Fanfic, zines, and growing as a writer
The novelist Lorraine Bartlett wrote about her early days writing Star Trek fanfic in her blog here.
Back in my day, distribution of these stories was small. A big print run was 200 copies. Now millions of people worldwide can peek at badly written fan stories from franchises that are still hot. I can't say I blame the writers/producers for objecting. I once had one of my fanzines "stolen." A "fannish" person removed the names of the authors from the stories in one of my zines (and my story as well) and sold hundreds, possibly a thousand copies of that fanzine at professionally run SF/Fantasy conferences.
That was my first taste of what copyright infringement feels like. I complained to the conference organizers, but since our stories were quite blatantly copyright infringement themselves, we didn't have a leg to stand on. Still, I hated the fact my work was stolen.
Lorraine also writes that she grew as a writer by moving away from fanfic, by creating original characters and by being challenged by critique groups to which she belonged as a writer.
I found Lorraine's entry via Lee Goldberg's blog "A Writer's Life" and Lee's entry here has the comment from a visitor to his blog. These aren't Lee's words, just the visitor's.
Fanficcers not only steal from others but from themselves. The humblest of genuine authors enjoys a deep sense of fulfillment that cannot be shared by Fanficcers, who depend on characters wrought by others. Deep within, Fanficcers know they are parasites, and nothing they have achieved equals the accomplishment of anyone who wrought a story without crutches. So they have stolen their own joy of creation and can have little pride in what they did.
Posted by: Richard S. Wheeler Saturday, November 24, 2007 at 05:58 PM
The mood in the comments (I think these are mainly from professional writers??) is that fanficcers who sell their work make money from the hard work of others. Writing for fun is OK.
Back in my day, distribution of these stories was small. A big print run was 200 copies. Now millions of people worldwide can peek at badly written fan stories from franchises that are still hot. I can't say I blame the writers/producers for objecting. I once had one of my fanzines "stolen." A "fannish" person removed the names of the authors from the stories in one of my zines (and my story as well) and sold hundreds, possibly a thousand copies of that fanzine at professionally run SF/Fantasy conferences.
That was my first taste of what copyright infringement feels like. I complained to the conference organizers, but since our stories were quite blatantly copyright infringement themselves, we didn't have a leg to stand on. Still, I hated the fact my work was stolen.
Lorraine also writes that she grew as a writer by moving away from fanfic, by creating original characters and by being challenged by critique groups to which she belonged as a writer.
I found Lorraine's entry via Lee Goldberg's blog "A Writer's Life" and Lee's entry here has the comment from a visitor to his blog. These aren't Lee's words, just the visitor's.
Fanficcers not only steal from others but from themselves. The humblest of genuine authors enjoys a deep sense of fulfillment that cannot be shared by Fanficcers, who depend on characters wrought by others. Deep within, Fanficcers know they are parasites, and nothing they have achieved equals the accomplishment of anyone who wrought a story without crutches. So they have stolen their own joy of creation and can have little pride in what they did.
Posted by: Richard S. Wheeler Saturday, November 24, 2007 at 05:58 PM
The mood in the comments (I think these are mainly from professional writers??) is that fanficcers who sell their work make money from the hard work of others. Writing for fun is OK.