Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I admit to mixed feelings about it.  On the one hand, I’ve co-written an academic paper on fanfiction, and am friends with a number of people who study it; I could fake my way through a brief paean to the subversive and transformative opportunities of fanfic, etc.

On the other hand, I think a lot of it is less engaged with such high-flown concerns, and more concerned with wish fulfillment or prurient sensibilities. :-)

I think I would be pissed if I thought somebody had ficced my writing because they thought I “didn’t do it right.”  I’d also be weirded out if someone’s fic involved my characters behaving in a fashion that is Just.  Not.  Right. in my subconscious.  (Which needn’t be sexual; it could just be an action I know that character would never take.)  And so forth and so on; I think individual instance of fanfic might rub me the wrong way.  But on the other hand, I don’t think I’m particularly harmed by anybody writing it—if anything, the reverse—so my policy, which I stated on my LJ a while ago, is that I don’t mind so long as you’re not trying to make money from it.

Not that anybody’s written fanfic of my stories as yet (though I have found one piece of fan-art!), but that’s my policy and I’m sticking to it.  I will, however, probably not read any fanfic that may result, for the sake of my own sanity.

Too bad, but nowadays people use intellectual properties without any questioning or any bad conscience. Very bad attitude! I’m always furious because of it.

My policy is similar to Marie’s, and it’s on my website. Go ahead and write fanfic if you like, and have fun. But for legal reasons I can’t and won’t look at it (and because I had a few people ask, it’s because if I’ve already planned to do something in a book, and a fan does it, I could be accused of stealing the idea. But once a series ends I’ll be just like JKR, excited to read all of it, lol.)

Proulx’s comments infuriate me on a number of levels. Of course a story is “open range to explore [a reader’s] own fantasies”; what else IS it? How the reader interprets the story and what it makes them feel depends as much on them and their experiences/tastes/whatever as it does on the writing itself, so for her to imply her story is just supposed to sit there like a dead thing, to be stared at then moved on from without it actually igniting anything in the reader (which is in effect what she’s saying) is so wrongheaded and offensive and just…bleh. The idea that readers are somehow wrong and stupid to be touched and moved by a story, to be ignited by it, just astounds me coming from a writer.

If she doesn’t want people to write fanfic that’s one thing. She has every right to ask that they not do so and that they not send it to her. But to ascribe such ludicrous motives, to speak so shabbily and rudely of people who are trying to pay her a compliment… It makes me physically ill, especially when I wonder how many of those people who start their letters with “I’m not gay, but…” either actually are gay and feel okay about that for the first time in their lives, or genuinely are not gay but are much more open to and comfortable with the idea of other people being gay. And the response they get for those feelings is to have it implied there’s something wrong with them for expressing themselves.

She doesn’t have to respond to all those people with hugs and an invitation to dinner, but I do think she has an obligation not to call them names publicly and insinuate they’re a bunch of morons.

I’ve never minded when people write fanfic of my stuff. I sort of see where she wouldn’t want people messing with her chars, but then again, people don’t really mean any harm.  Yeah, some people hate the end, and want to see something happier—but so what?  It’s hardly the first time people have thrown fits over that sort of thing. At least they didn’t harass her to death until she finally rewrote it, which is what happened with Great Expectations.  I went to a panel once where Tamora Pierce was talking about fanfic, and she especially disliked the ones where her characters got raped. Again, I can understand, but at the end of the day - it’s just fanfic. Not cannon. No one but the writer can mess with the cannon, so who really cares where the fanfic might go?  I just have a hard time being offended by the idea that people want to spend a portion of their free time playing in my sandbox.

I’m with Marie & Stacia - absolutely feel free to write fan fiction about my characters. Fan fiction is a huge form of flattery and I’d be utterly gobsmacked if someone thought enough of my world to play in it. Sadly, I can’t read it while I’m writing my series, but like, Stacia, I’d love to read it after the series is over. :)

Frankly, fan fiction is simply a pastiche without prior approval. There’s a ton of it out there published (from sources that are in public domain) - Nicholas Meyer’s “The Seven Percent Solution”, all sorts of Jane Austen pastiches, etc. I really don’t understand why people get their knickers in a knot about this. Yeah, perhaps sending your stories to the writer isn’t brilliant, but it’s just another way of expressing how much the story affected you. Fanfic is nothing more than a more modern version of the bard/storyteller, retelling and remixing stories; another way of spinning a tale. It’s just a whole lot easier these days. No need for a physical gathering and a campfire. :)

Anyone else here thing Annie P might be a bit overly egolicious there?

think, not thing!

dang where is my coffee

If I ever get published, and if someone ever wrote fanfic based on anything I’d written, I’d be incredibly flattered, and would probably read it out of sheer amusement. In fact, I and one of my friends (a co-author on a few different things) have spent at least a few evenings giggling over hypothetical crazy ‘shippers based on things we’ve written (admittedly there was a fair bit of alcohol involved as well).

That being said, I would find it a bit awkward if people actually sent it to me, expecting it to be read, and expecting some sort of feedback. I can think of a number of authors who have stated that they have no problem with fanfic, but that they don’t have the time or the inclination to read it; I find that perfectly acceptable. The ones who rant—Annie Proulx, Anne Rice, etc—just seem to me to be blowing hot air. Will this stop the fans? I certainly don’t think so.

I would find it irritating if someone sent me something, claiming I’d ‘written the ending wrong’, or something to that effect. At the end of the day, the characters came from one particular author, and their version is the one that has to take precedence. But, then again, the fanfic I’ve always liked is the kind that fills in tiny gaps and/or takes different a different perspective on a preexisting story.

