seawasp | The periodic Fanfic discussion Revives...

prestoimp pointed out one of the latest in a series of established writers talking about the EEEEEEeeeeeeeeeevils of fanfic, this time from Robin Hobb.

EDIT: Apparently Robin wrote this about a year ago. My response is still valid, even if this is not, actually the "latest" screed on the topic.

Once more I must reiterate my statements from before, just because... someone should, and that someone should be a published author. I'm not as well known as Robin Hobb, but I am someone who knows about the basics of the field... and some of Robin's statements are, not to put too fine a point on it, utterly ludicrous. Let's look at some of them:

Fan fiction is like any other form of identity theft. It injures the name of the party whose identity is stolen.
What utter rot. No one except idiots (and overexcitable fangirls) confuse fanfiction with the real stuff. The vast, VAST volume of Potterfics out there have had exactly ZERO effect on J.K. Rowling's reputation. No one I have EVER heard of has contended that they have formed their view of an author based on the fanfiction made from the author's work. I've seen a few cases of obsessive fangirls convincing themselves of something about an anime based on doujinshi and their own preferences, but no one thinking sensibly would do this. This isn't "identity theft". No one is claiming to be the author in question. Fanfic writers do not in any way, shape, or form imply that they have any direct association with the author. In short, there isn't anything at all to support such a hysterically extreme position. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero.

That’s not flattering. That’s insulting. Every fan fiction I’ve read to date, based on my world or any other writer’s world, had focused on changing the writer’s careful work to suit the foible of the fan writer. Romances are invented, gender identities changed, fetishes indulged and endings are altered. It’s not flattery. To me, it is the fan fiction writer saying, “Look, the original author really screwed up the story, so I’m going to fix it. Here is how it should have gone.”
The key words here are "to me". This is a case of an author taking things far too seriously. Our words aren't holy writ. They're stories. They produce reactions. If they don't, in fact, we're failures. Authors who don't produce reactions don't sell many books. It's perfectly natural for a reader who reacts strongly to your writing to do something about it, if they feel at all interested in writing themselves. Some of the reactions will be, um, not for family consumption. Some will be negative -- yes, they ARE basically saying you screwed up. What amazes me is that Robin Hobb acts as though that should be taken seriously. Is there a SINGLE author on the entire planet who has never had a negative review? Is there ANY written work on earth that hasn't been lambasted by someone? I don't think so. Not so long as the written work had more than the writer's ten closest friends as readers, and maybe not even then. SO WHAT? This is one of the most important lessons any published author, or actor, needs to learn: SOME PEOPLE WILL HATE YOUR STUFF. And those inclined to write may REwrite your stuff. I, personally, rewrote a number of classic stories that peeved me, such as "Harrison Bergeron". (personally, I'd call that "anti-fan fic"). And some will honestly want to explore new or different paths. Again... SO WHAT? If they were trying to get it published for money, under YOUR name, that's a problem. But they're not.

Note, also, that even the money question isn't particularly important. In Japan, fanfiction is a major industry -- one that actually has made money for the fanficcers. And one which is watched closely by the regular publishing industry for potential new talents. Which leads us to...

“Fan fiction is a good way for people to learn to be writers.” No. It isn’t.
ACTUALLY, yes, it can be, Robin Hobb. You are wrong. You are completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong. Different people learn the tricks of writing many ways. The most CRUCIAL is to write SOMETHING. Anything. But write. I actually learned a fair number of techniques doing fanfiction with my wife; specifically, if anyone anywhere thinks I can write interesting characters, they can probably credit my fanfic work with teaching me how. A number of other writers, some of them very well known indeed, have "committed fanfiction" in their past, and if it didn't teach them anything it sure as hell didn't HURT.

