On the Alleged Evils of Fan Fiction
Recently, a very famous author started an internet scuffle over her loathing and disapproval of fan fiction. Allow me to state upfront that I don’t read fan fiction. Nor do I write it. What’s more, I respect every author’s right to take their own stance on this issue since it’s all a murky grey area that we’re trying to sort through. I’m trying to come up with a policy of my own.
Because fan fiction is by nature a derivative work, there are copyright issues involved, and some authors simply cannot abide seeing their characters portrayed in ugly ways. (Let’s admit it. A lot of it is pornographic slash fiction at best!) But fan fiction isn’t piracy. It’s not plagiarism either. It’s a community experiment–a discussion with the original narrative fiction. And the way I see it is this: as long as fans aren’t trying to make a dime off my hard work and aren’t costing me a penny, there’s got to be a way of allowing and even encouraging fan fiction in a sensible and respectful way.
I might be unusual in thinking this way. I write modern mythology, which is, in its own sense, a type of fan fiction. Just because we don’t know who first came up with the Greek gods of ancient myth doesn’t mean that I’m not playing with someone else’s source material. Moreover, because I ran a role-playing game for many years, I’m quite used to other people taking my characters and putting their own unique spin on them. I suppose playwrights experience similar things. The performance of their work is never the same, and is interpreted through the language of different actors. But as far as I’m concerned, fan fiction is written by people who are passionate about the source material. They are the kinds of people who will talk up your books, your world, and share it with others.
In short, I hope fan fiction becomes a big problem for me one day.
So what do you think? Any of you writing a hot incestuous slash story between my two sexy demi-gods, Phobos & Deimos? I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to read it, but I think I’d be flattered!
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May 6th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
I consider it a form of homage to the original author. It’s definitely a form written for love or humor, not something to make money for the writer or her friends, so I don’t see much harm in it. A lot of it is porn, to be sure, but no one is claiming it’s the real thing. If you create memorable characters and interesting plots, others will dream in (more or less) your terms for some time to come. What more do you really want, after all?
May 7th, 2010 at 1:43 pm
The people who write fanfic are passionately in love with the source material. I pray to have fanfic about my characters and/or worlds some day.
Popular fanfic also leads more people to the source material, whether written or filmed. I’ve been into fanfic for ages, and if a favorite writer of mine writes something in a fandom I’m not familiar with, I’ll usually read the fic anyway. If it makes the original book/movie/TVshow/whatever sound interesting, I’ll go looking for it. Frex, I own all the Stargate: Atlantis DVDs because of fanfic; the first couple of episodes didn’t impress me, so I quit watching. Reading fanfic later got me interested again, so I spent money on the DVD seasons. I never watched Blackhawk Down (a movie with lots of eyecandy actors in it) until I read an awesome fanfic based on it. And I’ve watched and/or bought DVDs for movies just because an actor I came to know of and like through RPS was in it. (If you think pornographic slash fiction is something that has to be “admitted,” you probably don’t want to know about RPS. ;D)
The fact is, though, no matter how much fanfic is written, the source material is still there. No one’s stealing or changing the books or movies or TV shows or whatever. No one that I’ve ever heard of stopped reading/watching the source material because the fanfic disappointed, offended or pissed them off. The effect of fanfic on the copyright holder is either null or positive, never negative; it either increases the fan base and sells more books/DVDs/tie-ins, or it does nothing. Sure, the copyright holders have a right to pitch fits if they want to, since everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. But at the same time, their fans (or former fans) have a right to think whatever they think about the fit-pitching copyright holder. [shrug]
Angie