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Fanfiction, The Glory


Keith Inc.

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Writers create. This is the assertion of an author, one who seems quite upset about fanfiction. I’m afraid I don’t quite see eye to eye with him. Her? Wasn’t paying that much attention and can’t find the page again.

Anyway, this individual asks how I’d feel if I was a real writer (fanfics are not creations, so if I write only fanfic, I can’t, he says, call myself a writer), and had created a new story and someone fanficced it, slashed my characters in relationships I found offensive and so on.

I did think about this. Really. And maybe I’m just the wrong person to be asked of this.

I do like to imagine something I’ve written being picked up and used, by TV or movie. And I could imagine that there would be tie-ins, marketing and merchandising. And maybe a TV series or some spin offs. I mean, in the best possible world, of course.

Now, as a reader, I often am disappointed in movie characters of books I’ve read. They don’t always look right, they don’t act right. Maybe I’m the one that’s wrong. Maybe directors, screenwriters and actors take extra special care so that their interpretation of a character matches the author’s original vision precisely. And when they drop scenes there just isn’t room for, it’s always the one’s the author felt less than married to. “It was something my editor wanted, I never saw a need for the scene,” they may say.

Or maybe not. Maybe there’s always going to be someone professionally hacking my characters, scenes, narrative. If I’m paid for the opportunity, I probably won’t be terribly concerned. It may even be in the contract.

Then there’s the audience. My characters will be action figures. Kids will act out scenes from my movie. Of course, they’re going to get bored doing the same thing over and over again. They’ll start improving on it in their play. Lamia’s action figure will fight Darth Vader. Clarisse will marry Barbie. Or eat her. My Starfleet Blackadder officer will serve on the Voyager Bridge playset or maybe he’ll lead GI Joes on a mission. It’s what we used to do, so I haven’t got a problem with that.

My Character’s RPG stats may show up in a magazine so people can introduce Dungeon Skippy to their campaign. I could be parodied on SNL or in MAD Magazine.

The TV show that is inspired by my movie would probably employ a number of different writers over the ten seasons it’s in production. Not all of them will have a perfect handle on my giant SID Agent or his human partner, or the various subplots confusing the people and governments involved.

At conventions I would have to establish carefully that the smart-assed sidekick was not my invention, nor the plucky robot or the dodgy mechanic who becomes a fan favorite. And when I judge the costume contests I can’t downgrade a woman’s efforts just because there were no women on Space Station Arcadia when _I_ envisioned it.

It seems that the height of authoring success leads rather directly to a whole bunch of people just absolutely fucking with your character(s). Why would I treat the fanfic differently? Or, why would slash ‘shipping be too terribly different from everyone else’s take?

Again, though, maybe I’m the wrong person to ask.

Do I create, though? Writers create, it is asserted. But how easy would it be to create something completely original? The basic plots are eternal: Man vs. nature, man vs. man, man vs. public transit, whatever the asserted basic seven, ten or thirty plots are. When you boil down Star Wars and Harry Potter, how original are they? An orphan living with relatives founds out that the world is not as he thought, he has powers and a bearded old man to teach him to use them, new friends and adventures, natural piloting skills, deft hand with the magic system they depend upon, an important heritage… And so on and so forth. No one complains that basic plot devices or character archetypes depend on previously established fictions and are not entirely original creations.

Dante’s Inferno, Milton’s Paradise Lost are both respected efforts building on characters and settings they didn’t ‘create.’ But Inferno, for one, was so successful many Christians I’ve talked to think their impression of Hell’s set up is biblical, not Dante’s in source.

For me, I’d say that any new story is at least a little bit ‘creation.’ Without fanfic, it is unlikely that the agents of NCIS would ever investigate the deaths of Marines serving at Stargate Command. Different networks, different studios, different contracts.

I do dislike some fanfic, such as the hamfisted self-insertion. The Supernatural brother’s long-lost sister; Agent Scully’s new and unstoppable partner; the human Starfleet officer who can program Spock’s computer better than Spock can… But then, a lot of original fiction sucks. I stopped reading Dirk Pitt’s adventures when the masturbation became too obvious to ignore. So, it’s a matter of good writing vs. bad writing, not creation vs. fanficcing.

