What is Fanfiction?

[jimhines]

This is partly a follow-up to my MZB vs. Fanfiction post from last week, and partly a response to a much-linked post at http://bookshop.livejournal.com/1044495.html which answers author criticism of fanfiction by saying, “You’ve just summarily dismissed as criminal, immoral, and unimaginative each of the following Pulitzer Prize-winning works…”

Comments

[mtlawson]

Is 90% of the fantasy genre nothing but Tolkien fanfiction?

Or, to be more exact, Tolkien was a fanfic author of Anglo-Saxon and Norse stories. ;-)

[jimhines]

Touche! Well played :-)

[mtlawson]

Yep, and if we want to get into literary merit as a defining characteristic of fanfic, then most of genre fiction is in trouble. After all, significant numbers of people consider those genres lacking in literary merit.

[mtlawson]

My father actually dislikes Tolkien's fiction for that reason. He considers him to be "ripping off" Norse and Celtic mythology. He was pursuing a degree in Icelandic literature when he first read them back in the seventies and was startled to realize that many of the Dwarvish names had been lifted straight from Older Edda's catalog of dwarves.

Thinking about my dad's stance, I can't help thinking that the argument about fanfiction is just a permutation on a much older and ongoing argument about the meaning of originality and creativity (with a few modern flourishes like commercialism and copyright thrown in to make things more complicated.)

[thelauderdale]

Bah. That was me, by the way.

[mtlawson]

Happens to all of us sometime, dude.

(The Friday must be getting to me; I've got the surfer lingo on full throttle.)

[mtlawson]

Thinking about my dad's stance, I can't help thinking that the argument about fanfiction is just a permutation on a much older and ongoing argument about the meaning of originality and creativity (with a few modern flourishes like commercialism and copyright thrown in to make things more complicated.)

I've thought that too.

Really, there is very little that is new in storytelling. Every tale echoes something we've seen before, because that's how we as humans relate to each other. Something completely new would be alien to most of us, and would take years or decades to become accepted.

[dweomeroflight]

I think me that you two are absolutely right.

[marycatelli]

Hmm.

Especially considering that using the same name is just an allusion and is often a tribute to other authors' work. Especially since as it's not the same character and doesn't bring up copyright issues. (And trademark ones only if the name is unique and trademarked.)

[b_writes]

This!