I don't understand when authors get upset or don't allow people to write fanfic about their characters. What's so bad about letting fans enjoy those characters any way they like? Hell, it might even make the fans like them more or even garner new fans. I really don't see the harm. It's not like the original creators are forced to read the fic. As long as nobody is making money off of writing about characters the original author created, then what's the big deal?
Idk. I don't feel like authors have any say over what people do with their work once they get it out there any more than they have a say over what people think of it. Plus, I'm annoyed by the authority implicit in having the writer tell fans how to engage with the work. It's almost like they didn't get the memo--psssst the "author" is dead.
I tend to get really upset and boycott authors who come out against fanfic because I think they're assholes who are too impressed with themselves but....I do not see writing fanfic in a fandom the author has asked you not to to be any different than writing rpf of people who have made it really clear it creeps them out, so...that's where I'm at on the issue. Also, JKR has explicitly said she enjoys fanfic but wishes people to not write the nc-17 stuff and I have read it and have friends who write and I don't think twice about it so...no. I have no issue with it. GTFO yourself, author, is my basic response whenever I hear someone has complained.
My favorite fandom is Pern. But McCaffrey does not want slash written. So I have read the one or two stories like Aero, and loved them. Mainly, fans do not write slash, especially because of the cease and desist orders- the author is not kidding around. I guess it depends on the author- do they actively protest it by giving cease and desist orders or just state they don't want it? In McCaffrey's case, for Pern, it seems....I don't know, she introduced and wrote slash as canon in her own fandom...so...I guess you have to take each fandom and decide how the author acts and how much you their behavior modifies your own. McCaffrey has stopped writing in the Pern verse, so it seems open to fandom interpretation to me....Hobb, however, is still writing in her fandom, so that seems closed.
Hmmm, my reaction is complicated. I think the authors are being high-handed and arrogant to declare their work to be out of bounds for fic, so it makes me like them less and makes me less likely to buy/read their work. (Or, in Diana Gabaldon's (sp?) case, it makes me want to punch them in the face.) But, I probably wouldn't write if I knew they'd asked fans not to, because I defend fic as being a harmless enterprise that helps authors, which stops being true if we're doing it against the author's will.
But it seems to me like more and more authors are embracing fic, so hopefully this dilemma will soon be irrelevant.
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But it seems to me like more and more authors are embracing fic, so hopefully this dilemma will soon be irrelevant.
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