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flap, glorious flap
For anyone who might have missed the snarkfest: Diana Gabaldon, whose Outlander novels I utterly failed to read (too many awful research howlers in the first three pages of the first book), has emphatically and publicly denounced fanfic and fanfic authors. I'm not linking to her posts myself -- the links below do that -- but she ranks us with rapists, stalkers, white slavers, and pedophiles. Way to endear yourself to both your fan base and your fellow pros, gal.
The nature of the online response is fascinating, since it reflects the evolution of fanfic -- the growing acceptance of it by pros, the growing recognition that it's part of fandom and part of the world of writing. I also see it as another reflection of the shifting relationship between the creators of media and fandom -- there's been a lot of change and maturation there since I first tiptoed into fandom, heavens, 30 years ago.
All of which is a pretty highfalutin' excuse for enjoying a snarkfest. When you get right down to it, I think some of the comments on Gabaldon's hissy fit are better written than her novels seem to be. The more I've read about her books, the less inclined I am to read them.
Here's the post on Whatever that alerted me to the flap, and here's the post on Fandom Wank that has a very good wrap-up of it. Here's a beautifully written open letter on the subject by Kate Nepveu, and here's a well-written observation on the hypocrisy of Gabaldon's denunciation of smut in fanfic. And here's a lovely list of professionally published works that meet some element of the definition of fanfic, and here's a recently started list of authors and others (i.e., actor Paul Gross) who either support fanfic or are publicly Neutral Good about it.
The last item, at present, lists67 75 in favour, including such minor luminaries as J. K. Rowling, Joss Whedon, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Also Terry Pratchett, Tamora Pierce, Anne McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey, Lois McMaster Bujold, Neil Gaiman, Cory Doctorow, John Scalzi, Diane Duane, Steven Brust, Katherine Kurtz, Stephanie Meyer (yes, rly), and Nora Roberts (who is on the fanfic.net 'no-fly list', but has publicly given her okay).
And the anti-fanfic list? 15 against, of which Anne Rice and Archie comics are the most notable, followed by Gabaldon. Take those three away, and, well, you're not looking at the current Hugo nominee roster, or any NYT best-seller list. ETA: the list is now 16; I just added George R. R. Martin, who's very upset at how shabbily his Good Friend and Brilliant Writer Diana is being treated by teh intranetz. Also, Gabaldon has pulled her posts, thereby Flouncing off her own blog. I guess she didn't like the resulting heat when she set fire to the kitchen.
ETA again: the 'anti' list will probably end up at around 25, as the current flap is pushing more pros to state their positions in public forums, and the lawyers have spooked a fair number of them.
I'll end with this delicious quote from this lovely post by Aja Romano, who attempted, unsuccessfully, to carry on a reasoned online dialogue with Diana Gabaldon on the subject:
"We get that you think fanfic is illegal. It's not; it's currently non-explicitly protected by the fair use clause of the U.S. copyright law; we've been over this. Ad nauseum. For about thirty years now. That argument is old, and in the meantime people are moving into their fourth decade of writing Star Trek fiction. Or new, revolutionary, earth-shattering novels with fanfic at their root.
"We get that you think fanfic is a stepping stone to being published. You're wrong. Fanfiction is not a set of training wheels, not some shameful awkward thing you do before you grow up and learn the ~true meaning~ of being a ~real writer.~
"Fanfic is brilliant, beautiful, faithful to canon, critical & powerful, hysterically funny, full of love, subtle, diverse, poetic, adorable, amazingly original, subversive, heartbreaking, progressive, homage-based, political, sharp, smart, satirical, incredibly complex, feminist, beloved by thousands of people, and transformative on a scale that's hard to describe.
"And it is written by some of the most incredibly talented people on the internet. Fanfic writers are bestselling and acclaimed professional authors. They are agents and editors. They are network television executive producers. They are New York Times journalists. They are Supreme Court clerks. They are PHDs and experts in their fields.
"All of us are still writing fanfic. None of us need training wheels or stepping stones.