Fan fiction and copyright.
One subject that Robin almost-sorta gets right. Yes, copyright has NADA to do with money. But infringing is a different issue. You generally can't infringe on COPYRIGHT unless you are copying someone else's stuff directly. What you *CAN* infringe on without doing that is Trademarks. This is a very fuzzy area of law, and the excesses and stupidities of things like the MPAA, RIAA, etc., have just made it fuzzier and more annoying. Bottom line, you may well NOT be infringing on copyright, but that WON'T protect you if some jerk with more money than common sense decides to sue you on it. OTOH, if you play it right, the jerk will lose far more from the bad publicity than they could possibly have lost even if you WERE selling your fanfics for 20 bucks a pop and hitting the NYT bestselller lists.

The other stuff is just more of the same, including the old "why write fanfiction instead of original stuff? It's not creative!" which is an entirely separate line of bullshit. By that standard there's nothing creative in the commercial fanfics, er, Tie In Novels. Sure, some of them might well qualify as Uncreative Stuff. But others are very creative, and in some ways writing in someone else's universe is MORE demanding, because it comes with constraints that your own stuff won't. (Timothy Zahn's contributions to the Star Wars universe were pretty creative within those constraints, IMCGO, and few people have accused Zahn of being UNABLE to write stuff on his own.

The most amusing part of Robin Hobb's rant is the last section, where she basically says "here, write your fanfic, change the names, and publish it!" Yes, really. She changes the order -- i.e., she says to change the names and all before you write it -- but in essence, magically, by taking the exact same characters you would write in your fic, and the exact same situations, and changing the names, she's telling you that suddenly it becomes worthy, creative fiction.

Think about that. I go to write a fanfic about, say, Stargate. This is (quoting Robin again) "UNWORTHY OF ME". So instead, I change the names of the main characters -- Jack becomes John, Daniel becomes Darrin, Samantha becomes Sylvia, and instead of "Stargate" I make it a network of "Portals", and make a different name for the godlike race they're fighting, and suddenly it's Worthy and Creative? Unless I change a lot more than that, I might not even avoid a C&D from Sci-Fi.

The bottom line? An awful lot of stuff published *IS* fanfic. We published authors just filed the serial numbers off better than the average ficcer, and maybe do more crossover fics than they do. Maybe that just makes the average ficcer more HONEST than the authors who take a holier-than-thou position on the subject.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

nycshelly.livejournal.com

I doublechecked my tags and found a post that told me it was the same Robin Hobb rant from sometime last year that I'd already blogged about. Apparently, someone recently discovered it (I think I saw something about it on Whedonesque) and now it's all over the place again. But it helped me find a writer blog I didn't know about (the one I linked to today), so that was cool.

From:

seawasp

.... I've noted that in the edited post now, but the basic idea doesn't change; I presume Ms. Hobb would have deleted the thing if she'd changed her mind on the topic, so the reply is still relevant.

From:

nycshelly.livejournal.com

I agree. I just find it fascinating how things keep coming around as if fresh in the blogosphere. I'll bet Ms. Hobb (aka Ms. Lindholm, aka Ms. Ogden) never bargained on that or how much she'd be vilified for this nonsense of hers.

From:

seawasp

I'll give her this much: she's at least not as much of an obvious hypocrite in denial as Lee Ratner, who as far as I can tell is essentially solely a tie-in novel writer.

From:

nycshelly.livejournal.com

True. And she is a good writer, at least when collaborating with Steven Brust. :)

From:

tekalynn.livejournal.com

Thank you.

From:

seawasp

It's always rather amusing to read these things, but annoying at the same time, because they're so obviously wrong except in the very narrowest and specific areas (i.e., yes, there are ways in which fanfic can be technically illegal. Only an utter idiot would make an issue of it.)

From:

amberdine.livejournal.com

I wonder if it's okay with Ms. Hobb if people imagine things about her characters? What if they make up stories and don't write them down? Write the stories down but not show anyone?

I don't have any interest in writing or reading fanfic, but anyone was ever that into any of my characters: cool!

I think someone is a bit of a control freak.

From:

seawasp

How DARE you imagine her characters doing anything she didn't write! Report for your Brain Adjustment immediately, Citizen.

