Controversial Friday Post

[mousme]

'Cause I'm at work and bored.

Fanfiction. Discuss. Every angle welcome.

As usual, no flaming, no ad hominem arguments, etc. Basic courtesy applies, and don't be a jackass. Arguing in bad faith is discouraged, but not forbidden.


Aaaaaand... GO!

:::ETA:::

I was asked for clarification. So:

Why write fanfiction at all?

What makes fanfiction a valid form of expression (or not)?

What role do you think fanfiction plays in fandom?

Should an author have a say in what happens to their work once it's released to the public?

Comments

[caitlin.livejournal.com]

IMO: fanfic is for the times I do not feel like constructing my own freaking universe and want to go "play" in someone else's.

that's all.

I know of at least one author who sees it similarly.

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

Hm. I think your topic may be too broad to generate much real conversation.

I write the stuff. What do you wanna know?

[mousme.livejournal.com]

Oh, I dunno. What role people thinks fanfiction plays in fandom, what makes it (or not) a valid form of expression, whether or not an author should have a say in what happens to their work once it's released to the public, etc.

I left it deliberately vague. I may edit it later if people are floundering. :)

[pasley.livejournal.com]

I haven't thought this through, but just off the top of my head, and based on some conversations I've had with jteethy about this . . .

Fanfic is not my cuppa, but it's harmless, and a whole lot of people tend to like writing and reading it, including some literate, well-educated folk. What makes me a little sad is when I see really good writers writing nothing but fanfic. 'Cause, couldn't all that talent be better spent writing, say, fantasy or sf or just about anything else that could maybe have half a chance of being published? Or, even aside from the publishing issue, even if you're writing just for yourself or for family and friends, what about creating an original story with original characters, rather than using characters and settings that are already out there and, in most cases, are already well-known? If it's only a matter of garnering an instant, wide-following readership among fans of said characters, then it all seems a little too much like a sort of sad, even demeaning sell-out, like the stand-up comedian who gets a laugh from people who are already falling down drunk.

This is, obviously, just my personal take on the genre, and not meaning any disrespect to anyone who writes or reads it.

[blackmare.livejournal.com]

While I get where you're coming from, I think the people who say it's sad that such talent gets "wasted" on fanfiction do not, perhaps, understand that those of us who write it aren't (for the most part) interested in writing professionally. For us, it's about having fun and connecting with other people who share the hobby; we have really no desire to turn it into a job with deadlines and editors and all the other attendant stresses. It would stop being fun if we did that.

I know a few truly professional-grade authors in House fandom, but none of them write fanfic instead of original fiction. They write fanfic instead of writing nothing, and finding a different hobby.

[terredancer.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I write fanfiction when I find that the direction the creator of the source material has decided to take it is personally unsatisfying for me.

I do know that I sometimes have read or started writing fanfic when there was a long wait for new source material (particularly true in book fandom), and I was feeling antsy for "new" stuff.

Other times, I will admit, that I use fanfiction as a venue to "test" new ideas that I have that I'm not entirely certain about taking into an original venture. If the idea works up into a solid story, then I have the option of taking it out of the fanfic cusp, doing the hard work of the world-building and character creation, and throwing it out there. Frequently, because I'm dealing with different situations and characters, it turns out different than the original test, but that's fun too. If it stayed the same, I would have left it in fanfic form because I am, above all else, LAZY.

I do think that it is easy to fall into that trap, because the characters and world are already there, and pre-built by previous creators, all you have to do is apply some idea to it, and watch it go. There are people I know who aren't really interested in writing outside of the box that fandom creates, and I do accept that, but I'm finding more and more that I'd rather write outside of the box. I do still write fanfic, but I don't publish it on the web anymore, and it's not as often as it once was.

[worldmage.livejournal.com]

Because I want to avoid my NaNovel just a little longer:

I agree with caitlin as to the reasons for writing fanfiction. It's also an expression of love for the work being ficced, though. I generally don't fic in a world I don't have any emotional attachment to. I just can't do it.

What is a valid form of expression compared to an invalid one? How can a medium be itself valid or invalid? It's like asking whether paper is more valid than papyrus. One may be more useful or valuable than the other in whatever context they exist, but the issue of validity just doesn't apply.

Like I said above, fanfiction is simply another way to express love for the original work. It also helps give fan communities something to bond over since it's usually shared with other fans in one way or another. I was never a more rabid fan of Ranma 1/2 until I started ficcing it. It helps to reinforce the fan identity in a sort of communal way.

