Two Central Questions
One reason I remain staunchly opposed to the practice of publishing one's fanfic without credit to the original author (which, by the way, happens automatically in the case of publishing a fanwork of an out-of-copyright source--by keeping Mr. Darcy as Mr. Darcy, you implicitly acknowledge your debt to Austen in the creation of the character) is because I still have never seen an answer to this central paradox that doesn't rely on "Well, I just didn't know any better" as the crux of the defense.
And as we are largely a community of adults, and since I don't know of a soul under the age of 18 who has P2Ped, I find "I didn't know any better" to be a lame excuse. In no other instnace would adults accept that from another adult as an explanation for behavior, so I don't see any reason to move on that here.
So here is the paradox.
1. If your intention was to copy Stephenie Meyer's characters, and to render a version of Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan, however changed; if you, as an author, envisioned your male lead as being an interpretation of Edward Cullen, and ideally, recognizable as such, no matter how changed in age, immortality, etc. then how can you justify anything short of an entire gutting of your novel in order to claim that the new version of the character is original?
Conversely, if the reverse is true,
2. If your intention was to write a novel using the stock archetype that Edward Cullen is a representative of (the Byronic hero) and you never intended your character to be interpreted as Edward Cullen, how can you in any way justify your choice to post the story as fanfiction of Twilight, except as a means to capitalize on the fandom? And further, does not the choice to post the story as a Twilight fanfiction indicate that you did, in fact, intend for your main character to be interpreted as a version of Edward Cullen, and not merely a male character inspired by him?
I know zero writers (except for the people who try to justify P2P, but I would wager from the degree to which they get defensive about this that they realize this argument is flimsy at best) who would claim that the essence of their characters lies in their hair color, their ages, or even their names or whether or not they are human. Well-rounded characters, like humans, are composites of many things, most notably their motivations, their personalities, their worldviews. I could turn my MC into a dragon and he would still be my MC, and recognizably so. And that's why I am loathe to in any way support a practice which tries to find a an excuse for taking the characterization developed by another author by claiming that simply changing a vampire to a human makes him a different person.
In fact, the whole point of fanfiction is to implicitly argue that this is not the case-that if we take these characters and put them into a different situation, or make them human, or pair them with different partners, they do not fundamentally change. That the character is still Edward is exactly the argument that is made when an AH fic is posted. So to then argue directly the opposite-that very few, and mostly circumstantial, changes are all that is needed to turn that character into someone else is disingenuous at best, and if nothing else, reveal an unbelievable lack of respect for the character's original creator.
This is why, for me, there is no happy middle ground. I know in my heart whether I'm basing my book in its entirety off someone else's work. And honestly, I think despite all the rationalization and posturing...that I'm not alone.
crossposted to gisellelx.tumblr.com and gisellelx.com
And as we are largely a community of adults, and since I don't know of a soul under the age of 18 who has P2Ped, I find "I didn't know any better" to be a lame excuse. In no other instnace would adults accept that from another adult as an explanation for behavior, so I don't see any reason to move on that here.
So here is the paradox.
1. If your intention was to copy Stephenie Meyer's characters, and to render a version of Edward Cullen and Isabella Swan, however changed; if you, as an author, envisioned your male lead as being an interpretation of Edward Cullen, and ideally, recognizable as such, no matter how changed in age, immortality, etc. then how can you justify anything short of an entire gutting of your novel in order to claim that the new version of the character is original?
Conversely, if the reverse is true,
2. If your intention was to write a novel using the stock archetype that Edward Cullen is a representative of (the Byronic hero) and you never intended your character to be interpreted as Edward Cullen, how can you in any way justify your choice to post the story as fanfiction of Twilight, except as a means to capitalize on the fandom? And further, does not the choice to post the story as a Twilight fanfiction indicate that you did, in fact, intend for your main character to be interpreted as a version of Edward Cullen, and not merely a male character inspired by him?
I know zero writers (except for the people who try to justify P2P, but I would wager from the degree to which they get defensive about this that they realize this argument is flimsy at best) who would claim that the essence of their characters lies in their hair color, their ages, or even their names or whether or not they are human. Well-rounded characters, like humans, are composites of many things, most notably their motivations, their personalities, their worldviews. I could turn my MC into a dragon and he would still be my MC, and recognizably so. And that's why I am loathe to in any way support a practice which tries to find a an excuse for taking the characterization developed by another author by claiming that simply changing a vampire to a human makes him a different person.
In fact, the whole point of fanfiction is to implicitly argue that this is not the case-that if we take these characters and put them into a different situation, or make them human, or pair them with different partners, they do not fundamentally change. That the character is still Edward is exactly the argument that is made when an AH fic is posted. So to then argue directly the opposite-that very few, and mostly circumstantial, changes are all that is needed to turn that character into someone else is disingenuous at best, and if nothing else, reveal an unbelievable lack of respect for the character's original creator.
This is why, for me, there is no happy middle ground. I know in my heart whether I'm basing my book in its entirety off someone else's work. And honestly, I think despite all the rationalization and posturing...that I'm not alone.
crossposted to gisellelx.tumblr.com and gisellelx.com