This is not my beautiful fanfic

[mistraltoes]

Pursuant to a discussion with reveilles, I went looking for Thursday Next fanfiction, and stumbled across this (halfway down the page) in Jasper Fforde's FAQ:

"My thoughts on Fan Fiction are pretty much this: That it seems strange to want to copy or 'augment' someone else's work when you could expend just as much energy and have a lot more fun making up

Comments

[shimere277]

have a lot more fun making up your ownI have no idea how he feels he can presume to judge what is fun for other people

[mistraltoes]

I'm not trying to convince people who are completely opposed to fanfic. I'm hoping to speak to people who are on the fence or confused by the arguments, and to give support to new fanfic writers starting out, since the latter is part of the eventual intended purpose of my site. But thank you for your thoughts.

[jomacmouse]

I'm not trying to convince people who are completely opposed to fanfic.

No, they're the ones who've forgotten they can't close off all the gaps and other fascinating little bits and pieces that might start off the seed of a fanfic piece. Unless an author is prepared to track down and triple-set in stone every character and situation in a book or story, someone is going to wonder what happened to minor character X and fill in the details for themselves. Either that, or be prepared to create dull characters and plots and hope feverishly that people will still buy it. On what, I don't know. A pretty cover, perhaps? ;)

[herself_nyc]

Seems to me that artists who are confident about their work aren't threatened by or interested in dissing fanfic. Someone who is making a living or part of it writing tie-in novels is unlikely to be someone at peace with their muse.

[mistraltoes]

Well, yes and no. I know several people who write tie-in novels and are happy with it. Many of them still write fanfic, as well. But I do agree that a lot of the complaints from those pro writers who do object come from a lack of confidence. But what I can't quite fathom is the amount of mental juggling it must require to deliberately not see the artistic similarities between what we do and what they do.

[sp23]

To which I can only say: "Mmmm....kay. Jasper, have you read YOUR OWN BOOKS???" Because, you know, thry're absolutely stuffed full of other people's characters and settings.

Bwahahaha. Oh the stupid, it burns.

And the guy bitching out fanfic writers who writes tie-in novels? *blinks* Yeah, you're really, really creative yourself there, bub.

[sp23]

You know, I wonder if these guys look down their noses at Sam Raimi. After all, his highly successful television program, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys was little more than fanfiction if you want to look at it that way. He took a character (in fact, two characters since Iolaus wasn't original to him either) that had been around for thousands of years and wrote stories about him. Isn't this the definiation of fanfiction, taking someone's else's creation and making up your own stories and adventures?

Of course this argument goes over the heads of people like this because the original creator is a) unknown, and b) long dead.

[mistraltoes]

And let's not forget Robin Hood and King Arthur.

As I keep pointing out to anybody who'll listen, Shakespeare ripped off both characters and plots. He also wrote RPF. But I've yet to see one of these people dare to accuse Shakespeare of a lack of creativity. Because that would come back to bith them, oh, yeah.

[mistraltoes]

I mean 'bite them', of course.

[rahirah]

I can understand why authors feel protective about their own work, and unhappy about people writing fanfic--I feel that way myself. But it's not logical, it's purely emotional, and trying to make out that fanfic is evil because it makes you uncomfortable isn't a viable argument. Lee Goldberg is just... disturbed.

[mistraltoes]

Yeah. Feelings are not necessarily logical, but we can decide what we do with them.

Generally, I wouldn't mind being ficced, unless it was porn or open mockery, which would hurt. But I'd deal, because to me, freedom of artistic expression is such an important principle. I know some people think 'oh, it's just a hobby', but the issue is bigger than fandom, really.

[pinkdormouse]

Every time I see a professional author complaining about fanfic, I get the impression that they're insecure about the originality of their ideas, the strength of their writing or both.

So not only is Fforde (in my opinion) a pretentious, unoriginal, tired old hack, I now know he's also a deeply insecure one at that. Time to send my unread (well I started the first one and gave up before I threw it across the room) Thursday Next books to Oxfam, and make space for something better by an author I vaguely respect.

[mistraltoes]

Every time I see a professional author complaining about fanfic, I get the impression that they're insecure about the originality of their ideas, the strength of their writing or both.

Or possibly, their income. But yeah, I think the fears are unfounded.

I find Fforde's books mildly amusing--I like the dodo. But I can't read very much of him at one time.

[pinkdormouse]

I'm sure fanfic does more to help the original creators' incomes than it harms them. How many people find a fanfic author they like in one fandom, then search out material from another media source because the fanficcer has stories in that fandom as well?

As for non-media tie-in stories riffing off other people's work. Neil Gaiman's done a fair few -- 'The Problem of Susan' and 'A Study In Emerald' are Narnia femslash and a Holmes/Lovecraft crossover respectively. The latter is/was online.

Then there are the sequels to Rebecca -- Susan Hills' novel and the other one -- and Jane Austen's novels and those of the Brntes have a fair few too.

Alan Moore's new graphic novel crosses over The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan and the controversy about that is all over the internet. I was highly dubious about it, now I'm almost at the point of buying it when it comes out and making my own mind up about which side of the line it falls on regarding its content (I don't expect my library will stock it