From:

baronger.livejournal.com

I used to write lots of fanfic in my head. I had a whole set of Pellucidar fan-fics from when I was younger. Thank goodness I never wrote them down, since they were very Mary-sue.

I think one of the ways that fan-fic helps writers is that it gives us stock characters to take on adventures. It also helps to teach people how to keep the characters in character. Instead of a wide open creative space, fan-fic sets boundaries and is actually more challenging to get right then creating your own world.

I know, since that is what frustrated me when I experimented with fan-fic. Suddenly I wanted to color outside of the lines. Right now I'm re-adapting the fanfic I did to fit into my story.

Bottom line: fan-fic=flattery, insult it and you are going to insult your audience which is busy buying your books. Not only that but someone coming across some fan-fic might actually lead more people to reading/buying your books.

From:

nycshelly.livejournal.com

The biggest kick I've ever gotten was to hear folks discussing my characters (in an original spy series published in zines) the same way they would discuss any TV show or movie. It was flattering. The readers of our spy stories even lobby us re: what to do with their favs. And we've written some of them into the stories. One person even wrote a fan fic story with a couple of our characters. We loved it.

From:

ninjarat.livejournal.com

Funny thing is, I'm not much of a Tim Zahn fan. I mean, I've read and enjoyed the Cobra trillogy and the first couple or three Warstrider novels, but his Star Wars novels have been... I dunnow... I just never got into them. On the other hand I really like Brian Daley's Han Solo trillogy and I pull them out every few years to reread.

From:

howardtayler.livejournal.com

The biggest gift I'm given by my fans is when they tell me about how I've captured huge chunks of their imagination. They discuss what my characters, my technologies, my universe would look like in certain situations. And they put at least as much thought into it as I do.

That's a huge amount of trust they're placing in me. And I respect that. If they want to write fanfics, there are a few rules I ask them to abide by (credit me for the Universe, disclaim me for the writing, don't sell it for money) and that's it.

Maybe I'll magically become more anal about this once my first book is out, but I kind of doubt it.

--Howard

From:

seawasp

Of course, I recognized from the get-go that people would imagine my characters and universe in ways I didn't, and possibly in ways that I wouldn't approve of and that turn my stomach even. But if they devote that much effort to it, I have clearly had a strong effect on them, which is what decent writing does. (It may not be one's GOAL to affect others, as noted later on, but if you SELL your stuff it darn well is your effect)

From:

sinanju.livejournal.com

"Hello, everyone. I'm Sinanju, and...I write fanfic."

The idea that fanfic is a crime against the original writer (except, sometimes, in a very technical sense) is a load of crap. If someone cares about your characters or world enough to go to the effort of writing a fanfic, I'd say you achieved your goal as a writer! You've engaged those readers--and very strongly. Isn't that what you hoped to achieve? (Unless it's an anti-fanfic; I confess that I got my start as a fanfic writer doing those. Inconsistent characterizations, convenient bouts of amnesia and rampant stupidity often drove me to write something more palatable for my own amusement.)

As for fanfic sullying your identity...I am aware that paper zines exist, but I've seldom seen them. I read 99.9% of all the fanfic I read online, where it isn't about to be confused with an actual novel or--even more preposterously--confused with a tv show or movie. I very rarely see fics that don't bear prominent disclaimers identifying the source of the original works on which the fic is based.

I like crossover fic. I've (bought and) gotten hooked on original works that I never would have read/watched if I hadn't run into those characters in a fanfic. Fanfic gained the original writer/producers a customer; it emphatically did not COST them one.

From:

brooksmoses

If someone cares about your characters or world enough to go to the effort of writing a fanfic, I'd say you achieved your goal as a writer! You've engaged those readers--and very strongly. Isn't that what you hoped to achieve?

It very well may not be at all what the writer wished to achieve. I know many writers who write because they want to make the characters in their head become real -- or, at least, as real as they can be while still being fictional. Fanfiction undermines that, to some extent, when one is reading it; the reality of the original author's character is being supplanted and replaced (if only for a little while) by the reality of the fanfiction author's warped version of the character.

