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Philosophy of fan fiction - Question for Deva...

  
  

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deletia
10:28 / 17.08.01
Nick: I apologise for my impatience. I will look forward to the zine article.
 
 
Tom Coates
14:16 / 17.08.01
I'm also very much looking forward to it!
 
 
YNH
16:08 / 17.08.01
Nick, since most of the discussion probably hinges on your asrticle, I suppose I'll keep this short. In the instance where engagement with the story you're telling is the project of the author (of a critical piece or fanfic), it is unreasonable and perhaps clumsy to (re)create an entirely new fictional world on which to comment.

As far as I can tell, they're two similar but separate methods of saying something about your cbu. Thus, they need you.

But, I kind of think a creation experiment to test some of those limits would be good. Perhaps we could use some third party published text so no one risks destroying hir connection with a cherished cbu?

I take your points about your objection. I'm not attempting to silence you (or anyone). Frankly, you've only recently argued that the two objections are commensurate expressions of one another. I'll wait until this is fully elaborated to comment.

/Goosestep'n
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
13:36 / 19.08.01
Oh, yeah. I'm in new territory here. The article is a tentative construction. The very least I've had to do here is try to figure out what writing is, at least up to a point.

I will keep changing my mind about stuff, because I am making this up (not quite) as I go along. Generally, I'm content not to formalise issues like this in my head - I trust my instincts.
 
 
Whisky Priestess
21:59 / 20.08.01
It's up, under "Slash me" in the Creation.

SLASHMACHINEGO!
 
 
grant
18:31 / 26.11.03
This topic seems to be fairly robust - I'm bumping for newer eyes.
 
 
Cat Chant
15:08 / 04.01.04
Good, because I'm tentatively starting to write fic again after a longish hiatus. Plus, I'm writing in a canon I hate (Harry Potter), so my appreciation of fanfic as a form of violence is much greater than it was when I wrote the zine article/contributed to the thread.
 
 
YNH
18:56 / 04.01.04
Golly, shall we require everyone to read the thread over, or d'ya wanna elaborate on that?

I've been wanting to revisit this as well after re-reading Owning Culture, working my way through The Copywrights, and noticing relevant bits elsewhere.

An artist named Patricia Caulfield articulated the same feelings Nick expressed regarding Warhol's appropriation of hir work: “The reason there’s a legal issue here is because there’s a moral one… What’s irritating is to have someone like an image enough to use it, but then to denigrate the original intent.” Ze felt something nasty or improper had been done to to a photograph ze had published, even though people enjoyed Warhol's Flowers series.

Caulfield sued, and Warhol settled out of court: two paintings from the series and royalties whenever the paintings were used. This was and is standard practice in the art world. Or it is whenever the creator of an appropriated image either feels violated or greedy.

The music business pretty much works the same way, only there's an entire industry constructed around clearing samples, with standard fees - of two types, one for actual sampling and another for using the source music rather than the performance.

Nick repeatedly asked for a model of what legal fanfic would look like and that's pretty much it. I think it's almost as bad as criminalization. However, it sort of undermines any moral objection. More appropriately, capital subsumes that objection and makes it meaningless.

Copyright and Trademark law are a sort of monopolist or protectionist racket perpetuated to prevent anyone other than a corporate owner, in most cases, from profiting from a particular piece of ambiguously defined information of relatively collective origin.

The individual fictor of a cbu (hi, '01) occupies a "chicks up front" position in this argument. It's difficult to tell someone ze should have no rights to hir product. It's also easy to forget that hir publisher has far more invested in hir product and stands to realize far more profit from it.
 
 
eddie thirteen
19:56 / 04.01.04
I think the relevant word here is "product." I don't think fanfic writers should have any moral/ethical qualms whatsoever about writing a story that features, say, Superman, because the character really IS a product, in the eyes of the copyright holders. DC Comics is not responsible for the creation of Superman; the corporation merely owns rights to the character -- rights obtained in a way that is about as morally questionable as anything I can think of presently. Therefore, morally -- not legally -- I don't see why DC has any more right to decide who can and can't write a Superman story than me or you do. And legally, if Seigel and Shuster could have afforded better lawyers, DC probably wouldn't have any say in the matter at all.

On the OTHER hand...

