More about the controversy about Fan Fiction

[dreamflower]

Well, apparently George R.R. Martin has jumped into the fray, defending Diana Gabaldon's post.

I read his post, and a couple of pages of comments-- he was less vitriolic than DG, but a lot more patronizing, starting with the first sentence, where he put "fan fiction" in quotation marks, and then referred to fanfic writers as "so-called fans" a little further down.

And even more than DG, it seems clear that his only concern is the bottom line--

He gives several cautionary tales of writers supposedly taken advantage of by fans, among them this one:

"Let me bring up a couple other writers, then. Contemporaries of an earlier age, each of whom was known by a set of initials: ERB and HPL. ERB created Tarzan and John Carter of Mars. HPL created Cthulhu and his Mythos. ERB, and later his estate, was extremely protective of his creations. Try to use Tarzan, or even an ape man who was suspiciously similar to Tarzan, without his/ their permission, and their lawyers would famously descend on you like a ton of bricks. HPL was the complete opposite. The Cthulhu Mythos soon turned into one of our genres first shared worlds. HPL encouraged writer friends like Robert Bloch and Clark Ashton Smith to borrow elements from his Cuthulhu Mythos, and to add elements as well, which HPL himself would borrow in turn. And in time, other writers who were NOT friends of HPL also began to write Cthulhu Mythos stories, which continues to this day.

Fair enough. Two writers, two different decisions.

Thing is, ERB died a millionaire many times over, living on a gigantic ranch in a town that was named Tarzana after his creation. HPL lived and died in genteel poverty, and some biographers have suggested that poor diet brought on by poverty may have hastened his death. HPL was a far more beloved figure amongst other writers, but love will only get you so far. Sometimes it's nice to be able to have a steak too. The Burroughs estate was paid handsomely for every Tarzan movie ever made, and collected plenty on the PRINCESS OF MARS movie I worked on during my Hollywood years, and no doubt is still collecting on the one currently in development... though the book is in the public domain by now. Did the Lovecraft estate make a penny off THE DUNWICH HORROR movie, the HERBERT WEST, REANIMATOR movie, the recent DAGON movie, the internet version of CALL OF CTHULHU? I don't know. I rather doubt it. If they did, I'll betcha it was just chump change. Meanwhile, new writers go right on mining the Cthulhu mythos, writing new stories and novels."

I noticed that he dismissed H.P. Lovecraft's generosity with his creations as foolish, because even though he was "beloved", HPL died in poverty, while he praised Edgar Rice Burrough's possessiveness because he was a millionaire when he died.

Hmmm...

Being a millionaire when one dies is better than being beloved?

Hmmm...

Assuming an afterlife, which is going to be more important to the dead person? Somehow I don't think money will have a lot of value there.

And assuming no afterlife, well, dead is dead, and a dead rich person is no better off than a dead poor one.

Except that people will remember the beloved one far longer and with more affection than they will the one who was merely rich.

Now, for all I know, among his family and friends ERB might have been beloved as well-- but GRRM does not think that is as important as his being RICH!

I think about JRRT, for whom making a living was always a concern. He worked his entire life on a body of work that did not really begin to make a difference for him financially until late in his life. He worried about making ends meet, and kept his "day job" as a professor all the way up until retirement, in spite of the strain it was on him and the time it took away from his work on on his beloved Arda. Yet his expressed wish was that he could create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which "the cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands..."

He did not build the world of Arda in order to make money-- he built it because he loved it and he crafted it meticulously. That he was able to sell his stories finally was almost incidental to his creation of his body of work.

Now, decades after his death, he's a millionaire many times over. But I think that he'd have more joy in the knowledge that people still love his work.

Hmmmm...

I find myself more and more sad about how things have changed, and nothing is judged good unless it makes $$$$$$$.

Comments

[claudia603.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that nobody consider you a real "writer" unless you're published. :( But that's not the point, of course.

Man, I actually feel sorry for people who think of fan fic as worthless or waste of time or immoral. What narrow and boring lives they must live!

[dreamflower]

Narrow and boring, indeed!

I mean, there are a lot of hobbies *I* don't understand and don't want to try-- bungee-jumping comes to mind, as does coin-collecting-- but I don't try to stop people who *do* like those things!