I do agree that fanfiction is almost certainly a financial and popularity boon to the author. What I don't agree with is arguments that amount to presuming what the author's goals are and then saying that they have no standing to complain about things that support those presumed goals. The author, like any other person, has a right to their own desires, even if we think they're wrongheaded. The legitimacy of doing things counter to those goals (which, for Ms. Hobb, writing fanfic about her works clearly is) can certainly be defensible, but not on a basis of "It's what you ought to want."

From:

seawasp

It very well may not be at all what the writer wished to achieve. I know many writers who write because they want to make the characters in their head become real -- or, at least, as real as they can be while still being fictional. Fanfiction undermines that, to some extent, when one is reading it; the reality of the original author's character is being supplanted and replaced (if only for a little while) by the reality of the fanfiction author's warped version of the character.

Well, that's a perfectly reasonable goal. And in fact it *IS* one of my major goals. But if you're a SALABLE author, you are in fact affecting people directly and quite strongly, and as long as you intend to keep publishing your stuff, you have to accept that this is in fact one of your PRACTICAL if not personal goals.

Insofar as the characters becoming "undermined" when you read the fanfic, then DON'T READ FANFIC BASED ON YOUR OWN STUFF. I don't read stuff that I don't want to read either. It's really not that hard. Even if someone SENT me a fic, I don't have to read it. The delete button is just a click away!

From:

brooksmoses

It's sort of interesting comparing this to

papersky's views on fanfiction and the like -- or, more accurately, my misrememberances of her views; on reviewing of what I could find on Google Groups, I think I'm probably taking her views on the LOTR movies and extrapolating them. So I'll stop attributing this to her, aside from noting the inspiration.

There's a very distinct sense in which fan fiction is an identity theft -- not the identity of the author (as you say, certainly not!), but that of the characters and of the world. Within the context of the fan-fiction, there is someone who is purporting to be the character in question, but almost certainly they are not, or are at least a warped version of same.

This may not matter outside the context of the fan fiction, in the real world. It certainly does not, in my opinion, matter anywhere near enough to merit legal protection against it. But I think it's still a reasonable position to say, "The idea of having my characters doing things that are contrary to how I understand their character is something that's deeply emotionally disturbing to me, and I so would very much rather that people didn't write fanfiction with things I created."

And I think that, if an author has expressed such an opinion, even if they've surrounded it with legalistic bluster that I disagree with, it's still discourteous to ignore such preferences if one knows of them.

(There are a very few authors that I'd choose to be discourteous to, perhaps. But that would turn writing the fanfic into an act of active discourteousness rather than fanfic for its own sake, and that's quite a different thing.)

From:

brooksmoses

Actually, I want to rephrase that. There is a very distinct sense in which fanfiction is an identity appropriation. Whether it is a "theft" or not is debatable; is the work a contribution to the public cultural commons from which others are expected to freely borrow, or is it still something private? (And, because in truth it's some of both, where do the characters fit on that?)

I think that, were I personally to write semi-out-of-character crossover fanfiction with one of

papersky's characters without asking her, it would probably ethically be identity theft, because I believe (perhaps correctly, perhaps not) that this would bother her a great deal. I think that's a matter of courtesy and personal ethics, though, and I definitely would not support giving it any legal basis.

I very much appreciate, however, the fact that

howardtayler and

seawasp have made it clear that this sort of thing doesn't bother them! Thank you.

From:

seawasp

... but I have to disagree, at least in large part. I can perfectly well understand being disturbed or annoyed or angered by the thought of people mangling your characters. Many people are very attached to their characters. I am, in fact, attached quite strongly to a lot of them, but I'm a sufficiently arrogant bastard that I will simply mock anyone who gets them wrong, rather than feel as though someone has done something terrible to ME.

