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Intention does matter. If a fanficer writes a story in order to directly profit from it, then that would be exploitation.
That would be exploitation for profit.
But if they write a story just for the joy of writing it, and maybe to share it with fellow fans, then no, that isn't exploitation.
Exploitation does not mean "profiting from the work of others". It merely means, "using something to the greatest possible advantage" and, if you want to get negative about the whole thing, stick something in there about "for selfish purposes". All fanfiction is, arguably, written for at least somewhat selfish purposes too. It would be extremely presumptuous of a fanfiction writer to think that he is adding something worthwhile to the existing body of fiction, and if he's not writing for that purpose, then it's for his own enjoyment, which is selfish (though mostly harmless as well).
If your definition of 'exploitation' is that broad, then original fiction is also 'exploitational' of the english language and common cultural archetypes. So...yeah.
... originality is the be-all, end-all of literature ...
I understand that that is an easy position to argue against, but it's not one anyone (with the possible exception of INeedNoSalt) is putting forward.
Having said that, originality is important. Unless the point is just cheap thrills--which is okay, I guess, but I'm quite happy to say that anything (fanfic or otherwise) written for cheap thrills has very little merit--any written work ought to be carefully crafted in every respect. The words need to be chosen properly, the setting needs to be established thoughtfully, the characters need to be developed with specific and considered intentions. Crafting an original work lets you do all of these things. Using an existing work means that in most cases something gets shoehorned in that doesn't belong*. It might be a plot element incongruent with the setting, it might be a character trait that defies established conventions in the source work, it might be something else. Because the source work already told the story the author was trying to tell, everything about it fits (or should fit, if it's good) with that story, not the one some fans might wish it had told or would tell.
That does not mean that any work that uses the framework of an existing work is doomed to run into those problems. I don't know the first thing about Earthbound, but it seems like Oboro's piece that won that award might not have committed any errors. Also, someone might flout all of the conventions of an existing work in an attempt to subvert it and make a particular point. Once you start going that route though, I think you're leaving the realm of fanfiction and getting into parody, satire or other forms of commentary.
Originality is not the most important thing when creating a written work, but it does lend itself well to superior craft.
Shoehorned in something that doesn't belong? Doesn't belong according to who? The author? Does the author really get to control what people think of his or her work? Some people believe so, but I'm not a big worshipper of authorial intent. Once a work of art is out in the world, the artist doesn't get to dictate who sees what in it.
And as for "cheap thrills," a) I don't think you get to say that no good writing can be written for the purpose of being entertaining. b) Not all fanfiction is written for the sole purpose of being entertaining; much of it is commentary, parody, or satire, so you're moving goalposts again.
Basically you're saying, good fanfiction doesn't fall under these standards by which I'm judging fanfiction as a whole, so I'm going to discount it. Could Oboro have told her story by filing the serial numbers off and making it about original characters? Yes, but it would have likely been a worse story without the framework of the canon.
I think you're lending weight to originality that doesn't need to be there. A work of fiction can be good (which is subjective to begin with) from dozens of factors, from having well-rounded characters to presenting an interesting world to making commentary on humanity to having an exciting story. Borrowing elements from another work can limit a piece of fiction, yes, but it can also add to it.
Some fanfic writers might do that, yes. But not all of them choose to base their writing on a pre-existing setting just to get a boost in readership. There are many who simply enjoy a particular pre-existing fictional setting and like writing stories within it, even if they have few readers, or no readers at all. Which means that there is nothing inherently exploitational to fanfic.
It doesn't matter if the fanfiction writer means to be exploitative or not, they're still getting all the benefits from someone else's hard work.
_____________
*Licensed fiction, because I know that's going to come up, runs into these sorts of problems as well, but the hope is usually that the owners of the license will ensure that the derivative work works within the established universe. That said, I think a majority of licensed fiction leans pretty heavily towards the "cheap thrills" side of things anyway, so comparing that to fanfiction isn't all that helpful if you're looking to show merit.[/QUOTE]
Authorial intent weighs more heavily on licensed fiction, depending on the license (Star Trek writers seem to get a lot more leeway than Star Wars, for example), so if you worship authorial intent, yes, you're going to find more merit there. Other people, however, don't really care so much for authorial intent, so that argument is fairly subjective.
