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

[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.)