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Post by PokerKitten on Apr 2, 2003 18:11:06 GMT
I think I am a little bit in love with Daniel who writes terrific OPINION columns at slayage.com.... I always look forward to his articles; very well written and thought provoking. Anyhoo, he recently wrote about the strange world of fanfic and I thought you would like to read it. Here are some quotes from BtVS writers to whet your appetite: And you can find the article at - www.slayage.com/articles/000050.html#000050
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Post by Ditto on Jan 4, 2004 14:40:05 GMT
Why 'not allowed to read Buffy stories' ?
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Post by PokerKitten on Jan 4, 2004 14:55:51 GMT
Well, the writers aren't really supposed to acknowledge it even because in theory they should take legal action over it. And then there is the problem of reading it and being influenced by it - subconsciously or otherwise. And being accused of pinching ideas.
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Post by PokerKitten on Jan 5, 2004 11:30:40 GMT
Here's another one: Fanfic: is it right to write? January 5, 2004 Shows such as Star Trek, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, have spawned fans who write their own adaptations on the web.
Fans of successful stories fancy writing, too, but their adaptations are causing angst, reports Helen Razer.
In the marketing milli-second that parts the latest Harry Potter book from an impending Harry Potter movie, lunch box or confectionery range, J. K. Rowling's mass audience has found a way to amuse itself. Hungry for Hogwarts, and always eager to follow fresh narratives, addicts of Harry have found a way to take the edge off: they simply create new stories themselves.
Explore the internet or dive into 'zine culture and you'll discover more than 100,000 pieces that employ the characters and settings founded by Rowling in her HP series. Some of the work is stunning, much of it is drivel, and all of it risks inspiring the fury of Warner Brothers and Harry's other trademark holders.
Despite a threat of legal notices and continued aloofness by the more upright literary community, this work is flourishing. HP-inspired fiction has even given rise to its own stars, some of whom rival Rowlings's own talent for rococo prose and colossal word count. These exuberant HP writers are the latest heirs to a literary tradition known as fan fiction, or fanfic. The genre is staffed by fans of a specific book, television show or movie. Using established characters and surroundings, writers arm themselves with a healthy sense of creative entitlement and let it rip.
Novel-length fanfics, or shorter fanficlets, take their inspiration from a smorgasbord of artefacts. Jane Austen's heroine, Elizabeth Darcy, nee Bennett, can be heard quarrelling sullenly with her dull new husband. The Wizard of Oz's Tin Man needs a pacemaker for his hurtling heart. 's protagonists, from A Country Practice to Buffy, each find themselves radically adjusted as per the needs of their most avid, literate, fans.
With the mid-'90s advent of no-cost publishing for internet users, fanfic accelerated. Homages appeared in such volume that some authors and owners of intellectual assets took exception. Anne Rice, creator of The Vampire Chronicles, famously wrote on her website in 2000 that the practice of fanfic "upsets me terribly". Her howl, reportedly backed by a volley of "cease and desist" emails from lawyers to fanfic authors, did not endear her to fans.
These fandoms predate the world wide web by at least 20 years. Dean Kiley, teacher of new media production at Swinburne University, traces the origins of fanfic to the mid-20th century embrace of the mimeograph machine. "The 'zine, the do-it-yourself, deliberately-crude, thrown-together, these-are-my-obsessions-what-are-yours personalised magazine revealed a lively consumer eager to dismember mass culture and might be viewed as fanfic's direct ancestor."
The unruly genre had its formative blast in the late '60s. Not only did the US sci-fi program Star Trek give rise to a slew of convention-hoppers wearing red pyjamas, it gave an army of fans something to write about. Star Trek fanfictions, which continue to appear, spawned another sub-genre early on. The literary form Kirk-Spock depicted the captain and his ensign in romantic or erotic situations and is abbreviated to K/S.
