The Friday Five: Fandom!
This is the first Friday Five that's been interesting in a while, at least in my humble and hard-to-please opinion. Alas, it is not Friday, but since Friday found me without communication of any kind at work and an evening full of activities at home, then we shall consider it the Belated Friday Five.
The questions:
1.) What fandom do you center on most?
2.) Do you contribute to it much (write fanfiction, draw fanart, participate in online communities and discussions)?
3.) Do you think that such things are good or harmful to the fandom and why?
4.) Do you think its good or harmful for the original creator?
5.) Why do you like this fandom in particular?
1.) What fandom do you center on most?
It's really not an issue of "most" so much as "exclusively" for me! I focus on the Tolkien fandom broadly; more specifically, on The Silmarillion. I have been known to dabble in LotR, especially when writing stories for friends, but I'm pretty much a First Ager all around.
Some of my friends write in other fandoms, but what I like about Tolkien--and what I like about The Silmarillion, more specifically--is the idea that the stories are really just a blueprint, leaving the fanfic author a lot of liberty. I have realized since entering this fandom that--despite my attempts to believe the opposite--my heart will always lie with original fiction. Even my fanfic strays into the realm of AU, I cannot force myself to care much for canon details when they lie in the way of telling a good story, and I'd sooner write about the moments that exist between the lines in the story than the scenes where we are given a very clear picture of what happens. This is why I like The Silmarillion over LotR, I believe. LotR is a beautiful and wonderful story, but there aren't the sorts of blanks that are left in The Silmarillion. Everything is more fleshed out, from characters to storylines.
One additional aspect that has always attracted me to writing stories based on Tolkien's work is the idea that he considered his stories to be histories rather than the unbiased account of an omniscient narrator. So we are limited by the PoV of the person observing--and telling--the story, and every detail must be examined for historical bias. A lot of the canon details that I "break" are done for reasons of historical bias or simply because I doubt that the "writer" could have known the full truth. The possibility and flexibility that this offers--and the ability to discuss interpretations with other readers and writers--has quite thoroughly addicted me to playing in Tolkien's sandbox!
2.) Do you contribute to it much (write fanfiction, draw fanart, participate in online communities and discussions)?
Erm...a bit. ;) I have (to date) written one novel, one novella, over thirty short stories, and OMG-I-don't-even-want-to-imagine number of drabbles and other "fixed-length ficlets" based on Tolkien's work. I run the Silmarillion Writers' Guild and belong to pretty much every major archive on the 'net, even if I have little time to do anything there but lurk. (See aforementioned story-count and SWG obligations!) So yes, I am very active in the fandom; I have met many friends and grown tremendously as a writer, so while I know that some look down their noses at my activity in this fandom and probably believe it to be a waste of my talents, I know otherwise: That I probably would not even be writing now if not for the encouragement and help of people in this fandom.
3.) Do you think that such things are good or harmful to the fandom and why?
Really, what is fandom if we don't discuss, evaluate, and interpret things until outsiders begin looking at us askance and we start doubting our own sanity?
The alternative, as I see it, is lots of meaningless fangirl/fanboy squeeing. Not that there's anything wrong with fangirl/fanboy squeeing...but if we are not bracketing that with discussion and re-interpretation, then it becomes empty, imho, and rather boring. Perhaps if we were fans of boy-bands, that would be okay. We could ogle Nick Carter's new haircut or shirtless pictures of Nick Lachey and be happy. But Tolkien's works are a veritable trove of inspiration, and many would argue that The Lord of the Rings is the best or most important novel of the 20th century. Given this, it is hard to get together with other like-minded folks and not find yourself discussing whether Fëanor was evil or just misunderstood or what might have happened if Boromir had lived or whether Sam and Frodo (or Maedhros and Fingon!) were really lovers or if our fandom is just an aggregate of pervy old women. ;) And for me, admiration is followed closely by inspiration, and it is hard not to be sucked into writing a story when an idea intrigues me. I've been that way since I could hold a pencil.
4.) Do you think its good or harmful for the original creator?
We Tolkienites are unique in that we have something of approval from the original creator: Tolkien acknowledged that his mythology is in no way complete and that he was merely creating a base for other hands to add to what he has already done. We are, in a sense, those other hands. There's a lot of argument in our fandom about whether slash or "Mary Sue" violate this--being as neither are something that Tolkien would want--but like the people who claim to know God's will, I find it "blasphemous" to even suggest that any of us possess the wisdom or right to say what Tolkien would or would not have liked.
