Cassie's two cents

[cassandraclaire at mail.com]

This is not in response to Michaela's post, since I don't see a point 
in responding to that. I just wanted to thank those who have defended 
me (Sam, JL Matthews, and everyone else) and state a little of my 
position, and my thoughts. Not as a defense, really, just as an 
explanation. I've been very quiet about this in general because I 
don't want a flame war. I hope there won't be one.

I am a professional writer, of nonfiction, and I also write my own 
original fiction. I will readily admit that fanfiction, up until 
about last August, was something I knew absolutely nothing about. 
 
I have always seen fanfiction as a venue in which I could do what I 
*could never* do in my own writing-- namely, creating what Minx once 
described as a "pastiche" --- weaving together JKR's world with my 
own plotline, and incorporating bits and pieces of other fantasy 
worlds. Anyone on the PoU list would have seen the discussions that 
follow the release of each chapter -- "Oh, that's the swordfighting 
bit from Zelazny," "Oh, that's the scene from thus-and-such episode 
of Buffy" -- I had never made it any secret that that's what I was 
doing, and since fanfiction is by its nature so derivative, and since 
I have seen so many other fanfics doing similar things -- pulling 
chunks of text from books, rewriting scenes from movies, dozens upon 
dozens of quotes from Buffy and Monty Python and Blackadder and so 
forth (I even had a sort of unofficial quote-nabbing contest going 
with other fanfic writers -- if we found a cool quote we'd claim it 
for our next chapter before anyone else snagged it) it really did 
seem to me that as long as it was disclaimered, it was fine. As long 
as I was clear about what I was doing, it was fine. I used to get 
dozens of emails in which readers sent me sources -- sometimes 
quotes, sometimes whole pages of text from books or plays -- 
saying "Cassie, I think you should have Draco say this" or "maybe you 
could use this description/place/setting." It seemed to me that my 
audience understood what I was doing, or trying to do, with my 
fanfiction, and that as long as I was not concealing this from them, 
it was all right. As for the Pamela Dean section, when it came out 
she was discussed on PoU. People were pointed (not by me) to where on 
the web they could download the complete text of her books( now 
there's copyright infringment for ya.) So I didn't feel as if I were 
trying to conceal anything, in fact I urged people to read her great 
books, which I would not have probably done had I been trying to hide 
what I'd used from her.

I am not saying I don't realize now that I was not correct in my 
assumption that as long as I wasn't hiding what I was doing, it was 
perfectly all right. I'm just saying that's what I thought, and that 
I certainly didn't mean any harm. To anyone.

As for the disclaimer on that section, being inadequate, it was. I 
was lazy when I first posted -- the Pamela Dean books have been out 
of print for years, and what I was working from was a handwritten 
copy of that scene I'd written into a notebook while I was still in 
high school. I actually *wasn't* sure of the author's name, but knew 
that if I posted that, I'd get a zillion responses from readers 
offering the information. I did, and I adjusted the disclaimer 
accordingly. However, when the ff.net chaptering system went up, I 
had to reupload some chapters, and I accidentally reuploaded Chapter 
9 with the inadequate disclaimer, and simply didn't notice. Heidi can 
back me up on that -- she helped with the reuploading. That is 
entirely my fault and I'm not saying it isn't, just reiterating that 
no malice was intended, nor did I *think at the time* that I was 
doing anything wrong. I'm currently rethinking my former position, 
and I do realize I made a mistake, I simply wanted to stress that it 
was a mistake made without malicious intent or disrespect for Pamela 
Dean.

I know some writers have pulled their work from ff.net to show 
solidarity with me. Many others have pulled their work because 
they've done the exact same thing I did -- pulled a chunk of text 
from another book, paraphrased it, and mentioned it in the 
disclaimer. It is easy, with fanfiction being the gray area it is, to 
be confused. Now they don't feel safe. So they've pulled their work. 
More will probably follow. Because they *are* confused. It *is* 
confusing. I've heard from a lot of confused people, so I know. I was 
certainly confused myself, and frankly, still am. Why is it that 
songfics that incorporate huge chunks of copyrighted lyrics, often 
with little to no fic around them, are okay -- even when the actual 
writer of the song is not even mentioned in the disclaimer? Or 
rewriting movie plots and sticking in the Harry Potter characters is 
okay, even when practically no line of dialogue is changed? Or 
writing fanfiction about real people doing things that would 
doubtless horrify them if they ever came across them (here I'm 
thinking of those peculiar Backstreet Boys fics) is okay? It seemed 
to me that things are constantly being done in fanfic that would be 
totally unallowable in fiction meant for publishing, and where the 
line is drawn I am and was honestly confused.

Am I angry with ff.net? It doesn't matter. What they did is 
irrevocable and at this point I would not want it changed. Yes, I 
would have appreciated some sort of email telling me what was going 
on so that I didn't have to learn it from nasty posts in the forum. 
But I consider that an issue not worth pursuing. I'm more interested 
in getting back to writing.


Cassie