Fuckwittage*, wankitude and general arseholery...
...or: Why I will never be a Big Name Fan, never mind an Actual Published Author
There seems to have been a lot of stuff kicking off lately around both the HP and Labyrinth fandoms and it's made me think a lot about, well, lots of things. Why I write, why anyone writes fanfic, what the hell is wrong with the world today, and how people take themselves so seriously. Several of my flist have already posted on the plagiarism issue. These are all intelligent, insightful, talented women whose views are probably expressed a hell of a lot more fluently than my rambling thoughts! Most lately, whitemunin, klmorgan and dmacabre have all made insightful posts on the subject and it's definitely worth checking them out here, here and here respectively. Ladies, I hope you don't mind me linking to your posts - I assumed not because they were open to public, but please let me know if you do.
I'm aware in my own vague little way that every aspect of fandom is beset by fuckwittage, but I'm involved only in the HP and Labyrinth ones, and very much on the sidelines at that. I write, which makes me more involved than folks who just lurk, I guess, but I'm not someone who is well known in either fandom and, right now, I'm thinking that's a very Good Thing. Through reading other posts and links to links to other links, I've rediscovered a concept which had lodged enough in my brain so that I remembered what the abbreviation stood for. The BNF. And this is where I should probably cut, because I can feel a bit rambly rant coming on.
Seriously, what is a BNF? I know it stands for Big Name Fan, but what IS it? Is there some sort of evaluation process out there? Do you get to be a BNF if you've had x number of reviews? Do you have to have posted over a certain number of words? Made some stunning insight about the fandom? Invented a truly original plot concept? What? I really want to know. People talk about certain stories being core to the fandom, or to certain 'ships. Who gets to decide this? To me, very much an outsider to this, it smacks of the Celeb Culture which is so prevalent in the UK (and I'm sure in the US as well). Someone gets famous because they're married to / sleeping with / involved in legal proceedings with a person who is GENUINELY famous for something. Then a third party sells a story like, "My night of debauchery with Person B" and, all of a sudden, Person C is ALSO famous. So here we have one person who has actually achieved something and this string of knock-on, cheaper fame. I'm not denying that there are a lot of writers out there who have a vast amount of talent. I'm not saying that everyone who gets more reviews than me sob sob piles of reviews is undeserving of them. What I AM saying is that I've seen plenty of evidence of people's fiction being touted about the fandoms not necessarily because the writing is good but because they know someone who knows someone who.... etcetc
I think that the BNF is at once an extremely powerful and extremely vulnerable position. While it guarantees that you, as a fan, have fans of your own (weirdness!), it's much easier to throw mud at someone who's up on a pedestal above the heads of the rest of us mundane plebs. With any type of celebrity, if you fall on your face, you do it for all the world to see. And this is linked to what klmorgan was saying about fear. You have achieved your BNF status through whatever means (and yes, I do accept that talent gets you there, just not necessarily every time). You have a bunch of people who you KNOW will devour every word you post, and most likely give you glowing reviews because they lurrrrve you. You bask in the glow, you want to keep feeding it but all of a sudden you have RL issues / writers block / a sudden attack of the whatthefucks. Whatever. I guess this is when plagiarism can be tempting. Or on the flip side, you are a writer who yearns for the adoration of the BNF status but nobody seems to be interested in your masterpiece. Hey, lookit, Ms BNF got hundreds of reviews for her fanfic piece, surely nobody will mind if you just "borrow" a snippet or two.
This all sounds like it's coming from a bitter old bag who doesn't feel she gets enough reviews and, to some extent, it is. I'm not a Big Name Fan. I'm not even a Small Name Fan. I'm Miniscule Name Fan, or possibly Fan With No Name. While I'd like to have dozens of adoring minions worshipping every word I've written, I'm aware that this is very unlikely to happen. I'd also like an Aston Martin and a small island in the Caribbean. I'd like a signed, advance copy of the next Harry Potter book. I'd like a private Bowie concert. The adoring fanbase thing is looking more likely by comparison! But one thing I do have is the knowledge that my handful of reviews are MINE. They are valuable to me because those people like my writing, not somebody else's. And, all other matters (legality, whether it's immoral to steal something which is by nature slightly unoriginal anyway, whether abandoned stories are "fair game", whatever) aside, this is why I just don't understand plagiarism.
It's cheating.
Sure, you might get a load of glory and adoration but it's tarnished right from the start, and it only gets worse the longer things go on. The work IS NOT YOURS. Therefore the praise IS NOT YOURS. Those people saying, "your story is amazing, you're so insightful, so talented" are not saying it to YOU really, they are saying it to someone else. So how can any of that taste sweet? There are a lot of reasons I wouldn't try to pull off plagiarism - the work involved both doing it and trying to cover my tracks, the fear of getting caught - but this is the main one. I'd just feel like such a scumbag.
