Comments on fanfic...

[fajrdrako]

One thing Lev Grossman's article did was get people talking about fanfic, at least within fandom. Which is a good thing; I think we should do it more often.

Fans seem to be much less defensive about fanfic these days, and that's good in many ways. In the distant past, we didn't need to be defensive because we were so hidden: if you knew about us, you were one of us. And woe betide anyone who betrayed the secrets of the sanctum to the outside world.

Then it became an open secret, an island of both pride and paranoia surrounded by either indifference or hostility. And now... well. It's an open secret with less shame and less paranoia necessary.

Pim sent me a link to a discussion of the Grossman article on Metafilter. I found myself wanting to comment on their comments, so here I am.

• The very first comments: Grossman said, Is art about making up new things or about transforming the raw material that's out there? to which DU replied, "Transforming raw materials IS making up new things." Which is true, but somewhat misses the point. The 'raw material' of any kind of writing isn't ideas, it's words.
  
  We all know that in the wide world of popular entertainment, there are lines you cannot cross: you can steal plots, ideas, themes, concepts, and so on, but you can't use the same names, you have to file off the identifying markers - unless you can prove "fair use" or buy in on the copyright.
  
  Which is to say that there are two entirely different things going on: (1) art, which is anarchic and wild and unpredictable and makes no bones about building on anything it finds, and nothing is untouchable; and (b) law, which governs the entertainment industry, which is all about playing it safe and making money for corporate creativity.
  
  Now, I've always believed that fanfic (and fannishness in general) is something the big companies and copyright holders should love: it's free advertising, it creates and extends the market, it whips up enthusiasm and keeps the story alive. It doesn't matter what medium the story is in, or whether it's current or ancient history. The Iliad still lies because people love it. Same with Buffy or ... whatever.
  
  From the comments and quotes, I guess that the psychological problem remains most strongly with the creators who are not in corroborative media like television or comics, where it takes a team to produce a story, whoever originated it, and where the copyright is not usually with an individual. So the people quoted as criticizing fanfic most strongly (LeGuin, Martin, Card) are those writers who write from a deep inner core and feel possessive of their creations: they fear being violated. Understandable, but neither rational nor fair. (Card, being notoriously homophobic, could not be expected to approve a type of fiction that includes slash.)
  
  It isn't that imitation is the highest form of flattery. It's that if someone wants to work with something an author has written, it's that it has sparked their imagination, their heart, and their enthusiasm. Once it's in their minds and hearts, it belongs to them, too - not in the same way it belongs to its creator, but in a way that's theirs, and has its own validity.
  
  This is not something an author should mind. The alternative is to write dead prose. Once you've written something, it's out there, and no longer yours to control.
  
  
• These were homages to Star Trek, but at the same time they were critiques: I love the show, but what if it went further? What happens if I press this big, shiny, red button that says 'Do not press'? True, but I think this implies what has been called the transgressional nature of fandom, which I think is somewhat irrelevant: the point is that people use fic to expand on what's there, good or bad, and to express their own ideas, rather than for shock value, or to make changes in the cannon just for the sake of making changes - though I can see why it might look like that to an outsider.
  
  
• The funniest line in the forum: The mention of Biblefic reminds me: is God/Jesus/Holy Ghost OT3 incestfic or masturbationfic? But written, I think, by someone who has never read Biblefic and doesn't quite get the point. Or who gets it, but isn't letting that get in the way of a good line.
  
  
• IndigoJones (clearly one of those unfamiliar with fanfic and suspicious of it) asks, So do these writers tend to ape the literary style of the loved ones as well as the characters? Genuine question. Proving he's missed the point: whether a fan writer copies the style of the original writer or writers is generally irrelevant to the fandom. I'd say the answer is, sometimes they do, but usually not. A fan writer is more likely to imitate the tone of the original, but not necessarily: they transform the material by rewriting it in their own voice.
  
