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xparrotSo as you might have heard, various pro fantasy authors (Diana Gabaldon, GRR Martin, and Katherine Kerr among them) have been speaking out about how fanfic is disrespectful to actual money-making authors (because you're not a real artist unless you're making a buck with your art), is illegal (because apparently copyright law is what they say it is, as opposed to what's actually on the books), immoral (and akin to rape and/or white slavery, because one's original characters are like one's children, and for someone else to dare write their names feels just like having your kids abducted and sexually abused), gross, and inherently inferior to original fiction.
Obviously I have a few mild opinions on the matter. But it's the last point that I keep getting stuck on. Putting aside![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bookshop's straightforward rebuttal that there is an enormous amount of derivative/transformative literature out there by distinguished professional authors (Bill Shakespeare was such an immoral hack, you know), the fact is, fanfic is not the same as original fiction. A lot - the majority, perhaps - of fanfiction would not work as original fiction.
And it's not because fanfic is inherently bad fiction, or that fanfic writers are talentless wannabe authors who lack the creativity to write their own original characters/worlds. There are a lot of stories that, by their very nature, require that the reader already be familiar with the characters or the world.
Take the entire genre of Alternate Universe fics, which will put a cast of chars in a completely new setting - Kirk & Spock as high school students, Draco Malfoy as a private eye. Some of the pleasure of reading an AU is simply reading a story in which you can clearly picture the characters. But a lot of the enjoyment comes from seeing how these familiar characters fit into these new surroundings, seeing how their skills or traits translate to the different situation. For an AU to make sense, the readers need to know the chars well in their own setting. Therefore the only way you can write an actual original AU is to write a novel to establish the chars in their native universe, and then write AUs based on that (which some authors do - some of my favorite mangaka are very partial to it!). But you can't just write an AU cold. And if you're not a full-time author, if story-writing is your hobby and you don't have the time/energy to write an entire novel, then if you want to write an AU, it has to be based on someone else's characters. Or else a key component of the story will be lost to your readers.
It's not just AUs; there are many kinds of stories that depend on readers being familiar with the characters. Any story with a plot point that hinges on challenging the reader's expectations, needs to be certain that a reader has those expectations. If you're writing a novel, you can set up characters and situations such that readers will start making assumptions. That's a lot harder to do in a short story, and often isn't possible at all when it comes to complex emotional situations. It's show vs tell - "telling" doesn't really inspire feelings in a reader, "showing" is crucial for emotional engagement. But it takes a lot of words to, say, convincingly show a friendship developing. If you want to write a story featuring a change in an already existing friendship (say, the pathos of two friends parting ways), then you need a friendship that the readers are going to care about. Sure, you can write a short story beginning with "X & Y were best friends," and then tell about how they separate - but it's unlikely to move readers much, when they don't know or care about the chars or their friendship. Or, if you have the time and energy, you can write a novel about two people becoming friends, and then write your story. Or you can write a story about two people who you already know your readers will accept as friends.
This is just as true on the reader's side. If I want to read a story about two friends, yes, sometimes I want to read a whole novel on the development of a friendship. But sometimes I'm in the mood for something shorter. Derivative works allow a reader to have their cake and eat it, too.
(And yes, I suspect this is why so much of fanfic is erotic, because a lot of people will get in the mood for something short and satisfying - and women especially tend to enjoy reading about sex more when it has an emotional component. The vast majority of erotic fanfic simply would not be as successful fiction as original stories, because part of the pleasure the reader takes is in seeing the consummation of an already-existing relationship, but at the same time when someone wants to read good porn they don't necessarily want to have to read hundred of pages of non-porn in order to be satisfied. If you want to argue that erotic fiction is fundamentally inferior to other kinds of fiction, that's a whole other argument I can't speak to, but to dismiss erotic fanfic as inferior to original erotic fiction is to dismiss an aspect of sexuality for many.)
A lot of these scenarios hinge on accepting that reading and writing primarily for entertainment is a valid activity. I'd think that most fantasy writers wouldn't argue this case, considering that none of the writers I've seen speaking out are known for writing meaningful, life-changing literature. But even if you believe that the only Good literature is that which is thematically important and significant, then derivative works can be as Good fiction as any other type. There are still some themes which are easier to explore in a derivative work, or even impossible to explore otherwise - a transformative novel like Wide Sargasso Sea critiques Jane Eyre and its themes and cannot function apart from its original; so, too, does some fanfic critique and illuminate problematic themes in its inspiration.