I guess some of us are just too full of ourselves. I wish I could refind this author’s rant. I want to buy his action figures as a compliment. Then pose his characters in Celtic dance numbers with Lego men and anime bobbleheads and call it fan art..

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Personally, if anyone decided to write a fanfic based on an original work, I'd be flattered. Even if they did something that I didn't like, I wouldn't be so arrogant as to attack them for it. When you publish something, it becomes public domain, your readers can do what they like with it as long as they don't make any money off of it. Fanfiction entertains people, isn't that the true purpose of public writing? Literature is the great art of the world, in my opinion, but not all of us can afford books and not all of us can get our work published. Why should these people be punished for something that they love to do? I know, for me, that writing is very cathartic, like punching a bag when I'm pissed and I make a lot of people happy to do it. There a lot of people who absolutely love certain anime and shows and books, and their characters, so when it ends, they enter a sort of void. It was like that for me when Gundam Wing ended. So, when I discovered fanfiction, I was enthralled and jumped into it right away. Even if some of the fanfics were unrealistic or AU, they still featured familiar characters that I loved.

When you read a novel, you spend the book getting introduced to the characters, but with fanfiction, you already know them, intimately, so you can take your relationship with them to a level you couldn't get when you watched or read the work. Isn't an essay a 'creation'? Sure, everything in it is taken from something else, but it is still creation. If you want to get really technical, everything is taken from something else anyway. I dare him to go to the hard core authors, the ones who turn out a hundred pages a week to cater to their audience and to themselves, and every page is better written than the original works, and to say that they're not 'writers'. What else would you call them, anyway?

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Dude, if someone wrote fanfic of my original work, I wouldn't give a shit what the story was, as long as it wasn't deliberately insulting the original work. It could be furry vore with breast inflation and bizarre sexual use of entrails, and I would be ecstatic someone cared enough about my work to make a fanwork based on it.

...Of course, I would also want to bleach my eyes and set my brain on fire if I actually accidentally read some of it, but that's another matter altogether. :)

I really find it incredibly rude and shortsighted when authors bitch about fanfiction. Why on earth would you begrudge free publicity? I respect their right to their opinion, but you know the old saying about opinions and assholes... And while everyone might have a right to an asshole, that doesn't necessarily mean the asshole doesn't stink. I wouldn't write fanfic for an author's work if the author has previously stated they dislike it, but really, while this is partially out of respect, it would mostly be because it makes me feel personally affronted as a fan. If an author is going to be so dismissive of his or her own fandom, why should I put in all that work and intensity, why should I make an effort to spread appreciation for their works?

I think a lot of the feeling of resentment stems from authors feeling angry that fanficcers have misinterpreted their characters and story. But this is just silly; it doesn't matter whether anyone's written a story based on his or her misunderstandings or not, the misinterpretation is still there in that person's mind. Most readers are going to misunderstand your work. Once you've let a story go, it's going to take a life of its own in each and every reader's mind, and chances are you aren't going to approve of the majority of those lives. That's life. There's nothing you can do about it. Get over it, or don't put your work out there to be misunderstood.

That said, there are a great many authors out there with an enlightened perspective when it comes to fanworks - folks like Neil Gaiman, Storm Constantine, KJ Bishop, Catherynne M. Valente, Ellen Kushner, and Cory Doctorow. These authors welcome and in some cases even encourage fanworks. I think we should show our appreciation with mounds and mounds of fanworks. :(

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Guest Savaial

Anyone who claims fanfiction writers aren't real writers is probably hopped up on a superiority complex.

"I write original." (Sniff) You're just a fanfic-slinger."

I could debate all day about what makes a writer. Point of fact, you're a writer if you write. Ignore the pretentious, pestiferous purveyor of purple prose.

The day someone write fanfiction of my original work, I'll consider myself a success and just enjoy what the person comes up with. I'd feel the same if I was a music artist and Weird Al got ahold of me.

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