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As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, one of the earliest methods of “tele-reading” on the Internet was fan-written fiction, or fanfic. Fanfics were available electronically before most other books simply because they had to be, to be shared with other fans on the Internet. Already popular back when the Internet was inhabited by only a handful of college students, it positively exploded as the Internet grew.
Novelist Diana Gabaldon causes fanfic furor
May 5, 2010 | 2:51 pm
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By Chris Meadows
Update, 5/10: One of the commenters points out that, since I originally posted this, Diana Gabaldon deleted first all comments on her two blog posts on fanfic, then the posts themselves. I suppose she was unprepared to handle the level of controversy she inadvertently generated.
Perhaps fanfic fans can feel at least partially vindicated that Ms. Gabaldon realized she’d made an error (though it would have been better if she had posted something more on the order of an apology for her intemperate words), but it’s also sad that the posts vanish from the historical record. (Though I suppose they may still exist in responses that quoted them in large part or in full so as to rebut them point by point.)
As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, one of the earliest methods of “tele-reading” on the Internet was fan-written fiction, or fanfic. Fanfics were available electronically before most other books simply because they had to be, to be shared with other fans on the Internet. Already popular back when the Internet was inhabited by only a handful of college students, it positively exploded as the Internet grew.
But it remains a bugaboo to a number of writers, and the most recent writer to poke the beehive is historical romance novelist Diana Gabaldon. Her original post starts out:
OK, my position on fan-fic is pretty clear: I think it’s immoral, I know it’s illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.
And it goes on from there. (She does post a somewhat more moderate follow-up, however.)
The post elicited mentions from Charlie Stross (who does a pretty good job explaining why he has no problem with people writing fanfic of his work, as long as he doesn’t have to read any of it and it doesn’t mess with his ability to earn a living) and John Scalzi (who has a similar policy).
Scalzi also linked to Fandom Wank’s writeup about the commotion, and an open letter from Kate Nepveu to published writers who dislike fanfic that is well worth reading.
Nepveu writes:
More fundamentally, if people are writing fanfic about your works, then their imagination has been sparked by your works; they have been moved by the same impulse to engage with a story that runs through all of human culture. People gossip about their favorite characters; become fascinated by unexplored characters, locations, histories, themes, implications; imagine what would happen next, or if, or instead; and critique every aspect of a work. Sometimes this takes the form of passing in-person conversations, sometimes of blog discussions, sometimes of scholarly works, and sometimes of stories. (Sometimes, even, of critically-acclaimed, award-winning, professionally-distributed stories.) I would be astonished to hear that your own writing never was influenced by this impulse—I say this not to suggest that you’ve been writing fanfic all along, but to point out the strength and universality of this impulse. (For an eloquent and lengthy discussion discovered just as I was about to hit “post,” see Jonathan Lethem’s “The ecstasy of influence: A plagiarism” from a few years back.)
Nepveu also links to another LiveJournal poster, who points out that Gabaldon lives in an awfully glass house to be throwing stones.
Certainly, the issue of fanfic and intellectual property is a complicated one. Some professional authors allow fanfic, some insist on creative commons licensing for it, some are strongly against it, some—such as Mercedes Lackey—got their start writing fanfic, and still write it to this day along with their other pursuits. Making Light had a great discussion of it back in 2006, calling it a “force of nature”.
And it really is—or at least a force of human nature. We’ve had storytelling and retelling baked into our psyches since ancient times, when myths and legends were formed by storytellers building on what other storytellers had told before. It’s natural to us to want to make up our own stories about characters who profoundly affect us.
Of course, it may not be strictly legal—but then, the modern copyright system is a fairly recent development in terms of the span of human creativity. It’s not going to control the writer’s impulse. I’ve written plenty of fanfic myself.
I think fanfic will always be with us. The nature of the Internet is such that it can’t be eradicated—and any author who actually dares to sue over it, no matter how justified, will probably lose a significant portion of his fandom. (See also, Metallica vs. Napster.)
And authors, such as Gabaldon, who kick up a fuss about it will soon find themselves the center of Internet attention—not all of it good. By complaining about a pastime that so many fans enjoy, they risk arousing the ire of not just their own fanfic-writing fans, but fanfic-writers of anything.
Related:
- Twelve SF writers who wrote fanfic
- Downloading fanfic to e-book formats
- Elizabeth Bear on the future of web publishing also describes its past
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Funny, Diana talks about how these characters get into her head and basically write the book for her, and yet she doesn’t think the same thing happens to her readers. It is just sad that she takes such a hard line on what is just a product of love for her characters.
I think if you write a fanfic and the author “steals” the idea, that is just what you get. Heck, I would be flattered if it happened (although I would hope to see a thanks in the notes).
