Fan Fiction: Against

[rolanni]

Robin Hobb has posted a cogent rant here. Link from pegkerr

I know that some folks on my friends list write fan fic, and may thus not agree with Robin's points. If you feel compelled to disagree with them here, please be polite and rational. Posts deemed impolite, irrational, or both, by Eagles Over the Kennebec Management will be deleted.

In the service of Full Disclosure and Fair Warning, I do agree with Robin's points. Scott Lynch (link also from pegkerr) does not.

Comments

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Quite a lot of fanfiction is written with the consent of the author.

This may be true. However, it is equally true that not all fan fiction is written with the author's permission. I, for instance, make a practice of saying "No," when asked if someone may write and publish (see definition below) Liaden Universe(R) fan fic. Note the (R), here, which means Registered Trademark.

And honestly? I don't really care if somebody writes Liaden Universe(R) fan fiction -- as long as they don't publish them. "Publish" in this case includes such things as posting it to a website, or including it in a clubzine/fanzine/etc. The second you (general "you") publish, you've violated not only my copyright, but my trademark, and the Law requires me to Act. Very poor, that Acting; takes up 'way too much of everyone's time and energy.

It is true because various competent artists (notably Lois McMaster Bujold and Rachel Caine) have said, in so many words, that their first fiction was fanfiction

Fan fiction, using someone else's characters and world, which was published wholesale in violation of the original creator's wishes? Or fan fiction that they wrote privately, for practice, like someone who wants to learn calligraphy traces over the letters until their muscles understand the movement?

And, not to let my own personal blindspot unfocus the discussion -- are we talking media fan fiction, or print? As noted upstream, I don't know enough about the culture and/or dynamics of media fan fiction ot have a competent opinion.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I think that writing fanfiction against the expressed wishes of the creator is appalling bad manners, and I have no truck with it. In general, I avoid fanfiction based on written works, because I read novels for prose style as much as for content. I doubt anybody living can do justice to Eddison's prose.

Fan fiction, using someone else's characters and world, which was published wholesale in violation of the original creator's wishes? You've added "in violation of the original creator's wishes" to the definition. I don't know if Bujold ever circulated her fanfic; Caine did and does. Bujold has described her early work as Star-Trek-based, as did Caine; Gene Roddenberry was fic-friendly.

But the statement was that it's impossible for a published writer to begin writing with fanfic, and that's demonstrably false.

When you say "fan fiction", unmodified, you cover both media-based and print-based fiction. Before Harry Potter, most fanfiction was media-based; I don't know what the distribution looks like now.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

You've added "in violation of the original creator's wishes" to the definition.

Fair enough. I happen to remember when Robin came across a cache of unauthorized fan fic based on her work, and the difficulty of communicating to the writer why she (Robing) found this objectionable.

To clarify: The fan fic I object to is that which is written and published in violation of the original creator's wishes, without asking (and honoring) the permission of the original creator.

I realize that some writers do give permission -- I can't fathom it, myself (obviously), but there you are.

Personally, were I a beginning writer (as I once was), and if I am wishing to be a careful craftsperson (as most beginning writers very much wish to be), I'd much rather build my own world and play there (which is, by the way, exactly what I did -- some of which became the Liaden Universe(R)), than have the added burden of making certain that I'm not violating the rules of a borrowed universe/relationship structure/&c.

[cirrussundog.livejournal.com]

Um...now I have to admit to being confused. I bought *Low Port* and enjoyed it very much. Were all the authors included in that book experienced writers, or are you saying they were engaged in a less-than-preferable activity that would hinder their becoming careful craftspeople by contributing to your anthology?

I'm not trying to be difficult. I merely seem to have missed a step in your argument.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I bought *Low Port* and enjoyed it very much. Were all the authors included in that book experienced writers, or are you saying they were engaged in a less-than-preferable activity that would hinder their becoming careful craftspeople by contributing to your anthology?

And now I'm confused. I'm reading the above to imply that Low Port (edited by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, Meisha Merlin, 2003), is a work of fanfic. If you read and enjoyed the book, (rather than simply enjoying ownership of it) then you know that Low Port was a collection of original short stories written to a theme, that theme being: Tell a story in which the hero/es is/are someone who lives on the wrong side of the spaceport's (or castle's) tracks. There were no Liaden stories included (not even mine); we said specifically in our guidelines (and in our foreword) that Low Port was not a Liaden Universe(R) shared-world antho. If that's the step you're missing, I'm very sorry, but I don't know how a careful reader could have missed this, or formed the opinion that the stories included had anything to do with the Liaden Universe(R).