The "slash" within K/S is now used to describe any fanfic that describes homoerotic encounters. Slash fiction now arguably forms the bulk of all published fanfic. Slash, it should be noted, is not tatty porn. Much of its coy tone owes more to mid-century bodice-ripper novels than, for example, the Letters page in Penthouse. Further, its more eminent exponents write with precision and confidence. Slash has a canon and a system of mentorship, or "beta reading", that ought to inspire envy in any emerging novelist.
The curious thing about slash is that women write most of it. Tens of thousands of heterosexual female writers give their creative energies to love stories figuring Mulder and Skinner from The X Files; Steve and Oscar from The Six Million Dollar Man, and even Dr Who with heavens knows what sort of male alien.
British academic and slash author Ika Willis is hesitant to pinpoint a single reason for feminine command of the genre. "Slash writing is probably predominantly female for the same reasons that most low-status, amateur creative activities are," Willis says. "There is a tradition of women's creative work, like quilting, being circulated in informal communities rather than entering the art market."
Kiley agrees that the "comparative lack of commercial pressures and professionalising constrictions" enable female authors to "feel empowered to write in more personal ways". How does Willis explain her own passion for erotically pairing male characters Blake and Avon, from BBC schlock sci-fi series Blakes 7? "When writing male erotic fiction, women have a much less defined metaphorical system," she says. "None of us knows what it's like to have a penis, so we have to explain how it feels in its context, what the emotional side to it is.
"It's really freeing, both as a female reader, because you're not always being put off by reactions like 'I hate when people touch me there!' and as a writer, because you're much freer to create your own sexual language."
Melbourne slash mentor Nova says material by women writers "is about male relationships, as much as it's about sex . . . One aims to evoke familiar sexual and emotional responses by means of an alien body within a borrowed story".
Whether it's Kirk nibbling on Spock's pointy ear or a more G-rated excursion with Harry, the fanfic just keeps coming.
Countless unauthorised authors of all ages are modifying their favourite cultural objects to suit.
www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/01/02/1072908900255.html
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Post by PokerKitten on May 22, 2004 11:17:10 GMT
And another one from Toronto StarTelevision's afterlife In the world of fan fiction, great and movie characters never die. They just get new scripts
MALENE ARPE TORONTO STAR
Clark Kent is a junkie.
Xena and Gabrielle are living happily together with their three children. Sometimes Hercules drops by for dinner.
Mulder is still looking for the truth. Out there.
Buffy has been resurrected on a space station some 300 years in the future.
Nick Knight is shopping for new handcuffs.
Vincent mourns Catherine who has been magically transported to a different world, away from the tunnels.
Frasier finally tells Roz that he loves her, but could it be too late?
The past television season saw the cancellation of a high number of favourites, including Friends, Angel, Sex And The City, Frasier, The Practice, Tarzan, Ed and Jake 2.0. This left fans in mourning for their weekly fix of heroics, beefcake, deceitful lawyering, superhero-ness, nookie and jokes. As good scripted television gets swallowed by "reality," it becomes increasingly difficult to let go of the few shows you really like.
When a show dies it's comforting to know that, just a click away, in the world of Internet fan fiction, many of the compelling characters continue to have long lives, great adventures and, at times, wild monkey sex of the kind not allowed on television.
Making no money from his or her writing, a fan fiction writer is a hybrid of pure storyteller and creative borrower. There are thousands of these more or less anonymous writers on the Internet — although there is no way of knowing precisely how many there are out there, even for a particular show.
Fan fiction, a.k.a. "fanfic," is the practice of writing stories based on characters and storylines created by someone else. Fan "ficcers" use movies, books, comics, cartoons, video games, sometimes the "real" lives of celebrities and, most of all, television shows as inspiration for their own tales.
Some writers set their stories during the run of the show — sometimes filling in the blanks, sometimes taking a certain episode in a completely different direction; others will start off where the show stopped in a "further-adventures-of" mode. Other modes of fan expression include creating music videos and visual art.
"I love it. I absolutely love it. I wish I had grown up in the era of fan fiction, because I was living those shows and those movies that I loved and I would put on the score to Superman and just relive the movie over and over," says Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly, when asked how he feels about his shows living on in the fanfic community.