For example, it is often heard that because Tolkien was a devout Catholic, then clearly he would have opposed any sort of homosexuality in his universe. First of all, would the Catholics and Christians on my flist who do not oppose homosexuality raise your hands? There's quite a few of you, yes. It is a bit narrow to take a broad definition like "Catholic" or "Christian" and assume, then, that you know the full extent of a person's opinions. For example, one hundred years from now, if someone unearths one of my stories and decides to write a fanfic about it, it might be said that because I am identified as a "liberal" and a "Democrat," then I would oppose a story that uses guns. Do I like guns? No. But do I support the Second Amendment? Actually...yes, I do. Not that everyone deserves to carry an Uzi, but I agree that a limited right to bear arms is protected by the Constitution. Yet, this is in opposition to what most people carrying the labels of "liberal" and "Democrat" would think.
The argument is always made against fanfic in general that we are a bunch of non-creative louts who can't contrive our own stories and so will dilute the original. Would the number of fanfic writers on my flist who also write original fic please raise your hands? Yes, there's a lot of us. I was an original fiction writer--a published original fiction writer--before I even discovered that fanfic existed. I still write original fiction. I have an entire fictional universe of my own creation. So does my fanfic "habit" mean that I'm not creative or capable of devising my own stories? Nothing could be further from the truth!
As for the dilution argument...fiction is not vinegar and fanfic is not water. The absence of the latter does not strengthen the former or vice versa. I know of few people, for one, who are willing to read in a fandom in which they have not read the original work. Bobby on occasion tries to read one of my fanfics, and though he is the only person on the planet to have read each of my original stories, he cannot follow the fanfic and finds that it does not interest him. Beyond that, there are a lot of reasons that people write fanfic. Do some of us wish to live vicariously through the characters and enter the author's world through them? Of course! But the same accusation can be made of any female author whose female protagonist winds up in bed with a handsome suitor. Fantasy is human nature, and these urges were not invented by fanfic. But that is not the only reason that we write. We write also for understanding. In The Silmarillion, the characters are sketched in such skeletal form that it becomes easy to seek to dichotomize--he's good; she's evil--rather than understand them. Fëanor baffled me at first, so I wrote about him, and now his motivations and interactions with his universe are clearer to me. Through stories, we communicate ideas about characters that otherwise would be difficult--and I dare say impossible--to put into non-fiction. What I have communicated about the characters in AMC I do not think that I could do in an essay of any length or extravagance. There's something magic about stories that they can do that.
I think that each of us has probably at one time wondered: If I were to become an immensely popular author, how would I feel about fanfic about my own work? I've thought of it, certainly...and I can't bring myself to be bothered. There are always things that I cannot say in a story; there are tangents and plots and characters that must remain unexplored in the interest of length and practicality. But because I cannot devote ten pages to the interesting backstory of a character who appears once does not mean that I can then shut off the imaginations of my readers. If someone wants to speculate as to why Character A behaves as he does, let him or her. In my fictional universe--like Tolkien--I recognize that even a lifetime of work will not be enough to fully develop the world. If people are inspired by my world and wish to carry on my work, I would not protest.
I've had a few instances in fanfic where aspects of my stories that are of my invention have intrigued a writer enough that she has wanted to expand on them. Fanfic on a fanfic, I guess it would be. When these writers have written me, asking for permission, I wonder who they think I am to deny them? I do not have a monopoly on ideas. One of the subplots of AMC that people found the most intriguing--the mutilation of Rúmil--I found out later had been explored also, unknown to me, by the author tyellas. And characters like Rúmil have appeared in fiction since the advent of fiction.
Not that I mean to insult those who have asked permission to use "Felak!verse" in their own stories; I found it a polite and--admittedly--flattering thing to do. I would do the same, in their shoes. But I cannot find the audacity to claim that because I have written something first, it must be barred from the imaginations of every writer to come after me. Because, really, our stories are built on centuries of stories and history before ours; everything, in a way, is based somehow on something preceding us. When do we end it? I disallow fanfic stories based on my own fanfic notions of Rúmil. If a fanfic author wants to write about a mutilated and unnamed loremaster, am I to deny that? Am I to deny original stories or stories in other fandoms about the same? And then deny stories about mutilation and loremasters in general? Really, I invented none of my ideas; I just put them into my own words.
The words are mine. The ideas are not. They cannot be.
So, in short, I don't see how fanfic can be harmful to the original, and I can't help but feel that authors who claim otherwise are a bit audacious and paranoid to claim otherwise. Maybe they are not so afraid of dilution as they are that one of the non-creative louts will outdo their talent? ;)
5.) Why do you like this fandom in particular?