I personally think (as I just said in another thread) that the unauthorized use of characters created (and owned) by a living writer in one's own stories is morally questionable at best. I dunno who owns culture, but I do know that unless I sell all rights to my work to someone else, I own my work. To imply otherwise invalidates the above argument, the crux of which is that Siegel and Shuster maybe *should* have owned their own work, and would have in a different publishing environment, but since they didn't, all moral bets are off. If DC can enlist people to write Superman fanfic, why can't anyone? Now I don't know why anyone would want to write a story using my stuff, and the idea is vaguely flattering in its implications, but...yeah. I just don't think it's right to do without permission. And not because of some precious bullshit about cbu's or raping my babies or whatever, but because it's my stuff. If someone else wrote it badly, it'd make me look bad. If someone else wrote it better than I did, it would make me look worse! To me, this has nothing to do with subversion of corporate culture or what have you, and everything to do with common courtesy. If you like someone's work enough to want to fanfic it, you should have enough respect for the writer not to write the fanfic, no matter how tempting it may be. Anyhow, that's what I think.
 
 
Disco is My Class War
08:53 / 06.01.04
It amazes me that anyone on this bulletin board can argue that certain things 'should not be written'. This cropped up in a similar thread recently, about the wisdom of using 'real life characters' in one's writing. People will write what they want to write.

Surely this is an argument about the logic of distribution? YNH nails the point: capitalism, capitalism, capitalism. If you are the creator of a product (literary, filmic, whatever) with a fanbase keen enough to fanfic it, you are already involved in the machinations of a system that enforces copyright for the benefit of corporations. And if you're a writer, surely you create for the sake of people being inspired/involved in your work?

Check out the Wu Ming Foundation: all rights dispersed...
 
 
eddie thirteen
10:24 / 06.01.04
But copyright does not exist exclusively for the benefit of corporations. That's the inherent flaw in this argument. I would argue that copyright does not always, but can, exist to protect an author *from* corporations. Before copyright law, you had a situation in which anyone could produce, and make a profit from, the product of literary labor itself -- I don't mean fanfic, I mean if I wrote a book and someone else got a copy of it, they could print it, sell it, and never even bother to inform me of it, much less pay me for my work.

In instances when a corporation has unfair leverage over what becomes of a character -- i.e., characters that they own, but did not create -- yeah, I think fanfic is fine. I mean, I am the arbiter of nothing over here, so who really cares? But I don't see any kind of moral/ethical problem with that kind of fanfic, because in moral terms, I see no reason why a corporation should have that kind of sway over what becomes of a writer's creations.

It seems to me that when you're talking about writing, say, Harry Potter fanfic, even though Harry Potter is a character that has made a few corporations a great deal of money, you aren't talking about a corporate property, because the author still owns her work, her characters, her setting...her (God help us all) cbu. You're talking about the property of a person, not a company. Yes, corporations promoted her books and made them popular in a way she could not have done alone, but they *are* still her books -- which is the point of copyright law. Copyright law has been twisted around so that someone other than the original author *can* own the work, but this was not its original intent. I'm sure J.K. Rowling's publisher would love to own Harry Potter lock, stock and barrel, but it doesn't. Copyright law is, in fact, a power that can also be used for good.

When copyright law is used for evil (Superman), then, to my mind, viva la fanfic.

As far as the kind of fanfic I object to goes, some of what has been talked about in this thread stumbles out of the realm of fanfic altogether and over into parody. If you really, really despise Harry Potter and want to write a story where he Columbines Hogwarts, this is probably not fanfic, but parody. If you write a story about a real person, this can be parody, based on satiric intent (it may also be stalking).

You're right to say no one should imply that a story shouldn't be written. I don't think any kind of fanfic should be forbidden, in a "you will now know wrath" sort of way. I would, however, appeal to the higher natures of people who think fanfic based on a writer's original work is flattering, and ask if you yourself would feel flattered, or simply ripped off. If you think you'd be okay with it if you were in the original writer's place, then it's not immoral (though I would argue that it is if the original writer finds out about it, asks you to stop, and you don't -- *if* the writer is someone you respect -- and if the writer is not, then how can it be fanfic?).
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
15:31 / 06.01.04
Disco: And if you're a writer, surely you create for the sake of people being inspired/involved in your work?

I think you write because you need to. Often, layered on top of that, is a secondary need to articulate a perception of the world you live in - sometimes to challenge it, sometimes to explore its fringes. I've made a stab at articulating a small part of the drive to write, which I won't duplicate here - but I think this notion of wanting to inspire others is a rather convenient construction, given your position.

