Opinions/Fanfiction: Entry 1
I don’t often get asked about fanfiction. A lot of authors say people “always ask them” why they write it, why they ship who they do, so on and so on. The fact is, I don’t often get asked about fanfiction because… well, it’s not something that comes up in conversation a lot. I feel that my fanfiction, the same as the rest of my writing, is something that is separate to my gaming habits, my favourite songs, or what I had for dinner. It’s on par with asking someone to discuss their business life in a bar, or discuss their plot for world domination while speed-dating. Yes, it could make conversation, but that doesn’t mean it’s good, applicable or relaxed conversation.
But I would like to examine my fanficitoning (totally a word) a little more, so allow me to present:
“Questions I Received Over Twitter So That I Could Write This Blog Post”
Or “QIROTSTICWTBP”
Or, my personal favourite title, “Opinions/Fanfiction”.
This week’s question (yes I do hope to make this a weekly thing)
“Where is the line between fanfiction and derivative art?”
From http://www.twitter.com/iamafish1992
For starters, I have to say I despise people who call any form of art or creativity “derivative”. Take a look at history. Copying and changing slightly, studying the masters; this is how people learn, and this is how the world of art and expression evolves from one movement to the next. Morecambe and Wise were “just” an English Abbot and Costello when they started out. Monty Python were “just” a reboot of ‘The Goon Show’. ‘The Lion King’ was “just” Disney’s version of ‘Hamlet’, and call me a cretin, but I know which one I’d rather watch (what? The songs are too damn catchy, it’s not my fault).
Now, no one writes fanfiction professionally.
Well, except for the guy who got paid to write the last ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ film, or whoever writes those novelizations of video games and Warhammer.
But, of the people writing fanfiction and storing it away on their computers or posting it on fanfiction.net or livejournal, none of them write it professionally. It is, to a good writer, the linguistic equivalent of an art student creating a study of Picasso or Van Gogh. It’s ‘in the style of’. Professional authors have been known to use it to let off steam, and wannabe authors have been known to use it to practice. It is at most, a trial and error ‘teach yourself good writing’ and at least, a way to just write something fun. A good fanfiction writer knows this, and admits it. I suppose it would only be derivative art if you claimed you claimed it was all your idea.
For example, at this point in time I am writing a story in which the characters from the CW’s ‘Supernatural’ are put through the events of Douglas Adam’s ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. I would never even begin to attempt to pass that off as mine, because it is, at best, playing with someone else’s dolls in someone else’s doll-house. While I’m making conscious effort to change the plot here or there, and swap out characters in the correct places, I would be committing falsehood in the worst degree to pass off any of it as my own.
Don’t misinterpret me, I’m in no way saying that fanfiction writers are doomed to forever doomed to write unoriginal drabbles. Fanfiction can certainly serve as the basis for a story of your own; hence the earlier category of ‘teach yourself how to write’. The growing trend among many fandoms or fan societies is ‘alternate universe’ fiction, in which, say, Sam Winchester is a bar man, or Lydia Deetz is an English Literature teacher, or Gordon Freeman is actually a paranoid schizophrenic who experiences night terrors and hallucinations, and as such goes about braining innocent doctors and raw chickens with a crowbar. These are, when written well, clever exploitations of loop-holes and “what-if” situations, which bring about a plot and, true to the name, a universe wherein the source material is as far removed from the finished product as the first draft of ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorceror’s Stone’ is from the movie adaptation of ‘Harry Potter 7, Part 2’ (England Nil).
A clever writer, a good writer, can use it as a stepping stone. They can take the universe and the plot that they created, and repaint the dolls that they played with. Give a different background here, some new phobias there, and you have an entirely new set of characters in an entirely new setting. Do a little “conventionalising” (tone down the angst and the ‘schmoof’, change the dialect, make the chapters a little longer) and you could have a potentially publishable manuscript. Of the authors I know, “AlreadyPainfullyGone” and “Expensive Pizza” are both writers who use fanfiction as a way to hone their craft and give themselves a no-hassle side project.
So when does that line blur? Fanfiction can be on the same level as proper literature, but when is it just being “derivative”? I suppose, really, it just comes down to quality. Taking someone else’s ideas and claiming them to be your own is not only bad, but illegal. We know this. This is why every fanfiction site has all those lovely disclaimers and terms of use to muddle through each time you upload something. But we can excuse it, if there’s a whitewash and a great plot, or some other attention-grabbing unique selling point. After all, how many people watched ‘Avatar’ having already seen ‘Pocahontas’? And how many people watched ‘Pocahontas’ having already seen ‘Dances with Wolves’? The old adage is that there are only six plots in the history of the written word, so I doubt being derived from something else applies solely to fanfiction.