I get a sneaking suspicion this is linked to another vast gap in my understanding: writers who claim they think their own work is crap. In my evidently not very humble opinion, this is bollocks. I know I'm not a breathtakingly brilliant writer, but I think I'm pretty good. I like my warped sense of humour, I enjoy my depictions of both canon and original characters. If I genuinely thought that my writing absolutely sucked beyond redemption, you know what? I probably wouldn't do it. I certainly wouldn't put it up on the internet for the world to point and laugh. All fanfic and fanart is a form of vanity. We are saying, "hey, look what I did, what do you think?" And while the more mature people welcome negative views if they are constructive, we wouldn't put things out there if we thought there was nothing good in it. I've seen far too many story summaries which say "this sux but plees read AND REVIEW anyway". Oh really? You think your story is a pile of old crap and you want people to tell you that, huh? I bet you don't. This is just a way of trying to hook reviews saying, "nooo, it doesn't suck, you're sooooo talented". And maybe I'm evil, but I always have the temptation to post a review saying, "you're absolutely right, it does suck. Why the hell did you post this garbage?" Which is a fast track to getting my arse kicked off ff.net, I should imagine. So if you genuinely think that you can't write well enough to get the reviews you want, don't "borrow" from someone who IS getting the reviews. Why not - gasp! - try something else instead???
I know that there are things that I could do to improve the amount of readers and reviewers I get. I could write in the popular pairings and post on the relevant boards. Snape / Hermione stories have a massive readership, for example. Fluffy Harry / Ginny fics have their happy homes. Writing about Sybill Trelawney and Mad-Eye Moody is a lot of fun, but not a fast-track to popularity. I could write more long, multi-chapter stories. Short stories and ficlets tend to get buried really fast and don't attract long-term loyalty. I could pimp my work more, trawl round Yahoo groups and the like, throwing out witty teasers and enticing people read more. And hey, here's an idea: I could get off my lazy arse and write more often.
I'm fully aware that it's been almost a year since I posted on my multi-chapter fic. I know that I've only written a handful of ficlets in all that time. Really, I only have myself to blame. (Yes, there have been RL issues but if I wanted the reviews that much, I could spend less time watching re-runs of "Charmed" and more time in front of the computer.) I have a goldfish attention span and am absolutely terrible about starting something then getting interested in something else and leaving the original project gathering dust. celtprincess13 will testify to the fact that I had every intention of writing a multi-chapter HP story a couple of years ago. My god, it would have been brilliant! The ending would have been absolutely heart-breaking. The only problem - it never happened. My real strength is in short stories and the long one turned out to be just too much work. Readers of "Home" - if there are any of you who are still interested and if you are, THANK YOU - don't despair. I will finish that story or I'll never forgive myself. But, as Oates said, I may be some time.
So, going back to my sub-heading and scrabbling desperately for a point, this is why I can't see myself becoming a BNF or a "real" author. Not because I think I'm not good enough. I have read enough published shite to realise that talent is not the only requirement, and sometimes doesn't figure in the mix at all. I don't have the dedication. My muse doesn't take me down the aisle marked "Bestseller", she leads me to some dark dusty corner filled with the obscure subjects which don't quite fit anywhere. I enjoy my writing and I do get a great thrill out of positive reviews, but my own laziness means that I'll never promote my own work enough to be famous, either in the fanfic community or the real world. And, while part of me thinks that would be nice, I'm not really bothered enough to do anything about it. And the "easy way", ripping off someone else's work and passing it off as my own, would leave a foul taste in my mouth.
/ranty rambling (finally)
* And, by the way, I stole the term "fuckwittage" from Bridget Jones's Diary. Oops.
Addendum to rambling: This is something I meant to put in around the middle but my rant ran away with me. This is the generally What's Wrong With The World Today part. At the risk of sounding like someone's mum, oh hang on a minute, I AM someone's mum... nobody's prepared to earn anything. The attitude now was summed up very well by Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Want, take, have." This is what the plagiarists are doing. Somehow, to a lot of people, wanting something gives you the right to have it RIGHT NOW. If actually working toward that thing is a bit too much like hard work, never mind, just take it. This applies beyond writing. This is why all of those "consolidate all your existing debts and have enough over for an exotic holiday" companies make their money. People don't think, "oh crap, I'm upto my eyes in debt, maybe I should stop buying stuff". They think, "but I want a widescreen TV / holiday in the sun / conservatory for my house and I want to have it now". The sense of working toward a goal has been lost, and that's a real shame. I remember how proud I was when I first bought a VCR because it was my first big-thing purchase with my own wages. These days, a lot of people would just get a credit deal. Or steal one.