Eddie: I dunno who owns culture, but I do know that unless I sell all rights to my work to someone else, I own my work.

To which some would reply that you use materials held in common, and hence your product is to some extent also to be held in common. As the law stands, of course, you're about right. The law is not an absolute, however - if it does not reflect what is fair, it should be changed.

I just don't think it's right to do without permission. And not because of some precious bullshit about cbu's or raping my babies or whatever, but because it's my stuff.

Ah. The 'naive realist' approach. Or actually, the 'rude naive realist approach'. So the question is 'how can it be yours when you draw on the lives of everyone around you?' and 'what does it mean to say you own something like this?'

I wasn't starting from a 'precious' point of view when I argued this in 2001, you know. I started out feeling much like you. I was forced to try to articulate a reason for my sense of wrongness. That took me to The Body Fictive in 2001. It's a ghastly mess of an article, but I was always a lousy theorist.

More recently, I've come to the conclusion that the subculture needs protection much more than the macro. The macro is robust and loud and ignores things it doesn't like - more, Capitalism and its cultural aspect co-opts more readily than it ever has before. Satire itself is part of the mix; terrorism against it just strengthens its hand. Only some form of copyright prevents any subcultural object from being entirely subsumed. Which is not to say that the various incarnations of copyright, trademark, and patent are equal, or even similar, in their effects: the latter two in particular have the curious effect of handing vital information over to long-lived non-human entities (companies) which often do not have the general good at heart.

The whole edifice needs an overhaul, but it needs to be done sensibly. Writers are not in the same position as music producers, nor as composers or artists. None of these is in the same position as a scientist working for a big pharmaceutical company, or as the CEO of the same. But in the relationship between a society and its creatives, some important truths are revealed or generated. Analyses based on economics - from the Left or the Right - often treat artists of all kinds poorly because the precise value of their work and their product is hard to measure or quantify in economic terms, and spirit or emotion or human identity weigh lightly in the economic scale.
 
 
eddie thirteen
17:09 / 06.01.04
Well, I wouldn't call myself "rude" or "naive," but I would call myself a realist on the subject, yes. To be honest, beyond your evident disagreement with my position, I'm not quite sure what your position is, since you seem to disagree both with me and with the guy who wrote in to disagree with me. It may be naive to expect clarity, but I'm not at all sure who you mean when you talk about "the subculture." If you mean fanfic writers, I agree with you to the extent that I already outlined above. To reiterate, I personally feel that corporate-owned properties -- properties not owned by their originators -- are fair game for fanfic, because they should be the exclusive province of their originators, but are not, and therefore, to me, they are by default fair game for anyone. This conviction is based on the recognition that many popular forms of entertainment...most comics, movies, and television shows...are tied to a corporate structure that makes selling all rights to a corporation the only reasonable means of achieving publication in these arenas. This, to me, is wrong. What gives a corporation the right to decide that one person can use these materials and another can't? Nothing just, as far as I am concerned, so I see nothing wrong with anyone using these materials who wants to.

As rights should be retained by the original author, when they are, it seems wrong -- to me -- for someone else to write stories based on the work of that writer, without permission. Depending upon the fanfic writer's intent, also outlined above.

The notion that no one really "owns" anything is a compelling semantic argument that ceases to hold any water at all when it is extended to, let's say, the idea that you don't "really" own your car. I'm quite sure that when I explain to you that I greatly admire your car and would like to take it out for a spin, you will be surer than you have ever been that you do own it. It's true that there may have been cars before it, and that neither you nor the manufacturer invented the carburetor, the windshield wiper or the wheel, but somehow I just don't think you'd care. At the same time, no one is stopping me from buying my own car. Perhaps, if I did, the two of us could cruise down a mighty superhighway in our cars, side by side, smiling winningly, scarves whipping in the wind, this silly argument left behind in our glorious slipstream as others look on in boundless adoration! And then...

Um...

I dunno. This could go on indefinitely. I don't think most writers want others using their material without permission. But they also don't want other writers not to write. I expect most writers would be happier if more fanfic writers wrote work wholly of their own generation, at least in so much as is possible using the same twenty-six letters as all other writers, and such notions as "characters" as upright-walking mammals who speak, and bearing in mind that, yes, other books have been written prior to one's own. I expect most fanfic writers would be happier writing "original" work, too, as they would have a hope of selling it, which is usually not the case for fanfic. I think that circumstance, right or wrong, is unlikely to change. And I think most sane people would rather gain the respect of their peers as a result of their writing than work their asses off to write something only to be branded the literary equivalent of a cover band.

