Fan fiction (was Re: Libraries, Cons, McCaffrey, Rowlings, Derivative Works, Trademarks)

[Michela Ecks]

Rosmerta wrote:
> 
> I'm utterly reluctant to get into this because my knowledge is so
> inconsequential compared to the obviously vast knowledge of the
> fanfic fans conversing below (michela and jim et al) but let me play
> the naif and respond.....

Now.  :o) I like new people and you're comments are really
fascinating...
 
<snip speculation and reasoning why pro authors not like fan fiction>

> Might they also be offended that fanfic is, as we used to say in
> Junior High, "ripping off" their creations? I can understand in fans
> the interest, the obsession (using the term in a nonderogatory way),
> the wondering (hmm, what *if* Draco wore leather? What *if*
> Harry/Hermione? What *if* Sirius slashed Remus?), even the desire to
> get the wonderings down on paper (or digitally).

Obsession isn't a bad word.  Fan is word derived from fanatic...  I
forgot about that one too...  A number of authors didn't understand WHY
the fan fiction writer didn't just write their own stories and I think
one or two (my pool was about 30 authors) suggested laziness on the part
of the author that they couldn't create their own universe.

http://www.lizardqueen.com/html/karma.html is an essay titled The Karma
of Obsession by Patricia Morrison and seems to hint that robbing from
creative works of authors robs their soul...  (Warning to people who may
read this, it's rather dark... interesting, thought provoking but dark. 
I've also been told that parts referring to shamanism are wrong.)
 
> But at that moment when you, as the would-be fanfic author, sit down
> at the PC and begin to type, what are you feeling? If you aren't
> stealing the creation of the very author that you profess to admire
> the most, then what is it (or borrowing, or appropriating, or
> whatever term you want to use)?

Um.... the best explanation I can find in general for this is:

fans enthusiastically embrace favored texts and attempt to integrate
media representations into their own social experience . Unimpressed by
institutional authority and expertise, the fans assert their own rights
to form  interpretations, to offer evaluations, and to construct
cultural canons. ( Jenkins)

Jenkins, Henry. The Poachers and the Stormtroopers: Cultural Convergence
in the Digital Age Paper presented at the University of Michigan, Spring
1998 bp
http://commons.somewhere.com/rre/1998/The.Poachers.and.the.Sto.html

(I pulled the quote from an old paper of mine.)

And to a degree, when I write fan fiction, I write it for similar
reasons...  What happened between that scene in Voyager?  Why does Sam
seem so agitated in that scene on West Wing?  You know, if TPTB won't
put those characters together, I will.

And some times it boils down to, I love the feeling of belonging to such
and such a community, so I'll contribute to this community.  I can't do
screen grabs, I don't want to moderate a mailing list, eh a web page
done well takes too much time, I do send feedback to authors I love but
I want something more so... I'll write fan fiction!
 
> When your author is conveniently dead or no longer writing, it's easy
> to ignore those questions. 

And if they still have relations enforcing their copyright which is the
case with a few dead authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley and the author
of Gone With the Wind, the logic is "They are only continuing that
protection in the name of monetary gain... not the art..."


>But what if the author is not only still
> writing, but still writing *the thing you're deriving from*, a la
> JKR?

Myself personally, I can't do that... unless I know the author has given
express permission for fan fiction writers to write fan fiction which is
the case for Piers Anthony, Tamora Pierce, Ben Bova, Christy Golden, 
Ellen Hayes, JK Rowlings, Neil Gaiman and some others...

If the author says no or have guidelines (some of the above do), them
that should be honored...

> At best, it seems like this might be interpreted as a kind of
> literary drumming-your-fingers-on-the-table-while-you-wait, which is
> not the best manners, but it could just as easily be seen as
> finishing the sentences before they're out of her mouth. What is it
> that makes some people want to finish off those ps and qs, with
> various levels of success, while other people simply discuss rabidly
> or chat intermittently or patiently read other things in the interim?