I think an author has a right to say s/he doesn't want people writing fanfiction about his/her work and have it respected, but I also think it's a douchey thing to do. Just because you have a right to do something doesn't mean using that right is a good thing to do. Don't get me wrong, I completely understand being strongly attached to your world and your characters; I almost always get that way myself. But if you don't want to see the nasty perverted things people think about your characters, or see people do something with your world that goes completely against your vision of that world, then don't read it. It's not hard. We're all reasonable people, able to control what we choose to consume or not. But banning fanfiction doesn't stop people from thinking about or writing them, just from sharing them, and it alienates one of the more devoted demographics of your fan base. It's just shooting yourself in the foot.

[odheirre.livejournal.com]

Totally non-valid thought experiment that possibly borders on the bad faith rule, but here it goes. I write a fanfic that mimics a real Star Trek episode, with the exception that Spock has blond hair. Is that a valid form of expression? What about taking totally different characters and putting them in a pre-existing Star Trek novel?

Then again, the last two role-playing games were Serenity and GURPS IOU. All original characters, but the setting was pre-set. Is that any different?

Not a writer of fanfic, at all......

[le-maistre-e.livejournal.com]

.... so I'll only weigh in with my opinion on fanfic in general, as an avid reader of a few fandoms:

I find that it allows fans an alternate version of the original writers' views. For instance, one of my fandoms is Bones, the TV show, where the romantic/sexual tension between the two main characters has been dragging on for the entire run of the show (to date, and no, I don't count the season 4 finale, no matter what you say). In general, I find that fanfic is a way for that tension (or other issues) to be resolved without disturbing the creativity/progression of the original work itself. Now, I'm using a poor example here, because Bones, the TV show, is based, of course, on the brilliant Bones novels by Kathy Reichs, where the tension was resolved in the first 2 or 3 books. /digression.

There is another view that it is a way of carrying on a fandom where no more original work is being created. Here I'm thinking of Gilmore Girls and The West Wing, two series that have been off the air for one and two years respectively, but the fans enjoy them so much, we just can't seem to let go. No, we're not crazy, obsessed, stalker-y people, why do you ask? :-)

Just realized. I may have answered question 3 inadvertently.

Background info: My particular tastes in fic do run to AU stuff, with humour and romance as a near-must, particularly as I do have a few OTPs. I have also found a few favorite authors in my fandoms and I tend to gravitate automatically to their work and those authors that they like. They are, for the most part, of course, women, but there are a few male authors, particularly in the Bones fandom, who are very good character authors, which is another must-have for me. I like longer stories, as I am a novel reader in my spare (uh? spare?) time, but the one-shots can also be very revealing and well-written in and of themselves (I find they tend to give some interesting insights with facial expressions and "what-should-have-beens"). Above all, and for any fandom, it must be well-written, on the technical side, as I can almost always spot someone else's typos a mile away.

Again, JMO, but I hope it was entertaining.

[tifaching.livejournal.com]

This is a really interesting question. And thank you for de-lurking so I could check out your journal! To be honest, I've never thought about WHY. I'd been reading SPN fanfic for about a year when I found a prompt meme that I was enjoying and saw a prompt that caught my eye. I thought "I could give this one a shot" and I did and it got all sorts of good comments so I found another one to fill and twenty-odd stories later, I'm still filling prompts on various comment meme sites. And why WOULDN'T it be a valid form of expression. I mean I know the characters have already been created but there are all sorts of scenarios and untold stories that could involve them. In the Supernatual fandom there are things left hanging and scenes that could be so much more and I've read some great fics expanding on the show as well as some that just plain would never happen on the show. And I've enjoyed them either way. And in the SPN universe I KNOW fanfiction plays a part in the show, because, in a couple of great episodes they actually go there. Online SPN sites, slash, Sam girls and Dean girls and just amazingly hilarious meta joking on the fans and the more wincesty fanfictions. And in a point that was made upthread, I have no interest in writing anything else. Most of my stories have been from prompts so although I expand on the ideas, they're not really my own. And I'm grateful for the imagination of others, because I would never have come up with some of these ideas myself. Sorry for meandering a little here. And fanfiction is about love for the subject. Once characters are out there, they are public domain as long as no profit is being made off of them. I think.