Anyway, I've exhausted my position on this. Like, for real. Having written fanfic in the past, I know what a drag it is to hear people rip on it, but I do so with the best intentions. All else I'll say is that even if you consider yourself a literary Robin Hood, rescuing culture from the hands of our evil corporate overlords, and even if that's actually the truth, you're still allowing yourself as a writer to be co-opted by the work of others to a degree that is not necessary. On a practical level, you're limiting your potential audience, and ruling out any hope of making money from your work. None of this sounds good.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
18:18 / 06.01.04
My previous position is all over this thread, and there's the whole article to boot. I said you were rude because you talked about part of that discussion as 'precious'. The term 'naive realist' is used to describe someone whose position derives from 'common sense' - which generally is a euphamism for 'what I think'. Broadly, my position is that copyright, in the context of writing, is an imperfect legal codification of a moral or natural urge to protect the identity. Exactly what implications that has for law and writing are as yet unclear to me. I may also change my position as I continue to think about it.

And yes, I disagree with you, and Disco, and Deva. Shocker, eh?

As to your example of owing a car, that's exactly the point. Private property and the hierarchies of rich and poor which maintain it and result from it are all part of this discussion. Do you have a natural right to a car you bought? In the sense that you paid for it. But who paid for your ownership of that money? What global inequalities are required for you to have access to those resources? Should individuals and corporations have the same rights in this respect? It goes on and on.

The common sense approach you favour is appealing to me, but it's also narrow and possibly indefensible.
 
 
eddie thirteen
22:27 / 06.01.04
Hmmmmmm. The car is an imperfect comparison, I'll admit; because with original fiction, we're talking not about a car that one has purchased, but a car that one has built with one's own hands. True, even if you build the car from scratch, you probably haven't blown the glass to make the windshield, dug iron ore from the earth, etc. However, if you hadn't assembled the pieces, there would be no car. So the car is *more* a product of your own labors than it is not. And, I maintain, enough so it that can be said to be a car you have built.

Rich and poor, and the hierarchies that keep us all in "our places," do have a place in this discussion. But I have to stick my by original position that these are arguments that some fanfic writers turn to opportunistic advantage when it comes to fanfic based on fiction owned by that fiction's original author. Yes, a corporate structure has helped to make that work popular. (Although the corporate power structure alone does not have the power to sell people art they do not want -- all the ad money in the world will never sell enough tickets or DVDs to compensate its studio for the squandered budget of, say, Gigli.) But the art itself is still owned by the artist. The person to whom the fanfic is intended as a tribute. Indirectly, fanfic based on such a work may strike some kind of blow against evil corporations; directly, it affects the writer.

More than that, though, unless some strange cabal selects who will and will not be given a shot in the commercial marketplace for nefarious purposes of its own -- i.e., purposes other than, "hey...I bet we could sell this" -- there is no reason for any writer to think he/she could not also sell his/her work. But you can't sell fanfic. So what's the point?

Oh, and my problem with "caged baby universe" is that it's real poetic and all -- and does actually neatly express what it wants to say, though I had no overcome a certain degree of revulsion at its sentimental ring to grasp that -- but its sound makes the objection to others using one's materials to create fanfic sound a little melodramatic, which I don't think it is.
 
 
YNH
19:24 / 07.01.04
Current Copyright Law (US) states that copyright is held for the author’s life plus 70 years, or for 95 years in the case of a corporate owner. The last extension, The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, added 20 years to each. Approximately 20 years had also been added in a series of extensions between 1962 and 1976.

This year, 2004, Mickey Mouse was to enter the public domain. From this year until 2024, nothing will.

I’m referring to all characters and settings, for the moment, as products: commodities and the result of some form of labor. So Harry Potter, Jennifer Government, Roland Deschain, Henry Case, Salt Chunk Mary, and Papa LaBas are conceptually equivalent to Superman.

The possibility of compensated sampling seems acceptable to eddie: “unauthorized use,” “ruling out any hope of making money.” Star Wars texts may already occupy an authorized use position: sole owner with absolute control licensing product. It’s probably also not fanfic.

And it doesn’t offer the fan, the reader, you or me the opportunities to engage or interact with the characters or setting in order to make meaning. There’s a distinction between participating in intertexts and “subversion of corporate culture.” I think fanfic is an example of the former with one of its possible outcomes being the latter.

