The Case Against Fan Fiction
There are days when I say to myself "Melinda, don't poke the people who annoy you. It will only end in tears."
Like Racefail, it looks like this is going to go on for a while, with a lot of internet yelling and screaming and very little being said. It seems, however, like we need some clear terms and some clear arguments against from someone who doesn't give a Spencer Pratt about anything but precision in language and clarity of discussion.
I guess I'm that someone.
I'm just making my own spin on established characters and settings. It's what other authors do it all the time.
Actually, it is not what other authors do "all the time". Most authors create new characters and settings. Authors like Jasper Fforde and Gregory Maguire who are working with established public domain characters are doing a very specific kind of fiction called metafiction, and it's not the same as fan fiction.
The Eyre Affair, as a case in point, focuses primarily on Thursday Next, who is Fforde's own creation. Much of the novel revolves around his created world and the fictional police force that protects works of fiction. He uses an established piece of literature that is in the public domain for a very specific effect.
A public domain work that's still relevant today is special. Those pieces are part of our literary and cultural heritage. It takes a deep understanding of fiction, storytelling, and history to take those pieces and do something original with them. What these writers are doing is metafiction: Commentary on fiction and the reader's interaction with same.
If you don't believe me, try it. If you manage to write something with public domain characters and get it published, I will concede that you're as good at writing as either of those people.
I would also point out that Fforde's work is perfectly legal under copyright law.
There are other forms of fair use. The Bugs Bunny cartoons "What's Opera, Doc?" and "Rabbit of Seville", as well as the Family Guy Star Wars, are parody, which is covered in copyright law under fair use and recognized as its own art form. You can publish a parody, even if it's of a copyrighted work. Parody, by the way, does not cover any use of the copyrighted work, and there are authors who have claimed parody and lost (See The Wind Done Gone.)
Maybe there are people in the fan fiction community who are doing work that could be recognized (artistically or legally) as parody or metafiction, but there are a lot of fan fiction pieces that definitely aren't, and I'm under the impression that it's those piece that we're arguing about. The other two can't be banned by an author no matter how bad he/she wants to ban them.
That's one of the problems: There are no legal or literary definitions of what constitutes fan fiction, and a lot of the passionate arguments "If this is fanfiction, then so is this," are meaningless.
So let's have a working definition: If you can't publish it for money, it's fan fiction. This therefore excludes metafiction (as with Maguire or Fforde), parody (like Bugs Bunny cartoons), and work with copyrighted characters under contract (for example writing Batman comics). These types of fiction can't be stopped by the original authors (Bob Kane, after all, couldn't even keep Joel Schumacher from putting nipples on the Batsuit).
So, let's deal with the other arguments.
But I'm only doing this for my own growth as a writer/human being/artist.
Then why do you have to post it online?
But I'm only doing this to be part of a community.
There are other ways to be part of a community. Besides, the internet has all sorts of lovely ways to create a "private" space where you can do whatever you want. Stick your fanfic behind a lock and give the password to whomever asks. Maybe there are a few authors so determined to hurt the people who pay for their work that they'd infiltrate and shut you down, but I'm guessing there aren't many who have that kind of time or resources.
Most authors aren't trying to hurt your feelings. They're trying to protect something that earns them their living. The contents of their brains is what pays their mortgages.
But I do it because I love the work.
No matter what your intentions, if my mother had seen some of the things I've seen while naively searching for fan pages or background information on books I love, she would have forbidden me from ever picking up a science fiction book again. That's the sort of thing that scares an author into locking their characters up where you can't get them, and that sort of thing is easy for you to stop.
But you won't. Because you love the stories. Right.
I'm also disturbed by the tenor of the conversation. There seems to be a feeling that people who write fan fiction are noble because they're doing work they cannot possibly be paid to do, and that authors who do not want fan fiction written in their worlds are somehow being stingy. People are welcome to feel that way.
I'm not very sympathetic, though, to this idea that a true artist should be so thrilled that their work is popular that they squee with delight whenever a piece of fan fiction appears on the net. Different artists have different feelings about their art, and those feelings should be respected, particularly by people who claim to love their work.