Sure. English is not the result of months or years of work by a single person though. The same goes for cultural archetypes.
My point was that your definition of 'exploitation' was so broad and all-encompasing that it effectively had no negative connotations, and thus saying that fanfiction was 'exploitational' was effectively meaningless.
The definition of "fanfiction" is a lot broader than most people are thinking.
You could have a completely original cast of characters with a storyline that doesn't affect the official canon at all, but as long as it's set in a universe created by someone else, it's still fanfiction. Is it really fair to dismiss fanfiction off-handedly when, there but for the lack of a official license, a story could be of good enough quality to be marketed as a tie-in novel? God knows that some fanfiction out there is better written than official licensed novels that tie into various franchises.
Shoehorned in something that doesn't belong? Doesn't belong according to who? The author? Does the author really get to control what people think of his or her work? Some people believe so, but I'm not a big worshipper of authorial intent. Once a work of art is out in the world, the artist doesn't get to dictate who sees what in it.
Every element that's in a work of fiction, if the author has done her work properly, is there for a reason. Ignoring those parts because they're inconvenient or fail to meet a reader's expectations only serves to miss whatever point(s) the author was trying to make. Sure, multiple interpretations are great and all, but I do think that creators have a say in what is and is not kosher with regards to their own creations.
And as for "cheap thrills," a) I don't think you get to say that no good writing can be written for the purpose of being entertaining.
I don't get to say that? Okay! I wasn't trying to say it in the first place, so we're good.
b) Not all fanfiction is written for the sole purpose of being entertaining; much of it is commentary, parody, or satire, so you're moving goalposts again.
If you don't think most fanfiction is written for cheap thrills, all I can do is urge you to take off those rose-tinted glasses. And I don't need to move goalpoasts when you're doing such a good job of moving them for me.
Basically you're saying, good fanfiction doesn't fall under these standards by which I'm judging fanfiction as a whole, so I'm going to discount it.
Nope. Not even close.
Could Oboro have told her story by filing the serial numbers off and making it about original characters? Yes, but it would have likely been a worse story without the framework of the canon.
I agree.
I think you're lending weight to originality that doesn't need to be there.
And I think you're too invested in your hobby to see the limitations inherent to it.
A work of fiction can be good (which is subjective to begin with) from dozens of factors, from having well-rounded characters to presenting an interesting world to making commentary on humanity to having an exciting story. Borrowing elements from another work can limit a piece of fiction, yes, but it can also add to it.
Fanfiction hardly "borrows" elements from other works. It lifts huge chunks wholesale and tosses in a couple of new things that may or may not fit. Sure, there's some fanfiction out there that is only ever so slightly related to the source work, but in that case one wonders why the writer even bothered with the connection at all.
Authorial intent weighs more heavily on licensed fiction, depending on the license (Star Trek writers seem to get a lot more leeway than Star Wars, for example), so if you worship authorial intent, yes, you're going to find more merit there. Other people, however, don't really care so much for authorial intent, so that argument is fairly subjective.
Didn't I say that most licensed fiction doesn't have much merit anyway? That's what I was trying to say.
Put very simply, I think that mass-marketed, focus-tested IPs are taking up people's precious brainspace and stunting the artists of tomorrow, as people keep trying to pound the square peg of their unique perspective on the world into the round hole of "The A-Team Meets Matlock."
Ah, so you're of the Sherlock Holmes "The mind is like an attic" persuasion. I disagree. There are many original writers who start out writing fanfiction,
And then they graduate to bigger and better things. I am much more interested in reading a good author's mature work than their derivative juvenilia - in part because the mature work is going to contain and encompass everything that came before. Just in recent memory, Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas are both books that are heavily influenced by, and explicitly deal with, the stories those authors loved when they were young - but filtered through decades of experience, admixed with completely unrelated threads of politics and culture and philosophy, and transmuted into something new.