Maybe the author is flattered by the works of their fans?  I'm trying to
think of best arguments because I am not sure if you're arguing for the
author who doesn't like it or not so...

At its best, fan fiction is:
1.  A means to start a community on-line and off.
2.  A way to express interest in a topic.
3.  Flattery.
4.  A way to fill the void while waiting for official, canonical
material.
5.  A way to improve your own writing skills.
6.  A stepping stone to professional publishing.
7.  Finding authors who are just as good or better than pros who aren't
published.

At its worst, fan fiction is:
1.  Wrong and a completely scewed view of the author's original piece.
2.  Lacking in originality.
3.  A genre lacking quality controls so that any one who can string to
words together irregardless of their ability to spell can reach a mass
audience.
4.  Amateurish.
5.  Theft of orginal material.
6.  A potential economic loss for the author from which the story is
derived.
7.  A slap in the face to authors whom fans purport to support. 
 
> And with all the efforts of various emotional and physical kinds that
> go into writing anything, fanfic very much included, how does it feel
> when it's all over to have written something that is derivitive in
> the literal sense, derived from someone *else's* brainchild? With a
> little more effort (okay, a LOT more, since the initial genius spark
> is the biggest thing) couldn't you be writing your own "stuff?"

My original fandoms are Star Trek and Babylon 5... and in universes like
those, and like Harry Potter where there are many characters who appear
and disappear in books, the works that can be derived from those are
often as creative and as original as the original material.  I have read
some really good stories that take place outside the generic universe of
the show.  Authors use the basis of the universe, such as the concept of
Star Fleet but using an original ship with a crew we have never met or a
planet mentioned in passing in canon as having an extinct race and the
author writes about life on that planet.  It's dervative but original
and not such a blatant "rip-off".

And a lot of authors, especially younger authors who haven't yet grasped
the fundamentals of writing, may not be able to write their own stuff.

Derivative works, what fan fiction is considered under the law, can also
help you to improve your own writing so that when the time comes, you
have a background experince of writing to make that leap.

And some of that sounds a tad negative towards fan fiction writers and I
can't figure out how to work in the above sense of community into
orginality unless it wants to be boiled down to it doesn't matter, the
community and feelings I get from being part of that matter more than
the writing.

> And
> if you did write your own stuff, would you truly truly in your heart
> of hearts be nothing but overjoyed that people felt comfortable
> making your creation jump to their own tunes? That's asking a lot of
> anyone, never mind an artist.

Oh true especially when you're writing to make a living on your stuff.

I get the impression that a lot of fan fiction authors wouldn't be that
comfortable.  Over on fan forums, they were discussing plagarism... and
some one asked if they should ask permission before using some one
else's original character or doing a continuation of that author's
story.  My knee jerk reaction was "Why not?  Devative fiction is
dervative fiction and for an author to say no you can't derive from
their stuff when they use other people's stuff with out permission is
just hypocrisy." but  get a sense in the fan fiction community that its
a no no because people have a double standard that really isn't
acknowledged.  If you don't want it done to you, why do you do it?
 
> Michela mentions "Brenda Atrim is "famous" in about five fandoms and
> > most everyone I know who knows of her has a deep respect for her."
> 
> If she's so wonderful (and again, please remember I am playing the
> devil's advocate here.....) why isn't she writing her own original
> material? I'm just wondering what fanfic authors *feel* when they
> pour what is obviously some heartfelt effort into something that is
> ultimately not purely their own work?

