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*sigh* Wow, this got REALLY long.
May. 5th, 2010 09:29 amLet me start this by saying, I LOVE the Outlander books. So much, that reading DG's recent post about the moral evils of fanfiction, kind of hurt. Now, to be fair, the impetus for her post was a young woman auctioning off a to-be-written fic specifically involving James Fraser (of Gabaldon's series) with proceeds from the auction to go to help another young woman (who I assume is a member of fandom) in her fight against breast cancer.
This hits that legal infringement area of making actual money from fanfiction. I've seen references to fandom auctions for charity before. Larger scale, 'go bid here on a fic from me in any of the fandoms I write', sort of things. And if memory serves, the money in these cases never actually touches the fic writer - it's all donated straight to charity and the writer writes their fic, or makes their vid to the donator's request. So...I don't know. On the one hand, good cause. On the other, technically it kind of does cross that whole money line.
But that bit about the girl and the auction is all the way at the end of DG's post. The rest of it lists what she sees as the most common fic writer arguments for writing fic, and then she argues against each point. And reading them, I felt a little insulted. It seems pretty common that those authors who intensely dislike fanfiction tend to have very little understanding, or real knowledge of what fandom is and why people are part of it. They take offense at what they see as infringing on their property, and stealing their characters. In this case, she seems equally as offended by BAD fic writing as she does by the actual existence of the fic in the first place, which is...I don't even know what to say about that.
There are plenty of published authors these days who were at one time, or in some cases still are, active parts of fandom. Naomi Novik, a best seller like Gabaldon, is probably one of the best known and most active. I come across articles like the post linked above, and it feels like that POV on the subject of fanfic is antiquated, and hopelessly ignorant of what fic writing really is, and why people do it.
I have talked before about things I've learned about writing from writing fanfic, and I'm sure I've covered my overall thoughts on fanfic and the morality of it (since I write it myself, those opinions should be fairly obvious), but after reading a post that so obviously loathes it by an author I have always respected, and whose writing I adore...well, I just can't let it go. I feel like I have to offer a countering view.
( More behind the cut )
This hits that legal infringement area of making actual money from fanfiction. I've seen references to fandom auctions for charity before. Larger scale, 'go bid here on a fic from me in any of the fandoms I write', sort of things. And if memory serves, the money in these cases never actually touches the fic writer - it's all donated straight to charity and the writer writes their fic, or makes their vid to the donator's request. So...I don't know. On the one hand, good cause. On the other, technically it kind of does cross that whole money line.
But that bit about the girl and the auction is all the way at the end of DG's post. The rest of it lists what she sees as the most common fic writer arguments for writing fic, and then she argues against each point. And reading them, I felt a little insulted. It seems pretty common that those authors who intensely dislike fanfiction tend to have very little understanding, or real knowledge of what fandom is and why people are part of it. They take offense at what they see as infringing on their property, and stealing their characters. In this case, she seems equally as offended by BAD fic writing as she does by the actual existence of the fic in the first place, which is...I don't even know what to say about that.
There are plenty of published authors these days who were at one time, or in some cases still are, active parts of fandom. Naomi Novik, a best seller like Gabaldon, is probably one of the best known and most active. I come across articles like the post linked above, and it feels like that POV on the subject of fanfic is antiquated, and hopelessly ignorant of what fic writing really is, and why people do it.
I have talked before about things I've learned about writing from writing fanfic, and I'm sure I've covered my overall thoughts on fanfic and the morality of it (since I write it myself, those opinions should be fairly obvious), but after reading a post that so obviously loathes it by an author I have always respected, and whose writing I adore...well, I just can't let it go. I feel like I have to offer a countering view.
( More behind the cut )