I just get so *TIRED* of the idea that you have to make money with what you write or it's useless...

[rabidsamfan.livejournal.com]

Hm. He does kind of miss the problem that Burroughs work is getting less and less popular over time (the stereotypes don't help much) and Lovecraft, as near as I can tell, is gaining a larger and larger audience.

Burroughs made his money off the movies, really. (And the lawsuits, no doubt.) But Tarzan was a heckuva lot easier to film than Cthulu would have been before computer animation!

[dreamflower]

LOL! You have a point there!

But I suppose he thinks that doesn't matter, except perhaps to the respective authors' estates.

I still enjoy the Tarzan books; we have a number of them, though not all. But, yeah, the stereotypes make them very politically incorrect to contemporary minds.

I just found the whole tone of the post to be incredibly patronizing. Politer than DG's, perhaps, but even more grating.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

If only more writers were like Naomi Norvik!Silly man!

[dreamflower]

Someone's working up a list of authors who actually *encourage* fanfic, or at least are OK with it!

[shirebound]

I sure don't *feel* like a "so-called fan". I spent my last eight years in passion and joy.

[dreamflower]

I thought that the whole tone of his post was very condescending. A little less rude than DG's, but no less full of superiority.

"I get paid. I am better than you."

[ramblin_rosie]

Agreed.
It's interesting having read Kipling's interview with Twain in the middle of all this uproar, because Twain compares intellectual property to real estate and says they should both be treated the same way (the interview is available online here, for those who haven't seen it). I have to wonder, if the debate were actually over real estate, whether Martin would still defend the man who turns his land into a private Fort Knox over the man who turns his into an amusement park that doesn't charge admission.

[dreamflower]

Oh, that was amazing! And quite interesting to see just how long the debate over "intellectual property rights" has been going on.

[labourslamp.livejournal.com]

So, either you're a penniless but well-loved author or you're a stingy but rich author...

Sorry, but I refuse to accept that false dilemma.

Anne McCaffrey. Allowed fan fiction among her writers before the internet. As in, she endorsed the fanzines where they wrote that.

There were some stipulations. You couldn't write about any of her characters, or even the main Weyr where her things were set. But you could play in her world, and whoever wrote the best fic of the year got to name a minor OC.

McCaffrey was really, really careful about it, too. She endorsed the fan fic, but didn't read it herself because she didn't want to steal ideas from her fans. Someone else judged the fan fiction and then she would just use that one person's name.

And, for the record, no one's made a film or TV adaptation because they've always wanted to change too many things.

The point is that you don't have to be all or nothing as an author.

[dreamflower]

Oh, I thought the comparison was disingenious myself. For one thing it did not take a lot of other circumstances into account. But it just goes to show what's really important to him when that's the way he thinks of it.

[owlmoose.livejournal.com]

Excellent observation. I was also somewhat bothered by his focus on the financial side of creation. Not to mention that several people refuted his characterization of the reasons for Lovecraft's poverty in the comments -- one representative example (http://grrm.livejournal.com/151914.html?thread=9867626#t9867626). Cherry picking to make a point?

I think it's also telling that GRRM was once in a position to take a historic stand on fair use... and he decided it wasn't worth the potential cost (http://grrm.livejournal.com/151914.html?thread=9834346#t9834346).

[dreamflower]

Thanks for those links! Especially the first one, which is immensely useful.

And as to the second-- I find *that* interesting, in that his lawyer wanted to make history, and he just wanted to save money.

[the-arc5.livejournal.com]

Ugh. This whole debate makes me so angry.

The whole issue just boils down to selfishness, doesn't it? These things are mine, and you can't have them because they're mine, and I don't want you making money from things that are mine because that money should be mine.

Ridiculous.

When you create art, you give it away. Period. Masterpieces aren't masterpieces if no one ever sees/hears/reads them. How people react to your work and how they explain and examine and incorporate that work into their lives (or not) is up to them, not you. You set your art free in the world, and you have no say where it goes from there. That's what makes artistry such a painful, wonderful, exhilarating, and terrifying process. Trying to limit that with dollar signs and bogus copyright laws is, I think, an affront to artistry. Money doesn't make art more or less real.