However, once you throw your characters out into the open, you should recognize that people *WILL* be doing that kind of thing. It's not a MATTER of whether they "should" or "shouldn't". I would certainly encourage you to say "Please do not tell me about the fanfics you write", but trying to stop people from writing them is not only doomed to failure, it can backfire on you if you try to push it. It's a bad mistake. The worst impressions I've gotten that were associated with fanfic weren't of the "one-handed fic" authors, or the slashficcers, or the mega-crossovers, or the Mary Sues; it's of the companies or individuals who went raving bugzerk over this really harmless amusement, biting the hands that were feeding them.

I can see not LIKING people to do fanfic, but not making an issue of it. The same basic offense, from my point of view, exists in people who misinterpret your work's meaning or your characters' purposes -- and this is an established branch of scholarly endeavor. People WILL misinterpret your work. I can see publicly mocking their incompetence and inability to understand your material, if that floats your boat, but not trying to forbid them from doing it in the first place. After all, they'll still be THINKING it, won't they?

From: (Anonymous)

I'm a poor wayfaring wanderer who just read Boundary and stumbled in here. I don't write fanfic, though occasionally I' been tempted. As it is I never seem to get past writing the middle my stories anyway. I would like to point out that the entire concept of "identity" misappropriation actually hinges on a fallacy, which is that the author created a "thing," that because a book is an object, then so to must be the ideas in the text within. In fact, the act of reading is a essentially a dialog between the reader and the book. As a reader, you can never read a book "as the author wrote it." For better or worse, the entire text is reinterpreted by the reader. A good writer is inducing the reader to make a creative act by engaging with the book. In doing that though, the writer is engaging the reader's imagination and persuading them to literally create the context of the story. The author creates a framework upon which the reader paints in a backdrop that puts the story in to a "real" context for the reader. A good writer actively engages the reader's imagination and has the reader do a good deal of creative work guided by the material the writer provides. Engaging work like Dune or The Last Hot Time offers an array of subtle detail that is there solely for the reader's mind to create with. In effect, just reading a story can be regarded as creating "fanfic."

JD

From:

chaotic-nipple.livejournal.com

I'm pretty sure that was her at Dragon-Con a few years ago, saying that the Baen Free Library was somehow hurting authors and publishers that didn't choose to make some of their works available free of charge. :-P

From:

brooksmoses

Well, of course it does. Effective competition does that. ;)

From:

kengr

While the MPAA & co are confusing thijngs with regards to copyright, fanfic usually infringes on the "derivative works" right that is one of the many rights lumped together as copyright.

Basically, if you wouldn't have written it if the other work hadn't existed, it's a derivative work. And this *may* infringe.

Fanfic can also clash with another right I can't recal the proper name for, but that basically amounts to "artistic integrity". Thatr's what lets an author stop someone from turning his work into a porno flick or the like (and if a certain director hadn't bought the filn rights, would have let Virginia Heinlein stop "Starship Troopers" from being released under that name).

In essence, if the work would damage the marketability of yourt work or twist is severely out of shape, you can try suing.

Of course, Parody is exempt. If you can afford to defend yourself.

BTW, Bujold's first book "The Warrior's Apprentice" is supposed to have been a fan-fic that she was encouraged to file the serial numbers off of.

From:

gareth-wilson.livejournal.com

Bujold's first book "The Warrior's Apprentice" is supposed to have been a fan-fic that she was encouraged to file the serial numbers off of.

Not quite. She thought up a Star Trek fanfic scenario with the same basic idea, but she never actually wrote anything until she changed it to an original setting.

From:

seawasp

...she got to the point that it was a developed enough scenario that it's a fairly well-known fact even today. She was CLEARLY conspiring to commit fanfic!

From:

seawasp

Which is why I said "you may not" be infringing. You CAN infringe, but there's no certainty that every fanfic, or even most fanfics, would be infringing on copyright. (TRADEMARK is a whole different matter. If you write a story with Captain Kirk in it, you've infringed on their trademark. In fact, I think *I* just infringed on it, because I didn't write Captain Kirk(TM Paramount) or whatever the proper usage is.