Some one mentioned she may be published and some of the better (best?)
fan fiction authors do become published.  Joe Macedon I believe is now
published and he was/is huge in the world of Star Trek fan fiction. 
Arg.  There are some pro authors out there writing fan fiction... and
lord, I can't remember the guy's name who does it but he wrote a story
about Star Trek: The Next Generation that recently came out.  It has a
white wolf like creature on the cover.  (And the only reason I remember
is that a really bad bad bad bad Klingon poem in it is based on/written
by Mary Sue Whipple.)  There was a big Sentinel fan fiction author who
was forced to leave Sentinel mailing lists when she went pro.  I believe
A.C. Crispin, Mercedes Lackey, and Vonda I. McIntrye all started as fan
fiction. Debra Doyle hangs out on fan fiction critics and she is a pro
author. I know for a fact that Peter David started as a fan fiction
writer printing his stuff in zines back in the 1970s. Just browse
through http://www.sff.net/ with a search of fan fiction and you'll turn
up some.

So some of them do make the leap.
 
<snips self esteem comments as I think they are addressed above>
> I write--hell, I'm a professional
> writer if you mean that I do it full time and get paid for it--but I
> would never, ever cross that line into using anyone else's material,
> nonfiction or fiction, ever. 

That is one of the reasons why I haven't written any recently...  The
other being that in my 8 years in fandom, I've developed such high
standards that I don't feel it responsible to put anything out on the
Internet that isn't my best effort.  I find it reflects poorly on me
when it isn't the best I can do.  (Which is why I am appalled when I
find authors who post stories chock full of spelling errors and
disclaimers like : I didn't run spell check and I didn't have a beta
reader but love it anyway! send me feedback!  send me feedback! ha ha ha
ha ha! feedback! sort of comments.)  It just reflects rather harshly on
the author.  It says "Hi! I'm lazy and I don't care about how I look!" 
It's like knowing that the author hasn't showered in a week, hasn't
brushed their teeth in two months, never combs their hair and has a
keyboard covered in food stuff.  That doesn't make the person sound
attractive and neither do mispellings.

Erm, that was an off topic sort of rant...

>In addition to feeling that it's a slam
> on the author, I would feel like it's a slam on me, i.e., either do
> what she's doing better than she can or get out of the way and let
> her do her thing.

Oh yeah :o)
 
> Just have to shed a little light of reality on that statement....I
> think the reason people keep paying for Harry Potter books rather
> than reading fanfic free online is simply that the real books are
> better than the derivitives.

I would heartily agree.... especially based on some of the derivatives
I've wandered across at FanFiction.Net.  One such was something like
"Harry Potter Takes a Shit."  The stories aren't so much dervative as
they are take the names of the characters and slap them on a story and
post to get hoards of feedback.  (Which reminds me of a game we are
playing on God Awful's message board where we take a story, change the
names and then guess the fandoms to see how well the author got
characteizations.)
 
<snip snip>

> Which leads to my very last question: why is fanfic limited by and
> large to genre? I'm not seeing the JM Coetzees of the world being
> rewritten or The English Patient being fanfictionalized. Why is that?
> Is that because the Pulitzer/Booker/Nobel caliber stuff isn't
> derivable (is that a word? You know what I mean, I hope) in the sense
> that those works are utterly complete and unrevisably themselves,
> whether you liked them or not?  Someone posted something a long time
> ago on the main list that suggested fanfic was around to fill in the
> holes in the primary work......is HP fanfic around mostly because
> it's still a work in progress?

Hmmm....  On fan fiction critics, it was speculated that it was more
prevelant a genre than historical stuff or Westerns because fan fiction
derived from those requires more research on the part of the authors... 
IE the fans are to lazy to do the research.
 
> ~Rosemerta, who now really has asked all the questions she has on
> this topic

And they were such fun questions and interesting questions and a
perspective I hadn't heard before.

-- 
Michela Ecks - mecks at prodigy.net - Textual Poacher - Spastic Hale Girl
"Babylon 5 was last of the Babylon stations. There would never be
another. It changed the future and it changed us. It taught us that we
have to create the future or others will do it for us. It taught us
that we have to care for one other, because if we don't, who will? And
that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places.
Mostly though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new
beginnings, even for people like us." - Susan Ivanova