I don't buy this "play in the world, not with the characters" baloney, either. Authors steal stories all the time. Characters are reworked and revisited and revamped. Places are recycled and changed very slightly. Pretending that anything you write is totally original, free of any influence whatsoever, is delusional, egotistical, and above all, selfish. None of us would ever grow as artists if we never shared anything with anybody else, copyright laws be damned.

And to me, it hurts to see such a lovely community of people so disparaged. Fanficcers are, by and large, so talented, open, accepting, encouraging, friendly, and simply joyful to be sharing their passion with others. I'm offended and outraged on their behalf, that someone would be so self-centered (and materialistic) as to insult what makes us a community. I'm sickened.

A little amused that this guy hit like six or seven squares of anti-fanfic bingo, but sickened all the same.

[dreamflower]

Well, you know, in one thing, some of these authors are right, because I'd much rather at any time read a well-written fanfic than pay a dime to read a book by someone so cynical and materialistic.

So I suppose that will lose them *my* money-- except I've never had any interest in reading either of them anyhow.

Six or seven squares? Wow!

[holdur.livejournal.com]

Of the two posts, I'm more upset by GRRM's. Gabaldon's post is so blatantly offensive all I can do is stare at it and tell myself she must be new. I think GRRM makes his point rather reasonably and calmly, but he uses the term fanfiction with such distaste ("fanfiction" ugh, those quotes) and that sort of distaste hurts more than Gabaldon's.

[dreamflower]

Yes, as I said, politer but far more disdainful. As if we were something he scraped off the bottom of his shoe.

Patronizing. Condescending. Superior.

Rather Sarumannish in tone, I thought.

[lbilover.livejournal.com]

He's assuming that HPL died a pauper because he shared his universe. Nowhere does he offer any actual proof that this is true. It's an entirely lame argument, and yeah the almighty dollar rules supreme with these folks. And he like DG simply doesn't get why we write fanfic. If I read one more 'it's great practice for a kid/aspiring writer' I'll scream.

[dreamflower]

Right. And it's an insulting comparison to *both* HPL and ERB, because it assumes that HPL was a fool for being generous, and that ERB was *not* beloved because he kept his own material close.

Plus, the people that Burroughs defended his copyright from were people who actually intended to *profit* from his creation.

I agree. Totally, totally lame!

If I read one more 'it's great practice for a kid/aspiring writer' I'll scream.

Amen. And the reason *that* one is so irritating? It usually comes from the *defenders* of fanfic, trying to persuade the objectors of how useful and benign fanfic is. It's true. Fanfic *is* good practice, IF that's what the person wishes to do-- but the vast majority of fic writers are not kids or aspiring to get conventionally published.*

*I try always to phrase it "conventionally published", because we ARE published, by ourselves on the internet, for the benefit of our friends. Which is unconventional enough to be threatening, I guess.

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

I always love it when some ass refers to something as "so-called". Because they've just validated themselves as not worthy of listening to.

[dreamflower]

LOL! Yep.

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Interesting that about GRRM. He obviously doesn't feel the same about artist interpretation of his work as he gave Ted Nasmith the job of painting the castles from his books. Being Ted, they are of course stunning pictures and Ted is very particular about the accuracy of his work but they are still interpretations nonetheless, which is surely what fan fic is. I wouldn't dream of saying our fan fic is comparable of the skills of a great artist like Ted but we all go through the same process of putting flesh on the bones in our own way.

You are so right about all writers being influenced by others. Tolkien himself reinvented the Norse tales and I'm quite sure if those of us who dabble in his universe ever write 'original' novels they would, in turn, be hugely influenced by Tolkien.

I hesitant to say this as I might get shot down in flames on all sorts of fronts but, let's face it, some fan fic is pretty awful and some downright weird. I do wonder how much that has influenced reaction to it. Trying to put myself in an author's shoes, I wonder how I would feel about seeing my own beloved characters doing things I would never have dreamt of - would I be faltered or annoyed? But, I guess, as with art, you have to take the good with the bad and just ignore the ugly!

[dreamflower]

I posted a comment in his second post: here.

Awful and weird. True, and I think most of us know it. 90% of fanfic is dreck. But here is another truth: 90% of original fic is dreck as well. It's just that most of that never gets published.

And of what does get published? Well, one of the reasons I tend to stick with writers of decades long gone is that much of what is published today is flat and formulaic. It's not dreck, I suppose it has some nourishment in it and it's mostly properly spelled. But it lacks conviction and sincerity and passion-- what I call "heart".