Fanfic should be fair use. It probably is. The individual author is not protected; ze is silenced by the threat of copyright lawsuits. Moreover, ze is faced with a much less contested set of Trademark statutes. Harry Potter is a registered international trademark; simply using the name without permission constitutes a possible violation. Attempting to register a trademark will run you $500 non-refundable. Doesn’t seem to protect the individual creator. In some cases, Daniel Radcliffe could bring a suit for violation of his right of publicity.

Nick: I think you write because you need to. Often, layered on top of that, is a secondary need to articulate a perception of the world you live in - sometimes to challenge it, sometimes to explore its fringes.

I agree. You leave out the part where you deny the possibility of needing to write fanfic. And the implicit denial of a cultural landscape (world) which is as much defined by mediated intertexts as it is by one’s social or economic relations. That’s the part I disagree with.

And, given the possibility of the need to write fanfic, I doubt someone writing it would be happier writing “original work” of hir own. Since folks already write fanfic with no hope of monetary compensation, something else seems to be at work. And fanfic writers appear, in many cases, to have the respect of their peers; none more than those threatened with legal action. Nor is it tenable to equate fanfic with tribute.

As squishy as cbu may look now, we were only articulating a sort of paternal notion of creators and art that has persisted in the discussion of copyright for 300 years.
 
 
Cat Chant
08:13 / 08.01.04
On a practical level, you're limiting your potential audience,

Not so! How many people read amateur realfic, compared to fanfic? Part of the attraction of media-based fanfic in its current form is the existence of a highly trained audience who are willing to beta-read, edit, critique and review your work, from a position of far greater expertise and to a far greater degree than is available for amateur realfic writers (and for a lot of pro realfic writers, as well - I mean, I beta my girlfriend's pro novels now, but I only started doing that after I'd been beta'ing her fanfic for years, and it's really obvious that no-one is editing JK "Fifty Bajillion Words" Rowling).

People want to read about Avon and Blake. No-one wants to read yet another realfic short story starting off "The girl stood at the bus stop in the rain. No-one understood her" and ending with a poignant image of dying flowers.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:03 / 08.01.04
YNH - I've never denied the possibility of the need to write fanfic. I've questioned whether it was right to follow the need. There are various urges and imperatives we all suppress on any given day. I'm fascinated by what Deva's coming up with at the moment. It's possible that, for the moment, it all comes down to the legitimacy of 'necessary violence'. As must be apparent from discussions in the Switchboard and elsewhere, I'm less and less enthusiastic about violence as a tool for achieveing anything other than counter-violence all the time.
 
 
eddie thirteen
04:20 / 09.01.04
My personal objection to copyright in terms of corporate-owned properties is not that corporations use their leverage to extend copyright indefinitely (although I agree that's an abuse) -- my objection stems from cases when, it seems to me, a corporation has abused in its power in terms of obtaining copyright in the first place. Many trademarked properties became the property of a corporation (and not the creator) because of systems that give corporations more power than the artists in their employ...characters created, for instance, for American Greetings (I think Strawberry Shortcake fanfic must be rare, but there's gotta be a little), DC Comics (pre-early 1990s, when creator ownership became an option -- almost exclusively for creators who had already done sweatshop work for the company, mind), Marvel Comics, just about all of television and film.

I think where YNH is coming from is that once a character has become part of the culture at large, that character should then be fair use for anyone, which -- while I see the underlying logic -- is a notion that makes me a little squirmy and uncomfortable when applied broadly. Maybe this really *is* just a question of protecting identity (and maybe my objection to Superman, etc., comes from a feeling that these are cases in which the creators' identity was most certainly not protected by the law), but if so, oh well. If Stephen King feels that retaining sole use of Roland is key to the retention of his identity, and not simply a matter of income, I just can't see how it's your place or mine to tell him he's being selfish. It's always easier to liberate others from the tropes of their egos than it is to rid ourselves of our own.

And yeah, Nick, I'll agree that the audience for fanfic is there, but is it really the fanfic writer's audience? Identity again, sure, but -- and I don't care if she *did* steal him from Neil Gaiman -- Harry Potter is perceived as being J.K. Rowling's character. If you write a Harry Potter story, you're reaching her audience. It's an audience you wouldn't have reached otherwise. So are they reading for you, or are they reading because Rowling can't turn in a 950-page book on time? And if they're in the middle of your story when her book does come out, will they finish yours first? I'm guessing they probably won't. And really, how many people DO read fanfic? I know it seems like a lot when your inbox is full of e-mail from them, but no, I'm guessing the audience that reads magazines, original anthologies and novels is probably a little bigger. And is probably composed in part by the same people who also read fanfic. And in terms of that afore-mentioned paying audience...well, you're not getting any of them with fanfic. Anyway, they certainly aren't paying to read your fanfic.