Not all fanfic is so meaningful - but then, neither are all published novels. But professional authors who write transformative works do so for the same reasons fanfic writers do: because there are stories which work better, or only work, as derivatives of other fiction. That certain types of stories can only be told as derivative works - as fanfic - means that you must accept fanfic as a legitimate form of fiction (whether or not you like it personally, or have any interest in writing or reading it), and fanfic writers as legitimate authors - or else you must deny an entire aspect of literary tradition.
Obviously I have a few mild opinions on the matter. But it's the last point that I keep getting stuck on. Putting aside
bookshop's straightforward rebuttal that there is an enormous amount of derivative/transformative literature out there by distinguished professional authors (Bill Shakespeare was such an immoral hack, you know), the fact is, fanfic is not the same as original fiction. A lot - the majority, perhaps - of fanfiction would not work as original fiction.And it's not because fanfic is inherently bad fiction, or that fanfic writers are talentless wannabe authors who lack the creativity to write their own original characters/worlds. There are a lot of stories that, by their very nature, require that the reader already be familiar with the characters or the world.
Take the entire genre of Alternate Universe fics, which will put a cast of chars in a completely new setting - Kirk & Spock as high school students, Draco Malfoy as a private eye. Some of the pleasure of reading an AU is simply reading a story in which you can clearly picture the characters. But a lot of the enjoyment comes from seeing how these familiar characters fit into these new surroundings, seeing how their skills or traits translate to the different situation. For an AU to make sense, the readers need to know the chars well in their own setting. Therefore the only way you can write an actual original AU is to write a novel to establish the chars in their native universe, and then write AUs based on that (which some authors do - some of my favorite mangaka are very partial to it!). But you can't just write an AU cold. And if you're not a full-time author, if story-writing is your hobby and you don't have the time/energy to write an entire novel, then if you want to write an AU, it has to be based on someone else's characters. Or else a key component of the story will be lost to your readers.
It's not just AUs; there are many kinds of stories that depend on readers being familiar with the characters. Any story with a plot point that hinges on challenging the reader's expectations, needs to be certain that a reader has those expectations. If you're writing a novel, you can set up characters and situations such that readers will start making assumptions. That's a lot harder to do in a short story, and often isn't possible at all when it comes to complex emotional situations. It's show vs tell - "telling" doesn't really inspire feelings in a reader, "showing" is crucial for emotional engagement. But it takes a lot of words to, say, convincingly show a friendship developing. If you want to write a story featuring a change in an already existing friendship (say, the pathos of two friends parting ways), then you need a friendship that the readers are going to care about. Sure, you can write a short story beginning with "X & Y were best friends," and then tell about how they separate - but it's unlikely to move readers much, when they don't know or care about the chars or their friendship. Or, if you have the time and energy, you can write a novel about two people becoming friends, and then write your story. Or you can write a story about two people who you already know your readers will accept as friends.
This is just as true on the reader's side. If I want to read a story about two friends, yes, sometimes I want to read a whole novel on the development of a friendship. But sometimes I'm in the mood for something shorter. Derivative works allow a reader to have their cake and eat it, too.
(And yes, I suspect this is why so much of fanfic is erotic, because a lot of people will get in the mood for something short and satisfying - and women especially tend to enjoy reading about sex more when it has an emotional component. The vast majority of erotic fanfic simply would not be as successful fiction as original stories, because part of the pleasure the reader takes is in seeing the consummation of an already-existing relationship, but at the same time when someone wants to read good porn they don't necessarily want to have to read hundred of pages of non-porn in order to be satisfied. If you want to argue that erotic fiction is fundamentally inferior to other kinds of fiction, that's a whole other argument I can't speak to, but to dismiss erotic fanfic as inferior to original erotic fiction is to dismiss an aspect of sexuality for many.)
A lot of these scenarios hinge on accepting that reading and writing primarily for entertainment is a valid activity. I'd think that most fantasy writers wouldn't argue this case, considering that none of the writers I've seen speaking out are known for writing meaningful, life-changing literature. But even if you believe that the only Good literature is that which is thematically important and significant, then derivative works can be as Good fiction as any other type. There are still some themes which are easier to explore in a derivative work, or even impossible to explore otherwise - a transformative novel like Wide Sargasso Sea critiques Jane Eyre and its themes and cannot function apart from its original; so, too, does some fanfic critique and illuminate problematic themes in its inspiration.