"We get it. You hate fanfic. We don't care. We don't have to. Fanfic belongs to the tradition of reinvention and reinterpretation that each of the creators listed above has freely, fully participated in.
"And as of this moment, I'm one author who is too busy participating to stop and explain it to you one more time."
ETA 2: Another, longer list of authors with specific policies against fanfic. This one actually includes some names of significance. Some of them are responding to What The Lawyers Say, others just plain don't like the idea. Fanfic.net REALLY needs to get the No-Fly list updated. (I've already emailed them once about it. But you know what ff.pit is like.)
These are partial lists of the names that mean something to me:
Legal issues: David Weber, Jim Baen, Orson Scott Card, Marion Zimmer Bradley (and she had good reason to be chary). Also, by secondhand report, Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen.
Don't like the idea: David Drake, Alan Dean Foster, Robert Jordan, Esther Friesner, Ursula LeGuin, Patricia Morrison, Larry Niven, John Norman (don't barf!), Spider Robinson, Robert Asprin, Jack Chalker, Jasper Fforde (yes, that last one's a real pity, and has a hypocritical flavour to it).
BTW, there's one author on that last list who has not sacrificed any of my respect by her stance, and that's Ursula LeGuin. I revere her works, and somehow, the thought of trying to write fanfic in her universe is, in my mind, akin to attempting to whack chunks off of a perfectly cut diamond. You just don't.
'Beth
May 2010
The nature of the online response is fascinating, since it reflects the evolution of fanfic -- the growing acceptance of it by pros, the growing recognition that it's part of fandom and part of the world of writing. I also see it as another reflection of the shifting relationship between the creators of media and fandom -- there's been a lot of change and maturation there since I first tiptoed into fandom, heavens, 30 years ago.
All of which is a pretty highfalutin' excuse for enjoying a snarkfest. When you get right down to it, I think some of the comments on Gabaldon's hissy fit are better written than her novels seem to be. The more I've read about her books, the less inclined I am to read them.
Here's the post on Whatever that alerted me to the flap, and here's the post on Fandom Wank that has a very good wrap-up of it. Here's a beautifully written open letter on the subject by Kate Nepveu, and here's a well-written observation on the hypocrisy of Gabaldon's denunciation of smut in fanfic. And here's a lovely list of professionally published works that meet some element of the definition of fanfic, and here's a recently started list of authors and others (i.e., actor Paul Gross) who either support fanfic or are publicly Neutral Good about it.
The last item, at present, lists
And the anti-fanfic list? 15 against, of which Anne Rice and Archie comics are the most notable, followed by Gabaldon. Take those three away, and, well, you're not looking at the current Hugo nominee roster, or any NYT best-seller list. ETA: the list is now 16; I just added George R. R. Martin, who's very upset at how shabbily his Good Friend and Brilliant Writer Diana is being treated by teh intranetz. Also, Gabaldon has pulled her posts, thereby Flouncing off her own blog. I guess she didn't like the resulting heat when she set fire to the kitchen.
ETA again: the 'anti' list will probably end up at around 25, as the current flap is pushing more pros to state their positions in public forums, and the lawyers have spooked a fair number of them.
I'll end with this delicious quote from this lovely post by Aja Romano, who attempted, unsuccessfully, to carry on a reasoned online dialogue with Diana Gabaldon on the subject:
"We get that you think fanfic is illegal. It's not; it's currently non-explicitly protected by the fair use clause of the U.S. copyright law; we've been over this. Ad nauseum. For about thirty years now. That argument is old, and in the meantime people are moving into their fourth decade of writing Star Trek fiction. Or new, revolutionary, earth-shattering novels with fanfic at their root.
"We get that you think fanfic is a stepping stone to being published. You're wrong. Fanfiction is not a set of training wheels, not some shameful awkward thing you do before you grow up and learn the ~true meaning~ of being a ~real writer.~
"Fanfic is brilliant, beautiful, faithful to canon, critical & powerful, hysterically funny, full of love, subtle, diverse, poetic, adorable, amazingly original, subversive, heartbreaking, progressive, homage-based, political, sharp, smart, satirical, incredibly complex, feminist, beloved by thousands of people, and transformative on a scale that's hard to describe.