And I find the whole thing about what people "want to read about" vaguely horrifying. I mean, I doubt anyone knew they wanted to read about Harry Potter before Rowling wrote the first book (I still don't want to read about Harry Potter, but having very young relatives, found myself without any choice in the matter). The notion that some people may write fanfic because they feel there isn't an audience for properties popularized by the corporate media machine is so fucking chilling to me it's practically straight out of 1984.
 
 
eddie thirteen
04:24 / 09.01.04
Um...that *should* read, "an audience for anything BUT," etc. See what happens when you chill me, Nick? I was chilled to my CORE, man!
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
06:29 / 09.01.04
Uh... what?
 
 
Cat Chant
10:31 / 09.01.04
Nick, it seems we have merged in some mad Hegelian synthesis...

possibly I was talking about quality of audience rather than quantity, eddie: I like being in a very engaged community of amateur** reader/writers/reviewers, even though (as far as I can tell, which isn't far) only a hundred (or a few hundred) people have ever read my B7 fic. I was also comparing fanfic with amateur realfic, ie fic which doesn't have a professional publisher publicizing and distributing it: more people will read a pro-published novel than a B7 zine, but I have the feeling that more people will read a B7 zine than an amateur original fic zine.

**root amo, amare, to love
 
 
eddie thirteen
16:30 / 09.01.04
Oh, yeah...um...Nick and Deva are like...not the same people, and...uh...

See, like I said in the other one, I have NO idea how you guys did this for six pages.
 
 
Cat Chant
09:43 / 11.01.04
Eddie thirteen in the 'violence' thread:

But the text is, if not dead, then inert. It can't be seen by a wider audience; that audience will never be made aware of it. It's lacking the potential to be seen by more people that another kind of story -- or, for that matter, even a poem -- has, whether it achieves that potential or not, and whether that potential is warranted.

I couldn't resist just saying that I was chilled to my core that you could think the worth (and death/life) of a piece of writing was directly proportionate to the number of people who might read it.

I really think coming from an academic background has a huge effect here - people get paid for writing? people expect their stuff to be read by more than a couple of hundred people? If you compare fanfic to publishing in academic journals, I think fanfic would win hands down: neither forms of distribution involve pay or audiences of any size whatsoever, but at least fanfiction gets read, gets feedback, and has sex scenes in it.

Academic writing, too, ends up being treated like a "hobby" in that academics spend all their paid time teaching and going to meetings - but not like a "hobby" in that they have to produce writing to keep their jobs. Hey, it's the worst of both worlds!

And now back to the PhD.
 
 
eddie thirteen
18:40 / 11.01.04
Um...true, Deva. The "publish or perish" environment of academe does kinda suck the life and enjoyment out of writing for journals -- though, I dunno, theoretically anyway academic writing is also an educational tool. I think its goals are a bit different than that of any work of fiction, fanfic or otherwise. Though...yeah, the pay-scale and size of one's audience are probably roughly equivalent, I will agree.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
19:46 / 12.01.04
Moved from this thread, probably, as more appropriate here:

Eddie thirteen

Okay, okay, but after this, I'll stop. I mean it, man.

First of all, I want to go on record as saying *I* don't like Babylon 5. I know that seems beside the point, but this kind of heretical misconception I will not abide. I merely suggested that the poster who viewed JMS as a genius probably at least, y'know, kinda liked B5. And would have been disappointed if he had instead chosen to support himself by working at Target while writing stories about why Sam really wanted Gollum to leave him alone with Frodo.

Second, upon further reflection, I really can't deny that writing fanfic probably got me to a level of writerly proficiency that allowed me to write saleable work (not that I've written a whole hell of a lot, mind you, but it's a start). And the fanfic community is cool, and very supportive. I'm not gonna go back over what kind of fanfic I find morally dodgy and what kind I think is okay, because it's only my opinion and is irrelevant to this thread besides, but fanfic as a medium I have no problem with whatsoever, in essence. And probably less problem with it than my previous post implied. I've *liked* writing fanfic. I can't rationalize doing it at present, and when I read good fanfic -- and there is a lot -- my enjoyment is tempered by the feeling that the writer should be doing something that can more directly benefit him/her...and the reading world at large, too, most of whom will never see the fanfic.