Since I think this was adequately answered in #1, I will cease rambling...for now. ;)
The questions:
1.) What fandom do you center on most?
2.) Do you contribute to it much (write fanfiction, draw fanart, participate in online communities and discussions)?
3.) Do you think that such things are good or harmful to the fandom and why?
4.) Do you think its good or harmful for the original creator?
5.) Why do you like this fandom in particular?
1.) What fandom do you center on most?
It's really not an issue of "most" so much as "exclusively" for me! I focus on the Tolkien fandom broadly; more specifically, on The Silmarillion. I have been known to dabble in LotR, especially when writing stories for friends, but I'm pretty much a First Ager all around.
Some of my friends write in other fandoms, but what I like about Tolkien--and what I like about The Silmarillion, more specifically--is the idea that the stories are really just a blueprint, leaving the fanfic author a lot of liberty. I have realized since entering this fandom that--despite my attempts to believe the opposite--my heart will always lie with original fiction. Even my fanfic strays into the realm of AU, I cannot force myself to care much for canon details when they lie in the way of telling a good story, and I'd sooner write about the moments that exist between the lines in the story than the scenes where we are given a very clear picture of what happens. This is why I like The Silmarillion over LotR, I believe. LotR is a beautiful and wonderful story, but there aren't the sorts of blanks that are left in The Silmarillion. Everything is more fleshed out, from characters to storylines.
One additional aspect that has always attracted me to writing stories based on Tolkien's work is the idea that he considered his stories to be histories rather than the unbiased account of an omniscient narrator. So we are limited by the PoV of the person observing--and telling--the story, and every detail must be examined for historical bias. A lot of the canon details that I "break" are done for reasons of historical bias or simply because I doubt that the "writer" could have known the full truth. The possibility and flexibility that this offers--and the ability to discuss interpretations with other readers and writers--has quite thoroughly addicted me to playing in Tolkien's sandbox!
2.) Do you contribute to it much (write fanfiction, draw fanart, participate in online communities and discussions)?
Erm...a bit. ;) I have (to date) written one novel, one novella, over thirty short stories, and OMG-I-don't-even-want-to-imagine number of drabbles and other "fixed-length ficlets" based on Tolkien's work. I run the Silmarillion Writers' Guild and belong to pretty much every major archive on the 'net, even if I have little time to do anything there but lurk. (See aforementioned story-count and SWG obligations!) So yes, I am very active in the fandom; I have met many friends and grown tremendously as a writer, so while I know that some look down their noses at my activity in this fandom and probably believe it to be a waste of my talents, I know otherwise: That I probably would not even be writing now if not for the encouragement and help of people in this fandom.
3.) Do you think that such things are good or harmful to the fandom and why?
Really, what is fandom if we don't discuss, evaluate, and interpret things until outsiders begin looking at us askance and we start doubting our own sanity?
The alternative, as I see it, is lots of meaningless fangirl/fanboy squeeing. Not that there's anything wrong with fangirl/fanboy squeeing...but if we are not bracketing that with discussion and re-interpretation, then it becomes empty, imho, and rather boring. Perhaps if we were fans of boy-bands, that would be okay. We could ogle Nick Carter's new haircut or shirtless pictures of Nick Lachey and be happy. But Tolkien's works are a veritable trove of inspiration, and many would argue that The Lord of the Rings is the best or most important novel of the 20th century. Given this, it is hard to get together with other like-minded folks and not find yourself discussing whether Fëanor was evil or just misunderstood or what might have happened if Boromir had lived or whether Sam and Frodo (or Maedhros and Fingon!) were really lovers or if our fandom is just an aggregate of pervy old women. ;) And for me, admiration is followed closely by inspiration, and it is hard not to be sucked into writing a story when an idea intrigues me. I've been that way since I could hold a pencil.
4.) Do you think its good or harmful for the original creator?
We Tolkienites are unique in that we have something of approval from the original creator: Tolkien acknowledged that his mythology is in no way complete and that he was merely creating a base for other hands to add to what he has already done. We are, in a sense, those other hands. There's a lot of argument in our fandom about whether slash or "Mary Sue" violate this--being as neither are something that Tolkien would want--but like the people who claim to know God's will, I find it "blasphemous" to even suggest that any of us possess the wisdom or right to say what Tolkien would or would not have liked.