"And it is written by some of the most incredibly talented people on the internet. Fanfic writers are bestselling and acclaimed professional authors. They are agents and editors. They are network television executive producers. They are New York Times journalists. They are Supreme Court clerks. They are PHDs and experts in their fields.
"All of us are still writing fanfic. None of us need training wheels or stepping stones.
"We get it. You hate fanfic. We don't care. We don't have to. Fanfic belongs to the tradition of reinvention and reinterpretation that each of the creators listed above has freely, fully participated in.
"And as of this moment, I'm one author who is too busy participating to stop and explain it to you one more time."
ETA 2: Another, longer list of authors with specific policies against fanfic. This one actually includes some names of significance. Some of them are responding to What The Lawyers Say, others just plain don't like the idea. Fanfic.net REALLY needs to get the No-Fly list updated. (I've already emailed them once about it. But you know what ff.pit is like.)
These are partial lists of the names that mean something to me:
Legal issues: David Weber, Jim Baen, Orson Scott Card, Marion Zimmer Bradley (and she had good reason to be chary). Also, by secondhand report, Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen.
Don't like the idea: David Drake, Alan Dean Foster, Robert Jordan, Esther Friesner, Ursula LeGuin, Patricia Morrison, Larry Niven, John Norman (don't barf!), Spider Robinson, Robert Asprin, Jack Chalker, Jasper Fforde (yes, that last one's a real pity, and has a hypocritical flavour to it).
BTW, there's one author on that last list who has not sacrificed any of my respect by her stance, and that's Ursula LeGuin. I revere her works, and somehow, the thought of trying to write fanfic in her universe is, in my mind, akin to attempting to whack chunks off of a perfectly cut diamond. You just don't.
'Beth
May 2010
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The funny thing is that yanking posts like that off one's blog does not end the flap; it's just bad form, like any other Flounce.
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Good grief, three pages?! And here I thought Diane Duane was sloppy to have ONE (fairly major) slip-up re the space shuttle launchpad in one of her Spider-Man books!
Other comments:
Hee, I didn't know Conan Doyle felt that way about fanfic! I suppose I should have guessed, with the number of Holmes "pastiches" out there... that's cool.
(Also, I love the bit about all those Greeks and Romans writing Iliad fanfic. I only knew about the Aeneid!)
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I understand that, at the time she wrote the first one, she had never visited Scotland; and supposedly she's done so by now. Well, I've never been to either Belfast or Peru, but I took that as a mandate to be really picky with my research when I set novels there.
My own definition of fanfic doesn't extend to works based on mythology or legend or folklore, but that's just my definition. If the definition is extended to those sources, then yes, every single written version of any myth is fanfic, because an individual author put his own spin on something out of older source material. I could even denounce Aeschylus' version of Athene in the Oresteia as having written her OOC for his own ends. *g*
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'I've never been to either Belfast or Peru, but I took that as a mandate to be really picky with my research when I set novels there.'
Really picky, indeed; I haven't been to Belfast either, but I'm quite surprised to learn that you haven't. "Up a Long Ladder" feels like it was written by someone who's known the setting all their life; it's got that tone of bittersweet love that marks songs and writing by native Northern Irish. I am truly boggled. In a good way.
(I haven't read your Peru fic yet, as it's not finished, but - rather OT - was the "Alpaca Cartel" throwaway line in Matriphobia Affair your doing? Makes me snicker every time. And I want the backstory now. *g*)
'I could even denounce Aeschylus' version of Athene in the Oresteia as having written her OOC for his own ends.'
Oh dear, now I'm going to be totally cracking up when I have to read and discuss the Oresteia in college... ;-)
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And thank you for the comment on Up a Long Ladder! At the time I started writing it, I must have been studying Irish history, culture and music for 25 years or more -- but I still went out and did heavy research on the specifics I needed for the story. The background was background, and certainly helped, especially given how delicate the core of the subject matter was.
Good eye for the Alpaca Cartel! That was pure Lothi, but it was a tip of the pen to me and to Reverb. I howled like anything when I first read it, and she smirked.