Almost any teacher in a creative field will tell you that imitation is a fabulous pedagogic tool for beginners, but the goal is to eventually move past that. Where is the alchemy in turning lead into lead? Most competent authors can bang out a serviceable Star Wars story if they really want to, but how many fanfic writers can go the other way round? This
and there are many fanfiction writers who prefer to stick to their own medium and don't want to write original fiction. You're assuming that without fanfic, all of these people would be putting their efforts into writing original fiction, and that's simply not the case.
reads like an admission that many can't, and I find that sad, that there are people who enjoy the act of writing yet are so fundamentally insecure that they can't or won't invent a name and a place.
Why would wanting to improve upon a story necessarily lead to telling your own story?
Well, I should think it's axiomatic. As soon as you replace the original author's plot and dialogue and ideas and concerns and style with your own, you're telling your own story; all that remains is to tear off your brother's cast-off karate gi, quit pretending to be Luke Skywalker, and have the courage to announce to the world "Hey, world! I am no longer writing Star Wars fanfiction! I am writing SPACE WAR LESBIANS, tm and (c) me!"
Axiomatic = I pulled this out of my ass.
Consider this your invitation to explain how coming up with your own plot, dialogue, ideas, and style aren't the seeds of actually telling your own story? Is ownership such a terrifying idea to you, that you flee thus before its specter?
And SPACE WAR LESBIANS would not be the same story without the weight of the Star Wars story behind it.
That strikes me as not a very sure thing at all. Alan Moore's SUPREME, a story about a Superman-like character, is spectacularly moving even with no preexisting "weight" behind it at all. If you want weight, make your own. Learning how will make you a better writer.
For example, I once read a very interesting Star Wars story (licensed, but still fanfiction) about Boba Fett's experience inside the Sarlacc. Now, if this was going to be original, with the serial numbers filed off, the author would have had to establish who Boba Fett is, who Han Solo is, who Jabba the Hutt is, what the Sarlacc is, what a Jedi is, the environment of Tattoine, the politics of the Empire, etc., and this short, affecting little story would have been a bloated behemoth without any of the traditional plot structure of a long novel. It would have been boring.
Any halfway-competent writer could tell you that the specifics of Jabba the Hutt or "the politics of the Empire" or whatever are hardly germane to the immediate situation of a bounty hunter being digested alive by a sand monster - and the stuff that is relevant can be worked in quickly and painlessly through dialog, action, and (if absolutely necessary) exposition. The existence of literally thousands of science fiction short stories that create an original world, an original character, and an original situation and tell a gripping story with them in a handful of pages - and the authors that were able to repeat that feat over and over and over again - stand as testament to the fact that it can be done where there is will and skill.
As a matter of fact, I've read Of Mice and Men fanfic. It's not as prevalent as, say, Harry Potter, but that's probably because fewer people have read and liked Of Mice and Men that are inclined to write fanfic.
Why do you think that that is? Why isn't there more, say, Proust fanfic, or Henry Miller fanfic? Is it because the really good stuff doesn't trade in easily-digestible, mass-marketable archetypes?
Now we're arguing tastes. Plus, you have no idea if she'd be better if she wrote less Star Trek. She might be worse.
Yeah - she was a published writer years before her first Star Trek novel. Also, would she have written those Trek books if she weren't paid for them? That's the difference between fanfic and a hired gun.
Jacobkosh on
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
'Exploit' is one of those bits of English, like the word 'literature' or the passive voice, than set off my bullshit detectors.
Cheap thrills, lowbrow, art/not-art - there are a whole bunch in any particular kind of debate that are used to make rhetorical points while pretending to objectivity.
poshniallo on
I figure I could take a bear.
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INeedNoSaltwith blood on my teethRegistered Userregular
Probably degree. It's pretty difficult to find fan fiction that isn't fans just wanking all over the place.
This is just you, again, painting all fan fiction as crap. This is true for every fictional media. Drop it. It's a stupid argument that isn't helping you any because you've completely failed to explain why it doesn't apply to all of those other medias.
A script is a script and isn't meant to be read as a piece of literature so much as it's meant to be a baseline from which to make a film. Do you think The Dark Knight would've been nearly as awesome if we had
JOKER
Why so serious?
and not Ledger's fantastic portrayal?
Don't try to sidestep the question. Acting has fuck all to do with the quality of the scripts. Would the script for TDK, had it not been approved by Warner Brothers, been automatically worth less than any of the tripe scripts created for the 1960s Batman, the more "original" of the two?
