Fan fiction is the first thing I ever wrote seriously. I was thirteen and it was summer camp and I hated summer camp. Parts of it were alright; I liked being able to use the spending money my parents left on my account at the trading post every afternoon.* I’d fetch myself the usual frozen Snickers bar and styrofoam cup of Coke and then I’d find a seat on the railings at the front of the lodge and start scribbling Star Wars fanfic in my blue denim three ring binder. I’d occassionally take breaks to hunt for toads with my friend Bob Jorg–both of us were enamoured with the adorable little tree frogs and hoptoads that lived in the cool Michigan loam.
Like most fan fiction, I was the putative star of the story. I cast myself in the role of Luke & Leia’s mother and it was actually a pretty good tale overall. (I still maintain it was better than what Lucas ended up churning out.**) But it was still me grafting my own cuttings to the tree that Lucas planted. Fan fiction is good for working out writing skills, because it allows a beginning writer to focus on one or two aspects of the storytelling art. You don’t have to worry so much about creating characters or settings when JK Rowling or George Lucas or Dick Wolf*** has already done that. Instead the fan fiction author can hone her skills on plotting and dialogue; perhaps she’ll eventually move into character development of her own, with the established canon folk providing training wheels for her Marysues.****
The thing is, though, that we have a problem. And it’s getting far worse than we ever imagined, thanks to Amazon’s self-publishing and the runaway success of Fifty Shades Of Gray. Fan fiction writers are taking their hobby to the marketplace, convinced that they have every right to profit off the stories they wrote. The argument is, of course, that they used their time, effort and imagination to create a story–so why shouldn’t they be able to sell it? After all, Mrs. Fields doesn’t receive a Cease And Desist from Toll House whenever she (or her huge conglomerate) sells chocolate chip cookies!
I suppose, though, that if I bought Mrs. Fields’ cookies, glopped some frosting on them and resold them as Mrs. Fields’ German Chocolate Chip cookies using her logo and name and cookie that I might hear something.
That’s what happened recently when a Fan Fiction author got sued for stealing from Marion Zimmer Bradley. (Really? Couldn’t you pick someone who isn’t AWFUL?!?)
So we’re only sorry for stealing when we’re caught, I suppose.
I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I look askance at fanfic authors who use the medium as anything other than a beginner’s exercise or hobby. Once you get to the place where you’re trying to sell the book as your own work, you need to actually do your own work. That includes coming up with your own characters, settings and mythology. That’s what writing is. The rest of it is paperdoll puppetry.
*Summer camp has an economy not unlike that of prison.
**Sometimes I wonder if so much of the fan reaction to the Prequels was based on the fact that we’d all lived with the stories for so long that we each had our own spin on them. We knew what we expected from it, whether we actually made fanfic or not. By the time Lucas put Phantom Menace onscreen he was competing with millions of private stories.
***I’ve actually met a few people who thrive on Law & Order fanfic. I don’t get it myself, but hey. The world is a big place.
****MarySues (and MartyStus) are what those characters are called when an author writes him or herself as the star of the story.
Holy cow. I have so many questions about that notice, like why didn’t she either comply with their initial request or get herself a lawyer (who would have told her to comply with the request)?
Once she was on their radar, how did she ever think she’d be able to get away with that?
I think your insights into the strengths of fan fiction are spot on. It is a good way to hone some writing skills. And there is a real difficulty in finishing writing something. Having a fan fiction framework can help folks get over that mental hurdle.
But there’s something really weird about the whole “I love this, so it’s mine” vibe so many fan fic writers have.
Oh man. I don’t know if you remember that business years ago with the Harry Potter fanfic that was also child pornography…the whole LiveJournal fiasco. But that was pretty much the end of my having anything to do with fanfic other than the occasional use of it for my own writing exercises. (Funny you mention finishing things…fanfic stories are the only thing I’ve been able to finish and feel confident about.) I don’t read anyone else’s anymore because that attitude of “this is mine because I love it and I can do ANYTHING I WANT” really makes my skin crawl.
As for that chick who wrote the letter “apologising” for the purloined MZB work…she just has to be the queen high motherlord of arrogant writers. I’m dying to know what the additional terms of the settlement are.
I don’t normally read fanfic, but when I do, it’s by Steven Brust and wholly devoted to Firefly.
http://dreamcafe.com/myownkindoffreedom.html
Hmmmm. I might have to try that. I like Steven Brust.
Like I was telling AuntB just above, I quit reading fanfic after some of the Harry Potter ff authors took a decidedly dark turn into squick. I put up with the Holmes/Watson slash for years…barely…(I’m not a lover–or liker–of slash) but when they started in on the Potterverse with the incest and childrape I was DONE.
Wow. MZB always encouraged fanfic, and a couple of times published collections of Darkover fanfic she considered good. (I don’t know who got the money from those, and I suppose it’s possible that she kept every cent of it, but I think she didn’t, because she got all sorts of praise for it — and the writers got real-live-published and all that.) And, IIRC, some of those writers went on to write and publish their own work. I imagine you’d have to go pretty far to piss her (or her estate) off in that context. The writer in question must be utterly crass, in addition to the stupidity.
Just reading that apology letter it seemed like she was super arrogant. Because don’t you have to be to not only NOT stop selling the first book but to also sell a second book? Over at SFWA the general consensus is that they hope this kills any chance she has at a legit pubbing career. I kinda have to say that I agree.
Yeah, wow, I’m a huge fan of fanfic, both as a writer (for the exercise) and as a reader, but 50 Shades was already a shade too far (heh heh heh, I’m punchy this afternoon). What bothers me about 50 Shades (and this example from MZB) is that fanfic has a whole fight club thing surrounding it. And rule number 1 is that you don’t make make money off it, period. Because it’s crass. Because it’s essentially plagiarism. And because if can cause the owner of the source to look too deeply into the whole subculture and, frankly, no one wants that. Every time I see something like this I feel like screaming “RULE # 1″ at my screen.
It’s especially buggy to me because it seems like such a big middle finger in the eye not only to the creator of the source material but to the other fanfic authors who play by the rules. It’s like telling everyone that they are the SUPERGOOD fanfic writer. Really they’re not better…they’re just a lot ruder.
[...] I see Fan Fiction as a cheat and I feel the same way about using intrinsic folklores as story themes. Writers who are looking for an easy hook make heavy use of the things Everybody Knows. Readers looking for a book that takes less of a challenge seek those books out in droves. It’s a marriage of convenience for all concerned. [...]