Not all fanfic is so meaningful - but then, neither are all published novels. But professional authors who write transformative works do so for the same reasons fanfic writers do: because there are stories which work better, or only work, as derivatives of other fiction. That certain types of stories can only be told as derivative works - as fanfic - means that you must accept fanfic as a legitimate form of fiction (whether or not you like it personally, or have any interest in writing or reading it), and fanfic writers as legitimate authors - or else you must deny an entire aspect of literary tradition.
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Date: 2010-05-14 07:01 am (UTC)That's rich.
Loved this piece. You've said what a majority of us feel in such an eloquent way. I've always thought of fan fiction as a training ground of sorts. It's a wonderful place to start writing creatively, being able to play in other people's sandboxes and get feedback.
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Date: 2010-05-14 07:52 am (UTC)I think fanfic is a wonderful training ground, as well a wonderful sandbox for people who don't have any interest in becoming experts and just want to fool around. But I honestly feel that it can be more than that as well, that fanfic doesn't have to be practice for "real" or "good" fiction - that it's fully able to be genuine, quality fiction in itself.
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Date: 2010-05-14 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 08:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 06:16 pm (UTC)Share this piece?
Date: 2010-05-14 12:06 pm (UTC)Re: Share this piece?
Date: 2010-05-14 06:23 pm (UTC)Please do share it! I wouldn't post things publicly if I didn't mean them to be read. As for which name to use - if it's only going to be in RL, you can use my real name; if it's going to be cited anywhere online, please use my lj name. And thanks for asking! ^_^
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Date: 2010-05-14 02:52 pm (UTC)Thank you. This, to me, glaringly obvious point has gone right past most commentaters I've read, starting with DG herself. Fanfic is referential: it depends on a pre-existing context to be comprehensible in the first place. This is why DG's 'just change the names of your fanfic and presto! original work!' was so head-bangy. Does she truly think that if you changed the names in a Dr Who tie-in novel the book would still make perfect sense?
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Date: 2010-05-14 06:29 pm (UTC)I remember have a conversation with my father some years ago, about how the short story was dying as an art form, how the novel is what's read nowadays. And I couldn't help but mention that the short story was in fact live and well and living online, in fandom. Because some of the really good fanfic work better as short pieces; they wouldn't have the same impact as novels, or as original context-less work...
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Date: 2010-05-14 03:01 pm (UTC)I'm just so frustrated, not only by the alleged "pros" getting their panties into twists, but by some of the fanfic defenders, too. In addition to everything you've said, fanfic isn't "just practice" or only a training ground for eventual original fic; it isn't any less an art form than original fic. It is a different type of writing — not inherently better, but neither inherently lesser.
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Date: 2010-05-14 06:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 03:58 pm (UTC)Because I am completely out of this loop . . . what has GRR Martin been saying specifically? His personal problems with fanfic may not actually be in play here but it really seems to me to be odd that he is willing to let people play in his sandbox but only if they call it one name and not another.
If he is really against other people using his characters in their own stories what does he think is going to happen with that? It not like any of us that play RPGs ever write stories based on the games we play. :/
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Date: 2010-05-14 06:44 pm (UTC)(He also is of the opinion that other people playing with his toys is gross and a violation, so no, I don't get why he'd authorize an RPG on that level. Except to make money, of course, which is the important thing! :P)
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Date: 2010-05-15 03:55 am (UTC)I did try reading though GRRM's whole post and was reminded that I don't like his writing at all anyway :p But, that aside, most of his arguments seemed to be the "Oh my god lets throw up a bunch of stuff - something has to stick!!" I enjoyed the rebuttal :)
I still think he has drawn an odd line for playing in his sandbox. 'Course the line he drew made him more money :p I do know that GR had to jump though hoops to make everything line up with what he wanted for the books.
I think I like M Lackey's and J Butcher's take on fic now :) Seems to me to be a much saner approach. Why tell your fans that they are horrible people for loving your characters and wanting to see more of them ;p
I think I should go get ready for bed before A comes back down and drags me away from the compy <3
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Date: 2010-05-15 04:15 am (UTC)That the RPG is authorized is something - except that fanfic isn't authorized and that's kind of the point. Fanfic is *not* canon. A lot of the fanfic I read and love, I wouldn't *want* to see as canon. If I want to read the original creator's take on some chars, then I read/watch the canon. I go to fanfic when I want something *else*. And I resent an author like GRRM telling me that I am wrong and a bad fan for wanting something else sometimes!
