I've been making occasionally bitchy comments on Twitter, but I'm feeling the need to talk in a bit more depth about this whole Fifty Shades of Gray debacle
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I'm conflicted about it, too, like the above commenter. I like fic being my happy fun SECRET place, and I'm appalled that this is all happening to a crap writer over a crap fic.
But I also think that crossing the streams was largely inevitable, and I don't think it necessarily will mean terrible, terrible things. It'll mean mostly terrible things and a few not-so-terrible things, with very occasionally a glorious thing thrown in for good measure. And I've seen anti-fanfic reviewers and readers get absolutely frothing and assholish about it, and they make me kind of wish that fic writers will just storm the fucking palace.
As you can see, I'm approaching this with all the maturity of a twelve-year-old, as usual.
Ha, I just posted about this same internal dilemma a few days ago. I'm right there with you, especially on this part:
So what do we think about this? To my mind, the first Rule of Fanfic is Don't Sell Fanfic. And while it bothers me that she did this in the first place, does it bother me more that she is making a shitton of money off of it? Am I just mad at myself for being too ethical to do it myself? LOL. Am I mostly pissed that it's a truly shitty piece of fanfic? *g*I don't know if I'm being a snob or just jealous, but it offends me in some way too. It seems like cheating. I mean I looked at her fic and then I read the first chapter of the "book" to compare and...they cleaned up the punctuation? And maybe some of the run-on sentences/poor sentence structure? And other than that (and changing names) it's the same damn story as when it was a fic
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I'm not super worried about fanfic going mainstream or whatever, but it is already happening. Can you clarify what you mean by mainstream? EW wrote about fandom/fic in a recent article, so are you meaning that non-fandom folks are discovering it? Or that the mainstream press is writing about it
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Just that I don't think fanfic has to be "our dirty little secret" or whatever. If more people know it's out there, I don't think it will suddenly mean so much scrutiny that fanfic will be quashed. (As you point out, a lot of folks really don't "get" the appeal of fandom or fanfic, or hell even official tie-in novels.) But I actually think the opposite is already happening. The cashcow-ness of Cassie Clare and 50 Shades has publishers suddenly thinking this is a magic formula--that if they suddenly find a way to buy this fanfiction stuff--it will become a huge success just like these series. Which...seems unlikely to me? These two happened to tap into some zeitgeisty thing I guess (just like Twilight did) but having a whole bunch of editors who don't understand or know what fanfic is acquiring what seems to be the worst of the worst that's out there....that seems problematic to me. They seem to be forsaking the fundamentals of publishing -- a good story, well told, with some artistry -- for these horrible FF.net quality things and I
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This whole situation is bonkers and hilarious and appalling on so many levels. I wish the general public didn't know what fanfic was. I wish the general public didn't think that all fanfic was porn, or that it was all shitty, or that it was all shitty porn. I wish every mention in every media outlet of MILLION SELLING AUTHOR Cassandra Cla(i)re would add, "...who once got strangers on the internet to buy her a laptop." I wish Stephenie Meyer has never been born.
I'm uneasy with filing off the serial numbers. I suppose if something's reworked enough and departs enough from the source material it can be legit. There's probably nothing wrong with scavenging bits of dialogue or language that you particularly liked and incorporating it into something original. I guess it's up to the conscience (or lack thereof) of the author.
Maybe I don't get it because I've never written a fanfic that wasn't a fanfic, you know what I mean? Those specific characters in that specific setting. That is the whole point of it. If you're a "real writer" then
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I wish every mention in every media outlet of MILLION SELLING AUTHOR Cassandra Cla(i)re would add, "...who once got strangers on the internet to buy her a laptop."
I predict that no matter how many people chime in, there will be nothing in these comments that I will agree with more than this.
Not surprisingly, I agree with all of this. (And same thing with my own fic -- filing off the serial numbers wouldn't work for me, because it's all about specific characters/setting. But heck, there are readers out there who aren't interested in anything BUT AU. It's a huge genre.)
They are very similar to your thoughts. Also, I freely admit the fact that E.L. James seems to be a complete asshole and not a great writer adds to my feelings of DNW.
I actually don't think she planned it. The fic publishing craze was in its infancy when she began writing MotU (three years ago); I don't think TWCS and Omnific even existed yet. Certainly, no one in the fandom had yet proved that one could make any profit self-publishing fic. I don't think she saw dollar signs until the 2010 Fandom Gives Back fundraiser (which raised almost $150,000, with her contribution earning $30,000 by itself). At that point, she was already on the sequel and everyone was publishing, so she figured she might as well, especially seeing how much people were willing to pay for a brief outtake. I mean, I can't say for sure what was in her head at the beginning, but certainly there was no shortage of Twilight BDSM fic back in 2009, and she was aware of those other fics and had read many of them, so how could she really have planned on the explosive popularity of her fic? Also, although MotU was probably the most popular and well-know fic in the fandom back then (aside from Wide Awake), there were many other fics with
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But I also think that crossing the streams was largely inevitable, and I don't think it necessarily will mean terrible, terrible things. It'll mean mostly terrible things and a few not-so-terrible things, with very occasionally a glorious thing thrown in for good measure. And I've seen anti-fanfic reviewers and readers get absolutely frothing and assholish about it, and they make me kind of wish that fic writers will just storm the fucking palace.
As you can see, I'm approaching this with all the maturity of a twelve-year-old, as usual.
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So what do we think about this? To my mind, the first Rule of Fanfic is Don't Sell Fanfic. And while it bothers me that she did this in the first place, does it bother me more that she is making a shitton of money off of it? Am I just mad at myself for being too ethical to do it myself? LOL. Am I mostly pissed that it's a truly shitty piece of fanfic? *g*I don't know if I'm being a snob or just jealous, but it offends me in some way too. It seems like cheating. I mean I looked at her fic and then I read the first chapter of the "book" to compare and...they cleaned up the punctuation? And maybe some of the run-on sentences/poor sentence structure? And other than that (and changing names) it's the same damn story as when it was a fic ( ... )
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I'm uneasy with filing off the serial numbers. I suppose if something's reworked enough and departs enough from the source material it can be legit. There's probably nothing wrong with scavenging bits of dialogue or language that you particularly liked and incorporating it into something original. I guess it's up to the conscience (or lack thereof) of the author.
Maybe I don't get it because I've never written a fanfic that wasn't a fanfic, you know what I mean? Those specific characters in that specific setting. That is the whole point of it. If you're a "real writer" then ( ... )
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I predict that no matter how many people chime in, there will be nothing in these comments that I will agree with more than this.
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http://www.keiraandrews.com/2012/03/13/publishing-fanfiction/
They are very similar to your thoughts. Also, I freely admit the fact that E.L. James seems to be a complete asshole and not a great writer adds to my feelings of DNW.
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