The specific passage in the Oresteia is one in which Aeschylus has Athene spouting misogynistic sexist grandstanding -- he has her absolve Orestes of guilt in the murder of his mother, not because his mother was a murderer herself, but because women don't matter, and mothers are women. This is presented as a new paradigm of heavenly justice. Yay. Let's hear it for good old Golden Age Athens, bastion of repression, in which all are free and equal, as long as they're native-born landowning males of a certain class who haven't pissed off the status quo too badly.
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And that's another thing about Teh Internets that Ms. Gobaldon apparently doesn't understand: Nothing Goes Away. Ever.
In other words, if you don't want it read in perpetuity, don't post it. 'Cause once it's up, there is no more plausible deniability. Somebody will be able to find it again. Own your words, or eat them. Probably without sugar.
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One of my very very favorite short stories is Spider Robinson's Melancholy Elephants (http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html). You probably know the story. If you don't, there's the link. Spider was making the case for limitations on copyright with respect to time, explicitly, but the argument works as well for any number of variations, including fanfic.
Of course, the one argument that Aja leaves out is that fanfic is wonderful free advertising for canon. I got hooked on Spider by some folks that were doing Callahans stuff... and not only glommed those books but Stardance as well.
That is an odd thing, though. IIRC the vast majority of ficcers (and vidders) are women....
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I often get comments on my stories along the lines of "Wow, I forgot how much I liked the show, I'll have to go buy the DVDs now . . . "
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Good artists borrow, great artists steal, great fanfic writers take men with incredibly silly mullets and break our hearts with them?
*Good lord. Mother issues.
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BTW, the Great List Of Great Derivative Works on one of those links . . . includes James Joyce's Ulysses. Of course.
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I swear some of these people think they've created something "totally original," when in fact they've just taken ideas from others (previously published or "borrowed" from conversation) and slapped their name on it. Sure, they may do *different* things with it, but no work in this day and age is completely original anymore.
The authors against fanfic are just afraid the fans will come up with better plots, or may even have a stronger grasp on the characters then the writer's themselves do. Plus, one can't forget the almighty penny. Heaven forbid one of these rich writers misses out on a 5 cent royalty for the small handful of people that may actually read the fan fiction piece anyway.
It's sad -- authors want their readers to be enthusiastic about their work, but squash any attempt at the ultimate form of flattery towards their work.
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As I mentioned, the only one who I think is in the right to dislike the notion of fanfic in her universe(s) is LeGuin. The unique character of her writing is in itself an essential element to her worlds -- no other writer can or should write there, because there are no other writers like herself. She's just that good and that unique.
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For our reputation of being all Mary Sues having physically improbable sex, every big fandom has at least a dozen good writers. There's better writing on my flist than there seems to be in my local library. (And anyway, fandom has gen. Publishing pretty much doesn't, because sex sells. I like gen.)
Very relevant to the author's arguments, I like that we have ratings and warnings. Apparently, she writes...fantasy or something? So I'd pick up a book and go "yay magic!" and then there'd be sadism and rape in it. In fanfiction, that would have a warning right in the summary, which is basically our version of the front cover. Nobody will ever put that on a book cover because nobody wants to lose sales from people that aren't willing to to be seen buying or enjoying something with "warnings: rape, BDSM" printed on the outside. I don't really trust published fiction not to bait & switch me in that sense (and others).
There's more, but I don't want to get too rambly. Basically, we're awesome.
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Of course, there's an amazing amount of unmitigated crap in fanfic. And by a remarkable coincidence, there's an amazing amount of unmitigated crap in published works too. What a coincidence!
I've noticed that I'll re-read my longstanding favourite authors a lot more eagerly than I'll pick up new ones . . . I'm very eclectic in my genres in published works, but really good stuff is still realllly thin on the ground.
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Of course, there's an amazing amount of unmitigated crap in fanfic. And by a remarkable coincidence, there's an amazing amount of unmitigated crap in published works too.
Yeah, that's a great way of summing it up.
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That's an excellent line that deserves its own icon!
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