Ah well, GRRM's whole argument is specious. According to him, encouraging fanfic is a bad business decision which will lead to an author's ruin. The best example of this is of course Harry Potter - JK Rowling didn't forbid fanfic, and now HP is the most-ficced-for book series ever, while poor Rowling is dying in poverty...
...OH WAIT.
Yay for Jim Butcher's policy, and Mercedes Lackey finally coming around!
--now go to bed, g'night~! (and say hi to A&A from me ^^)
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Date: 2010-05-14 06:20 pm (UTC)I'm reading some novels right now that I would never have purchased if I hadn't read an SGA crossover AU that I thought was really cool.
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Date: 2010-05-14 06:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 06:31 pm (UTC)This is also neglecting the simple fact that a story changes when it shifts media. Superman started in comic books, then branched into the television and the movies. The format and some of the story changed to deal with those accommodations and now there is the tv show "Smallville" which goes completely off the map of the fandom and has re-written some major parts. A similar thing happened with Batman where depending on which 'mini-verse' one follows, Bruce Wayne's parents were either killed by a young Joker, a random street-thug, or a hit man for the mob or some other secret organization. And how many times has a movie based on a comic book ended with killing a major villain that is still alive and kicking in the base origins of the fandom? These are basic demonstration I think of how a story can change details but the premise and promise remains the same (a lot like what you find in fanfiction).
When a fandom shifts around in media, especially from comic to cartoon to TV live action to movie and everything in between, there are some strange changes that take place. The original writers of Batman and Superman are dead, and Stan Lee never wrote X-men, but the PTBs at D/C and Marvel have to sign off on new changes in the story before they can be manipulated. So to me, to argue that fanfiction "rapes" the characters of a writer is really very ridiculous when the owners do it themselves all the time.
I'd also argue, with regards to the element of porn in fanfiction, that it serves a very unique need. I have read many stories where they are short and satisfy the need of simply having the characters get together to make lovely groans and get sticky. But I have also read some seriously, seriously long story arcs that delve into and explore aspects of sexuality as a whole but uses the characters as a back drop more than anything else (at least this seems to be the case with the various long BDSM or slave-fic story lines I've read in many fandoms).
In regards to those stories, I think they also fill a component of women's fanservice. I used to argue that anime had two kinds of fanservice, men's and women's. Men's fanservice had large-breasted, scantily clad women (gee, doesn't that sound like most fantasty/sci-fi/comic-related/movie-related fandoms?) and that women's fanservice revolved around "pretty" boys/men getting the crap knocked out of them and abused in general. Why this particular distinction? I really don't know, but a lot of fanfiction goes the same way, especially longer stories that have a component of sex to drive the plot.
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Date: 2010-05-14 07:00 pm (UTC)Besides, once you publish (anywhere, for money or online) you can't really help what people think of your chars. What about all the people who imagine themselves into your novel after reading it? Are you going to put a stop to fantasizing, too? If you don't want people to creatively besmirch your beloved children, then don't sell your children!!!
*pant pant*...okay, obviously I've got strong feelings about this! ^^;
And yes, fanfic as female fanservice, I didn't get into that much, but I actually do think it's important; I think a lot of women get out of fanfic things that they'd have a hard time finding anywhere else. (I kind of suspect this is why women write so much more fic than men - the way many of us engage with fiction lends itself to transformative works. If I wanted to go raging feminist, I even could argue that part of the reason fanfic/transformative works are so disregarded is because they are a female literary style - the same way romance is considered so low-brow, because it's not like male-written literature and therefore of course is inferior by its very nature :P)
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Date: 2010-05-14 07:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 11:13 pm (UTC)Not as large; but not too different. A midlist book sells 5,000-15,000 copies; my most-read story on FF.net has gotten 1,800 hits, and an announcement at Cascade Library still gets 200-300 hits in the first 24 hours. And I'm just, yk, me.
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Date: 2010-05-14 11:30 pm (UTC)The super-popular fic (like the big hits in megafandoms like HP & SGA) probably have gotten more readers than some novels, but overall I think novels still have a wider audience.
