A Few Words About the FanFiction Kerfuffle

[rabid1st]

I wanted to address the Fanfiction Kerfuffle that I just saw on ONTD, but I didn't want to address it on ONTD. I do not believe it has ever crossed my mind to fanfic a book. I suppose it is common enough, but it makes me nervous. Ficcing a book puts the fanfic writer on to a direct field of conflict with the original author. And so I can see why an author would take exception to the practice. It is a presumptive challenge to the author to write stories about their characters while the author is still working on those characters.

This is the difference between a trademark character and a character under copyright, I suppose. Are people who are writing HP fic working from the books or the films? Film and television characters are trademarked, but loaned out to other writers all the time. And so they are not so much children of their original creator, but a collaboration. They are developing in the minds of others and the audience participates in their lives. This is not to say that I don't think original creators have the legal right to all material developed from their creations. We fanfic writers are lazy and are also parasites of a sort, because we feed our needs at the expense of someone else original inspiration. However, we are often just frustrated by the limited imagination of the original creator. In my opinion, fanfic writers simply long for more or greater development from a character. And often the direction of development is one that a creator will not be taking, like many slash pairings will never be served in real fiction. I assumed that I was taking Ten/Rose to a place that RTD could not go with them in most of my writings. Of course, Moff has shown us that RTD lacked balls as well as imagination, since the BBC has allowed River/Eleven sexual references in DVD or Webisode extras.

The JK Rowling idea that she doesn't want her characters to engage in R-rated interactions goes directly to this point of denial on the part of a writer. She might not want R-Rated stuff to happen, might not want to write it or see it, but other people might long for such material. This creates a market for something that the original author will not be offering up in a fandom. This is what opens the door to fanfiction writers, we write what character creators fail to envision or shy away from committing to paper or film. Are the creations of an author like that author's children? Does an author have the right to protect characters once they are introduced to a wider audience? Certainly, if a fanfiction author jeopardizes a creator's profits, I would say so. It is dicey to simply write further adventures for Harry Potter and company, something JK Rowling might write herself, because you are arguably decreasing her sales. It is even worse to claim that you own the story. And fanfiction writers do try to do this, claiming copyright protections they do not possess, for example. If you steal someone's characters and write a story, you can't then claim that a story idea was stolen from you.

But there is another common thing that happens today, AU-Fic authors who steal basic set ups and premises and then recast the characters from their favorite stories into other realms. For example, Buffy and Angel could become Bella and Edward when the story is moved to a wooded rural area and sold as original. Doctor #4 and Romana #2 could be recast as Thomas Pitt and Charlotte and given a murder to solve in Victorian England and voila, it is a new series. Many is the time I've read a book about a witch and clearly seen Willow in the description of the character. Then, Bella and Edward are recast in a smutty story and that sells lots of books and the author makes no excuses about lifting the characters from another source. Inspiration from a story is not quite the same as stealing. I believe Gaiman was inspired by Disheveled to write his tale about Idris. That's flattering, for me, because I flat-out pilfered Ten and Rose and many of the situations they found themselves in for that fic.

Comments

[phdelicious.livejournal.com]

Personally I have a hard time ficcing book series - but I can see how someone would with a series like ASoFaI where it take GRRM years between books.

I sort of understand JKR's issue with R+ rated fics since her main characters are underage for most of the series, but as you pointed out - fic generally comes from a desire to explore places the source isn't going, which leaves exactly that space wide open.

[susanb03.livejournal.com]

I believe Gaiman was inspired by Disheveled to write his tale about Idris.

Really??? THAT'S COOL!

[susanb03.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! Not only did he read it, but he felt it was worthy of an homage.... wow....I do remember now thinking... rain on dust..that sounds familiar :)

[sensiblecat.livejournal.com]

With ref to your other post today, I wonder if we've reached the stage where the awareness of TV writers that there is a fan fic community out there is actually having a negative impact on their creativity. Are they actually leaving interesting stuff offstage for ficcers to play with, particularly in the sense of relationships inferred but not shown on screen? It's an interesting development, the provision of a joint intertextual playground, but I feel that if the majority of TV drama is being made on that basis it does rob it of a certain artistic integrity. However, I suspect that most writers working in TV or movies today would laugh in your face at the very idea that they could have the luxury of artistic integrity of any kind...

I think DW is particularly embroiled in this intertextual stuff. It struk me when I was watching the latest Aardman movie (the Pirates one) that the humour was very similar - for example there's a pub scene set in the 1840s where everyone's making a big fuss of the characters and the Elephant Man is sitting weeping in a corner, no longer in fashion. And later, the Pirate Captain sees Darwin sitting next to a monkey and says, "Are you two related...No, don't be ridiculous." How DW is that?

The Doctor is a cultural magpie, picking up shiny trifles and scattering them through time and space. And his creative fans have always emulated him, regarding the whole canon and beyond as their playground. I think that's why I've never felt comfortable writing any other fanfic. I feel that DW has more or less been set up for me to add to the creative universe. Other ones feel much more closed to me. But of course YMMV.