Liosse de Velishaf
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That's basically how I feel about it, as well. Why call it fan-fiction if what you really mean is illegal derivative works? To me, the name says it all: fiction written by fans of an intellectual property.
Why such animosity towards fan works in the original fiction community?
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That's basically how I feel about it, as well. Why call it fan-fiction if what you really mean is illegal derivative works? To me, the name says it all: fiction written by fans of an intellectual property.
I don't have a break down. Maybe it is fandom specific. In the very large fandom where I was active, amongst hundreds of writers, I knew of one male writer. One of hundreds. So it's little wonder I think of them as rare.
I love that this whole thread forces some introspection....
I've never read it, never wrote it, never wanted to. Why?
My wife *LOVES* it and it's her prime reading material these days. Like, constantly. We have pretty similar personalities, but here we completely divide.
I don't look down on it. Writing well takes skill. It doesn't matter what form it takes, or where it departs from--good writing is fun to read. There is just nothing about fanfic that makes me want to read it if the alternative is a new book. Yes, I completely understand the *motivation*--how many times have I reread the ending of a novel and wished for more? But to me, the wishing is the best part. Not the realization. (A wish is only really magical when it is unrealized.)
I think the best analogy for me is when people decide to learn Elvish or Klingon. As a language teacher, the idea of spending time on an invented language when there is a world of real ones out there to be explored is nigh-heresy. So to add to a canon when the world might benefit from your OWN stories seems to be a waste. We all only have so much time.
I've never read it, never wrote it, never wanted to. Why?
My wife *LOVES* it and it's her prime reading material these days. Like, constantly. We have pretty similar personalities, but here we completely divide.
I don't look down on it. Writing well takes skill. It doesn't matter what form it takes, or where it departs from--good writing is fun to read. There is just nothing about fanfic that makes me want to read it if the alternative is a new book. Yes, I completely understand the *motivation*--how many times have I reread the ending of a novel and wished for more? But to me, the wishing is the best part. Not the realization. (A wish is only really magical when it is unrealized.)
I think the best analogy for me is when people decide to learn Elvish or Klingon. As a language teacher, the idea of spending time on an invented language when there is a world of real ones out there to be explored is nigh-heresy. So to add to a canon when the world might benefit from your OWN stories seems to be a waste. We all only have so much time.
Liosse de Velishaf
Banned
I would expect, say, Supernatural to have a largely female fan-writer/reader community. Same for Twilight. That's not a judgement on woman or those books.
Most of the fandoms I was involved in were anime/manga fandoms, primarily shounen. My best guestimate would be a 60/40 male/female split in writers and readers.
I think it'd be really cool to see readership/viewership, fanfiction reading, and fanfiction writing breakdowns by age and gender for a decent cross-section of the various active fandoms. I wouldn't say I'd be surprised to see a female majority, but I think it would be cool to have the actual numbers.
Eh? As someone with a degree in Linguistics, I think both conlangs and natlangs are pretty cool. Different strokes, I guess.
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Signed up and posted on AO3, thanks to Filigree. 
Also CathyC over there. It's strange how liberating it was to get it posted for the world to see. It's been languishing in a trunk since 1995.
Also CathyC over there. It's strange how liberating it was to get it posted for the world to see. It's been languishing in a trunk since 1995.
Signed up and posted on AO3, thanks to Filigree.
Currently my favourtite website. I love it so much better than FF.net right now.
I gave up on FF.net about eight years ago. I'd been an avid reader of their Potter fandoms. I just couldn't take it anymore: the (what seemed at the time) preponderance of badly-written stories, the Wild West atmosphere of cliques and arms-race escalations of bad reviews, and the ever-changing FF.net policies that only seemed to encourage the chaos.
Thankfully, I found other places to get my fix of really well written Potterfics, and then one of my old slash writer friends invited me onto AO3. (Sigh of relief.) My fandoms come and go, but I know AO3 has a better chance of not wasting my time.
Thankfully, I found other places to get my fix of really well written Potterfics, and then one of my old slash writer friends invited me onto AO3. (Sigh of relief.) My fandoms come and go, but I know AO3 has a better chance of not wasting my time.
Monday is my favourite day of the week at the moment because three of the super long well written (I mean spectacularly well written) fics I've been following all update on a Monday night! I have the wine in the fridge already.
I love updates over there. I have update notices linked to a specific email I use only for AO3, so I always get a heads-up whenever one of my favorites gets another chapter.
