[ SECRET POST #2706 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2706 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 079 secrets from Secret Submission Post #387.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

The arrogance of some authors knows no bounds.

So here I am, reading the terms and conditions on fanfiction.net (I went to check the visitor count on my old badfics, OK) and I am again reminded of the fact that people like Anne Rice and GRRM either dislike or straight out want to ban fan fiction based on their works.

And my mind, it boggles. Just how arrogant do you have to be to consider your work an inimitable original? An original that didn't in a large part rip off everything that came before because that's inevitable? Everything is based on everything, the whole history of literature is about drawing inspiration from something else, none of the contemporary works isn't derivative.

And yeah, some fics are bad, some are dreadful, some are laughable, but some are great, so why, why, why is there hate on the part of the authors of the "original" for ensuing creativity, especially creativity inspired by something they did.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

And why is so hard for some fans to realize that for many authors, their works are extremely personal. (Like for Anne Rice, Interview with a Vampire was her way of working through the grief of losing her daughter to cancer. Claudia is supposed to symbolize her child Michelle. Louis is her. And Lestat was death. Lestat stole the innocent life that Claudia was supposed to have. She doesn't want others to corrupt what she sees is a personal story.)

If an author says, "Please, don't write fanfiction of my works," why can't the fans just honor that request? Why are some fans stomping their feet like a spoiled brat who has been denied the use of someone else's toy?

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[feotakahari]

If you share something with other people, those other people will interpret it in ways that match their own personal experience. If Lestat means death to Anne Rice, then people who read Interview and see that parallel are likely to write about what death means to them. That's not taking something away, because the original novel is not modified in any way. That's simply part of the process of interpretation, and if something is truly personal to you such that you don't want other people interpreting it, you probably shouldn't share it with others.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[sdk]

How does someone writing Interview with a Vampire fanfic negate Anne Rice's feelings about her own work? Not dismissing her experiences but...if you don't want the public to react/engage/criticize/praise/be inspired by and yes, potentially create fan works based on your work, then don't release it to the public.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, maybe shouldn't publish it for millions of poeple to read if it is so personal.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

Nah. If you're sharing it with the world, it's not personal anymore. Reading involves just more than absorbing the text. Interpretation, getting ideas, exploring new possibilities within the realm of the story are all part of reading. So if you don't want that to happen, don't share it with people. A story never belongs to just the author, aside from certain rights like the ability to make a profit from it. Stories belong to everyone.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

Considering that what she wrote in her later books was basically AU!Bible fanfiction, she really doesn't have a lot of ground to complain about fanfiction, not even if that first book was some sort of therapy.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah but after that when she kept going on making Lestat into a Mary Sue then went on writing Bible fanfiction, all respect she could have gathered just flew out of the window.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[diet_poison]

idk man, if it's that "personal" you probably shouldn't publish it for others to read. It kinda comes across to me as whiny-bratty when authors basically say "I want you to read my works and pay me money for them, but I don't want you to enjoy them in any meaningful way beyond that".

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

Why can't the fans just honor that request?

I wonder this too. No matter the reason from the author, if they don't want fanfiction written based on their works, then just don't fucking write it? It's called respect, and it's sad that so many people seem to have a lack of it. :/

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

Because you can't share something with the whole world and then dictate how people react to it. It's not rational, nor is it feasible, and if a person tries to do this, well of course they get mocked for it.

I don't read or write any fanfiction based on GRRM's or Anne Rice's works, so nobody is denying me anything. And you know what? I still think they're silly for trying to police their readers' reactions to works they voluntarily published and profited* from.


* Yeah, that's another thing. If Claudia and the whole novel was such a sacred grieving process, Anne Rice has made a very lucrative career from it, yet somehow that's not corrupting its sanctity while fanfiction is? Nah, not buying it.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

We recognize that some authors have made such requests. However, given that they're stupid-ass requests, we've elected to ignore them.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know much about Anne Rice's reasons, but I believe GRRM's reasons also include a fear of potentially being sued over something a fan wrote in his universe. Or that's the impression I get whenever he references the Marion Zimmer Bradley incident.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[ex_mek82]

Speaking of GRRM, I'm going to hazard and guess and say he's probably still firm on his position, but has largely thrown his hands up in the air on trying to force people to stop writing fan fiction about his works after the runaway success of 'Game of Thrones'.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[icecheetah]

Then he can either have "I don't read fanfiction of my work" as a rule or take the legal route of "once you publish your fanfiction you surrender the rights to me, in case I write something similar."