"I think it's kind of a glorious thing to be able to be carrying the torch. That's why I made these shows. I didn't make them so that people would enjoy them and forget them; I made them so they would never be able to shake them. It's the way I am as a fan. I create the shows that would make me do that."
Fanfic will usually be rated to warn readers of content that may offend. Some stories are set in alternative universes (transporting, for example, the entire cast of Babylon 5 to England, ca. 1750); some are erotic, including the popular "slash" category, which imagines male/male and, increasingly, female/female relationships between characters who don't necessarily have such relationships on the source shows.
Fan fiction at its best exhibits the qualities of "original" prose: strong characters, inventive plotting and fine pacing, with the added value of being a fan's methadone, both in between episodes and when the show is gone.
Methadone that sometimes gives you a high as good as the real thing.
There's evidence fanfic started in the '30s with writers using characters in pulp fiction novels as templates for their personal creations, but it was the original Star Trek series (1966-67) that more than any other show sparked the imagination of closeted writers who shared their stories via mimeographed newsletters.
Star Trek was also famously the first show that, when its cancellation was announced, sparked an outpouring of fan grief and support.
Through the '70s and '80s fanfic writers — writing stories based on shows such as Dr. Who and the Star Wars movies — exchanged fanzines and photocopies of their stories.
Then the Internet happened and writing that had up until then been passed around from fan to fan found a potentially unlimited audience.
But it's one thing to sit down and read a story in order to alleviate withdrawal symptoms once a show has gone off the air; it's quite another to spend large chunks of your life (some ficcers report spending three or four hours every day) writing tales that can never be published in the traditional way.
"I swear, when the idea came to me I thought I'd invented it. No kidding — I remember ... suddenly realizing that if I wanted more Star Trek adventures, maybe I could write them myself. I still recall that thrill of inspiration, as if I'd stumbled upon some great secret of the universe or something," says Nicole Clevenger, 26, via e-mail from San Francisco.
"Once I got to college and got online, I realized that a lot of other people were doing this thing too, that there was a name for it."
Clevenger (at tinyurl.com- /2w2zd) now writes about the much-loved, short-lived Whedon sci-fi western Firefly. She feels she's helping keep the show alive.
"There's a definite fan base out there and they're hungry for new adventures and development. If readers think that my stories are enjoyable and true to the show, then I'm giving them a little more of what they want to see on the screen but can't."
Bardsmaid is a pseudonym for a 54-year-old California woman who writes stories about the X-Files characters. (Many fan fiction writers prefer not to put their own names to their stories; as one British woman says: "I don't want to give you my real name for use in any article, because I'm an academic — university professor ... and I don't want this little hobby known more widely than it already is.")
Bardsmaid (tinyurl.com- /2se6h) started writing her stories in response to what happened during the sixth season of her favourite show.
"Mulder and Scully were taken off the X-Files, after which the show quickly led us through a series of fantasy episodes. I couldn't help thinking that since the X-Files had been Mulder's life, not just his job, that he'd certainly be impacted very strongly emotionally from this turn of events, and yet the show gave us no real evidence of this," she says.
"So eventually this whole idea, of waiting to see the emotional impact of divestiture — and not seeing any — got to me, and one night I sat down and figured I'd try exploring the topic for a few pages and get it out of my system. After all, how long could it take?" A very long time, as it turned out. She's still at work on a trilogy that's currently sitting at 1,100 pages.
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Post by PokerKitten on May 22, 2004 11:17:57 GMT
continued
Bardsmaid, like most serious fanfic writers, uses a volunteer editor, or as it's known in the community, a "beta" or "beta reader."
"Actually, I like to use more than one, and an assortment of more casual readers, because each one brings a unique perspective and notices something nobody else did. The discussions, about both characters and writing, that I've gotten into with betas or other readers have been one of the greatest rewards of writing fanfic."
