How to Write Better Fan Fic

[kateorman]

The grinding of gears on the "How to Write Better Fan Fic" panel at Chi-TARDIS has an obvious source: the differences between professional writing and amateur writing

Comments

[outsdr]

A postscriptum: a couple of panellists were certain there were legal precedents involving fanfic - can someone point me to those cases?

What type of legal precedents?

[kateorman]

IIRC it was the saving of a fan's bacon thanks to one of those disclaimers that preface so much fic, but I may have got the details muddled up.

[antikythera]

Regarding amateur vs. professional: just ask amateur astronomers. There are lots of people out there who want to do science and who are smart enough to do science, but not so many jobs in which they can get paid for it. Hence, there is a very active community of people who do science because they like it, and they buy their own equipment and work closely with professionals, and wear the badge of 'amateur' with pride.

[jvowles]

I get a bunch of good-natured grief from my boss whenever he asks me to write something. My approach, honed in college, has always been to emulate the great sculpting masters.

In other words, pour a bunch of words into a big block, and then cut out all the bits that don't look like Michelangelo's David.

Or something. :)

Anyway, words first to fill up the page, then cut out the bad ones.

[jhg]

I'd've thought that by far the best way to improve your writing is to get it past a tough and pernickety editor.

As such, 'tis a shame that the fanzines of old on which the likes of Cornell cut their teeth seem to have gone the way of the dodo.

[kateorman]

The single hardest thing for a writer to do is drop-kick their ego out the window and take hard feedback. I don't mean rudeness - just the kind of penetrating observation that can have you throwing out the whole thing, starting over, and hopefully getting it right this time. (Lloyd Rose has just done this to me with Accelerated Dragon. Argh.) In the case of fanfic, hardcore critting may be worse than useless - for example, if someone's writing just for a laugh or as a form of socialisation, tossing in a feedback grenade (however courteous) would be wildly inappropriate. For a professional writer, though, nothing is more helpful.

Something which did come up on the panel is the marvellous freedom of fanfic - the writer has no limitations of form or content or budget. It's something I enjoy hugely when I have a chance to write fanfic, but it does come with a price: if you can get away with anything, then you can get away with anything, if you see what I mean - there's a danger, IMHO, of being like a kid who always gets any toy they ask

[jhg]

Good god yes.

You've only got to see how much Big Finish's output has improved since they got a lot stricter on running time etc.

Limitations are good.

[taraljc]

I mentioned the Marion Zimmer Bradley example. She had to scrap a novel due to a fan author claiming ownership of a plot becasue a similar story had appeared in a'zine, and it's a well-documented case. Also, various legal departments have sent out C&Ds to fans who have attempted to sell their work as unlicensed merch. There was also a case a year or so ago, involving a Star Wars fan-written novel listed on Amazon. I'd suggest checking at the OTW (Organisation for Transformative Works). Their wiki-in-progress has a lot of details about American media fandom of the last 30-odd years. Tho it's rare, it does happen

[kateorman]

Ah! I see where we got jammed. By "legal precedent", I meant a court case which resulted in a judgement (IIUC these are much more significant in British and therefore Australian law than in US law). AFAIK, fanfic has yet to have its day in court. (With a bit of luck, it never will, 'cos let's face it, we'd be crushed like bugs.)

Hell of a panel. Simon Guerrier's lucky he's still alive. Full of brain-stimulatin' stuff, though. *tips hat*