There seems to have been a lot of stuff kicking off lately around both the HP and Labyrinth fandoms and it's made me think a lot about, well, lots of things. Why I write, why anyone writes fanfic, what the hell is wrong with the world today, and how people take themselves so seriously. Several of my flist have already posted on the plagiarism issue. These are all intelligent, insightful, talented women whose views are probably expressed a hell of a lot more fluently than my rambling thoughts! Most lately, whitemunin, klmorgan and dmacabre have all made insightful posts on the subject and it's definitely worth checking them out here, here and here respectively. Ladies, I hope you don't mind me linking to your posts - I assumed not because they were open to public, but please let me know if you do.
I'm aware in my own vague little way that every aspect of fandom is beset by fuckwittage, but I'm involved only in the HP and Labyrinth ones, and very much on the sidelines at that. I write, which makes me more involved than folks who just lurk, I guess, but I'm not someone who is well known in either fandom and, right now, I'm thinking that's a very Good Thing. Through reading other posts and links to links to other links, I've rediscovered a concept which had lodged enough in my brain so that I remembered what the abbreviation stood for. The BNF. And this is where I should probably cut, because I can feel a bit rambly rant coming on.
Seriously, what is a BNF? I know it stands for Big Name Fan, but what IS it? Is there some sort of evaluation process out there? Do you get to be a BNF if you've had x number of reviews? Do you have to have posted over a certain number of words? Made some stunning insight about the fandom? Invented a truly original plot concept? What? I really want to know. People talk about certain stories being core to the fandom, or to certain 'ships. Who gets to decide this? To me, very much an outsider to this, it smacks of the Celeb Culture which is so prevalent in the UK (and I'm sure in the US as well). Someone gets famous because they're married to / sleeping with / involved in legal proceedings with a person who is GENUINELY famous for something. Then a third party sells a story like, "My night of debauchery with Person B" and, all of a sudden, Person C is ALSO famous. So here we have one person who has actually achieved something and this string of knock-on, cheaper fame. I'm not denying that there are a lot of writers out there who have a vast amount of talent. I'm not saying that everyone who gets more reviews than me sob sob piles of reviews is undeserving of them. What I AM saying is that I've seen plenty of evidence of people's fiction being touted about the fandoms not necessarily because the writing is good but because they know someone who knows someone who.... etcetc
I think that the BNF is at once an extremely powerful and extremely vulnerable position. While it guarantees that you, as a fan, have fans of your own (weirdness!), it's much easier to throw mud at someone who's up on a pedestal above the heads of the rest of us mundane plebs. With any type of celebrity, if you fall on your face, you do it for all the world to see. And this is linked to what klmorgan was saying about fear. You have achieved your BNF status through whatever means (and yes, I do accept that talent gets you there, just not necessarily every time). You have a bunch of people who you KNOW will devour every word you post, and most likely give you glowing reviews because they lurrrrve you. You bask in the glow, you want to keep feeding it but all of a sudden you have RL issues / writers block / a sudden attack of the whatthefucks. Whatever. I guess this is when plagiarism can be tempting. Or on the flip side, you are a writer who yearns for the adoration of the BNF status but nobody seems to be interested in your masterpiece. Hey, lookit, Ms BNF got hundreds of reviews for her fanfic piece, surely nobody will mind if you just "borrow" a snippet or two.
This all sounds like it's coming from a bitter old bag who doesn't feel she gets enough reviews and, to some extent, it is. I'm not a Big Name Fan. I'm not even a Small Name Fan. I'm Miniscule Name Fan, or possibly Fan With No Name. While I'd like to have dozens of adoring minions worshipping every word I've written, I'm aware that this is very unlikely to happen. I'd also like an Aston Martin and a small island in the Caribbean. I'd like a signed, advance copy of the next Harry Potter book. I'd like a private Bowie concert. The adoring fanbase thing is looking more likely by comparison! But one thing I do have is the knowledge that my handful of reviews are MINE. They are valuable to me because those people like my writing, not somebody else's. And, all other matters (legality, whether it's immoral to steal something which is by nature slightly unoriginal anyway, whether abandoned stories are "fair game", whatever) aside, this is why I just don't understand plagiarism.
It's cheating.
Sure, you might get a load of glory and adoration but it's tarnished right from the start, and it only gets worse the longer things go on. The work IS NOT YOURS. Therefore the praise IS NOT YOURS. Those people saying, "your story is amazing, you're so insightful, so talented" are not saying it to YOU really, they are saying it to someone else. So how can any of that taste sweet? There are a lot of reasons I wouldn't try to pull off plagiarism - the work involved both doing it and trying to cover my tracks, the fear of getting caught - but this is the main one. I'd just feel like such a scumbag.
