Definitional Debate No. 361

[rhetoretician]

Here we go, philosophers, writers and curmudgeons:

1. I provide a link to Robert Reed's cute little story, A Woman's Best Friend, in Clarkesworld magazine.
    
2. Robert Reed is among most prolific and successful living writers of short-form science fiction. He publishes quite a lot.
    
3. Clarkesworld is a professional market by the standards of the Science

Comments

[girlspell]

I almost didn't respond because I wasn't sure what this story was based on. So I'll take a wild guess to this being based on Its A Wonderful Life (which I have never seen)...and no, I did not google this, though I was tempted. So if I'm totally wrong, don't embarrase me.

I deducted that because her name is Mary not Marion even though she is a librarian. :) (I'm more familar with that librarian). The little bits I picked up from people talking about the film. But of the actual plot, I'm not sure.

I loved that character George. He seemed so...normal. He was such a contrast compared to Mary. He's an innocent froma small town. She's from other worlds. But she could have been his one time wife. Even their names see archaic One part of the story must have been from the film. The part where he was.

So if this is based on the movie, I would imagine this to be fan fiction. So how far off the mark was I?

[rhetoretician]

Well, it was supposed to be a debate, so I won't venture an opinion on whether you're right or wrong in calling it fan fiction. But it was, indeed, It's a Wonderful Life about which I was thinking. The reference is clear, so that's not the question. The question (if you'd seen the movie, that is) is whether this fits into the definition of "fan fiction" -- which is meant to raise the question, what is that definition? (A good movie, by the way ; you really should see it.)

[girlspell]

Did he try to kill himself? I know this is an old 1940's movie and I can't imagine them showing an attempted suicide. So he either thought he was saving somone and got saved himself or he really was trying to kill himself?

If this is a retelling of the story in a subtle way, seeing his wife if he died or was never there, then it would be fan fiction. On the other hand, didn't Charles Dickens already do that? But then there must be people like me who never saw the movie, so that would not be fan fiction. To me fan fiction is using popular characters (not your own) in different ways, but retelling the popular story.

Isn't the HP stories just that?

[rhetoretician]

In the original story, George Bailey, beside himself with despair, comes close to killing himself when an angel (Clarence) throws himself into the river instead. George dives in to save Clarence. Clarence, to convince George of the value of his life, allows him to see the world as it would have been without him. That world is much, much worse than the world George knows. My favorite line from that scene is when George sees the tombstone of his brother Harry, who (in George's memory) was a war hero:

CLARENCE:
Your brother Harry fell through the ice and was drowned at the age of eight.

GEORGE:
This is a lie! Harry Bailey went to war; he saved the life of every man on that transport!

CLARENCE:
"Every man on that transport" died. Harry wasn't there to save them, because you weren't there to save Harry.

Sends shivers down my spine even to quote it

[madderbrad]

I think it's fan fiction.

I only saw "It's a Wonderful Life" once, and that was a long time ago, but it seems that this work isn't even an AU ... it's canon compliant! Mary makes the point of suggesting that George's 'angel' "took the effort to duplicate you" - which I thought jarred with the overall idea of infinite earths and death being a means by which one travelled between them, by the way - so this story leaves the real George intact and the original movie unaltered.

[rhetoretician]

I wonder what the editor of Clarkesworld, or Reed himself, would say about that, though. I wonder if they'd make a distinction between "fan fiction" and this.

And I also wonder how solid that distincton would be.

[madderbrad]

And I also wonder how solid that distincton would be.

Dunno. But, when it comes down to the quality of a story ... or its ability to entertain ... it's a distinction that makes no difference, in my opinion, and I dare say you agree? Fan fiction isn't inferior to original works, just ... not original in its foundation. :-)

[rosathome]

Yes, clearly. What's to discuss?

[rhetoretician]

Oh, you're no fun.

I think that Reed would be surprised to hear it called that. I wonder what the reaction would be.

See, I think that fanfic written by a "professional" author, in a professional vanue, somehow has an imprimatur that it's "different" in some meaningful way.

[amamama]

Now this was way cool, but I have no clue whether it's fan fiction or not. Haven't seen "A Wonderful Life" and doubt I ever will (there're too many films on that "should see" list already), but I really enjoyed this piece. Is it fanfiction when you don't need to know the original to enjoy the story? I'm not sure knowing the story would increase the joy I got from reading this, possibly not, because I might have my own ideas regarding that universe that were opposed to this. Possibly. Or maybe not. Inspiration can come from several sources, and so this guy was inspired by that film. Did he base all his descriptions on what that particular film showed, or are they original? Is it the same world that's portrayed in the film, or a different one, working under the same principles? If it is the same, I guess you could argue that it's fan fiction, but that would be more out of legal interest than creative, wouldn't it? I mean, this story is great on it's own

[rhetoretician]

Hi, Berte!

Reed's a great writer, that's for sure.

Your definitional question about fan fiction interests me. On the one hand, if needing to know the original story in order to enjoy the derivative piece is one of the definitions of fan fiction, then it's possible that some of my HP ff isn't fan fic.

The areas of overlap are described in my reply to Rachel, above. The story is clearly Reed's, and he could clearly have written it, with almost as much punch, without referencing George, Mary or the "world without George" trope. But there's no question that knowing the source made the story more meaningful for me. For one thing, the mousy librarian Mary Hatch found by George when he sees the world without him in the movie would never have propositioned a man the way Mary does in this story, and the contrast is resonant.

I submitted one story to Clarkesworld, but they're temporarily closed to submissions right now.

[rhetoretician]

Hi! How did you find me?

So you'd ascribe to the assertion that Wicked, for example, is fan fic? Wide Sargasso Sea?

How about the three or four different versions of the Phaedra-Hippolytus-Theseus myths? Is each of of these fan fic because it references the others? Would this mean that practically all literature is fan fic?

[rosathome]

Now you're mixing categories. Wicked and Wide Sargasso Sea are absolutely and indubitably fanfic. Good fanfic, obviously, but the only difference between them and the stuff you and I write is that these are printed on a page and people pay good money for them. There are actual characters belonging to someone else that they have used

[rhetoretician]

That's more like it. :)

If we push on the definition a bit, though, the analysis becomes foggier. Mark Twain once pointed out that there's very little writing that can be called truly "original;" it's all derived, at least in part, from antecedent sources and references. (Indeed, that's part of what makes some literature work. T. S. Eliot's "The Wasteland" derives much of its power from its deliberate referencing of other canonical works.)

We can say that some things, like very old myths, part of the collective consciousness, belonging, as you say, to communities. And I suppose, at the other extreme, that something that I write in my diary and don't show to anyone else is clearly not part of a community or a collective consciousness