To sort of return to the OP topic, I understand when people don't like, read, or value fan fiction. I've been there. I know the very real arguments against it: it's misappropriation, it takes an author's time away from original fiction, it's largely pointless from an earnings standpoint, it's not for 'real' writers, and it's generally awful writing.
I was in sales for a few years. I know how to pitch products and close sales. With the first three detractions, I'm not going to bother mounting a defense. With the last two, I can point at Archive of Our Own to show the parent nonprofit's purpose, and the numbers of really great writing in nearly every fandom. From both moonlighting professional authors and talented hobbyists who never intend to publish for money.
Fan fiction can cover every aspect of the reading/writing continuum, from high-school Mary Sue stories to scholarly monographs from the Mythopoeic Society.
To sort of return to the OP topic, I understand when people don't like, read, or value fan fiction. I've been there. I know the very real arguments against it: it's misappropriation, it takes an author's time away from original fiction, it's largely pointless from an earnings standpoint, it's not for 'real' writers, and it's generally awful writing.
I was in sales for a few years. I know how to pitch products and close sales. With the first three detractions, I'm not going to bother mounting a defense. With the last two, I can point at Archive of Our Own to show the parent nonprofit's purpose, and the numbers of really great writing in nearly every fandom. From both moonlighting professional authors and talented hobbyists who never intend to publish for money.
Fan fiction can cover every aspect of the reading/writing continuum, from high-school Mary Sue stories to scholarly monographs from the Mythopoeic Society.
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I was just over at AO3 reading a lovely slash story, and something struck when reading. You see, the author was bashin Ginny to build up her(most Harry Potter fic writers seem to be middle aged women) Harry/Draco ship. And all I could think was, "this is good but it would be great if the writer would quit the Ginny bashing, it really isn't needed."
I tend to avoid stories that bash a specific character. I think what got to me was this one wasn't tagged for it at all, as if the writer came from one of the communities that didn't care and encouraged rival character bashing. What are your feelings on this for those who read fanfic, does character bashing bother you?
I tend to avoid stories that bash a specific character. I think what got to me was this one wasn't tagged for it at all, as if the writer came from one of the communities that didn't care and encouraged rival character bashing. What are your feelings on this for those who read fanfic, does character bashing bother you?
If it's done well and in character, I'll accept it. I prefer less confrontational stories, though. Quite often, I've found unreasonable character bashing to be a hallmark of newer writers; if I find that in a story, I'll probably find other problems.
In my fandom, it's not so much limited to new writers as it is to writers who are... how do I say this?... It's like they're more interested in writing about their ship than they are about writing in the fandom or even writing in general... does that make sense? Even writers with this attitude in my fandom who have written 10+ fics will continue to bash the other character in the canon couple to make way for their ship.
I don't have a problem if a character bashes another character, if there's fighting, and rivalry, but most of the time, a trained eye can clearly tell whether it's another character or the author actually doing the bashing. That's an agenda just like any other—like politics or religion—that makes me not trust the author to be honest about the story. And I don't generally like reading fic that doesn't respect the fandom (all of it).
I cannot abide by an author taking a character and completely changing them in order to make them the "bad guy". I've seen one character in my fandom totally lost in this manner - why not just write an OC and be done with it? Because that's essentially what they've done. If they want to change the canon relationship, it can be done while still staying in character - but that might take some actual skill.
I get the feeling there's a sense that fanfic writers are "getting away with something" among some writers. Like they have to do all the work with their stories, whereas fanfic writers get a ready made world. And then there's also a gray area in there sometimes about rights, too.
But mostly, I think more types of writing than not get their share of snide remarks, whether literary, romance, poetry, etcetera. Maybe some people just enjoy feeling smug and superior?
But mostly, I think more types of writing than not get their share of snide remarks, whether literary, romance, poetry, etcetera. Maybe some people just enjoy feeling smug and superior?
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I always find that attitude amusing. Does that mean writers of modern or historical fiction are also getting away with something? After all, their worlds came ready made, too.
Agreed. More often than not, I don't think it's simply an issue of the writer lacking experience in writing realistic conflict. There's a difference between character bashing and writing flawed characters.
Characters who are perceived as romantic competition for popular ships often receive the brunt of character bashing. Someone who writes a character bashing Harry/Hermione fic where Ron becomes a Death Eater and tries to kill his friends probably isn't interested in writing a nuanced and realistic perspective of Ron becoming evil. More likely, they see him as a villain because they think he's keeping Hermione from being with Harry, and the fic is a fantasy where Harry and Hermione see how horrible he is.