To answer your other question -- at least, I think it was a question... Low Port was an open anthology (that means we accepted submissions from anyone who read the guidelines and sent us a story -- and a number of people who apparently hadn't read the guidelines, but sent us a story anyway). We did buy stories from a few "young" writers (meaning that, at the time we bought the stories, those authors hadn't yet seen much published), but I don't think we bought anyone's first pro sale. Of course folks like Lee Modesitt, Ru Emerson, eluki bes shahar, Jody Lynn Nye, Mark Tiedemann -- to name a few -- are well-seasoned authors. While Lee, eluki, and Mark specifically wrote stories set in their own on-going universes, every story appearing in Low Port is, to the best of my knowledge, an original work.

Low Port and Anthologies

[cirrussundog.livejournal.com]

Ahah! Thank you for your clarification. What I didn't pay sufficient attention to was seeing if every author was writing in their *own* universe. (I did recognize several of the stories as being rooted in other works I'd already read, which is what prompted my curiosity.) Such an editorial policy does, certainly, make your practice consistent with your principles: admirable, that.

Since I brought up the topic, may I inquire about what you think of shared-world anthologies which are based on the universe of a single writer? I've always been curious as to why pro writers do or don't get involved with such projects.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

"I think that writing fanfiction against the expressed wishes of the creator is appalling bad manners, and I have no truck with it."

I think it is vandalism, and it's often willful, gleeful, rather than simply ignorant vandalism. In one case (involving one of my stories) someone took a carefully built, multifacted empath and turned him into a bullying, power-mad rapist. For fun.

That's vandalism, that's abuse, that's copyright infringement -- and if ever there'd been a chance I'd go for more or less open attitude toward Liaden fanfic it was shot down right there.

[djonn]

Before Harry Potter, most fanfiction was media-based; I don't know what the distribution looks like now.

This depends on whether one is using "most" in its narrow sense of "a plurality", or the broad colloquial sense of "the preponderance".

There was a significant strata of print-driven fanfic prior to the Harry Potter phenomenon, and it was notable for being strongly associated with what have sometimes been called "mimetic" fandoms, wherein readers of a particular series expend considerable time and effort in reproducing elements of the fictional setting in real life -- producing craftwork and costumes, forming organized fan clubs, putting on exhibitions or convention parties, establishing organizations that mirror those found in the source novels. And for a good while, authors whose works spawned mimetic fandoms actively encouraged (and supervised, to varying degrees) the writing of fanfic based in those settings.

Specific examples: MZB's Darkover, McCaffrey's Pern, Lackey's Valdemar, Katherine Kurtz's "Deryni" series. There are likely others, but these were dominant. Mercedes Lackey no longer sanctions fanfic (though I believe that some of the stories in the first Valdemar shared-world anthology from DAW originated via fanfic channels); I believe Kurtz still does (and persuaded one of her publishers to issue a book consisting in part of some of that "authorized" fanfic), and I'm not sure about McCaffrey.

The mimetic fandoms seem, for the most part, to have sharply diminished with the advent of the Internet, though greater concern with legal liability issues is also clearly a factor; the reasons for that are probably worth discussing, but not necessarily in this thread.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

...and I'm not sure about McCaffrey.

There was for a time a (moderated) section for Pern fanfic on Anne's official website. She has also in the past vigorously acted to protect the Dragonriders of Pern trademark and her copyright. My sense was that the fanfic section was something on the order of a controlled experiment.

[malkingrey.livejournal.com]

are we talking media fan fiction, or print? As noted upstream, I don't know enough about the culture and/or dynamics of media fan fiction to have a competent opinion.

There's a web page here (http://www.sff.net/people/thyme/main.htp) that might be of interest, in that case. It's a 2005 Bryn Mawr undergrad thesis that goes into the culture and dynamic of media fanfiction, as well as into the process by which the substance of a story can sometimes move from uncopyrighted source material to copyrighted fictional form to uncopyrighted fanfic to a different copyrighted fictional form.

[djonn]

I had taken brief note of this previously, but actually read through it tonight; it's a very thoughtful, interesting analysis, and makes a lot of sense from a folkloric perspective.

The author does omit mention of one particularly striking example of "Miami Universe" borrowing, the novel Mad Maudlin by Mercedes Lackey and Rosemary Edghill, fusing the "Bloody Mary" story with Lackey's "urban elves" shared universe.

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

Lois and Lillian Stewart Carl founded a Star Trek based fanzine called "StarDate", which they sold at a MidwestCon (sometime after the release of 2001 in theaters), according to the preface of Dreamweaver's Dilemma. It was written entirely by them, it appears, with art from a friend and a sister. The first story in DD is a Bujold Sherlock Holmes story. It's not especially good, but she is one of the best writers (judging by Hugo Awards) and she did write it. For that matter, Shards of Honor seems pretty clearly based off of a story she originally wrote with Aral as a Klingon and Cordelia as a Federation officer.