Acting is what can make an amazing script terrible in execution or a terrible script turn out amazing.
1960s Batman isn't 'more original' because it still draws from earlier works. It's not like Batman started with a shitty 60s tv show (it started with shitty 30s comics.) I'm pretty sure TDK draws from earlier work, too, but I'm not thinking it's taking a ton of inspiration from that train wreck of a television series.
Now you are telling me that my stance is that the license is what makes the difference. I'm saying if TDK was written without the license, it would be in bad taste. It would be theft and therefore less meritous (in my opinion).
It wouldn't really be any less badass though.
You need to stop doing this I'M IN D&D SO I GET TO DEMAND PROOF shit though because you know this is a totally subjective topic.
Now you are telling me that my stance is that the license is what makes the difference. I'm saying if TDK was written without the license, it would be in bad taste. It would be theft and therefore less meritous (in my opinion).
It wouldn't really be any less badass though.
Theft of what, exactly? If the script for TDK never got sold and licensed, it would never have become a movie, and thus would never have made anyone any money. So what would it have stolen?
The definition of "fanfiction" is a lot broader than most people are thinking.
You could have a completely original cast of characters with a storyline that doesn't affect the official canon at all, but as long as it's set in a universe created by someone else, it's still fanfiction. Is it really fair to dismiss fanfiction off-handedly when, there but for the lack of a official license, a story could be of good enough quality to be marketed as a tie-in novel? God knows that some fanfiction out there is better written than official licensed novels that tie into various franchises.
You need to stop doing this I'M IN D&D SO I GET TO DEMAND PROOF shit though because you know this is a totally subjective topic.
Quality of writing can be quite objective at times. Try again.
More so, even with opinions, you are expected to demonstrate why your opinion is valid here. So at any point please demonstrate what makes fiction derived from another source actually less valuable other than, apparently, money and/or that the creator decided he'd let anyone use his ideas.
You need to stop doing this I'M IN D&D SO I GET TO DEMAND PROOF shit though because you know this is a totally subjective topic.
Quality of writing can be quite objective at times. Try again.
But since we're not discussing any particular piece of writing but rather a format in general, it is totally subjective. Stop being a dick.
Do something to prove that the two pieces are equally value. Demonstrate it, like you keep telling me to demonstrate my opinion to you. Give me some numbers or something.
If a piece of prose is well written, it has merit. If it's not, it doesn't. Or at least, very little.
Fanfiction is generally typified by being very poorly written. Like, worse than your average GameFAQ forum post which is why it typically isn't considered a worthwhile artistic genre; much like pulp romantic novels are generally not considered to be good quality literature. Perhaps the genre suffers as a result of it's accessibility - with pre-crafted worlds and characters, it's an easier discipline to enter than other forms of literature which require a greater investment of creativity; as such, the lower cost of admission results in a greater percentage of poor quality authors?
You need to stop doing this I'M IN D&D SO I GET TO DEMAND PROOF shit though because you know this is a totally subjective topic.
Quality of writing can be quite objective at times. Try again.
But since we're not discussing any particular piece of writing but rather a format in general, it is totally subjective. Stop being a dick.
Do something to prove that the two pieces are equally value. Demonstrate it, like you keep telling me to demonstrate my opinion to you. Give me some numbers or something.
Wicked has been brought up. It's done quite well. And that's just straight novelized fiction. There's the number of other formats I brought up that you like to pretend don't count because apparently scripts aren't readable works of fiction or something.
Edit: So at any point please demonstrate what makes fiction derived from another source actually less valuable other than, apparently, money and/or that the creator decided he'd let anyone use his ideas.
Edit: So at any point please demonstrate what makes fiction derived from another source actually less valuable other than, apparently, money and/or that the creator decided he'd let anyone use his ideas.
Exactly. A genre can't be devoid of merit. Only the individual pieces within that genre.
Put very simply, I think that mass-marketed, focus-tested IPs are taking up people's precious brainspace and stunting the artists of tomorrow, as people keep trying to pound the square peg of their unique perspective on the world into the round hole of "The A-Team Meets Matlock."