Many years ago I was involved in helping manage parts of a forum on CompuServe in the days before AOL bought and destroyed the service. One section in the forum was a place where new authors could ask for manuscript reviews and advice. Diana Gabaldon submitted chapters from Outlander as she wrote them, and essentially sought and received crowd-sourced feedback from a mix of professionals and enthusiastic readers. She received an enormous amount of help and advice. She also got attention from publishing people and agents. A lot of buzz developed, and the Outlander success story began.
Rather than attack fanfic writers, it would be nice to see her return the help she got by encouraging the fanfic writers to create and write about their own characters.
In his July 19th post at 7:35 pm, Ric says:
“Rather than attack fanfic writers, it would be nice to see her return the help she got by encouraging the fanfic writers to create and write about their own characters.”
Dr. Gabaldon IS very active in helping new writers, both formally at writing conferences; writer’s workshops; panels at sf and fantasy conventions; and informally as her time permits. She loves her fans; at the release party in Phoenix for her latest book, she stayed for hours to meet with people and sign all the books, in a line of more than 1,500 attendees.
Authors should have the choice of whether others write and post fan fiction about their characters in public places.
I write fanfic in the Tolkien fandom and have done so since 07. I had very little exposure to fanfiction before that, although in 20 years of reading Tolkien I wrote fanfic in my mind every day.
I come from a family of bookworms; I love words, and year by year I become more disappointed with the majority of published works.
And then I found Tolkien fanfiction. What can I say? The sheer quality of writing displayed by the best authors in that fandom should make 99% of published authors exceedingly embarrassed. No, I am not talking about 15 year old girls writing about marrying Legolas. I am a mature woman; I want to read stories written by mature people. I don’t believe any writing is wasted, however. Let these girls get on with it. It’s wish fulfillment and empowerment in an age where teen girls *have* to be beautiful and thin and popular to be anything at all, so let them write themselves as such. Those are not, however, the stories I read.
I feel like some-one opened the door of a hidden treasury. Here are people – aerospace engineers, biochemists, surgeons, teachers, freelance writers, psychologists, and published authors too, who just happen to be incredible writers and want to write within all the ages of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Most of the published books I read and consider ‘classy’ come from 30 or more years ago, and for any author to hit that bar requires they be a true wordsmith.
These fanfic authors write for love, and it is a peculiar and off-kilter world where so much sheer talent is read by only a minority and is not publishable. Their work is truly transformative, not simply a lazy rehashing of canon. They take one line in volume of the Silmarillion and write an Alternate Universe that is better than the original. Yes, some of them do write better than Tolkien. He was a world-builder and a story-teller, but some fanfic authors are far better writers.
It incenses me that any-one who might have stumbled on some bad fanfic would dismiss it all as rubbish. I pick up 7 books at a time from the library with: ‘No-one does it better than…’ or ‘Superb, gritty drama.’ stamped on them, and ten pages in I wonder if there is such a dearth of talent that Publishers are forced to print any old thing.
Apart from certain authors like Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette, and Ellen Kushner, (who is pro fanfic) few publishers are giving me what I want, therefore I read fanfiction.
@ Persephone Green. I have read Angmar and Elfhild’s ‘The Circles’ – it is a truly epic transformative work, and is on my recommended authors list. (It’s not a large list, but the writers are blue-bloods) I am working on a 100 Must Read Tolkien Fanfic stories for my webpage and asking my favorite authors for their own recommendations. It will be a list that oozes quality when it is published.
So, there are these people, quietly writing away, posting their work for *love*. They agonize, they edit, ask for opinions, they are exacting, and humble and do it all for love of writing, not money or public recognition.
Reviews are wonderful of course, seeing read-counts go up is nice, having one’s story favorited is terrific, and awards are thrilling. But we write because we love writing in a specific universe.
People have told me that my series could quite easily be tweaked into o-fic, but they’re missing the point. I love the massive and tragic history of Middle-earth; I want to write in that. I have never had any ambition to be a published author, only to write. I gave up o-fic because all I would have done is create a version of Middle-earth. When I started writing fanfiction I could have laughed, because *that* was where I wanted to be, and for twenty years I had resisted it.
Now, I will review a story and have to wrestle the superlatives into some kind of order. The characterizations, the use of language, the depth, the imagery in the best stories leave me humbled, breathless and greedy for more. How many published works have done that? I could count them on the fingers of one hand. I read good fanfiction because yes, it is better than the vast majority of published books, and fanfic authors are giving me what I want to read. If I had the money I would have their works made into non-profit films, pay for the books to be published myself and give them away; the writing is too good to be thought of as second best to *anything*. It is an lode that is mined by very few, and is incredibly rich.