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This! And it pisses me off. I and other writers work hard to keep things in canon even if our ideas would seem out of left field. I love the fandoms I write in, and you couldn't pay me to bash the characters I don't like. It's a respect thing. Respect for fandom and respect for the characters as a whole themselves. I came across a story in which Hikaru Sulu had a it's always the quiet ones that are dangerous vibe going on once, but the writer was writing him as flawed, not trying to justify the Kahn/Chekov pairing they were going for. It was a simple extrapolation of what the chracter would likely do under the conditions the author was writing about. It was good.
By contrast I find the character bashing fiction tends to be poorly thought out with no real goal but to get the writer off as they're writing.
There are a couple things that annoy me about character bashing.
One, it just seems to immature and petty. I've seen fan communities built around bashing a particular character, and it just seems like a waste of time and energy to me. If you hate a character, why would you want to devote so much energy to bashing them?
But also, sometimes character bashing can show some unsavory attitudes. For example, I've seen a lot of people bash female characters and call them "sluts" or "whores." All that tells me is that those people think that the character's sexuality is worthy of attack, or that using sexualized insults against women can be a reasonable way of criticizing them.
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Yes. Which I find extremely odd, because most of the fandoms I frequent are more popular with women than men. I don't know whether it's jealousy, selfhate, or something else. But it's damn weird. Chances are they'd call anyone who'd call them that out for doing it.
Ditto on the petty thing. I asked the writer doing the Ginny bashing to tag the story for it so people could either find it or exclude it from their reading list. Which brings another question. When it comes to fanfiction what do you think is the writers responiblity towards clearly tagging things? Is there none or is it somewho inherint?
In my experience, it's really hard to please everyone. I hesitate to say that fic writers have a responsibility to tag, but I think tagging can be good etiquette and can be conducive to having your fic reach its intended audience. I think a lot of people won't read fics if there's too little information about what they're about, and misleading tags can annoy people. I also think it's good manners to warn for major stuff like graphic violence or rape, because people in fandom usually expect either a warning for that type of stuff or a note that the writer is choosing not to give warnings.
Though I like Archive of Our Own for posting and finding fanfic, one complaint of mine is that it can be hard to strike a balance between tagging stuff accurately and giving people false impressions. For example, I've seen people complain that if they search for their favorite pairing, they end up finding a lot of fics where that pairing is just in the background, and the fic is actually about other characters/pairings. So sometimes I really don't know how best to tag something. I guess you can only do your best.
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Very true! But there are ways to tag such stories, which place less pressure on the writer. For example, if the story is Harry/Draco but Severus Snape/Remus Lupin appears. A writer could label it minor Severus/Remus, or background(insert pairing here). That gives the person looking plenty of warning their favorite ship isn't the star of the show and allows them to choose to read it or not.
I think a lot of the pressure can be taken away if the person thinks about what tags would fit their story as they're writing it. I have a series of Hoshi/T'Pol stories, so obviously any pairing that appears which isn't my main pairing for those stories would be labeled minor(insert pairing here). Fair warning for those that would be upset if it wasn't labeled that way. I keep an excel book for all my fanfic, and one of the things I do is keep a section for tags. When I go to post something after my beta has checked it over and any needed changes are made I only need to look at it and can easily tag things.
I think a lot of the pressure can be taken away if the person thinks about what tags would fit their story as they're writing it. I have a series of Hoshi/T'Pol stories, so obviously any pairing that appears which isn't my main pairing for those stories would be labeled minor(insert pairing here). Fair warning for those that would be upset if it wasn't labeled that way. I keep an excel book for all my fanfic, and one of the things I do is keep a section for tags. When I go to post something after my beta has checked it over and any needed changes are made I only need to look at it and can easily tag things.
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I find fanfic fascinating. I've never attempted to write any myself, but I've skimmed through some fan-written Potter and Old Kingdom stories, and that one amazing Twilight/Winnie the Pooh crossover. It's interesting to see what other people do with a story and characters already established.
As far as my own work, I'd hold no animosity toward anyone writing fanfic from my story. In fact, I think I'd find it highly amusing to see what kind of stories they wrote, even if they inserted themselves or made it ridiculous.
If people are writing fan fiction based on your novel, you've pretty much made it, right?
As far as my own work, I'd hold no animosity toward anyone writing fanfic from my story. In fact, I think I'd find it highly amusing to see what kind of stories they wrote, even if they inserted themselves or made it ridiculous.
If people are writing fan fiction based on your novel, you've pretty much made it, right?
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