From:

count-zeroor.livejournal.com

The article you talk about got mentioned on Whedonesque, a Joss Whedon site that frequented by The Boss. Joss doesn't weigh in on this particular post though, but it still bears reading. Also, there is mention by posters of The Grantsville Gazette, and how its existance helps defeat her arguement.

As it is, I am semi-guilty of writing possibly bad fan-fic. A friend and I wrote an ultra-Mary Sue Crossover fan fic series when we were in High School. The series featured most of the major members members of the school's anime club and crossed over with a lot of other anime series. Lime from Saber Marionette J and Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII (although he was played as a parody of bishounen pretty-boys - being followed around by a horde of fan-girls and excessively vein about his hair) were among the cross-over characters who played major roles. It started out, mostly, as a bunch of gag stories, but when I came in I kind of introduced an story arc to each season, basically going down to:

Season 1: Jerry Fallwell (or, to be more accurate, a caracture thereof) decides to declare a war on Anime, and chooses to start with our Anime Club. Fallwell is portrayed as a bumbling not-so-brilliant evil mastermind ala Dr. Forrester from MST3K. Ultimatly, he is repulsed, and his patron decides to take charge. The two "original" charcters of this season were Guido and Vinnie, two mobsters from a New York Mafia family, who were attached to us after Fallwell tried to join/take over the Mob (a task which he didn't quite understand the scope of) through subterfuge, and was almost clipped by being fitted for cement boots and dumped in the East River. We arrived and in the confusion Fallwell ended up in the East River anyway but was rescued. None of us, however, knew that, and through a reasoning I don't quite remember, one of the members of the Anime Club (who shall referred to as "Brian"), became a Made Guy, and Guido and Vinnie were made subordinate to him.

Season 2: The next season we introduced perhaps wour third original character, Lord Kylar Daas, galactic warlord, who was out to conquer Earth primarly because it was in his arc of advance. Daas was actually competant, and, although we didn't actually have any art of him, I imagined him as looking like Cats from Zero Wing without the cybernetics (that would wait for season 3). This season moved the Anime Club's base of operation from the school's theater to one of the school's modular buildings (as it did in real life), and added an vast under-ground base of operations, which housed all of our mechs and space craft. This season also had the anime club actually nearing defeat, and culumnated to the club being "publically outed", and a vast assault on Daas's hidden base on the moon (a slight nod to the one of the few bits I actually liked about the original Power Ranger - Rita's base on, presumably, the moon), with forces from all the across the world, in Battlemechs and with an infantry assault of the main base (in a nod to "Space: Above and Beyond", the infantry were carried into the base in the semi-drop ships from that series).

Season 3: Never really happened, but would have involved the formation of SG-42, which the Anime Club would have been placed in charge of, based out of Daas's old moon base, using a Stargate which he had in his control, which seemingly connected to an enterly different network. Would have included crossovers to The Slayers, Record of Lodoss War, and further crossovers to Saber Marionette J. The original characters for this season would have included three SAS squads attached lead by Sergents (sp) Winkyn, Blinkyn and Nod.

And the point of this is - over the three years of writing that series (and trying to put out one "issue" per month for the Anime Club), I would like to think my prose writing style improved greatly. While I haven't written any more fanfic quite yet (though I have a few ideas bounsing around in my head), I think I am a better writer, and better at plotting out, well, plot lines, because of it.

From:

seawasp

Not only did I learn a lot about character portrayal in the fanfic I wrote with Kathleen; I also learned a lot about style and tone, because we set out to write the different fics with deliberately different tones. "Cry Wolf!" was deliberately overwritten Gothic/Universal Pictures horror. "Wild Card" was more standard superheroes. "Snow Queen" was a deliberate riff on the original. "Starpower" was a classic 50s Mad Scientist movie.

From:

kgbooklog.livejournal.com

Personally, I mostly agree with Robin (though I'll say fanfic is okay so long as it's kept private). And I'll point out that you skimmed the first sentence where she admits to being irrational on the subject (in fact, she prefers people use this link to emphasize the point), and that she uses the term "fanfic" to just mean works by writers who don't have permission to use the setting/characters.