Ah, so you're of the Sherlock Holmes "The mind is like an attic" persuasion. I disagree. There are many original writers who start out writing fanfiction,
And then they graduate to bigger and better things. I am much more interested in reading a good author's mature work than their derivative juvenilia - in part because the mature work is going to contain and encompass everything that came before. Just in recent memory, Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas are both books that are heavily influenced by, and explicitly deal with, the stories those authors loved when they were young - but filtered through decades of experience, admixed with completely unrelated threads of politics and culture and philosophy, and transmuted into something new.
The thing is, you've never proven why original = bigger and better, other than "because I said so, nyah." Yes, authors tend to get better as they age (but not always). This holds true for fanfiction authors as well as original authors. Just because you personally value fanfiction less doesn't mean it can't be "filtered through experience, admixed with completely unrelated threads of politics and culture and philosophy, and transmuted into something new."
Almost any teacher in a creative field will tell you that imitation is a fabulous pedagogic tool for beginners, but the goal is to eventually move past that. Where is the alchemy in turning lead into lead? Most competent authors can bang out a serviceable Star Wars story if they really want to, but how many fanfic writers can go the other way round? This reads like an admission that many can't, and I find that sad, that there are people who enjoy the act of writing yet are so fundamentally insecure that they can't or won't invent a name and a place.
Most people in general can't write a servicable anything story. If by competent authors you mean "published authors," I'm calling unfair playing field. Fanfiction has little-to-no barriers to entry, so of course more of it is crap. That doesn't mean it has to be crap.
And you still won't admit that people enjoy writing using source material are often doing so because the story they want to tell uses the source material and would be worse without it.
and there are many fanfiction writers who prefer to stick to their own medium and don't want to write original fiction. You're assuming that without fanfic, all of these people would be putting their efforts into writing original fiction, and that's simply not the case.
reads like an admission that many can't, and I find that sad, that there are people who enjoy the act of writing yet are so fundamentally insecure that they can't or won't invent a name and a place.
Why should they? They want to tell a story about a specific person or a specific place. If I want to write a story about Odysseus's life after he gets home (see Tennyson's poem Ulysses), it would fundamentally change the story if I decided to change the main character to Podysseus, who came home after the Projan Wars and being lost in the Pagean.
Why would wanting to improve upon a story necessarily lead to telling your own story?
Well, I should think it's axiomatic. As soon as you replace the original author's plot and dialogue and ideas and concerns and style with your own, you're telling your own story; all that remains is to tear off your brother's cast-off karate gi, quit pretending to be Luke Skywalker, and have the courage to announce to the world "Hey, world! I am no longer writing Star Wars fanfiction! I am writing SPACE WAR LESBIANS, tm and (c) me!"
Axiomatic = I pulled this out of my ass.
Consider this your invitation to explain how coming up with your own plot, dialogue, ideas, and style aren't the seeds of actually telling your own story? Is ownership such a terrifying idea to you, that you flee thus before its specter?[/QUOTE]
When I want to write a story about characters I made up, I do that. When I want to write a story about characters someone else made up or a world someone else made up, I do that. The ability to do one doesn't negate the ability to do the other.
And SPACE WAR LESBIANS would not be the same story without the weight of the Star Wars story behind it.
That strikes me as not a very sure thing at all. Alan Moore's SUPREME, a story about a Superman-like character, is spectacularly moving even with no preexisting "weight" behind it at all. If you want weight, make your own. Learning how will make you a better writer.
Would SUPREME work as well without the audience knowing the Superman charactor and his mythos? Or the capes-and-superpower genre in general? I doubt it.
Here's a test: could you give the book to someone who knew absolutely nothing about superheroes (let's say you found this person under a rock) and have them get as much out of it as someone who is familiar with superheroes and Superman in general?
For example, I once read a very interesting Star Wars story (licensed, but still fanfiction) about Boba Fett's experience inside the Sarlacc. Now, if this was going to be original, with the serial numbers filed off, the author would have had to establish who Boba Fett is, who Han Solo is, who Jabba the Hutt is, what the Sarlacc is, what a Jedi is, the environment of Tattoine, the politics of the Empire, etc., and this short, affecting little story would have been a bloated behemoth without any of the traditional plot structure of a long novel. It would have been boring.
