Alright, fine, I'm going to write my piece.
I was staying informed but uninvolved in all of the wank surrounding Diana Gabaldon's mess of opinions on fanfic and her subsequent posts. I thought it was fascinating to watch, but everyone else was saying everything much more eloquently than I could. But then, George R. R. Martin had to go and get himself involved and now I just feel like ranting.
I've been sick of George R. R. Martin for awhile now, I never should have started reading his blog in the first place because he always just comes across as a pompous ass. (And yes, I know that he is not my bitch.) But I love his world, and his characters, and I wanted to keep in touch with them in whatever way I could during the years between books. What bugs me so much about his post is his comparison of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Rice Burroughs, I didn't know about the different approaches they took to copyright but the way Martin tells the story Lovecraft seems like the more reasonable and admirable guy. Martin's whole point is that Lovecraft died in "gentile poverty" because he didn't guard his copyright with the same ferocity as Burroughs (and it seems like there's a distinct difference between people who point out they have no legal claim to a work posting things for free on the internet and people trying to publish and profit off of knock-offs, but I really don't know law, I'm just spouting what the fanfic community has taught me, so I'll leave it alone), but throughout this story Burroughs just sounds like an ass.
Lovecraft enjoyed what he did, and enjoyed sharing it with his friends, and created this intense and fascinating mythos that will live on after him for who knows how long because people expanded on it and borrowed from it and enhanced it. It was shared. It was communal. And in the end is there anyone who's going to say that the Tarzan legend is more interesting than the complicated world of Cthulhu? But no, we're supposed to think Burroughs went about this the right way because he got rich off of his creation. I thought the whole point of art was to be shared, to be let loose in the world so that it could effect it and change it and shape it.
Don't all artists want to create something that will live on after them? Isn't that why we muck about with words and images, to create things that will affect people and give us a shot at immortality? Who came closer to achieving that do you think, Lovecraft or Burroughs? Whose name do you know, whose work do you care about?
Ultimately this is so frustrating to me because all of these arguments seem to be focusing on the material value of art (not to mention automatically assuming the worst from people). I can sympathize on some level with the authors who care about their characters so much they don't want anyone else touching them, but I know, if it were me, I would be so fucking flattered that someone cared about something I'd created enough to play with them. To continue their metaphors, you aren't supposed to keep your kids locked away in your house so that only you can interact with them, they have to go out into the world and grow. And you don't get to stand over their shoulder and make sure everyone who speaks to them treats them with respect like Martin does in Wildcards, because that is just preposterous.
Finally, I have an embarrassing story to tell. When I was 13 or 14 Robert Jordan did a signing in my city. I was thrilled, and I went, and I listened to him speak, and I laughed at all the appropriate places, and when I got up there with my copy of his latest book (after watching the woman ahead of me get turned away because he was only signing hardcovers) I handed him a three and a half inch floppy with a fanfic (a crossover nonetheless) I'd written on it and mumbled something about how I'd written a story using his characters and I wanted to give it to him. I'd done this all at my mother's prompting, it's something I regret doing now, but at the same time I'm kinda proud of that little idiot me who didn't realize all the stupid repercussions to what she was doing and just wanted to share my love of writing and these characters with an author I admired greatly at the time.
That's it. Fanfic is not an inherently evil thing. By making writing all about the profit margin you're destroying it. All the best artists died penniless, didn't they?
I've been sick of George R. R. Martin for awhile now, I never should have started reading his blog in the first place because he always just comes across as a pompous ass. (And yes, I know that he is not my bitch.) But I love his world, and his characters, and I wanted to keep in touch with them in whatever way I could during the years between books. What bugs me so much about his post is his comparison of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Rice Burroughs, I didn't know about the different approaches they took to copyright but the way Martin tells the story Lovecraft seems like the more reasonable and admirable guy. Martin's whole point is that Lovecraft died in "gentile poverty" because he didn't guard his copyright with the same ferocity as Burroughs (and it seems like there's a distinct difference between people who point out they have no legal claim to a work posting things for free on the internet and people trying to publish and profit off of knock-offs, but I really don't know law, I'm just spouting what the fanfic community has taught me, so I'll leave it alone), but throughout this story Burroughs just sounds like an ass.
Lovecraft enjoyed what he did, and enjoyed sharing it with his friends, and created this intense and fascinating mythos that will live on after him for who knows how long because people expanded on it and borrowed from it and enhanced it. It was shared. It was communal. And in the end is there anyone who's going to say that the Tarzan legend is more interesting than the complicated world of Cthulhu? But no, we're supposed to think Burroughs went about this the right way because he got rich off of his creation. I thought the whole point of art was to be shared, to be let loose in the world so that it could effect it and change it and shape it.
Don't all artists want to create something that will live on after them? Isn't that why we muck about with words and images, to create things that will affect people and give us a shot at immortality? Who came closer to achieving that do you think, Lovecraft or Burroughs? Whose name do you know, whose work do you care about?
Ultimately this is so frustrating to me because all of these arguments seem to be focusing on the material value of art (not to mention automatically assuming the worst from people). I can sympathize on some level with the authors who care about their characters so much they don't want anyone else touching them, but I know, if it were me, I would be so fucking flattered that someone cared about something I'd created enough to play with them. To continue their metaphors, you aren't supposed to keep your kids locked away in your house so that only you can interact with them, they have to go out into the world and grow. And you don't get to stand over their shoulder and make sure everyone who speaks to them treats them with respect like Martin does in Wildcards, because that is just preposterous.
Finally, I have an embarrassing story to tell. When I was 13 or 14 Robert Jordan did a signing in my city. I was thrilled, and I went, and I listened to him speak, and I laughed at all the appropriate places, and when I got up there with my copy of his latest book (after watching the woman ahead of me get turned away because he was only signing hardcovers) I handed him a three and a half inch floppy with a fanfic (a crossover nonetheless) I'd written on it and mumbled something about how I'd written a story using his characters and I wanted to give it to him. I'd done this all at my mother's prompting, it's something I regret doing now, but at the same time I'm kinda proud of that little idiot me who didn't realize all the stupid repercussions to what she was doing and just wanted to share my love of writing and these characters with an author I admired greatly at the time.
That's it. Fanfic is not an inherently evil thing. By making writing all about the profit margin you're destroying it. All the best artists died penniless, didn't they?