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On fanfic, part the nth
May. 8th, 2010 09:35 amThere's been another round of Author Has Fit Of The Vapours About Fanfic, although in fairness to said author I should point out that a) she has since posted a "I've considered what people have said, and have modified my position", b) I have read neither the original vapours nor the "okay, I see I got stuff wrong". Mostly because life's too short, and I had the UK election to satisfy all my train-wreck-watching needs this week.
This has naturally generated another round of angst on the whole subject. Until now my usual reaction has been to point at what Scalzi said about fanfic, and say, "That, only with the obvious exception about the yaoi fanart."
Now I can point to a variation on the theme, i.e. "And also, what Charlie Stross said about fanfic, with the obvious exception about producing/consuming fanfic." After all, I don't exactly keep it secret that I read and have written the stuff, or that I have published treeware zines of the stuff.
I wouldn't read fanfic of *my* stories, for the reasons given in the links above and in lots of other places, but my general reaction to the idea of fanfic of my profic is along the lines of "Oh dear god, that I could be so popular a writer that there was fanfic of my work."
On the other hand, I do know authors who are really, really freaked by the idea of fanfic of their work. And many of them are perfectly capable of understanding that this is their personal squick, rather than a law of nature. So as far as I'm concerned, if someone asks politely that people not Do That to their work because they find it upsetting, it's a very different matter to an author denigrating all fanfic, whether it be of their work or of someone else's.
Author Hal Duncan thinks fanfic is just fine himself, but in a previous iteration of the Great Fanfic Kerfuffle he posted a thoughtful discussion of why authors might find fanfic skeevy. It's long and chewy, and it's worth a read if you want to understand how and why fanfic can press hot buttons for authors.
I've seen in the current iteration a nice brief analysis by Xiphias of two things we're trying to do with copyright law, and how they relate to two approaches to writing which map onto the split between "Aieee! Get it away from me!" and "Cool! Just remember that I'm the one who gets to make money on my world."
So... I'm just fine with fanfic, but I'm also just fine with authors who are squicked by fanfic of their work and communicate that politely as a personal viewpoint without expecting that the entire world agree with them. Alas, the post by alg I used to point to because it matched my own thoughts pretty much exactly has been locked in the years since, but I may see what I can salvage of my own comments from that conversation. But that's a large post in its own right...
As for that tired old insult about fanfic writers only writing fanfic because they're not good enough to write their own, don't be so damned silly. There are lots of good reasons for writing fanfic. In fact, I think I might write some this weekend, as a break from fretting about the current WnotIP.
This has naturally generated another round of angst on the whole subject. Until now my usual reaction has been to point at what Scalzi said about fanfic, and say, "That, only with the obvious exception about the yaoi fanart."
Now I can point to a variation on the theme, i.e. "And also, what Charlie Stross said about fanfic, with the obvious exception about producing/consuming fanfic." After all, I don't exactly keep it secret that I read and have written the stuff, or that I have published treeware zines of the stuff.
I wouldn't read fanfic of *my* stories, for the reasons given in the links above and in lots of other places, but my general reaction to the idea of fanfic of my profic is along the lines of "Oh dear god, that I could be so popular a writer that there was fanfic of my work."
On the other hand, I do know authors who are really, really freaked by the idea of fanfic of their work. And many of them are perfectly capable of understanding that this is their personal squick, rather than a law of nature. So as far as I'm concerned, if someone asks politely that people not Do That to their work because they find it upsetting, it's a very different matter to an author denigrating all fanfic, whether it be of their work or of someone else's.
Author Hal Duncan thinks fanfic is just fine himself, but in a previous iteration of the Great Fanfic Kerfuffle he posted a thoughtful discussion of why authors might find fanfic skeevy. It's long and chewy, and it's worth a read if you want to understand how and why fanfic can press hot buttons for authors.
I've seen in the current iteration a nice brief analysis by Xiphias of two things we're trying to do with copyright law, and how they relate to two approaches to writing which map onto the split between "Aieee! Get it away from me!" and "Cool! Just remember that I'm the one who gets to make money on my world."
So... I'm just fine with fanfic, but I'm also just fine with authors who are squicked by fanfic of their work and communicate that politely as a personal viewpoint without expecting that the entire world agree with them. Alas, the post by alg I used to point to because it matched my own thoughts pretty much exactly has been locked in the years since, but I may see what I can salvage of my own comments from that conversation. But that's a large post in its own right...
As for that tired old insult about fanfic writers only writing fanfic because they're not good enough to write their own, don't be so damned silly. There are lots of good reasons for writing fanfic. In fact, I think I might write some this weekend, as a break from fretting about the current WnotIP.