(But fanfic short stories I think get wider readership than most short stories save those written by popular authors, so it's a trade-off...)
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Date: 2010-05-14 11:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-14 07:06 pm (UTC)I will admit that if I weren't writing fanfic, I probably would be writing more original stuff - but if I hadn't written so much fic, my original stuff wouldn't be nearly as good; I've learned a lot, writing so much posting online. But more than that - I'm *proud* of my best fanfic, I think some of it is good reading. My dream of being an author always has been, first and foremost, to have my stories be read and enjoyed. And I've achieved that with my fic, even if I haven't made hard cash on it.
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Date: 2010-05-14 08:25 pm (UTC)It was really an epiphany for me, a few years ago, to realize that most of what I wanted to get from my original work (the joy of writing, the pleasure of knowing that someone else liked it, even the occasional accolade and good review) was something I was *already* getting from fanfic -- and not only that, but probably more and better than I'd get from original fiction! I haven't given up on origfic by any means (in fact, this summer I'm planning on getting serious about it) but it made me realize that fanfic fulfills a lot of the same functions, and there's really NO reason for me to write original fic instead (unless I just want to) except to make money ... which is a pretty shaky proposition with original writing these days anyhow.
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Date: 2010-05-14 08:34 pm (UTC)there's really NO reason for me to write original fic instead (unless I just want to) except to make money ... which is a pretty shaky proposition with original writing these days anyhow.
This is the conclusion I've come to, except that I have another reason for wanting to be pro-published - I want a fandom of my own, dangit! Even a little one...but to see my fiction in the Yuletide requests, to see someone wanting wacky rare pairing smut with my chars - that's one of my ambitions. ...which obviously puts me at direct odds with most of the pros in this debate!
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Date: 2010-05-14 09:06 pm (UTC)Though it does leave the difficulty of how to interact with the creative side of one's own fandom. Do you openly acknowledge your own fanfic, squee about it and link to it? Or squee in private, babble cheerfully at friends via email, and officially pretend it doesn't exist? Especially with an ongoing series - what if someone actually *does* anticipate your plot points in advance and write about it? I certainly don't have a moral problem with it and I'm not actually afraid of being sued, but I've noticed that there's something a little disheartening about working hard on a fanfic and then running across one that uses the exact same idea. If nothing else, it's hard to avoid being influenced by it!
Actually, that is one of the things I really love about writing fanfic for someone else's creations - you don't have to make that choice! You can openly acknowledge in your headers "this is a lot like Jane Doe's current WIP, but I was working on this one first and it's not related" or "The idea of Mary and Flo having a genius baby is borrowed with gratitude from Jane Doe's epic Curtainfic XII". You can babble happily about how awesome someone else's version of John Sheppard is. I worry about the difficulty of trying to navigate fandom with a non-fannish Seekrit Identity. I know that growing numbers of people do it (I'm actually amazed at just how many of the new, up-and-coming generation of spec-fic writers are also maintaining an active fanfic-writing presence - I know of about a dozen of them, and those are just the ones I know about!). But it seems like it would be very hard, especially if you happen to hit the fannish zeitgeist and spawn a decent-sized fandom of your own (like the Temeraire books seem to have).
Incidentally, I forgot to say this in my earlier comment, but I do think this is a very insightful post, and the aspect that you point out about fanfic is really one of the best arguments on the pro-fanfic side, IMHO. It's not less than original fic, but it's not exactly the same either. Trying to choose between them is like choosing between science fiction and mystery -- they're not the same, but one of them isn't less.
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Date: 2010-05-14 09:19 pm (UTC)I'm also thinking somewhat of anime fandoms, where pro mangakas coming up through doujinshi is established and quite a few of them keep making doujinshi even once they're pro - and sometimes dj of their own series, even - and I know of mangaka who have outright requested that fans send them dj (I remember the author of Fushigi Yuugi had a note in one volume wondering something like why there wasn't more Tama/Tasuki yaoi and could she see it if there was!) Japanese fandom works very differently from Western fandom, but if they can negotiate it, there's gotta be a way for us to!
Trying to choose between them is like choosing between science fiction and mystery -- they're not the same, but one of them isn't less.