Any halfway-competent writer could tell you that the specifics of Jabba the Hutt or "the politics of the Empire" or whatever are hardly germane to the immediate situation of a bounty hunter being digested alive by a sand monster - and the stuff that is relevant can be worked in quickly and painlessly through dialog, action, and (if absolutely necessary) exposition. The existence of literally thousands of science fiction short stories that create an original world, an original character, and an original situation and tell a gripping story with them in a handful of pages - and the authors that were able to repeat that feat over and over and over again - stand as testament to the fact that it can be done where there is will and skill.
It was, in fact, germane to the immediate situation of this particular bounty hunter being digested alive by that particular sand monster. Not to say that there aren't science fiction short stories that make an original world, an original character, and an original situation and don't tell a gripping story, but that particular story needed vast amounts more information than would fit into a short story.
As a matter of fact, I've read Of Mice and Men fanfic. It's not as prevalent as, say, Harry Potter, but that's probably because fewer people have read and liked Of Mice and Men that are inclined to write fanfic.
Why do you think that that is? Why isn't there more, say, Proust fanfic, or Henry Miller fanfic? Is it because the really good stuff doesn't trade in easily-digestible, mass-marketable archetypes?
How about because fewer people read and like Proust (ugh) or Henry Miller? Neither is hardly what I'd call "the really good stuff," personally. You're welcome to disagree, but that's fairly pointless in matters of taste.
Now we're arguing tastes. Plus, you have no idea if she'd be better if she wrote less Star Trek. She might be worse.
Yeah - she was a published writer years before her first Star Trek novel. Also, would she have written those Trek books if she weren't paid for them? That's the difference between fanfic and a hired gun.
She was a Star Trek fan in an environment where vast numbers of people wrote Star Trek fanfictions in 'zines, and she necessarily had to write her first Star Trek book before it was published.
Why is getting paid for writing your only metric for whether something is fanfic or not? People, as you so generously said, write fanfic for all sorts of reasons. Getting paid is just another of them.
Posts
Exploitation does not mean "profiting from the work of others". It merely means, "using something to the greatest possible advantage" and, if you want to get negative about the whole thing, stick something in there about "for selfish purposes". All fanfiction is, arguably, written for at least somewhat selfish purposes too. It would be extremely presumptuous of a fanfiction writer to think that he is adding something worthwhile to the existing body of fiction, and if he's not writing for that purpose, then it's for his own enjoyment, which is selfish (though mostly harmless as well).
Shoehorned in something that doesn't belong? Doesn't belong according to who? The author? Does the author really get to control what people think of his or her work? Some people believe so, but I'm not a big worshipper of authorial intent. Once a work of art is out in the world, the artist doesn't get to dictate who sees what in it.
And as for "cheap thrills," a) I don't think you get to say that no good writing can be written for the purpose of being entertaining. b) Not all fanfiction is written for the sole purpose of being entertaining; much of it is commentary, parody, or satire, so you're moving goalposts again.
Basically you're saying, good fanfiction doesn't fall under these standards by which I'm judging fanfiction as a whole, so I'm going to discount it. Could Oboro have told her story by filing the serial numbers off and making it about original characters? Yes, but it would have likely been a worse story without the framework of the canon.
I think you're lending weight to originality that doesn't need to be there. A work of fiction can be good (which is subjective to begin with) from dozens of factors, from having well-rounded characters to presenting an interesting world to making commentary on humanity to having an exciting story. Borrowing elements from another work can limit a piece of fiction, yes, but it can also add to it.
It doesn't matter if the fanfiction writer means to be exploitative or not, they're still getting all the benefits from someone else's hard work.
_____________
*Licensed fiction, because I know that's going to come up, runs into these sorts of problems as well, but the hope is usually that the owners of the license will ensure that the derivative work works within the established universe. That said, I think a majority of licensed fiction leans pretty heavily towards the "cheap thrills" side of things anyway, so comparing that to fanfiction isn't all that helpful if you're looking to show merit.[/QUOTE]
Authorial intent weighs more heavily on licensed fiction, depending on the license (Star Trek writers seem to get a lot more leeway than Star Wars, for example), so if you worship authorial intent, yes, you're going to find more merit there. Other people, however, don't really care so much for authorial intent, so that argument is fairly subjective.