When devoted fans of a defunct show go looking for stories about their favourite characters, they want tales that ring true. While a lot of what's available (a quick Google of "fan fiction" nets more than a million results) manages to nail the exact tenor of a show or a particular character, there's also an awful lot of swill. Finding that "true" voice is key.
"One thing many fic writers will say is that they write fic because they don't have to create their own characters — that that part is already done for them," Bardsmaid says. "But to me, the most difficult thing about writing fanfic, and something the `original' writer never has to deal with, is the fact that your readership already knows your characters intimately. The hardest thing about writing fic is getting the characterizations just right."
But what of that "original" writer? How does he feel about having his ideas and thoughts used by others? Ronald D. Moore has written for and produced Roswell, Star Trek (Voyager and Deep Space Nine), Battlestar Galactica (he's now working on the new B.G. series), Touching Evil and Carnivale. Like Whedon, Moore has nothing but praise.
"I think it's great. I think it's an expression of people's love and affection for a show. The fact that people would take the time to sit down and write entire storylines, wrapped around back story and characters that are established, do elaborate plots and write serials, it's a remarkable tribute to the appeal of those shows," he says.
George Lucas (Star Wars) and J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter) are famously no fans of fans' creations, partially because of copyright infringement issues, but also because some of the stories tend to stray outside the lines of wholesomeness. Moore, who does not look at fan fiction about his own shows to avoid inadvertently borrowing story ideas, dismisses such concerns.
"I think that's just something you have to accept. If people want to take Star Wars characters and parody them and turn them into adult situations or play a more mature realistic or pornographic version of Star Wars, I think that's all fair use. Why not? Let people go do what they want with the material, as long as they don't sell it. There's no way anybody on God's green earth is going to look at anything the fans have done and think that George Lucas put it out or that it had any actual impact on the franchise."
Most ficcers stick to one show or fandom. While they may profess to be fans of an array of shows, there has to be a special connection for the prose to start flowing, and to continue writing after the show is long gone.
Yvonne Connell (http://www.lcfanfic.com) writes exclusively about the series Lois & Clark, cancelled abruptly after four seasons. The 43-year-old Brit is a fan of X-Files and Star Trek as well, but she has "never felt moved to write fanfic for them. I think that's probably because I only discovered fanfic through L&C, which I began to watch pretty much after my big interest in the other two had tailed off ... As it is, I still enjoy watching (Star Trek) and X-Files, and read X-Files fanfic, but just don't feel the need to write anything myself."
"I honestly don't think I've ever loved another show as much as Buffy and Angel," says Oklahoma's Jean Cousins, 31, who only uses characters from Joss Whedon's Buffyverse in her stories. "Past shows that have come close include Firefly, Farscape, The X-Files and Lois & Clark. I think the reason I never felt compelled to write fanfic about those shows was because I pretty much got what I wanted from them. . . . But Joss Whedon has that whole `don't give them what they want, give them what they need' philosophy and he never lets his characters really be happy."
Like countless other fanfic writers, Cousins (randomthought.addr.com/redemptionista/) continues telling stories of the characters she loves.
"I do think fan fiction helps to fill the void left behind in the absence of new episodes. For me, there is no substitute for getting to watch the show. But reading and writing fan fiction does keep the characters alive, and keeps us from having to say goodbye."