However, for me, writing "realfic" (not a term I would use, since I think fanfic is as real as any other fiction) -- after a year or so of writing a lot of fanfic, where I gained experience and a lot of encouragement -- came as something of a revelation, in that I found I could deal with personal obsessions and themes in a much more direct way than I could in fanfic (where I'd created a large number of original characters; that said, I'm not sure how well I can relate to the interests of some fanfic writers, and maybe didn't really have my heart in fanfic in the first place, but wanted more just to interact with its community; not in any way a putdown, but an acknowledgement that maybe I don't relate as well to the interests of many fanfic writers as I usually think). It's harder to write "completely" original fiction in some ways -- there isn't the instant gratification in terms of feedback from a built-in audience that there is with fanfic, for one thing, and no guarantee that anyone will be interested at all -- but I've found it to be more rewarding in others. Admittedly, much of it may come down to status...the "respectability" factor of writing non-fanfic vs. fanfic...but I'm comfortable admitting that. In the present publishing environment, one is more likely to be taken seriously writing work seen as original than not, and one is much more likely to be paid for one's work. These may not be high-minded considerations, but I think they're relevant ones. If that makes me a pragmatist, so be it.

There is a subversive aspect in writing "fanfic" based on material one wants to comment on, rather than out of appreciation for the work, but I don't think this can be called fanfiction, really. The term implies admiration for the original material, and seems misleading here.


The Haus of Tiny Wuffly Shrews

I merely suggested that the poster who viewed JMS as a genius probably at least, y'know, kinda liked B5. And would have been disappointed if he had instead chosen to support himself by working at Target while writing stories about why Sam really wanted Gollum to leave him alone with Frodo.

Um - that was me, wasn't it? and I used the word in the sense of "tutelary spirit" rather than "cleverclogs". Point being, we will never know how good JMS is at writing Lord of the Rings fanfic, nor how much joy he might have brought ot others by his LoTR fanfic, because he chose instead to write LoTR fanfic in space, for which he was rewarded more than he would have been in all probability if he had written LoTR fanfic not in space. However, since it matters little to me how wealthy JMS is, I'm not sure why I have to feel that his time was better spent writing about Zahad D'um than Khazad D'um.

Anyway. I don't think your position is pragmatic as such, just *specific*. You appear to be arguing that the functon of writing is to make as much money as possible for the writer, and to be read by as many people as possible. If this is the case, then any piece of writing not aimed at the widest possible audience at the highest possible price is a failure, which counts out far more than fanfiction - poetry (which compensates for low readership with high price, but not enough) and the literary novel are also in this case unsuccessful forms. It strikes me that there has to be at least one other factor in determining the success or otherwise of an act of writing...

Eddie thirteen

Hell...was that you? You guys are too clever for me -- that's like the second time I've done that. Guess I missed the sarcasm; since I've had people tell me with a straight face (and panting enthusiasm) what a brilliant writer Chuck Austen is, someone thinking JMS is God is hardly a stretch into the realm of fantastic imagination. There's, um, a "great" writer out there for everybody, it seems.

I wouldn't argue that the primary aim of any piece of writing is to make money, but I would argue that if one gets to the point where writing becomes a part-time job, hours-wise -- and there's no question in my mind it is for a great many fanfic writers, many of whom are intimidatingly prolific -- maybe, at that point, one should think seriously about pursuing writing as a profession. Professional writing can (but doesn't always) involve making money, which is nice. In the world in which we live, money is a good thing to have. It is not in any inherently foul or dirty. If you feel that way about your money, I will be pleased to take it off your hands and live with the stain of it myself. Somehow.

Much professional writing -- by which I mean writing that is not fanfiction, not writing so lucrative one can live off it exclusively -- pays few financial dividends, and sometimes not any, but I would say that writing it is still a more worthwhile pursuit than fanfic. In terms of profit and readership, not necessarily; in terms of potential profit and readership, yes. Original fiction which is not initially widely-read or financially profitable can become so later; witness, to use a broad example, Stephen King's first collection of short fiction, comprised of stories sold mostly to men's magazines at a time when the going rate for such work was maybe...maybe...a penny a word. I'm willing to bet the collection has gone on to pay him back for his originally low-paying efforts a great many times over, and the stories have definitely been read now by a lot more people than they were when they first appeared.

