[littlecatfeet.livejournal.com]

I think Robin Hobb's rant irritates me because it assums that fanfic is an attempt to "fix" something that was wrong with the original work. While that may be the way fanfic feels to her, I don't think that most fanfic authors or readers come at it from that perspective. It's more of a "what if" or a filling in the blanks.

[aimeempayne.livejournal.com]

To me, fanfic is fine as an exercise in learning the craft, or shared with a very small group of people. But when it is posted online, it's been published and the potential for the audience is larger.

I guess I look at it this way. If I write a completely original story, print it out, and show a couple of friends, I can still sell first rights. If I post it on my public LJ, I can't.

Now, the Star Trek and Star Wars novels, I don't really consider fanfic, not because the authors are paid, but because they have the permission of the creator, or estate, to publish their work.

Hobb did the work to create her world and characters, and if she doesn't want someone else appropriating them, that is her right. As for her tone, to her it's stealing, and I get mad when someone steals my pen.

[diony.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to me that there are so many authors who think that they are directly downloading work into the reader's mind, and that the reader plays an utterly passive role.

Peg, is there anything you can say about this that won't violate your silence about your own fannish tendencies? If so I'd love to hear!

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to me that there are so many authors who think that they are directly downloading work into the reader's mind, and that the reader plays an utterly passive role.

Not me, though!

Peg, is there anything you can say about this that won't violate your silence about your own fannish tendencies? If so I'd love to hear!

Nope. Sorry! But if I change the policy, I'll let you know.