One thing I find even in some of the most poorly written of fanfic: heart.

Someone, somewhere, in all of this discussion, said that the modern fantasy genre is "Tolkien-lite"-- referring to the fact that almost all fantasy published since LotR has been a vain attempt to emulate him.

We who write LotR fanfic do not try to emulate him by creating poor imitations of the world he made. We follow him into his own world, and do our exploring there instead.

[rhapsody11.livejournal.com]

Yeps, here we see it confirmed: it's all about money and greed. I do dare to say that Cthulhu has become an institute in pop culture, a legacy. Say Cthulhu and many will smile and know exactly what it means. Tarzan and Jane, besides reaching a musical status, it doesn't really appeal to me. It leaves one to ponder if one would rather be famed for being a millionaire or leaving something that will live on in our hearts and generations to come, like the professor did,like Gene Roddenberry or George Lucas did. The last two became very rich, but of course he is willingly ignoring that!

[surgicalsteel.livejournal.com]

Funny you mention Roddenberry - because that was a man who seemed to really get the importance of happy fans. Star Trek was saved from cancellation twice by the fans, its popularity was perpetuated by fans writing fic and selling it in 'zines (and in some cases writing published novels with his approval). If not for fans passionate about Star Trek: TOS, we wouldn't have had any of the movies or any of the other series. Lucas I think is similar - he recognized the mass appeal and encouraged (and in some cases licensed) people to go and play in his world.

The folks who've created works that live on have by and large been respectful of their fans.

[lily-the-hobbit.livejournal.com]

I find myself more and more sad about how things have changed, and nothing is judged good unless it makes $$$$$$$.

Agreed. Especially with creative things like writing one should think that money is the last thing on the author's mind... and the last thing expected from a good story. If money becomes the most of important thing for a writer - where is the heart of the story? Without passion and love for what is created no story can ever shine. And there is certainly buckets full of love and passion in fandom.

[dreamflower]

And yet every single author I've seen raise objections to fanfic as a whole (rather than as applied to only their own work) has started out by saying we are stealing from them, and opened up with money as their first argument.

How they feel about their characters is always *at least* second thought, if not third (or not mentioned at all).

[gamgeefest.livejournal.com]

And who is this guy? Never heard of him.

Lovecraft died in poverty because he was generous with his creations? Or because of other reasons? One does not lead to the other, as the readers of fan fic are fans themselves and therefore have the books. I have three sets of LOTR!

(sorry for the delete, but I can't edit my posts)

[dreamflower]

'S OK!

He's written a very popular fantasy series called Game of Thrones, and he was a screenwriter for the old 80s TV series Beauty and the Beast.

He may or may not be a good writer-- I've never read his books, though I've heard both good and bad things about them.

But to me that's not as important as his attitude, which is "I get paid for writing. I am more important than someone who does not get paid for writing."

*blech*sticks out tongue to get rid of nasty taste*

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'll bet I could "out-patronize" GRRM. ;^) His books have been recommended to me for the whole "conflicted villain" angle. All right then. I tried reading the first volume. But his attempt at constructed language was so ham-handed that it threw me right out of the story. That and his use of archetypes struck me as being noticeably derivative of a well-known (and deceased) author known for philology and mythopoeia. OK, GRRM is not as egregious as Terry Brooks, but still.

[dreamflower]

The fact has to be faced: Tolkien's literary DNA is all through modern fantasy. Even those who dislike his work are influenced by it. There's no way for most of it NOT to be derivative, and often the more they try, the worse it gets. In the early 70s, nearly every new fantasy written had something about Tolkien in the blurb.

The difference between us fanfic writers and those who imitate Tolkien is that we use the real thing, while they create a pale imitation version of it.

I know. Sweeping generalization. But generally speaking...*wink*

[thebeecharmer.livejournal.com]

I would hate to be so insecure as a writer as to be so possessive of works I've done which would spark the readers imaginations only to douse that spark by hating fanfiction about my work. It's kind of sick when you think about it... Here, I'll give you something to set your imagination afire. And then I'll crush it. Now that's sadistic.

[dreamflower]

*nods*

BTW, here is a list of authors who approve of fanfic as well as of those who don't.