It's her opinions (note the complete lack of legal bluster), you're entitled to find it ludicrous. I myself laughed long and hard at this claim that fanfic helps to teach writers how to stay in character.

As for fanfic as promotion, didn't you (Sea Wasp) claim elsewhere that there's no such thing as bad publicity? I bet more people have heard of Robin because of this rant than would have from fanfic.

Finally, for every reasonably intelligent person like Wasp who criticizes her, five people like Sarah show up in her personal newsgroup. And that's the face of fanfiction she sees.

From:

seawasp

1) I didn't skim. I noted that. However, she still posted it and left it up. If I post my unstable rantings and leave them publicly available, I can't be surprised if people comment on them. Right?

2) There's some legal bluster RE copyright infringement, which is in fact the least of any ficcer's worries. Trademark, now, that's a suit of a different lawyer.

3) I never made any claim that my critiquing her opinions would hurt her sales. In fact, I'd be terribly upset to think it would. I'm sure she HAS sold more books due to the rant (despite huffily offended ficcers deciding they will NEVER buy That Woman's Books Again) and its subsequent publicity.

4) Sure, there's plenty of bad fanfic. There's plenty of bad NormalFic, too. And bad author wannabees. Editors have horror stories of serious author-wannabees (and sometimes actual published authors) which match ANYTHING a raging fangirl can manage. The reason we don't think of "real fiction" as being as on-average bad as fanfiction is simple: "real fiction" is filtered, usually. If you could filter out the 9/10ths of the worst fanfiction, you'd probably find the remainder was about on a level with other areas of writing. In other words, still 9/10ths drek.

From:

shana.livejournal.com

Well since my character is going to be canon...

From:

seawasp

That's how one saves oneself from Evil Mary Sue Fanfiction; get the writer to put the character in himself!

From:

shana.livejournal.com

Bwah ha ha!

From:

kjn

Heh. I guess I can say that I'm guilty of provoking this particular rant.

Back when Robin Hobb was GoH at Fantastika 2001 in Stockholm, I conceived of the idea of having the programme item "Writers and their electronic fans", with me, Robin Hobb and Robert Rankin (who didn't show up for this particular item, for reasons I won't go into here). Late in the conversation, I'd reached the end of my prepared list of questions, and asked about fanfic.

To her credit, she kept calm, but she certainly made her feelings known ("I hate it. I absolutely hate it"). One way and another, this little tidbit ended up in several con reports, and spawned a large discussion on the discussion board she had at the time, so after a month or so she promised to write up something more coherent and lasting.

Also, a note of order about Lois Bujold. While it's true that the first germ of Shards of Honor was a fanfic, it basically only extended to the first few chapters of the book, ie the trek over net-yet-Sergyar.

From:

seawasp

You're the culprit.

I admit to being far too amused by the subject; I am always tempted to post something about it to trigger rabid responses. Thus far it should be noted that my fanfic production still considerably outweighs my published production, and probably will even after the two contracted sequels to Boundary. So I'd be really, REALLY hypocritical to turn around and condemn it.

I will state publicly, however, that any fanfic written in MY universe/using my characters is potentially offering me your concepts. You may play in my literary yard, but I reserve the right to record your play and use it for my own personal monetary benefit.

This specifically to counteract the MZB and other related experiences; it's *MY* multiverse. You can play in it, but it's still mine, and I can do whatever I like with it.

From: (Anonymous)

Having asked multiple authors about the subject for the Baen's Bar FAQs, that could be a good public statement. However, based on the responses from those authors (Weber, in particular, iirc), you could be setting yourself up for a copyright infringement suit. Someone could accuse you of "stealing" their concepts, even though it IS your multiverse. >:p

Silverdrake

From:

seawasp

I'll risk it; I would like to think that if I'm generally friendly to my fans they'll generally treat me as if I'm a decent guy.

I'll also, if sued, do my best to castigate, humiliate, dishonor, and crush the suing party, and do so in a manner that is publicly amusing. Even if they win, I assure you, they will lose. Oh yes.