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Post by PokerKitten on Apr 29, 2005 23:02:31 GMT
Another fanfic article, from Newday
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Post by PokerKitten on Mar 19, 2006 0:52:23 GMT
How about this for venting your spleen... methinks such heartfelt indignation could better be directed against the real ills of this world, but hey. The Fan Fiction Rant
I am not rational on the topic of fan fiction. Well, actually, I can be, and in this essay, I will endeavor to be. But people who know me well also know that this is one topic that can make my eyes spin round like pinwheels and steam come out of my ears. In fact, I would venture to say that knowing this brings them great delight in provoking such a show several times a year when the topic comes up at a convention or in a discussion group. So, rather than continue to publicly rant, unreeling endlessly my venomous diatribe against fan fiction, I thought I’d gather my bile and spill it all here, in a logical and organized flow. Hereafter, I shall simply refer those who query to the infamous red shoe gripped by the mad woman in the attic. To start my rant, I will first define exactly what fan fiction is, to me. Others may have a wider or narrower definition, but when I am speaking of the stuff I dislike, this is what I mean. Fan fiction is fiction written by a ‘fan’ or reader, without the consent of the original author, yet using that author’s characters and world. A few specific notes about this definition. ‘Without the consent of the original author’ This means it doesn’t include someone writing a Darkover story, with Marion Zimmer Bradley’s permission. It does include someone writing a Darkover story without Marion Zimmer Bradley’s permission, even if MZB had allowed others to use her world. It does not include professional authors writing Star Trek or X-Files or Buffy the Vampire Slayer stories. All those stories are written and then published with the consent of the copyright owner. Media tie-in novels are not what I’m talking about here. Those stories are not, by my definition, fan fiction. Now that I’ve defined it, why do I dislike it so much? What, I am often asked, is the harm in fan fiction? I am told that I should be flattered that readers like my stories enough to want to continue them. Another justification is that writing fan fiction is a good way for people to learn to be writers. A fourth point that is often made is that fan fiction doesn’t attempt to make money off the stories, so it doesn’t really violate anyone’s copyright. And finally, I am usually chastised for trying to suppress people’s creativity, or suppressing free speech. So let me take each of those points one at a time. “What is the harm in it?” I might counter by demanding to know ‘What is the good of it?’ I’ll resist that temptation. Fan fiction is like any other form of identity theft. It injures the name of the party whose identity is stolen. When it’s financial identity theft, the thief can ruin your credit rating. When it’s creative identity theft, fan fiction can sully your credit with your readers. Anyone who read fan fiction about Harry Potter, for instance, would have an entirely different idea of what those stories are about than if he had simply read J.K. Rowling’s books. In this way, the reader’s impression of the writer’s work and creativity is changed. My name is irrevocably attached to my stories and characters. Writers who post a story at Fanfiction.net or anywhere else and identify it as a Robin Hobb fan fiction or a Farseer fan fiction are claiming my groundwork as their own. That is just not right. “I should be flattered that readers like my stories enough to want to continue them.” That’s not flattering. That’s insulting. Every fan fiction I’ve read to date, based on my world or any other writer’s world, had focused on changing the writer’s careful work to suit the foible of the fan writer. Romances are invented, gender identities changed, fetishes indulged and endings are altered. It’s not flattery. To me, it is the fan fiction writer saying, “Look, the original author really screwed up the story, so I’m going to fix it. Here is how it should have gone.” At the extreme low end of the spectrum, fan fiction becomes personal masturbation fantasy in which the fan reader is interacting with the writer’s character. That isn’t healthy for anyone. At the less extreme end, the fan writer simply changes something in the writer’s world. The tragic ending is re-written, or a dead character is brought back to life, for example. The intent of the author is ignored. A writer puts a great deal of thought into what goes into the story and what doesn’t. If a particular scene doesn’t happen ‘on stage’ before the reader’s eyes, there is probably a reason for it. If something is left nebulous, it is because the author intends for it to be nebulous. To use an analogy, we look at the Mona Lisa and wonder. Each of us draws his own conclusions about her elusive smile. We don’t draw eyebrows on her to make her look surprised, or put a balloon caption over her head. Yet much fan fiction does just that. Fan fiction closes up the space that I have engineered into the story, and the reader is told what he must think rather than being allowed to observe the characters and draw his own conclusions. When I write, I want to tell my story directly to you. I want you to read it exactly as I wrote it. I labor long and hard to pick the exact words I want to use, and to present my story from the angles I choose. I want it to speak to you as an individual. It’s horribly frustrating to see all that work ignored and undone by someone else ‘fixing’ it. If you don’t like the stories as