Fanfic may pay off in the immediate in terms of readership, but not only will it never, ever make you money, but it also has a very limited future. Where will it go, finally? It can't be published, it can't be sold; eventually, it will probably just cease to exist. This is the possible fate of any work of fiction, but it's a more likely fate for fanfiction, it seems to me. Even if the work that inspired it does not fade from popularity, I would think that fiction based on a dated work would be more inclined to suffer the ravages of time. I guess one could argue that all works are inherently disposable, etc., but I dunno...that kind of art school theorizing just doesn't do much for me. I'm more interested in results. If you write a story, sell it (regardless of how much money it makes), it appears somewhere, and you can point to it and say you did that...that's a result I want. I don't see a similar result coming from writing a story based on the work of other people: first, you have to explain that you aren't "really" ripping that person off, employing a complex semantic argument to do so, and while that maybe works on a message board, its real world applications are somewhat slender. Most people, their eyes just kinda glaze over.

Before anyone asks, I do think writing works based on the work of other people for money is a totally okay pursuit. Because I think one can reap artistic rewards from writing fanfic -- they just don't receive any other kind of reward, and *can't*, and that's kind of a shitty place for a writer to be, if you think about it. If you write what amounts to fanfic professionally, that's called survival. If you have fun with it, too, that's a bonus.

I am not saying that fanfiction is a failure, or that fanfic writers are inferior writers. They certainly can be, as can any other writers. Personally, I like the fanfiction I've written, and so do a few other people, and it saddens me that -- beyond posting it on the net for the perusal of a few similarly-minded readers -- there really isn't a future for it. Because of what it is, it appeals only to a niche audience...a pretty tiny niche, at that. At the time I wrote it, I was satisfied to have any readership at all, and it made me some writing friends, got me into correspondence with some cool people who enjoyed it, and -- really -- probably did a lot more for me on a personal level than most fanfic does for its writers, and I'm glad it did, and don't feel my time was wasted.

But the text is, if not dead, then inert. It can't be seen by a wider audience; that audience will never be made aware of it. It's lacking the potential to be seen by more people that another kind of story -- or, for that matter, even a poem -- has, whether it achieves that potential or not, and whether that potential is warranted.

And that's okay, I guess. Even if it's not okay, it is what it is, so it better be okay. But do I think this is something writers should make a long-running habit of? Man...not really. If people like your work, why should you treat it like it's a hobby? Bear in mind, a lot of fanfic is never read by anyone; if people like yours, it should tell you something. And if you do have talent, then why squander it?

On the poetry tip, by the way, a great many poets pursue the novel, as I'm sure you're aware. I don't think that, for instance, James Dickey was engaging in hackwork when he wrote Deliverance, or that Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar in the interest of making a buck; but yeah, I think it's entirely possible that these are people who would never have moved into narrative fiction had they lived, say, a hundred years earlier. Even probable. I think they understood the climate of their times and adjusted their work accordingly...and wrote literary novels that sold quite well, too, and still do. How much art that we -- the "we," presumably, disinterested in Babylon 5 and Chuck Austen -- see as great today was crafted, to a lesser or greater degree, to appeal to a broad marketplace; and how much of that work would still survive if it hadn't appealed to a large number of people? Writers and artists do not live in a vacuum. People have to eat, and to some of us, the reception of the writing is at least as nourishing as basic creature comforts. Long term, I think one's original work is more likely to prove nourishing than one's fanfic. And even if your fanfic does outlast copyright laws, and comes to be hailed by future generations as visionary, groundbreaking work, albeit based on pre-existing fictions -- y'know, like most of Shakespeare -- it still isn't doing a whole lot for you while you've got a pulse.

Do I think that's fair? Not really. God knows I see no reason why Chuck Austen should be allowed to make money writing the X-Men and I'm not. I mean, that's fucked. But I don't have the power to change that.

I know these are practical concerns, not artistic ones, but I do think the two are intertwined in a way that has perhaps been overlooked in a lot of fanfic-related discussions. Uh...but not this one, by God. And I so should have spent this time...writing a story, actually. So here I go.

PS: Almost completely unconnected to this discussion, but there's a link in the other thread to a story by Whisky Priestess that I really, really liked. So in the unlikely event that she's suffered through this, uh...I really, really liked your story. Reminded me I've been neglecting mine. Going!
 
  

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