McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Fanfic richer or poorer?

<< < (10/15) > >>

Antimatter Girl:

--- Quote from: LizW65 on March 17, 2008, 08:39:57 PM ---My personal attitude is "Why write about someone else's characters and universe when it's so much more rewarding to create you own?"
--- End quote ---

Erm...haven't read the whole thread, so I don't know if anyone else has addressed it, but simply put: because the authors of said fanfic don't find it more rewarding to come up with original material. You might think it is, but what is considered fun and rewarding varies greatly from individual to individual. Personally, I like to come up with original characters in a pre-existing world; then again, my "fanfic" writing has always been a component of my RPG groups, so I'm a little skewed.

But yeah. That's what I like to do. Do I plan on coming up with my own worlds and playgrounds some time down the road and writing about them? Yup, sure do, but not everyone is an aspiring author. Some folks just like writing fanfic. So, as long as these people are doing something they find fun and enjoyable, and are of no harm to anyone's intellectual property, what's the big deal? Let 'em write and share, and you can just sit back and laugh and/or shudder at the twisted minds that think it would be neat if Kirk and Spock got together.

Oh, and a note about Star Trek novels...an excellent example of how fanfic can be legal and profitable. Some RPGs I've played in have even accepted some of them as canon -- New Frontier, to be precise, but I'd also make the case for actor authored books such as The 34th Rule and A Stitch In Time. Then there's the whole Extended Universe novels in the Star Wars franchise, and, well, just about any RPG that's ever been created for any other franchise, including The Dresden Files. The only difference between a bunch of people playing with character sheets and dice and fanfic writers is that the RPG people generally don't transcribe what happens in play sessions into story format :P

Antimatter Girl:
Okay, now I have read the whole thread, and I think I see where you guys are coming from. The problem is, you're not necessarily seeing where the fanfic writers are coming from.

I do not hang out in fanfic circles, just Star Trek RPG circles, but I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of fanfic writers don't intend to make any sort of profit off their writings. The ones who do (and I have seen them, at conventions, with really scary pictures of Kirk and Spock doing questionable things with their shirts off) deserve to have the book thrown at them, because they are profiting off of something to which they do not own the copyright.

But for all the folks out there who write about what Harry Potter did between Potions and Herbology and then say, "Hey guys in this fanfic community, look at what I just wrote!" -- they aren't breaking any laws, aren't at risk of causing J.K. Rowling any trouble, and are most likely such bad writers to begin with that no one outside of their particular community will ever give a damn. But hey, they're having fun and expressing their fandom in their own way, and maybe practicing writing regularly like that will make them better writers who can actually string a coherent sentence together. Or not. Who cares?

Just because it exists doesn't mean you have to read it, or appreciate it. But I would encourage people to accept that it does exists and that people do derive a form of enjoyment from it, and as long as they aren't violating any laws by trying to profit from it, then leave them be.

Noey:

--- Quote from: Antimatter Girl on March 20, 2008, 11:34:07 AM ---Just because it exists doesn't mean you have to read it, or appreciate it. But I would encourage people to accept that it does exists and that people do derive a form of enjoyment from it, and as long as they aren't violating any laws by trying to profit from it, then leave them be.

--- End quote ---

I see what you're saying, and I agree with you to a point. I do the same RPG stuff you do, so believe me I get where you're coming from there. I think our opinions differ a bit in that I think there is some difference between RPG fic, which is based on a game that actively encourages people to make up their own stories in the game setting, and fanfic that's based on something that doesn't have a RPG. For example, a Dresden Files RPG group might publish their stories in a LiveJournal community for fun and amusement, and I don't think that Evil Hat would have a problem with that as long as game mechanics aren't published. That's what the game system is there for, after all. A series of Codex Alera stories, however, would be different because it's not meant to be used the same way a game system is meant to be used.

So, with that said, I do admit I play around in the sandboxes of others, RPG and otherwise, because it is very much fun. No argument there at all. The only thing is, I don't publish it because I don't want to cause problems for the authors. I have two major reasons. Of course if it's an RPG, the rules are bendable: 

I want to support my fandom. I don't read the work of other people or publish my own, because there's already works out there by the original author. That's the main focus, and that's how it should be.

Allowing fanfic makes it okay for others to make this particular work their own. If the author leaves it alone, then when he does need to defend his copyright in court the fact that he didn't zealously protect the intellectual copyright here makes it more difficult to justify to a judge the defense of intellectual copyright there. It's already hard enough to defend copyright without leaving any room for weakness in the argument.

I'm not calling fanfic writers bad people, and I'm not saying they can't be as creative or insightful as any other writer when the talent is there. I just think that we need to keep a sense of perspective and remember, it's not ours. We can talk about it, obsess over it, create multiple threads, dream up alternate stories, and discuss the villain's hair color at length but at the end of the day it belongs to the original person who thought of it, put in the massive hours of work to bring it to the public, and deserves the recognition.

In other news, run-on sentences are my bestest of friends.  ;D

Matrix Refugee (formerly Morraeon):
If I remember correctly, Japan is as fanfic-friendly as you can get. There's a whole slew of manga artists/authors there who got started in the craft by writing fan-manga (called doujinshi, I think) based off other people's work. I know of a few people who avoid the whole question of copyright infringement by writing fanfic based only on stuff created in Japan.

Yeratel:

--- Quote from: MonaLS on March 20, 2008, 05:17:06 AM ---Sorry for sounding ignorant, but what is slash?

--- End quote ---
It's homosexual porn in fan fiction. It's called that because fans use a forward slash symbol "/" to denote the relationship, like Kirk/Spock, instead of an ampersand symbol denoting conventional relationships, like Aragorn & Arwen. 

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page