they stand, I can accept that. But please don’t tinker with them. The extreme analogy: You send me a photograph of your family reunion, titled ‘The Herkimer’s Get Together’. I think it looks dull. So I Photo-Shop it to put your friends and relations into compromising positions in various stages of undress. Then I post it on the Internet, under the title ‘The Herkimers Get Together’, and add a note that it was sent to me from Pete Herkimer of Missoula, Montana. Suddenly there is your face and name, and the faces of the people you care about, doing things that you would never do. Are you flattered that I thought your photograph was interesting enough to use? Or are you insulted and horrified? Are you alarmed that I so clearly connected work that is not yours to your good name? “Fan fiction is a good way for people to learn to be writers.” No. It isn’t. If this is true, then karaoke is the path to become a singer, coloring books produce great artists, and all great chefs have a shelf of cake mixes. Fan fiction is a good way to avoid learning how to be a writer. Fan fiction allows the writer to pretend to be creating a story, while using someone else’s world, characters, and plot. Coloring Barbie’s hair green in a coloring book is not a great act of creativity. Neither is putting lipstick on Ken. Fan fiction does exactly those kinds of things. The first step to becoming a writer is to have your own idea. Not to take someone else’s idea, put a dent in it, and claim it as your own. You will learn more from writing one story of your own, no matter how bad it is, than the most polished Inuyasha fan fiction that you write. Taking that first wavering step out into the unknown territory of your own imagination is what it is all about. When you can write well enough to carry a friend along, then you’ve really got something. But you aren’t going to get anywhere clinging to the comfort of saying, “If I write a Harry Potter story, everyone will like it because they already like Harry Potter. I don’t have to describe Hogwarts because everyone saw the movie, and I don’t have to tell Harry’s back story because that’s all done for me.” Fan fiction is to writing what a cake mix is to gourmet cooking. Fan fiction is an Elvis impersonator who thinks he is original. Fan fiction is Paint-By-Number art. Fan fiction doesn’t attempt to make money off the stories, so it doesn’t really violate anyone’s copyright. I beg your pardon? Where did you get the idea that copyright is all about money? Copyright is about the right of the author to control his own creation. That includes making money off it. But it also includes refusing to sell movie rights, or deciding that you’re not really proud of your first novel and you don’t wish to see it republished. It’s about choosing how your work is presented. Under copyright, those rights belong to the creator of the work. I’ve seen all those little disclaimers on stories at fanfiction.net and elsewhere. Legally and morally, they don’t mean a thing to anyone. “I don’t make any claims to these characters.” “I don’t want to make any money off this story.” That isn’t what it is about, and yes, you are still infringing on copyright even if you make those statements. Yes, the author can still sue you, even if you put up those statements. If you don’t believe me, please go to www.chillingeffects.org/fanfic/faq and read what is there. They are pointing out to you that fan fiction can infringe copyright. “You’re trying to suppress people’s creativity.” No. I’m doing the opposite. I’m trying to encourage young writers (or writers of any age) to be truly creative. Elvis impersonators are fun for an occasional night out, but surely you don’t want to spend your life being a Rowling or Hobb or Brooks impersonator, do you? What is wrong with telling your own stories? Put in the work, take the chance, and if you do it right, stand in your own spotlight. “I have a free speech right to put my fan fiction on the Internet.” Do I have a free speech right to write pornography and post it under your name? Do I have a free speech right to put a very poor quality product in the public eye, and connect it to a work that belongs to you? Please try to think of this in terms of your own life and career. It doesn’t matter if you are a writer or a plumber or an aerospace engineer. You have the right to receive credit for the work you do. No one should take that credit from you. No one should be able to connect your good name to work you did not create yourself. You certainly have a free speech write to post your own fiction on the Internet or anywhere else, and I heartily encourage you to do so. If you’re really tempted to write fan fiction, do this instead. List all the traits of the book or character that you liked. List all the parts that you didn’t like. List the changes you would make to improve the story. List all changes necessary so that the changes you want don’t contradict the world, culture, morality or plot of the original story. Change the proper nouns involved. Change the setting to one of your own. Write your story. Write the paragraphs that describe the world. Write the ones that introduce the characters. Write the dialogue that moves your plot along. Write down every detail that you want your reader to know. Then publish it however you like. Know that if it’s a bad story, it would still be a bad story even if you had kept the original names and settings. But at least what you now have is your bad story, not your bad imitation of someone else’s story. And it years to come, you don’t have to be ashamed of it anymore than I’m ashamed of my early efforts. I will close this rant with a simple admonition. Fan fiction is unworthy of you. Don’t do it.