Yes, exactly - fanfic is akin to being a genre of fiction, and while it's perfectly understandable if you prefer some genres over others, but if you try to argue that one genre is innately objectively superior to another...you're probably wrong. :P
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Date: 2010-05-14 10:35 pm (UTC)That's a neat thing about anime/manga fandoms ... it's going to be really interesting to see what happens in the next twenty years, as more and more writers come into the American publishing market through fandom, and fanfic becomes ever more "out". I remember in the late '90s worrying that fandom and fanfic was going to become steadily more marginalized, as the publishers became aware of it -- remember all the C&Ds and paranoia? And look at it now ... it's more mainstream than ever, far more visible and accepted than I would have dreamed a decade ago.
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Date: 2010-05-15 12:17 am (UTC)Hmm, I can see this, but at the same time - in any large fandom I tend to stay on the fringes anyway, because fans can be, er, kind of nutso about their opinions, and I prefer to not argue mine (unless I'm in the mood or start feeling 'threatened' ^^;) And if it were my own work, it would be like that x100, because while I think the whole "it's like seeing my children getting raped!!" thing is crazy, I do get attached to my own chars, in a somewhat different way than I'm attached to the chars I fan on, and I would be more sensitive to criticisms of them. And then, I wouldn't want to risk stifling my own fans by making proclamations like, "I like this pairing and don't like that one!" (actually I'm secretly hoping that I'll inspire crazy non-canonical ships, it'll feel like I was doing something right. When I was doing my webcomic at least one person mentioned shipping two chars who I knew were never going to get together, and that just tickled me, that the chars were gaining that kind of life on their own, apart from what my story was doing with them...)
...I gotta admit, participating under a pseudonym sounds kind of tempting, even at the same time I'm going SOCKPUPPET NO WRONG! (On fandomsecrets recently I saw a secret in which someone wanted to have a fandom based on their original work, just so they could post ridiculous noncanonical smut under a pseudonym and then laugh at the people who cried OOC and said it was against the author's vision! And there's a wicked part of me that totally wants the same ^^;)
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Date: 2010-05-14 11:57 pm (UTC)yeah. i generally think of my own fanfic strictly in terms of a hobbyist's writing, but the sentiment here rings true for me, too. two of my favorite fan-genres to write are AUs and cross-overs. you're totally right that at least some of those stories just *wouldn't* work as stand-alone pieces, no matter how much i tried for a style of fiction that was as accessible to non-fan readers as well as fellow fans. i don't usually think about it, but yeah, you're right.
here via wneleh.
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-15 12:56 am (UTC)There are some fanfics I've recced to people as being so good they're worth reading even if you don't know the fandom. But even of those, I think they're better if you *do* know the fandom, at least a bit...
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Date: 2010-05-15 03:50 am (UTC)Every once in a while I send a fanfic link to my friend who teaches English because it's such a good example of a short story, whether she knows the characters or not.
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Date: 2010-05-15 12:28 pm (UTC)Also? Fanfic is about acknowledging (reveling in!) the sources of ideas and the myriad manifestations they can be twisted into. What's not cool about that?
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Date: 2010-05-15 06:32 pm (UTC)And yes, really, pretty much all art is derivative to some extent - one aspect of art is reflecting the culture it's produced by and for, so it can't be uncoupled from that culture without losing some of its meaning. Fanfic is just most honest about it than current copyright law allows for! XP
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Date: 2010-05-15 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 08:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-16 08:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 02:47 am (UTC)Just a comment about what fanfiction really is and also how the argument over fanfiction is irrelavent.
It's in the concept that there is no such thing as an orginal idea. So much of what we read and watch today is sipmly mined form previous ideas and altered slightly.
I'm doing Gendered Cinema this semester and on our reading list was Virgina Woolf's Mrs Dalloway which 'inspired' the novel The Hours which was adapted into a film. The Hours also included an interpretation of V. Woolf her self. Tell me that's nor RPF! Is fanfiction OK when the novel is out of copywrite? Someone else made a profit (a huge profit) of the work of another author. But thats ok because she is Dead!
i wonder if the author's complaining about not-profiting fanfiction will be forgotten when they're DEAD and out of copywrite.
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Date: 2010-05-30 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 10:22 am (UTC)And yes, that's one of the reasons I'm hoping my own stories will someday inspire fandoms and fic of their own - because how else is it going to be remembered, unless people take it and make it their own?
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Date: 2010-06-10 06:16 am (UTC)This is...more common than you might think. Let's, for the sake of example and because I know of few works in English which have such a rich body of professionally and amateur-produced transformative works, look at what there is for Sherlock Holmes.