I have spent 3 years on my ongoing series, and people ask me permission to write within it, to use my original characters and plots. That is incredibly flattering.
The fanfiction of my fanfiction enriches it, and does not change the original in any way. I am absolutely ecstatic when some-one finds my characters, AU and plot interesting enough to want to use. It’s the ultimate accolade. And yes, I have worked as hard on my series as any published author. Any misgivings would not be money-related, but rather would I wish to see my characters portrayed differently to the way I write them? The way I see it, it does not suddenly change my series, and as a fanfic writer, I can hardly complain, can I ? d;-)
I wonder how an artist would feel if they walked away from their canvas and returned to find that a fan had taken up brush and added their bit. I wonder how a singer would feel to have an amateur tone deaf fan release an album of the same name with their version of the hit artists song. I wonder how you would feel if you were in the middle of a creative process and someone came along and ran with your baby…. I don’t think that I would like it very much.
Duh … I don’t know .. but I can tell you how I felt when someone dredged up a year old article and proceeded to make an clueless follow up post….
Janet, you need to work on your analogies. People make copies of famous paintings all the time, even variations on them. They don’t dab over the original work. Fan fiction doesn’t do anything to change the original work. I never even heard of fan fiction until a couple of years ago. I’m not aware that my reading of Lords of the Rings or any other popular novel was affected then or now by the existence of fan fiction. No fanfiction writer would produce a book or story with the same name as the original, and nobody, unless they were brain-dead, would put out an album with the same name as another album, with their own cover versions.
Ah… I dasn’t use her charecters in anything on the web.
And my journal Ms. G?
Or my fantasies?
Gotta keep those royalties coming in.
Janet, those were horrendous examples. People base their works off of others all of the time whether they are books, songs, paintings, etc…It’s the way of life.
Personally, I don’t see what the problem is because as said, writing fanfic does not change the original work. It could change a person’s perspective on how the see the characters, but it could never change the work. How could a person not be complimented by a fan wanting to expand their universe because they love it so much? We, the fans, know we can’t make money off these works and do it for free because we love it so much. It has nothing to do with lack of originality or laziness, but because we want more of the work that someone has created.
There are some well-written fics out there that can put various published authors to shame, including Stephanie Meyers herself–but not really a good example. These fans put time and work into it and I’ve even cried at some of them, which is not an easy feat. These writers can evoke emotion and recreate the original piece and some writers treated them as if they are thieves. I’m glad that the fandoms I participate in embraces the fanfic world–even included a writer’s character in an episode. Without the fans, where would the artist be?
I agree with everyone who says she comes across in writing, as a cold, snotty, bitch.
Maybe she’s not that way in real life, but I doubt it. People are usually more true-to-form when they’re writing, than when they’re face-to-face, and the “be polite” filter kicks in ..I’ve been following her blogs/comments, etc. for years now, going back to her Compuserve days, and have never noticed anything but snipey remarks ..
. I love Outlander, it is a fantastic story — and it was kind of a letdown to find out that the author, is less than wonderful in real life… Can’t even correlate the story, with its maker. well, that’s life I suppose .. but if you read a work by someone, that blows you away..you kind of really hope that the author is likeable as well..live and learn
I don’t read her books anymore; her attitude has spoiled the series for me.
I still remember my shock at reading the ‘infamous’ blog post. This wasn’t a post about how the author doesn’t want to see any fanfiction based on her books, that was a generalised vitriolic attack on anyone who either reads or writes fanfiction.
Any desire to even attempt to read “Outlander” series has been squelched and I suspect not just for me. The author loses out, not the reader. There are plenty of authors who prefer to write great books and can express their personal opinions without alienating their fans.
I think what I’m trying to say is that fanfiction is here to stay on the Internet. Authors may hate it, ignore it or accept it, but they would not be able to eradicate it completely. I don’t know how I would react, if my original fiction was published and inspired people to write fanfiction. It’ll probably evoke the feelings of being very flattered and at the same time petrified that someone else is playing in my proverbial sandbox, even if they don’t make any money out of it. As a fanfic writer and reader I’d know that I can’t stop it. So why make enemies of people who love my work?
P.S. Jim Butcher has a very sensible approach to fanfic, which many protesting authors should at least consider before descending into vitriolic ‘blog posts ala Gabaldon’.
Gabaldon as a human being seems arrogant to me… My simple two cents is this: if as a writer you’ve got people interested in both reading and writing about your characters, then you should pat yourself on the back, not lambaste those fans who admire your work. They do say imitation is the greatest form of flattery for a reason. If I was ever fortunate enough to have fans of my writing I would feel beyond tickled if they wanted to write fanfic! I don’t think anyone’s becoming rich off of it. Have a heart, woman!