For example, it is often heard that because Tolkien was a devout Catholic, then clearly he would have opposed any sort of homosexuality in his universe. First of all, would the Catholics and Christians on my flist who do not oppose homosexuality raise your hands? There's quite a few of you, yes. It is a bit narrow to take a broad definition like "Catholic" or "Christian" and assume, then, that you know the full extent of a person's opinions. For example, one hundred years from now, if someone unearths one of my stories and decides to write a fanfic about it, it might be said that because I am identified as a "liberal" and a "Democrat," then I would oppose a story that uses guns. Do I like guns? No. But do I support the Second Amendment? Actually...yes, I do. Not that everyone deserves to carry an Uzi, but I agree that a limited right to bear arms is protected by the Constitution. Yet, this is in opposition to what most people carrying the labels of "liberal" and "Democrat" would think.
The argument is always made against fanfic in general that we are a bunch of non-creative louts who can't contrive our own stories and so will dilute the original. Would the number of fanfic writers on my flist who also write original fic please raise your hands? Yes, there's a lot of us. I was an original fiction writer--a published original fiction writer--before I even discovered that fanfic existed. I still write original fiction. I have an entire fictional universe of my own creation. So does my fanfic "habit" mean that I'm not creative or capable of devising my own stories? Nothing could be further from the truth!
As for the dilution argument...fiction is not vinegar and fanfic is not water. The absence of the latter does not strengthen the former or vice versa. I know of few people, for one, who are willing to read in a fandom in which they have not read the original work. Bobby on occasion tries to read one of my fanfics, and though he is the only person on the planet to have read each of my original stories, he cannot follow the fanfic and finds that it does not interest him. Beyond that, there are a lot of reasons that people write fanfic. Do some of us wish to live vicariously through the characters and enter the author's world through them? Of course! But the same accusation can be made of any female author whose female protagonist winds up in bed with a handsome suitor. Fantasy is human nature, and these urges were not invented by fanfic. But that is not the only reason that we write. We write also for understanding. In The Silmarillion, the characters are sketched in such skeletal form that it becomes easy to seek to dichotomize--he's good; she's evil--rather than understand them. Fëanor baffled me at first, so I wrote about him, and now his motivations and interactions with his universe are clearer to me. Through stories, we communicate ideas about characters that otherwise would be difficult--and I dare say impossible--to put into non-fiction. What I have communicated about the characters in AMC I do not think that I could do in an essay of any length or extravagance. There's something magic about stories that they can do that.
I think that each of us has probably at one time wondered: If I were to become an immensely popular author, how would I feel about fanfic about my own work? I've thought of it, certainly...and I can't bring myself to be bothered. There are always things that I cannot say in a story; there are tangents and plots and characters that must remain unexplored in the interest of length and practicality. But because I cannot devote ten pages to the interesting backstory of a character who appears once does not mean that I can then shut off the imaginations of my readers. If someone wants to speculate as to why Character A behaves as he does, let him or her. In my fictional universe--like Tolkien--I recognize that even a lifetime of work will not be enough to fully develop the world. If people are inspired by my world and wish to carry on my work, I would not protest.
I've had a few instances in fanfic where aspects of my stories that are of my invention have intrigued a writer enough that she has wanted to expand on them. Fanfic on a fanfic, I guess it would be. When these writers have written me, asking for permission, I wonder who they think I am to deny them? I do not have a monopoly on ideas. One of the subplots of AMC that people found the most intriguing--the mutilation of Rúmil--I found out later had been explored also, unknown to me, by the author tyellas. And characters like Rúmil have appeared in fiction since the advent of fiction.
Not that I mean to insult those who have asked permission to use "Felak!verse" in their own stories; I found it a polite and--admittedly--flattering thing to do. I would do the same, in their shoes. But I cannot find the audacity to claim that because I have written something first, it must be barred from the imaginations of every writer to come after me. Because, really, our stories are built on centuries of stories and history before ours; everything, in a way, is based somehow on something preceding us. When do we end it? I disallow fanfic stories based on my own fanfic notions of Rúmil. If a fanfic author wants to write about a mutilated and unnamed loremaster, am I to deny that? Am I to deny original stories or stories in other fandoms about the same? And then deny stories about mutilation and loremasters in general? Really, I invented none of my ideas; I just put them into my own words.
The words are mine. The ideas are not. They cannot be.
So, in short, I don't see how fanfic can be harmful to the original, and I can't help but feel that authors who claim otherwise are a bit audacious and paranoid to claim otherwise. Maybe they are not so afraid of dilution as they are that one of the non-creative louts will outdo their talent? ;)
5.) Why do you like this fandom in particular?
Since I think this was adequately answered in #1, I will cease rambling...for now. ;)