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

Just my .02.... (Hoping it's coherent)

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

Let me make it clear: Some people who write fanfic are jerks.[snip] Similarly, the idiot who sued Marion Zimmer Bradley; the idiot who asked permission to write a St. Germain story, was denied, and then went on to write and publish anyway; and the idiots who harass Anne Rice are indeed fanfic writers, but they don't represent the entire body of the population.

And here lies one of the major stumbling blocks I have with fanfic. I understand that there are novels of Bradley and a few others we will never see--because someone wrote a fanfic piece, a short story, and it was tossed up on the Internet at approximately the same time as the author submitted the novel. The author had never seen the short story--but the publisher would not take a chance that the fan would sue over the "idea" being stolen, once the novel hit print.

If the author lives, there may be another story--in the exact same playpen where you want to write a fanfic story. How long do we have to wait? Well, Canticle for Liebowitz didn't have a sequel for over a decade, at a minimum.

Second point. It's not exactly fanfic, but playing free and loose with the world can lead people to think they have the right to play free and loose with A PUBLISHED NOVEL. I know a writer who got an irate fan letter about something the fan had read in an e-book copy of her story. The writer had to point out that A) she didn't write the scene that way and B) there was as yet no e-book, and where did the fan read it? Turns out someone took it upon themselves to scan, change things, and UPLOAD their version of the novel to be free! Free, little story!

Crap. And a nightmare, because like Robin, I choose my words carefully, thanks. As all of us here do, I think. But seriously....what if the day comes when there is no longer a definitive version? When we can't find the definitive story?

And third...in my opinion, all good fiction has a unique voice. I write one series in first person--can someone else do this? Frankly, I can't imagine anyone else writing Val Con and Meri, although if something dire happened and rolanni and kinzel wanted someone to finish a book, I'd do my damnedest to do it right. But I read the last fragmented book of Dorothy Sayers...and I bet I can tell, within tolerances, which sections were hers, and which done by the person who finished the book--although the finishing author did a very decent job. I've been warned not to read the follow up book.

So--A) Copyright nightmare for living author still working at writing, B)Fanfic can really give people the wrong idea about what they can do to a book, and a world, and C)It's not the author's vision. You want to change the vision, have monkeys play the roles in your head, fair game--I never tell fans who I visualize for a character, if someone's face inspired the character. It can really spoil it for them, because anything brought in from outside changes the dynamic

But I have no problem with writing fanfic for practice and fun, and handing a printout to a friend at a coffeehouse get-together. I have problems with Internet posting, printing and distributing at a convention, SELLING fanfic. I had a strong idea for a couple of good B5 novels--even did several large scenes, and wrote coherent synopses to send to Del Rey. But they knew what they wanted written, and hired a Del Rey writer to do them. Del Rey and Warner's legal right. So the stuff is stashed in a drawer, I got it out of my system--and someday, with the B5 stripped away, it will make a decent SF adventure novel. I tried to sell three BattleStar Galactica scripts, back in the first pass (they needed help, if they wanted real SF. But of course Larson didn't want real SF...) They're in a drawer, too, although my sister asked to see them again, years later. She'd enjoyed them.

But they $%$#@ aren't up on the Internet, or for sale in the dealer's room.

I think Robin is right--the faster you start writing your own stuff, the faster you'll become a Writer--someone who digests the myths and the 6 or 7 plots, and creates a new twist of the kaleidoscope.