Postscript: I wish to be absolutely clear that the opinion above is entirely my own. Although I use Harry Potter fan fiction as an example, and reference Marion Zimmer Bradley, the X-Files, etc, I do not speak for those writers or copyright owners, or indeed any other writer, nor do I claim that they share my opinions on fan fiction. Robin HobbWith respect, screw you, lady ;D
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Post by Teebee on Mar 19, 2006 19:46:47 GMT
Just wanted to add my feelings...................
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Post by Pixie on Apr 27, 2006 17:08:13 GMT
I read the Farseer trilogy, and enjoyed it so much I got the next trilogy... and found it unutterably dull. Couldn't get beyond the 1st chapter. Sorry, Hobby, your stuff might have been published... but it ain't that brilliant (especially if you actually compare it to... well, for example, the creations of Joss Whedon and JK Rowling...)
Meh.
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Post by PokerKitten on May 22, 2007 21:14:21 GMT
Cory Doctorow: In Praise of Fanfic wrote my first story when I was six. It was 1977, and I had just had my mind blown clean out of my skull by a new movie called Star Wars (the golden age of science fiction is 12; the golden age of cinematic science fiction is six). I rushed home and stapled a bunch of paper together, trimmed the sides down so that it approximated the size and shape of a mass-market paperback, and set to work. I wrote an elaborate, incoherent ramble about Star Wars, in which the events of the film replayed themselves, tweaked to suit my tastes.
I wrote a lot of Star Wars fanfic that year. By the age of 12, I'd graduated to Conan. By the age of 18, it was Harlan Ellison. By the age of 26, it was Bradbury, by way of Gibson. Today, I hope I write more or less like myself.
Walk the streets of Florence and you'll find a copy of the David on practically every corner. For centuries, the way to become a Florentine sculptor has been to copy Michelangelo, to learn from the master. Not just the great Florentine sculptors, either — great or terrible, they all start with the master; it can be the start of a lifelong passion, or a mere fling. The copy can be art, or it can be crap — the best way to find out which kind you've got inside you is to try.
Science fiction has the incredible good fortune to have attracted huge, social groups of fan-fiction writers. Many pros got their start with fanfic (and many of them still work at it in secret), and many fan-fic writers are happy to scratch their itch by working only with others' universes, for the sheer joy of it. Some fanfic is great — there's plenty of Buffy fanfic that trumps the official, licensed tie-in novels — and some is purely dreadful.
Two things are sure about all fanfic, though: first, that people who write and read fanfic are already avid readers of writers whose work they're paying homage to; and second, that the people who write and read fanfic derive fantastic satisfaction from their labors. This is great news for writers.
Great because fans who are so bought into your fiction that they'll make it their own are fans forever, fans who'll evangelize your work to their friends, fans who'll seek out your work however you publish it.
Great because fans who use your work therapeutically, to work out their own creative urges, are fans who have a damned good reason to stick with the field, to keep on reading even as our numbers dwindle. Even when the fandom revolves around movies or shows, fanfic is itself a literary pursuit, something undertaken in the world of words. The fanfic habit is a literary habit.
In Japan, comic book fanfic writers publish fanfic manga called dojinshi — some of these titles dwarf the circulation of the work they pay tribute to, and many of them are sold commercially. Japanese comic publishers know a good thing when they see it, and these fanficcers get left alone by the commercial giants they attach themselves to.
And yet for all this, there are many writers who hate fanfic. Some argue that fans have no business appropriating their characters and situations, that it's disrespectful to imagine your precious fictional people into sexual scenarios, or to retell their stories from a different point of view, or to snatch a victorious happy ending from the tragic defeat the writer ended her book with.