Like Racefail, it looks like this is going to go on for a while, with a lot of internet yelling and screaming and very little being said. It seems, however, like we need some clear terms and some clear arguments against from someone who doesn't give a Spencer Pratt about anything but precision in language and clarity of discussion.
I guess I'm that someone.
I'm just making my own spin on established characters and settings. It's what other authors do it all the time.
Actually, it is not what other authors do "all the time". Most authors create new characters and settings. Authors like Jasper Fforde and Gregory Maguire who are working with established public domain characters are doing a very specific kind of fiction called metafiction, and it's not the same as fan fiction.
The Eyre Affair, as a case in point, focuses primarily on Thursday Next, who is Fforde's own creation. Much of the novel revolves around his created world and the fictional police force that protects works of fiction. He uses an established piece of literature that is in the public domain for a very specific effect.
A public domain work that's still relevant today is special. Those pieces are part of our literary and cultural heritage. It takes a deep understanding of fiction, storytelling, and history to take those pieces and do something original with them. What these writers are doing is metafiction: Commentary on fiction and the reader's interaction with same.
If you don't believe me, try it. If you manage to write something with public domain characters and get it published, I will concede that you're as good at writing as either of those people.
I would also point out that Fforde's work is perfectly legal under copyright law.
There are other forms of fair use. The Bugs Bunny cartoons "What's Opera, Doc?" and "Rabbit of Seville", as well as the Family Guy Star Wars, are parody, which is covered in copyright law under fair use and recognized as its own art form. You can publish a parody, even if it's of a copyrighted work. Parody, by the way, does not cover any use of the copyrighted work, and there are authors who have claimed parody and lost (See The Wind Done Gone.)
Maybe there are people in the fan fiction community who are doing work that could be recognized (artistically or legally) as parody or metafiction, but there are a lot of fan fiction pieces that definitely aren't, and I'm under the impression that it's those piece that we're arguing about. The other two can't be banned by an author no matter how bad he/she wants to ban them.
That's one of the problems: There are no legal or literary definitions of what constitutes fan fiction, and a lot of the passionate arguments "If this is fanfiction, then so is this," are meaningless.
So let's have a working definition: If you can't publish it for money, it's fan fiction. This therefore excludes metafiction (as with Maguire or Fforde), parody (like Bugs Bunny cartoons), and work with copyrighted characters under contract (for example writing Batman comics). These types of fiction can't be stopped by the original authors (Bob Kane, after all, couldn't even keep Joel Schumacher from putting nipples on the Batsuit).
So, let's deal with the other arguments.
But I'm only doing this for my own growth as a writer/human being/artist.
Then why do you have to post it online?
But I'm only doing this to be part of a community.
There are other ways to be part of a community. Besides, the internet has all sorts of lovely ways to create a "private" space where you can do whatever you want. Stick your fanfic behind a lock and give the password to whomever asks. Maybe there are a few authors so determined to hurt the people who pay for their work that they'd infiltrate and shut you down, but I'm guessing there aren't many who have that kind of time or resources.
Most authors aren't trying to hurt your feelings. They're trying to protect something that earns them their living. The contents of their brains is what pays their mortgages.
But I do it because I love the work.
No matter what your intentions, if my mother had seen some of the things I've seen while naively searching for fan pages or background information on books I love, she would have forbidden me from ever picking up a science fiction book again. That's the sort of thing that scares an author into locking their characters up where you can't get them, and that sort of thing is easy for you to stop.
But you won't. Because you love the stories. Right.
I'm also disturbed by the tenor of the conversation. There seems to be a feeling that people who write fan fiction are noble because they're doing work they cannot possibly be paid to do, and that authors who do not want fan fiction written in their worlds are somehow being stingy. People are welcome to feel that way.
I'm not very sympathetic, though, to this idea that a true artist should be so thrilled that their work is popular that they squee with delight whenever a piece of fan fiction appears on the net. Different artists have different feelings about their art, and those feelings should be respected, particularly by people who claim to love their work.