fanfic diatribe

[veronica_rich]

By now most of you have likely heard about writer Diana Gabaldon's screed against fanfic writers as thieves and rapists cutting into her sales by writing fanfic about her characters. (Which I found pretty funny, since the only book of hers I ever bought I bought because of a crossover-with-POTC fanfic I read about one of her characters. I'd never heard of her or her characters prior to that. Well, she won't have to worry about me spending my thieving cash on any of the other books in the series, I assure her - not that I would have anyway, I wasn't terribly impressed with what I read).

pir8fancier, who is also a published author, says it all right here. My favorite part is at the end, which I will quote thusly: An artist needs to understand that fanfiction is an expression of admiration, of solidarity with other people who share their love of your concept. This is not a backdoor attempt to steal your readers. THESE ARE YOUR READERS.

That this is not OBVIOUS to an author (TV writer, filmmaker, any creator) in this day and age boggles me. IT'S FREE PUBLICITY, YOU NARROW-SIGHTED GITS. YOU GET SALES OFF OF THIS THAT YOU WOULDN'T OTHERWISE. Fanfic writers have been around for centuries; some have even been paid for their efforts (Laurie R. King, Carole Nelson Douglas, J.J. Abrams, William Shakespeare).

Comments

[immortal-jedi.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean. I've been introduced to so many books, movies, and tv series thanks to fanfiction and crossovers. Including, but not limited to: Discworld, Harry Potter, The Sentinel, and even Supernatural to some extent.

I don't get it. If I'm ever a published writer, I'm going to encourage fanfiction, though I won't read ff of my own work.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

I can imagine expressing an opinion on the quality of fanfic on your own work ("I don't think a lot of it is very good/in character" "I don't care for the slash fic"), but to compare the act of writing to stealing your own husband or violating your loved ones? O.O

[pixelinfandom.livejournal.com]

DG has since deleted her diatribe which, oh well. What's almost worse, is how she's posted a 'NO FANFIC PLZ' note on her webpage and right underneath it is a whole entire post about how she based her main character on a Dr. Who character, and got to be on TV about it, and sent the actor books. I don't even....WTF is wrong with her?

http://66.147.244.179/~dianagab/

Almost all media I've spent money on in the past 4 years or so has been purchased directly or indirectly because of fandom. DG will never see a cent of mine, that's for sure.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Deleting that will turn out to be the worst thing she's done in all of this, I predict. It's been turned loose on the Internet, it's been cached and reproduced all over, and I have to say, if there's one thing Internet fen will lose all respect over, it's not having the balls to own up to what you've posted. The fact she did it and thought the wank would go away just shows how very little she knows about online fandom. *headshake*

[yoiebear.livejournal.com]

I'm in total agreement.
I would be honored if I were a published author and people started writing fanfic about it. It would mean that not only is my work being read, but also inspiring others.

I guess I'm not from the DG/Anne Rice school of thought.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Mama, she's CRAZY.

[solitaryraven.livejournal.com]

Haha. I love this. I've been a fan of Diana's work for a long time and continue to be--she's given me some of my favorite characters ever. However, reading her comments on the forum she posts on has made me loathe her as a person. While I continue to read her books because of how much I love the characters, my love and respect for her as a writer is completely gone. She's incredibly rude, arrogant, and full of herself. Her opinions are the only ones that matter and everyone else is just stupid or useless. I love how she has so much negative publicity because she opened her mouth and showed everyone what an opinionated bitch she really is. Does she have the right to say that she would prefer if people didn't write fanfic about her books? Sure. They're her characters and there are other authors who have asked that. But to bitch and moan about what heinous people fanfic writers are? Bitch. Especially since writing itself has ALWAYS been about taking things other people have written and using them to write something else. This is just one of the steps in that process.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

As I said, everything ever written is just based on something that came earlier. The fact is that there are plenty of respected writers who have won awards and made money writing with other people's characters and worlds. But the bit about comparing it to stealing her husband? PRICELESS.

[daasgrrl.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of her until that rant! What amused me most is the report that she based one of her own characters on a Doctor Who character. And that her fiction is heavy on the explicit smut, even as she's complaining about the same kind of thing in fanfic. Way to lose the high moral ground there XD

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

The fact she posted this on her blog and didn't count on the possible response is telling in itself of her non-understanding of online fandom culture. (Indeed, she erased the smegging thing when the going got rough, instead of sticking to her guns and leaving it up. THAT says a lot right there.)

[moonbeamdancer.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of this woman until now, and I have no urge to read any of her books, ever. I've got another author I love, that more or less has the same stance on fic and I'm getting tired of her as well. She's got a new series starting next month and I have no urge to read it, and I'm seriously thinking of finishing the series of hers I'm currently reading, (by buying them used off Amazon) and then dropping her.

We know the characters belong to you, there are nicer ways of asking us to not play with them, then by being a bitch...

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Any author has the right to express their views on fanfic; I just think it's kind of stupid to see it as devaluing your creation, since the sincerest form of flattery is imitation. If fans aren't making money off of it - nay, if they're SPENDING money on yours and getting others interested enough to do it - why bitch?

[hippediva.livejournal.com]

*giggle* Y'know, for what it's worth, anyone can leave reviews of Ms. Beyotch's work up at Amazon. *whistles innocently* *G*

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't want to participate in making her lose sales; it's hard enough out there for a writer these days. I simply am not impressed enough by her to buy more of her books (I wasn't before this, for the record), nor will I be recommending her to others. :-/

[day221b.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing pir8fancier's message. They are absolutely right! Eloquently put, too.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

She says things in ways I can't always think to.

[venusinchains.livejournal.com]

I followed some of that (via metafandom and fandom wank). It wakes you up to the fact that being a 'successful' writer does not rule out ignorance or guarantee fact checking. She seems completely unaware of the disclaimer habit that's consistent across every fandom I've been in. Besides which, Fair Use is still a very gray legal area. And fan fic writers are not the only people using her characters - published and paid reviewers and literary critics will summarize and/or quote from her works liberally, and get paid for it, without her permission or any accompanying recompense to her - all perfectly legal. A crack fic could be classified as parody, also perfectly legal, permission granted or not.

That she missed the facts pir8fancier points out (the love and money that fandom can and does provide) almost makes me feel sorry for her.

It's too bad, really. She was on my 'to read' list. No longer. Though it's just as well, the whole discussion also pointed out her inclusion of 'immoral' sex in her series' - specifically rape - that I'd rather avoid. (And the whole 'character being OBVIOUSLY based on a Doctor Who character/actor' thing? Rolflmao!)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

What I read of the book I bought is basically standard-trope romance in a time-travel setting. She does have some canon gay love in there, which is progressive - but it's not quite enough to save the prosaic nature of the rest of it.

[venusinchains.livejournal.com]

Yeah, most folks seem to like her characters and bits of her plots, but think the writing is nothing special. So I laugh, because if one character is admittedly a 'copy/paste with a name change' from Doctor Who, maybe lots of her characters are 'unconsciously' based on others. She does seem to think fan fiction would make for perfect original fiction with a simple name search-and-replace. *cannot prevent the inevitable *eye roll**

I also gathered, from all the incredulous discussion about it, that women are raped regularly in both of her series (apparently she has two), which is a standard-trope of romance novels (one that I really do try to avoid - her books were on my list because I had heard time travel was involved, though they're classified as 'Fiction' in my store). And one of her series is supposed to center on a gay man, who violently rapes at least one man. So, even without all the hypocrisy, I probably would have avoided her work after this blowup.

Did you not finish the book? (Was it that bad? Or just not that interesting.)