Other writers insist that fans who take without asking — or against the writer's wishes — are part of an "entitlement culture" that has decided that it has the moral right to lift scenarios and characters without permission, that this is part of our larger postmodern moral crisis that is making the world a worse place.
Some writers dismiss all fanfic as bad art and therefore unworthy of appropriation. Some call it copyright infringement or trademark infringement, and every now and again, some loony will actually threaten to sue his readers for having had the gall to tell his stories to each other.
I'm frankly flabbergasted by these attitudes. Culture is a lot older than art — that is, we have had social storytelling for a lot longer than we've had a notional class of artistes whose creativity is privileged and elevated to the numinous, far above the everyday creativity of a kid who knows that she can paint and draw, tell a story and sing a song, sculpt and invent a game.
To call this a moral failing — and a new moral failing at that! — is to turn your back on millions of years of human history. It's no failing that we internalize the stories we love, that we rework them to suit our minds better. The Pygmalion story didn't start with Shaw or the Greeks, nor did it end with My Fair Lady. Pygmalion is at least thousands of years old — think of Moses passing for the pharaoh's son! — and has been reworked in a billion bedtime stories, novels, D&D games, movies, fanfic stories, songs, and legends.
Each person who retold Pygmalion did something both original — no two tellings are just alike — and derivative, for there are no new ideas under the sun. Ideas are easy. Execution is hard. That's why writers don't really get excited when they're approached by people with great ideas for novels. We've all got more ideas than we can use — what we lack is the cohesive whole.
Much fanfic — the stuff written for personal consumption or for a small social group — isn't bad art. It's just not art. It's not written to make a contribution to the aesthetic development of humanity. It's created to satisfy the deeply human need to play with the stories that constitute our world. There's nothing trivial about telling stories with your friends — even if the stories themselves are trivial. The act of telling stories to one another is practically sacred — and it's unquestionably profound. What's more, lots of retellings are art: witness Pat Murphy's wonderful There and Back Again (Tolkien) and Geoff Ryman's brilliant World Fantasy Award-winning Was (L. Frank Baum).
The question of respect is, perhaps, a little thornier. The dominant mode of criticism in fanfic circles is to compare a work to the canon — "Would Spock ever say that, in ‘real' life?" What's more, fanfic writers will sometimes apply this test to works that are of the canon, as in "Spock never would have said that, and Gene Roddenberry has no business telling me otherwise."
This is a curious mix of respect and disrespect. Respect because it's hard to imagine a more respectful stance than the one that says that your work is the yardstick against which all other work is to be measured — what could be more respectful than having your work made into the gold standard? On the other hand, this business of telling writers that they've given their characters the wrong words and deeds can feel obnoxious or insulting.
Writers sometimes speak of their characters running away from them, taking on a life of their own. They say that these characters — drawn from real people in our lives and mixed up with our own imagination — are autonomous pieces of themselves. It's a short leap from there to mystical nonsense about protecting our notional, fictional children from grubby fans who'd set them to screwing each other or bowing and scraping before some thinly veiled version of the fanfic writer herself.
There's something to the idea of the autonomous character. Big chunks of our wetware are devoted to simulating other people, trying to figure out if we are likely to fight or fondle them. It's unsurprising that when you ask your brain to model some other person, it rises to the task. But that's exactly what happens to a reader when you hand your book over to him: he simulates your characters in his head, trying to interpret that character's actions through his own lens.
Writers can't ask readers not to interpret their work. You can't enjoy a novel that you haven't interpreted — unless you model the author's characters in your head, you can't care about what they do and why they do it. And once readers model a character, it's only natural that readers will take pleasure in imagining what that character might do offstage, to noodle around with it. This isn't disrespect: it's active reading.
Our field is incredibly privileged to have such an active fanfic writing practice. Let's stop treating them like thieves and start treating them like honored guests at a table that we laid just for them.
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