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[dreemyweird]

I automatically assume that the writers who hate fanfiction know fuck all about how actual literature works and are hence bound to be shitty writers. Period. How they managed to read anything at all and not stumble across both fannish blends of published works and some pretty obvious RPF is beyond me.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[ex_mek82]

Eh, I think it's a pretty grey area.

On the one hand -and to play Devil's Advocate-, I do understand where people like -for better or for worse- Anne Rice are coming from (echoing the anon above who pointed out the themes of 'Interview with a Vampire'). I have a non-fandom story of mine I've been chipping away at that's deeply personal, and I would admittedly feel uncomfortable if people wrote, say, modern day/human/barista!AU fan fiction of it. Mind, I wouldn't be able to read such fic for legal reasons.

(For the record, I do have other ideas I'd be perfectly okay with fan fiction existing for. And admittedly, I would be a hypocrite if I told people not to write fan fic full stop, since I write a bit of it myself every now and then. It's just that one idea, which frankly, I'm not 100% sure I'll ever attempt to publish. But I digress)

On the other hand, retelling stories -or crafting new ones with beloved characters from the halls of fiction in general- that have come before has kind of always been a part of human culture, dating all the way back to the stories of various religions, like Ovid's 'Metamorphosis' for the Greek pantheon, or even John Milton's 'Paradise Lost' for Christianity. This even includes public domain stuff, like Sherlock Holmes or Jane Austen's stuff. It says something about the impact these particular characters and their worlds have on people, much less pop culture as a whole. And if you squint hard enough, it also ties into the 'any publicity is good publicity' camp, ans some authors may even see fan fiction of their works as a way to get people interested in their own IPs/series/things.

I do think as the generations go on, the attitudes towards fan fiction will shift in a somewhat more positive/receptive direction, since a fair few authors now cut their teeth on writing fan fiction (some of whom have gotten to write actual tie-in/expanded universe material). But that remains to be seen, though I have a hunch that'll be the case in a post-'Fifty Shades of Grey' literary world.

But that's just my 2 cents. =T

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

idk, I can see both sides of it. I don't blame people for continuing to write fanfiction of works where the author open dislikes fanfic because they're just having fun but at the same time I can't blame authors for disliking it when people write fanfic where they completely fuck up the characterization, motivations and a hundred other things about their characters. If I were an author whose works had a large fandom I could see myself getting kind of cheesed off about it. I mean, it's still not enough to keep me from reading and writing fucked up Game of Thrones fic but I can still understand where some of these authors are coming from.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

ngl I love it when an author says this and the internet blows up

one of the funnest types of wank

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

There's quite a difference between taking themes or ideas and writing original works versus just plain ripping off characters and settings entirely. Especially when the original works are still in progress.

I can see how people could take it as libel even if the characters are fictional. I can't imagine being a famous writer finding works of your characters raping each other or fucking people you never thought possible. Especially if they're based on people you know. At least with books, fanart might be easier to divorce from your work since visual interpretation varies.

If you like a character so much take their personality and make them your own in an original story.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[ariakas]

GRRM's objections are hilarious, given that he wrote fanfiction (albeit with OCs) for fanzines himself back in the day.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

I find it frustrating, but at the end of the day it's their work, and can be deeply personal. If they don't want people to play in that universe in a public forum then I can understand it.

GRRM has way less of a leg to stand on than some though. He's shat all over his own work already.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

What I can't stand is fanficcers that try and forbid their fellow fans to fic their original work. You know, do as I say, not as I do? Worst of it is when their precious so-called original work... is fanfiction itself, too.
(Got one in my flist who does so for Bible rewritings and Neverwhere-verse expansions and still claims not to see any hypocrisy in her stand.)

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

I did write fanfic based on GRRM's works one. Well I say wrote fanfic, what I really did was just write the worder "rape" out 1000 times, with a couple of "rape-murder"'s thrown in occasionally for light relief.

Re: A rant on authors hating fan fiction

[(Anonymous)]

Jasper Fforde's view is the one that always boggles me the most. Apparently he thinks it's "strange to want to copy or 'augment' someone else's work when you could expend just as much energy and have a lot more fun making up your own." Says the guy whose most popular work is filled with other peoples' characters. Apparently it's super strange to write about other people's work unless you're getting paid for it and then it's totally original and okay. I can't even read his books anymore because I can't get over the author's massive hypocrisy.