My point was that your definition of 'exploitation' was so broad and all-encompasing that it effectively had no negative connotations, and thus saying that fanfiction was 'exploitational' was effectively meaningless.
You could have a completely original cast of characters with a storyline that doesn't affect the official canon at all, but as long as it's set in a universe created by someone else, it's still fanfiction. Is it really fair to dismiss fanfiction off-handedly when, there but for the lack of a official license, a story could be of good enough quality to be marketed as a tie-in novel? God knows that some fanfiction out there is better written than official licensed novels that tie into various franchises.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I don't get to say that? Okay! I wasn't trying to say it in the first place, so we're good.
If you don't think most fanfiction is written for cheap thrills, all I can do is urge you to take off those rose-tinted glasses. And I don't need to move goalpoasts when you're doing such a good job of moving them for me.
Nope. Not even close.
I agree.
And I think you're too invested in your hobby to see the limitations inherent to it.
Fanfiction hardly "borrows" elements from other works. It lifts huge chunks wholesale and tosses in a couple of new things that may or may not fit. Sure, there's some fanfiction out there that is only ever so slightly related to the source work, but in that case one wonders why the writer even bothered with the connection at all.
Didn't I say that most licensed fiction doesn't have much merit anyway? That's what I was trying to say.
And then they graduate to bigger and better things. I am much more interested in reading a good author's mature work than their derivative juvenilia - in part because the mature work is going to contain and encompass everything that came before. Just in recent memory, Jonathan Lethem's Fortress of Solitude and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas are both books that are heavily influenced by, and explicitly deal with, the stories those authors loved when they were young - but filtered through decades of experience, admixed with completely unrelated threads of politics and culture and philosophy, and transmuted into something new.
Almost any teacher in a creative field will tell you that imitation is a fabulous pedagogic tool for beginners, but the goal is to eventually move past that. Where is the alchemy in turning lead into lead? Most competent authors can bang out a serviceable Star Wars story if they really want to, but how many fanfic writers can go the other way round? This
reads like an admission that many can't, and I find that sad, that there are people who enjoy the act of writing yet are so fundamentally insecure that they can't or won't invent a name and a place.
Consider this your invitation to explain how coming up with your own plot, dialogue, ideas, and style aren't the seeds of actually telling your own story? Is ownership such a terrifying idea to you, that you flee thus before its specter?
That strikes me as not a very sure thing at all. Alan Moore's SUPREME, a story about a Superman-like character, is spectacularly moving even with no preexisting "weight" behind it at all. If you want weight, make your own. Learning how will make you a better writer.
Any halfway-competent writer could tell you that the specifics of Jabba the Hutt or "the politics of the Empire" or whatever are hardly germane to the immediate situation of a bounty hunter being digested alive by a sand monster - and the stuff that is relevant can be worked in quickly and painlessly through dialog, action, and (if absolutely necessary) exposition. The existence of literally thousands of science fiction short stories that create an original world, an original character, and an original situation and tell a gripping story with them in a handful of pages - and the authors that were able to repeat that feat over and over and over again - stand as testament to the fact that it can be done where there is will and skill.
Why do you think that that is? Why isn't there more, say, Proust fanfic, or Henry Miller fanfic? Is it because the really good stuff doesn't trade in easily-digestible, mass-marketable archetypes?
Yeah - she was a published writer years before her first Star Trek novel. Also, would she have written those Trek books if she weren't paid for them? That's the difference between fanfic and a hired gun.
Hey guyz fanfic is for losers cuz it's like an endless bukkake shot into the face of real literature.
Terrible analogies are easy.
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Cheap thrills, lowbrow, art/not-art - there are a whole bunch in any particular kind of debate that are used to make rhetorical points while pretending to objectivity.
Acting is what can make an amazing script terrible in execution or a terrible script turn out amazing.
1960s Batman isn't 'more original' because it still draws from earlier works. It's not like Batman started with a shitty 60s tv show (it started with shitty 30s comics.) I'm pretty sure TDK draws from earlier work, too, but I'm not thinking it's taking a ton of inspiration from that train wreck of a television series.
