Ficcing and Hypocrisy

[angiepen]

owlmoose wrote a meta post talking about getting ideas from other people's fic. At one point she said:

So I don't see how anyone who writes fanfic can object when someone looks at a story she's written and says "I want to see more" or "I wonder if I could take it in this other direction?" Because that's what she did when she wrote her fic in the first

Comments

[therosewilde]

I think you're right about taking it as a compliment. Sometimes it's all you can do. Money Can't, even as an unfinished thing, ended up with two other people writing about it. One, you've seen, I loved - what she wrote tallies with the world as I built it, her characters (which are OCs in my world) are well developed... I love it.

The other? She took my main character, wrote a thinly veiled version of herself, and put them together. She argued with me about the laws of the world, and since they didn't fit her plot, completely altered them. I hated it, the writing, the character mangling, everything.

But you know what? The fact remains that she liked my world and my characters, or what she took from them, enough to want to do something with it. And that is a very big compliment. So I just step back and go "OK, write what you want just like I am.

[angiepen]

Exactly. [nod] There's that core of compliment, even if we don't appreciate the execution as much as we might. :/

And even if it's not -- even if someone took, say, Hidden Magic and thought, "Man, that sucks! I can do a better job with that story concept than Angie did!" and writes their own version, it's still not something I can really gripe about. Unless they lift actual lines from my stories, it's not plagiarism. And it's not as though I invented the urban fantasy genre, or even the idea of "people protecting the world from the supernatural forces in an urban fantasy setting."

I can't think of any example of fiction which isn't derivative of something. Often of several somethings. Which is actually a discussion it's possible to have -- that Story Q isn't very admirable because it's extremely derivative of Story P (without being a sequel or an acknowledged ficcing of it.) That still doesn't make it plagiarism, but we might have some uncomplimentary things to say about Story Q's writer and her/his lack of originality or

[therosewilde]

Yes, exactly - the people who do just file it down, you just have to shake their head and pity them - they haven't produced their own work at all, so any praise they do get isn't due to them. And I can't understand what people get out of that.

[I will not think of Alan and rabbits. In any context. He does not need to be dressed up as a magician, no matter how good he'd look in black silk.]

And you're right on the "don't steal my ideeeeeeeeeeas" thing - it's very, very, very unlikely that what someone comes up with hasn't been written before, in some way. The challenge is to put it in an interesting way, that makes it somehow different to other treatments of that idea.

[angiepen]

[Alan doesn't need a rabbit -- he has Azzy. ;) Although now that you've mentioned it, I've got to work him into a tux at some point, just because you're right, he would look good in it. [squee!]]

The challenge is to put it in an interesting way, that makes it somehow different to other treatments of that idea.

Exactly. [nod] If they do that, then bonus -- it's probably a good fic. If not, then they lose and they've only hurt themselves doing it.

Angie

[gillyp]

I'd just *love* it if someone wanted to fic my fic. I might not like the result, I might very well loathe the result, but the idea that someone could be so inspired by something I'd written that they felt the need to create new stories based on my creation would thrill me to my core.

And since my fanfic is a response to the inspiration of the writing and performances of others, I'd say I'd have no grounds for complaint if others felt similarly motivated by a story of mine.

All hypothetical, of course, since no one (so far as I'm aware) has ever ficced my fic, more’s the pity. (o:

[angiepen]

I agree that it'd be pretty cool. [nodnod] I mean, not like that one girl I mentioned above did it [cough] but just a general sequel/fic sort of thing, you know? Like, going back to Hidden Magic since I was using it as an example talking to Jack up above, if someone wrote the story of how Johnny and Karl got together, or how Eric joined Alan's Sentinel team, or what actually happened between Willoin and King Pelamin that pissed Willoin off so badly -- basic fanfic-type stories. I might or might not agree that what another writer guessed agrees with the canon in my head about how it "really" happened, but it'd be a lot of fun to read someone else's take on it. :D

Angie

[lothy]

I agree.

I think the only reason I'd suggest that people don't go round writing fanfic of people's fics without their permission is that on the net it can turn into a serious wank, and it's just not worth it

[lothy]

...that said, I do think I was stupid in writing that fic without waiting for her reply, since I'd asked for permmission in the first place. Impatience is not a virtue ;) Well, I learned from my mistake.