I get a sneaking suspicion this is linked to another vast gap in my understanding: writers who claim they think their own work is crap. In my evidently not very humble opinion, this is bollocks. I know I'm not a breathtakingly brilliant writer, but I think I'm pretty good. I like my warped sense of humour, I enjoy my depictions of both canon and original characters. If I genuinely thought that my writing absolutely sucked beyond redemption, you know what? I probably wouldn't do it. I certainly wouldn't put it up on the internet for the world to point and laugh. All fanfic and fanart is a form of vanity. We are saying, "hey, look what I did, what do you think?" And while the more mature people welcome negative views if they are constructive, we wouldn't put things out there if we thought there was nothing good in it. I've seen far too many story summaries which say "this sux but plees read AND REVIEW anyway". Oh really? You think your story is a pile of old crap and you want people to tell you that, huh? I bet you don't. This is just a way of trying to hook reviews saying, "nooo, it doesn't suck, you're sooooo talented". And maybe I'm evil, but I always have the temptation to post a review saying, "you're absolutely right, it does suck. Why the hell did you post this garbage?" Which is a fast track to getting my arse kicked off ff.net, I should imagine. So if you genuinely think that you can't write well enough to get the reviews you want, don't "borrow" from someone who IS getting the reviews. Why not - gasp! - try something else instead???
I know that there are things that I could do to improve the amount of readers and reviewers I get. I could write in the popular pairings and post on the relevant boards. Snape / Hermione stories have a massive readership, for example. Fluffy Harry / Ginny fics have their happy homes. Writing about Sybill Trelawney and Mad-Eye Moody is a lot of fun, but not a fast-track to popularity. I could write more long, multi-chapter stories. Short stories and ficlets tend to get buried really fast and don't attract long-term loyalty. I could pimp my work more, trawl round Yahoo groups and the like, throwing out witty teasers and enticing people read more. And hey, here's an idea: I could get off my lazy arse and write more often.
I'm fully aware that it's been almost a year since I posted on my multi-chapter fic. I know that I've only written a handful of ficlets in all that time. Really, I only have myself to blame. (Yes, there have been RL issues but if I wanted the reviews that much, I could spend less time watching re-runs of "Charmed" and more time in front of the computer.) I have a goldfish attention span and am absolutely terrible about starting something then getting interested in something else and leaving the original project gathering dust. celtprincess13 will testify to the fact that I had every intention of writing a multi-chapter HP story a couple of years ago. My god, it would have been brilliant! The ending would have been absolutely heart-breaking. The only problem - it never happened. My real strength is in short stories and the long one turned out to be just too much work. Readers of "Home" - if there are any of you who are still interested and if you are, THANK YOU - don't despair. I will finish that story or I'll never forgive myself. But, as Oates said, I may be some time.
So, going back to my sub-heading and scrabbling desperately for a point, this is why I can't see myself becoming a BNF or a "real" author. Not because I think I'm not good enough. I have read enough published shite to realise that talent is not the only requirement, and sometimes doesn't figure in the mix at all. I don't have the dedication. My muse doesn't take me down the aisle marked "Bestseller", she leads me to some dark dusty corner filled with the obscure subjects which don't quite fit anywhere. I enjoy my writing and I do get a great thrill out of positive reviews, but my own laziness means that I'll never promote my own work enough to be famous, either in the fanfic community or the real world. And, while part of me thinks that would be nice, I'm not really bothered enough to do anything about it. And the "easy way", ripping off someone else's work and passing it off as my own, would leave a foul taste in my mouth.
/ranty rambling (finally)
* And, by the way, I stole the term "fuckwittage" from Bridget Jones's Diary. Oops.
Addendum to rambling: This is something I meant to put in around the middle but my rant ran away with me. This is the generally What's Wrong With The World Today part. At the risk of sounding like someone's mum, oh hang on a minute, I AM someone's mum... nobody's prepared to earn anything. The attitude now was summed up very well by Faith in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Want, take, have." This is what the plagiarists are doing. Somehow, to a lot of people, wanting something gives you the right to have it RIGHT NOW. If actually working toward that thing is a bit too much like hard work, never mind, just take it. This applies beyond writing. This is why all of those "consolidate all your existing debts and have enough over for an exotic holiday" companies make their money. People don't think, "oh crap, I'm upto my eyes in debt, maybe I should stop buying stuff". They think, "but I want a widescreen TV / holiday in the sun / conservatory for my house and I want to have it now". The sense of working toward a goal has been lost, and that's a real shame. I remember how proud I was when I first bought a VCR because it was my first big-thing purchase with my own wages. These days, a lot of people would just get a credit deal. Or steal one.