Now you are telling me that my stance is that the license is what makes the difference. I'm saying if TDK was written without the license, it would be in bad taste. It would be theft and therefore less meritous (in my opinion).
It wouldn't really be any less badass though.
You need to stop doing this I'M IN D&D SO I GET TO DEMAND PROOF shit though because you know this is a totally subjective topic.
Theft of what, exactly? If the script for TDK never got sold and licensed, it would never have become a movie, and thus would never have made anyone any money. So what would it have stolen?
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More so, even with opinions, you are expected to demonstrate why your opinion is valid here. So at any point please demonstrate what makes fiction derived from another source actually less valuable other than, apparently, money and/or that the creator decided he'd let anyone use his ideas.
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I think I cried myself to sleep that night.
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But since we're not discussing any particular piece of writing but rather a format in general, it is totally subjective. Stop being a dick.
Do something to prove that the two pieces are equally value. Demonstrate it, like you keep telling me to demonstrate my opinion to you. Give me some numbers or something.
If a piece of prose is well written, it has merit. If it's not, it doesn't. Or at least, very little.
Fanfiction is generally typified by being very poorly written. Like, worse than your average GameFAQ forum post which is why it typically isn't considered a worthwhile artistic genre; much like pulp romantic novels are generally not considered to be good quality literature. Perhaps the genre suffers as a result of it's accessibility - with pre-crafted worlds and characters, it's an easier discipline to enter than other forms of literature which require a greater investment of creativity; as such, the lower cost of admission results in a greater percentage of poor quality authors?
Edit: So at any point please demonstrate what makes fiction derived from another source actually less valuable other than, apparently, money and/or that the creator decided he'd let anyone use his ideas.
Exactly. A genre can't be devoid of merit. Only the individual pieces within that genre.
The thing is, you've never proven why original = bigger and better, other than "because I said so, nyah." Yes, authors tend to get better as they age (but not always). This holds true for fanfiction authors as well as original authors. Just because you personally value fanfiction less doesn't mean it can't be "filtered through experience, admixed with completely unrelated threads of politics and culture and philosophy, and transmuted into something new."
Most people in general can't write a servicable anything story. If by competent authors you mean "published authors," I'm calling unfair playing field. Fanfiction has little-to-no barriers to entry, so of course more of it is crap. That doesn't mean it has to be crap.
And you still won't admit that people enjoy writing using source material are often doing so because the story they want to tell uses the source material and would be worse without it.
Why should they? They want to tell a story about a specific person or a specific place. If I want to write a story about Odysseus's life after he gets home (see Tennyson's poem Ulysses), it would fundamentally change the story if I decided to change the main character to Podysseus, who came home after the Projan Wars and being lost in the Pagean.
Consider this your invitation to explain how coming up with your own plot, dialogue, ideas, and style aren't the seeds of actually telling your own story? Is ownership such a terrifying idea to you, that you flee thus before its specter?[/QUOTE]
When I want to write a story about characters I made up, I do that. When I want to write a story about characters someone else made up or a world someone else made up, I do that. The ability to do one doesn't negate the ability to do the other.
Would SUPREME work as well without the audience knowing the Superman charactor and his mythos? Or the capes-and-superpower genre in general? I doubt it.
Here's a test: could you give the book to someone who knew absolutely nothing about superheroes (let's say you found this person under a rock) and have them get as much out of it as someone who is familiar with superheroes and Superman in general?
It was, in fact, germane to the immediate situation of this particular bounty hunter being digested alive by that particular sand monster. Not to say that there aren't science fiction short stories that make an original world, an original character, and an original situation and don't tell a gripping story, but that particular story needed vast amounts more information than would fit into a short story.
How about because fewer people read and like Proust (ugh) or Henry Miller? Neither is hardly what I'd call "the really good stuff," personally. You're welcome to disagree, but that's fairly pointless in matters of taste.
She was a Star Trek fan in an environment where vast numbers of people wrote Star Trek fanfictions in 'zines, and she necessarily had to write her first Star Trek book before it was published.
Why is getting paid for writing your only metric for whether something is fanfic or not? People, as you so generously said, write fanfic for all sorts of reasons. Getting paid is just another of them.