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

[blpurdom]

Perhaps we need to start with the fact that some people say "fanfiction" like that's a BAD thing. Humans have been producing fanfiction for a very long time just in the way stories have been retold around fires on a winter's evening, with each successive story-teller embellishing upon the previous version and making it his/her own. (I have a collection of Italian folktales and fairy tales edited by Italo Calvino, and some of the stories are actually "outtakes" from The Odyssey! Some I also recognize from Grimm, Perrault and Hans Christian Anderson

[shoiryu]

Perhaps we need to start with the fact that some people say "fanfiction" like that's a BAD thing. I think that this is essentially the crux of bookshop's argument and the reason for her frustration!

[dweomeroflight]

Exactly! That and the fact that certain authors are airing their views on fan fiction in a way that slams published authors as well as fan fic writers.

[blitheringpooks]

I believe that all derivative works do in fact fall under the category of fanfiction but that there are different types of fanfiction--saleable and unsaleable.

Does that mean you don't think the "written by fans who love the universe" is a valid part of the definition of fanfiction? Because often writers are hired to do just that, and are doing it for the job, not because they were already fans. I agree that all fanfiction falls under the banner of derivative works, but not that all derivative works are fanfiction.

And I like fanfiction.

[blpurdom]

I didn't distinguish between the various motivations of authors of fanfiction, only whether their output could, potentially, be legally sold. Many fanfiction authors who write for the love of the universe in question could sell their work if the original is in the public domain but that's not their intent so they don't go there. Or they can't sell it legally but they don't care because they're just doing it for love (and the original author doesn't try to dissuade people writing in that universe). Either way it's fanfiction and it's saleable or unsaleable, regardless of whether anyone ever intends to or would like to (in an alternate universe) sell it, if they could.

[thelauderdale]

Perhaps we need to start with the fact that some people say "fanfiction" like that's a BAD thing.

I believe that all derivative works do in fact fall under the category of fanfiction but that there are different types of fanfiction--saleable and unsaleable.

These were the two most striking points I saw in your post and I hope I will see more responses to them. For my part I agree with the former and *mostly* agree with the latter (blitheringpooks makes a distinction that keeps bearing in mind when she talks about derivative/transformative works that are not necessarily written for a check, not because they were originally fans, and I also have to think of those people who write out of dissatisfaction with a work and/or author that they are *not* fans of. (Evidently there is a lot of this among people who write fiction in the Twilight universe.)

[thelauderdale]

Gah. That should have been,
derivative/transformative works that were written for a check, not because they were originally fans,

And I guess while I'm at it I should clarify: when I say that For my part I agree with the former I mean that I do *not* consider fanfiction to be inherently bad. I've been reading and writing it for over a decade now. Many of the works in question are poorly executed, others are thoroughly decent and some are just brilliant. But "fanfiction" as a concept is neither good nor bad in itself.

[blitheringpooks]

I just can't see my way around to removing the "fan" from fanfiction. Maybe the word will evolve in that direction eventually, but right now the only movement in that direction I see is from people who have a vested interest (emotional, mostly) in calling South Pacific fan fiction, because it won the Pulitzer Prize.

[blpurdom]

I know what you mean--for some authors fanfiction is almost therapy, a way to cope with the original universe not going the way they expected or wanted it to. (This doesn't just happen with Twilight fans who are "Team Jacob".) But as I replied to someone else, I do think that all authors of works taking place in a universe and with characters not of their creation are writing fanfiction in part because they are all, presumably, fans of the original and want to play in that sandbox, whether they are able to or want to ever make money from it. Even fans who are "improving" the ending (in their opinions) are fans enough that they CARE deeply about giving themselves and other fans an alternative to what the author of the original wrote. I would consider them all fans, those writing saleable work and those writing unsaleable work, with no distinction about whether anyone ever WANTS to sell what they're writing. And, all being fans, what they are all writing is fanfiction, IMO.

[thelauderdale]

True for the most part, but when I cited the Twilight writers it was because I had seen folks who claimed that they didn't like the books and didn't like the author.* Of course one can argue that there was SOMETHING there, that obviously they cared enough to engage with the material, which argues at least a love-hate relationship rather than mere hate or dislike: ie. they say they're not fans but they are, really.

*Problem is, I actually don't do anything in Twilight fandom and now I'm not sure if I saw actual writers saying this about themselves and their own work ("I don't like the author/book but I write fanfiction for it") or other writers referencing those people. I'm pretty sure it was the former but not sure enough to vouch for it, and since it's the crux of my argument I think I've just totally undermined my whole point, whatever that was.

[cherith]

You said what I wanted to in the sense that derivative works do fall under the fanfiction banner. The idea being that either way you categorize it the idea is the same - wherein an author is building on a world or characters that weren't theirs to begin with. (Of course, I think fanfic as the idea that fanfic=sex is what gives it such a bad name

[blpurdom]

The large amount of sex-based fanfic is probably one of the reasons it gets a bad name. It's kind of like the NC-17 label for movies--there are movies with the rating that aren't porn-y (although many of those are "violence porn") but that's still the first thing many people think of, just as people primarily thought of X-rated films this way before NC-17 (and that stigma was the reason for the creation of NC-17--which was a huge failure because the stigma remains