But I would like to examine my fanficitoning (totally a word) a little more, so allow me to present:
“Questions I Received Over Twitter So That I Could Write This Blog Post”
Or “QIROTSTICWTBP”
Or, my personal favourite title, “Opinions/Fanfiction”.
This week’s question (yes I do hope to make this a weekly thing)
“Where is the line between fanfiction and derivative art?”
From http://www.twitter.com/iamafish1992
For starters, I have to say I despise people who call any form of art or creativity “derivative”. Take a look at history. Copying and changing slightly, studying the masters; this is how people learn, and this is how the world of art and expression evolves from one movement to the next. Morecambe and Wise were “just” an English Abbot and Costello when they started out. Monty Python were “just” a reboot of ‘The Goon Show’. ‘The Lion King’ was “just” Disney’s version of ‘Hamlet’, and call me a cretin, but I know which one I’d rather watch (what? The songs are too damn catchy, it’s not my fault).
Now, no one writes fanfiction professionally.
Well, except for the guy who got paid to write the last ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ film, or whoever writes those novelizations of video games and Warhammer.
But, of the people writing fanfiction and storing it away on their computers or posting it on fanfiction.net or livejournal, none of them write it professionally. It is, to a good writer, the linguistic equivalent of an art student creating a study of Picasso or Van Gogh. It’s ‘in the style of’. Professional authors have been known to use it to let off steam, and wannabe authors have been known to use it to practice. It is at most, a trial and error ‘teach yourself good writing’ and at least, a way to just write something fun. A good fanfiction writer knows this, and admits it. I suppose it would only be derivative art if you claimed you claimed it was all your idea.
For example, at this point in time I am writing a story in which the characters from the CW’s ‘Supernatural’ are put through the events of Douglas Adam’s ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’. I would never even begin to attempt to pass that off as mine, because it is, at best, playing with someone else’s dolls in someone else’s doll-house. While I’m making conscious effort to change the plot here or there, and swap out characters in the correct places, I would be committing falsehood in the worst degree to pass off any of it as my own.
Don’t misinterpret me, I’m in no way saying that fanfiction writers are doomed to forever doomed to write unoriginal drabbles. Fanfiction can certainly serve as the basis for a story of your own; hence the earlier category of ‘teach yourself how to write’. The growing trend among many fandoms or fan societies is ‘alternate universe’ fiction, in which, say, Sam Winchester is a bar man, or Lydia Deetz is an English Literature teacher, or Gordon Freeman is actually a paranoid schizophrenic who experiences night terrors and hallucinations, and as such goes about braining innocent doctors and raw chickens with a crowbar. These are, when written well, clever exploitations of loop-holes and “what-if” situations, which bring about a plot and, true to the name, a universe wherein the source material is as far removed from the finished product as the first draft of ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s/Sorceror’s Stone’ is from the movie adaptation of ‘Harry Potter 7, Part 2’ (England Nil).
A clever writer, a good writer, can use it as a stepping stone. They can take the universe and the plot that they created, and repaint the dolls that they played with. Give a different background here, some new phobias there, and you have an entirely new set of characters in an entirely new setting. Do a little “conventionalising” (tone down the angst and the ‘schmoof’, change the dialect, make the chapters a little longer) and you could have a potentially publishable manuscript. Of the authors I know, “AlreadyPainfullyGone” and “Expensive Pizza” are both writers who use fanfiction as a way to hone their craft and give themselves a no-hassle side project.
So when does that line blur? Fanfiction can be on the same level as proper literature, but when is it just being “derivative”? I suppose, really, it just comes down to quality. Taking someone else’s ideas and claiming them to be your own is not only bad, but illegal. We know this. This is why every fanfiction site has all those lovely disclaimers and terms of use to muddle through each time you upload something. But we can excuse it, if there’s a whitewash and a great plot, or some other attention-grabbing unique selling point. After all, how many people watched ‘Avatar’ having already seen ‘Pocahontas’? And how many people watched ‘Pocahontas’ having already seen ‘Dances with Wolves’? The old adage is that there are only six plots in the history of the written word, so I doubt being derived from something else applies solely to fanfiction.