  Contributing to this is the fact that you often, or usually, have a change of form. If I'm writing fic about Bodie and Doyle, I'm taking characters from television and putting them in a written story. I'm not trying to make my own TV show. And most fanfic is based on visual media.
  
  Another point is: if you try to copy a style not your own, it often comes across as parody. And our intention, usually, is to enhance a source, not to mock it.
  
  
• Asperity said, Sure, fanfiction's unfairly stigmatized by its worst elements, but so's romance. (And for a lot of the same reasons, i.e., girl cooties.) I think this is a point often ignored: most fanfic is by and for women, and this makes it both baffling and threatening to many men. Too emotional? Too spontaneous? Too weird?
  
  I think much of the fanfiction is bad crowd are simply saying, "I don't like it, therefore it shouldn't exist."
  
  I think those voices are getting weaker with time.
  
  
• Weird that Pastabagel seems to think that Time_Warner or Grossman might find profit from ingratiating themselves with fic writers. WTF? I can't even get my mind around that idea, or think what might lie behind it. I can only imagine that Pastabagel thinks fanfic is so bad that anyone who calls it, or any part of it, "brilliant", must have a secret agenda.
  
  
• Astro Zombie says, ...The future of the arts is going to be defined by borrowing from the vernacular. Interesting. I don't think this is so much a shift in creative expression, but in the many ways we now have to share our creative expression. Our singsongs around the campfire, our spontaneous jokes, our drawings and musings can all be shared online. And what is shared, expands.
  
  I am reminded of the things Peter Wingfield said at Torchsong: he believes that movie-making will shift from being the preserve of big companies to being something anyone with inspiration and a some money can do themselves.
  
  
• Effugas said: I'm not sure free speech means anything if such writing were made illegal. Yeah! You tell 'em!
  
  
• I laughed at John Scalzi's comment on his own novel.
  
  
• I was amused too by Mooseli's anti-fic comment, do whatever you want to do to get yourself off, man, but please don't hurt any actual animals and -- PLEASE -- do not talk to me about it. If he really wants to avoid the topic, why is he reading Grossman's article and why is he posting to a forum talking about it? Someone put a gun to his head?
  
  I liked immlass's indirect response: You don't have to like it, but the sneering generally says more about the sneerers than it does about the people having fun doing it.
  

I think there are some key points about fanfiction that are generally avoided in these conversations, so here I go:

1. With fanfiction, there are no rules. Fanfic doesn't necessarily break the rules, it ignores them. This seems threatening to many, who like to see the rules followed - rules of grammar or style, or of copyright, or of what's appropriate to write about.
   
   
2. With fanfiction, people write what they desire. Freedom of expression all the way. One person's taste is not another person's taste; one person's kink is not another person's kink. A lot of people confuse taste with quality. (I have done it myself.) Fandom is huge, and each fannish work comes from the mind of its individual creator - much more than anything in the public world of published or broadcast works, where everything has multiple writers, producers, and editors. There is infinite diversity there. Generalizations generally don't fit.
   
   
3. The gender issue: Most people who write fanfic are women. Most people who attack fanfic are men. I can't prove this, but it has been my observation. Another facet of the gender wars.
   
   
4. Fanfic is the result of global communication and globally shared culture. We can watch television from one pole to the other; we can share our fic wherever we have computer access. This didn't invent fandom, but it make it expand and explode in every direction.
   
   
5. The economic issue: Because fan writers don't do it for profit, because corporate law has tied the concepts of profit and creativity together, because corporations have the crazy idea that they can use the law to control people's imaginations - they think fanfic is a threat to them. It is not. The smart ones have figured this out.
   
   
6. Fandom is not just an individual creative expression, but a tight, evolving community - or series of communities. As much a social movement as a literary phenomenon.
   
   
7. Fanfic means a lot to those who produce and read it. It isn't trivial, it isn't casual, it isn't a substitute for something else. It has a value of its own.