[angiepen]

True -- since you did ask, you probably should've waited for an answer. :/ But without knowing exactly what that single concept was, I still tend to lean in the direction that you shouldn't have needed permission in the first place, especially if you weren't even writing in the same fandom. [sigh]

At least you ended up with a better fic after. :)

Angie

[angiepen]

The social ramifications are the only reason I'd refrain from posting a recognizable fic of someone's story without their permission. [nod] I don't think there's anything wrong with ficcing someone's fanfic, but the whiners seem to hold the upper hand right now in fanfic fandom and the snark and flaming just wouldn't be worth it. And I resent that -- not only because there are worlds I'd love to play in (hypothetically, in all my spare time [cough]) but also because there are most likely other writers out there who are also refraining for social reasons, and chances are good that some of those never-to-be-written stories would've really rocked. I'll never get to read them and that sucks. :(

Angie

Angie

[jenlynn820]

I can see your point. When you're writing fanfic (especially FPS I'd imagine) based on other works and then don't want other fans to do the same with your work it can be viewed as hypocritical.

That said, I'd be one of those people getting upset if someone started taking characters and situations from my stories and started writing their own fics in that world. If that makes me a hypocrite and unenlightened so be it.

[angiepen]

To my knowledge, you only write RPS, though, and I think that makes a difference. If you were writing more traditional fanfic based on books or movies or a TV series, and then griping when people ficced your stories, that'd be hypocritical. But if you're not doing it yourself, then complaining when people do it to you isn't hypocritical. I personally still don't think there's much point to that sort of complaint, for reasons I've discussed above in both my original post and in other comments, but at least you're not being inconsistent nor trying to apply a double standard, so that's cool.

I'm assuming, by the way, that when you say "my characters" you mean either OCs like Lilly, or a specific and detailed AU version of a celeb character. I mean, anyone can write about Orlando but the version of Orlando who's Lilly's daddy, for example, with all the details about his life and his character intact, is arguably an OC with a familiar name and face and can be considered to be yours for purposes of complaining about poachers.

Angie

[jenlynn820]

I have written FPS. Aragorn/Legolas and also more recently I wrote a story based on Elizabethtown with Drew Baylor and Viggo's character from A Walk on the Moon. And where I think anyone can write fanfics about those two characters if they'd like, I know it would bother me if someone just picked up where I left off even if I don't have the right to feel that way. I wasn't disagreeing with you, just saying that I can understand why people would get upset

[angiepen]

I think people that would get upset, even if it is hypocritical are just having a reaction that is personal because it is now happening to them and it isn't easy to seperate that from what might what a logical reaction would be.

I'm not really talking about how people would feel though. I absolutely understand feeling hurt or angry or whatever. I wasn't exagerating when I said I was furious at that girl twenty years ago -- my initial reaction was cussing and thoughts of violence. :P But there's a difference between how you feel inside and how you behave where it shows. And there's a difference between not liking something and expecting the rest of the world not to do it just because you don't like it.

I'm not faulting people for how they feel about something. Feelings are personal -- we can't help them nor should we have to try. But outward behavior is very much controllable.

Angie

[giandujakiss]

Hi! Here through metafandom, and totally agree. I had several posts on this a while back, and managed to start a fight in Starsky & Hutch fandom over it. People insisted that they would be hurt if someone took their stories and turned them into something they don't like - which I get, but I don't think that makes it unethical to do - I'm sure plenty of prowriters are hurt when we slash their favorite heterosexual characters, for instance.

I was told that in some fandoms, "riffing" other people's stories is actually quite common - in Pros fandom, it happens all the time. Different fandoms have different norms.

[angiepen]

Hi and welcome! [wave]

And yes, it's amazing to me how many people just don't get it, or don't realize that they're bitching someone out for doing exactly what they themselves are doing to some professional writer. [sigh] And it's not just a matter of stopping and thinking and smacking yourself in the forehead or anything, because plenty of people, even after having it explained, still think it's fine for them to do it to Jane Prowriter but sucky and rude for someone else to do it to them. :/

I can get people not liking it too. I certainly didn't like it when that girl did it to me. But my liking or not liking a particular instance of being ficced has nothing to do with the general principle.

People insisted that they would be hurt if someone took their stories and turned them into something they don't like - which I get, but I don't think that makes it unethical to do - I'm sure plenty of prowriters are hurt when we slash their favorite heterosexual characters, for instance.Exactly. Why is that so hard to understand? [