Well, to start with, Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a few fanfics. Yes, the author of the original works himself is responsible for some of its earliest transformative works. It probably says something that they'd mostly be classed as crackfics and parodies, too, but I'm not going to try to figure that out myself. Suffice to say, they're not canon and finding them can be a matter of sheer luck.
Of the transformative works produced by professionals, the quality varies dramatically. Unfortunately, the majority of those written in the last 50 have generally raised the question of if the person who wrote them has actually read the work he (or she) is supposedly basing it upon, something you'd rather hope a person being paid to write a derivative/transformative work would take the time to do. Some of the better ones merely leave one wondering if the author has thought to invest time in researching the setting.
Looking at...well, pretty much whatever is in the FF.net archive for Sherlock Holmes, it is...well... I should admit here that, unfortunately, I have had the pleasure of finding some rather good historical research on homosexuality during that period & I've spent perhaps too much of my life reading late Victorian lit for somebody who isn't getting a degree in it, too. I skip the slash stories because, aside from finding them utterly boring when slashed, I also have serious doubts about it being anything more than than accident.
(Incidentally, if you want something Victorian where there is definitely slash involved, try the Raffles books; the title character is based off of somebody whom the author didn't know was gay. It also needs much, much more love than it gets!)
However, there are some very fine works to be found there, some of which are sadly unfinished so their quality cannot be quite properly determined. It doesn't hurt that many show signs that the writer, despite being an amateur, has done sufficient work to have a good sense of what the setting was really like (proving that it is, in fact, quite easy to avoid such things as sticking female characters in outfits that would inspire questions about their rates!) and an equally good sense of the characters themselves.
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Date: 2010-06-10 07:12 am (UTC)Heh - that has long been suggested as one reason for pros with anti-fic feelings, and I admit that it has a ring of truth, to me. Certainly I found the best SGA fic to be substantially better written than the show itself. And I was reading Anne Rice fanfic after I'd quit reading the Vampire Chronicles, because the fanfic still gave me what the canon no longer did.
And certainly not-for-profit, freely web-posted fanfic can be and often is (in the case of most tie-in novels I know of!) as good or better than for-pay derivative works. Some of this I think is the power of fannishness - a fan, writing purely for love of a series/characters, may be truer to it than someone who's doing it at least in part to make a buck. It doesn't surprise me that some Holmes fans will extensively research the era, for no other reason than because they want to be true to what they love. I've done the same.
(Conan Doyle wrote Holmes pastiches?? That I did not know! I'd love to see those. OF course in Japanese fandoms it's fairly common for mangaka to write parody dj of their own series, but I don't know of many Western authors who've done so...)
I have heard of the Raffles books...I might have read a crossover with them? Hmm....not sure, but yes, have heard of them. Haven't read them, though, and didn't know about the character inspiration - that's an interesting tidbit..
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Date: 2010-06-10 08:03 am (UTC)On the for-pay derivative works, the absolute best of the ones I've read were written by people who are Holmes fans; I actually had the advantage on learning the era because...well, I grew up on Brett's Holmes, and in a family of historians as the child of somebody with a love of Victorian/Edwardian England. Getting access to good references was easy, though some of the experiences that result from it...you'd think that it'd be not terribly hard to get IC a historical character whose diaries & correspondence are available to the public. Then you find out how horribly off Queen Victoria tends to be... (Okay, okay, the popular image of her doesn't match reality particularly well--she <3ed sex, for one--but still...)
(Yes, he did. There was a collection of them printed, under a title along the lines of "The Other Holmes" and it also included a fanfic that had managed to be mistaken for a lost Holmes story. I lucked out and managed to get it from the local public library; I think it's out of print. I can check, if you'd like.)
The Raffles books are well worth reading; they are all out of copyright, can be obtained for free from Project Gutenberg -- or I can upload the neatened-up-for-online-reading collection I did, if you want. The author was an interesting guy--and ACD's brother-in-law. ACD didn't think anybody would want to read stories about a criminal... If it was the R. Holmes & Co. stories may be remembering, I feel for you. I had an easier time reading City Crimes, which was hilarious in how much of a period piece it was & how much accidental slash there was in it. (It most definitely was accidental: the author's idea of subtle was having it announced by a one-man band, instead of a full parade with marching band, fireworks, and a noise truck.)