Stacia, the fans are behaving badly in the Proulx case. The first rule of fanfic is that you don’t approach the talent with it. Don’t get me started on improperly socialized feral fans and the blatant male privilege when the men send it in with a “there, fixed that for you, little lady,” attitude.

Of my own stuff, I have more a J. Michael Straczynski attitude: I wish you wouldn’t until canon is closed. I’m very likely to Joss your stuff. And please don’t let me see your “Nick and James go to pick out curtains and make a test-tube baby” story until I’ve gotten all the books out.

After Canon’s closed, play away.  I know I have.

I have had fanfic written on one of mine, and it wasn’t bad, but the author seemed to miss one very important facet of a character, which made the whole thing completely out of character.

I bet I know who has the lower blood pressure. 

Honestly, no one is going to be able to control fanfic.  It’s the same impulse that had my brother and I, as kids who lived in our imaginations a lot, make up new adventures for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek.  We just didn’t write them down and put them on the internet.  But if the internet and home computers had existed we probably would have.

Oh, I agree they shouldn’t send it to her, Angelia, but I also suspect in this case the fans involved don’t realize they’re behaving badly; I’d bet a large portion of them don’t even know what “fanfic” is or that it exists, much less that there are rules attached.

And either way, that’s no excuse for her nastiness. Those people, correctly behaved or not, are human beings. More than that, they are human beings who are attempting, wrongly or not, to share with her something her work inspired in them. They don’t deserve her rudeness and contempt. Had she simply said in the interview “People write stories and send them to me, and I really, really wish they wouldn’t. I consider it a copyright violation and don’t enjoy reading it, I just throw them out so they’re wasting their time,” I wouldn’t say a word about it. But to call them degrading names and inscribe sexist motives to them is shameful.

Would you be irritated with someone taking your characters and writing fanfic about them?

Maybe a little irritated, but I would try not to go off the deep end.  If it happens, it happens-as long as they don’t try to earn money off of the fanfic that uses my characters/worlds, etc, as long as they don’t try to claim ‘ownership’ over the worlds/characters, I’d hope I wouldn’t get too worked up over it.

However, I don’t want to read it either.

First rule of fanfiction: Don’t send it to the original source
Second rule of fanfiction: DON’T SEND IT TO THE ORIGINAL SOURCE

Fanfiction exists in a murky gray area of legality already but as long as authors, producers, screenwriters, all the people who have legal control over what you’re fanficcing can pretend it doesn’t exist then they largely ignore it. They can’t ignore it if you send it to them. Why would you send it to them? Are you damaged in the head? Don’t be stupid.

I personally don’t write fanfic. Much. But in my opinion as long as no one tries to make money off it (excepting the published fanfic such as Star Trek and Star Wars, although if George Lucas wasn’t making money off that he probably wouldn’t allow it) and they don’t SEND IT TO THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR then it’s not a bad thing.

If a series has ended or there’s only one book it’s a way for people to get continued enjoyment out of something they like. Even if, gasp, they don’t always agree with the direction of the original series.

So, Proulx, they may be completely missing the point but it’s possible they get the point, they just didn’t like the point and want to try out different scenarios. Fill in the gaps.  Interact with the material. Hell at least people haven’t forgotten her book.

I can totally understand why some authors would dislike the idea of fanfic but at the same time it’s really not harming them at all.

Just, for the love of god, STOP SENDING YOUR FIC TO THE AUTHORS. They aren’t all like JKR or Neil Gaiman.

However, it was a logistical nightmare to administrate. I had to go back to all the people who had taken the song without permission, and ask their permission . . . to use their version of my song!

This reminds me of a Buffy fanfic I wrote back in the day.  I later found out someone else had ficced my fic: taken the setting (I’d written about a Victorian Buffy and Spike), alt-universe details and even the title, and written her own.  But, since I was just ficcing someone else, I couldn’t really complain about it.  Then I discovered the author had sold her fic as an original story: she’d pretty much just changed the names.  So, from fanfic she was now making money from an idea I had?  Still, I can’t cite copyright infringement on it, can I?  I even put the ‘these characters don’t belong to me’ disclaimer on my fic!

It’s entirely possible we just came up with very similar ideas for fanfic.  And both gave them the same title.  Yeah.

Fanfic’s a strange beast.  I think I’d be flattered if someone ficced my work, but I’m not sure I’d want to read it.  They’re my characters and my world, and I like them as they are!

The news these days is really bizarre.  Nobody ever seems to cover the things I would consider important.  And they are such short “sound bites” that I feel like I know nothing about what they are reporting on anyway without further research.  And the scary thing is most people seem to just accept this as all fine…

As for Proulx, I think fanfic is a great thing.  And why someone would not be honored that people like their stuff enough to inspire them to write it, I just don’t know.

Aaaugh, this Proulx story has been chapping my hide for days now, because (as several people have said already) it’s a serious breach of etiquette (and common sense) to send fanfic or fanart to the original source.

I do find it interesting that she says most of these fanfic authors are men, because the majority of m/m slash writers are women, and it’s been that way since the early 1970s. And I do remember that when the Brokeback Mountain film was released, there was a little spate of fic on my LJ friends list, all written by women, that often rewrote the ending. I wonder if the writers Proulx is speaking about are brand-new fanficcers, inspired to change the ending because, as Liz said, they understand the canon ending and don’t like it and therefore are rewriting to suit their own emotional needs. It’s wrong to send these stories to Proulx, but I understand their impetus to write the stories in the first place. I think this is a case of the fanfic writers in question being newbies and not understanding the community standards of fandom.

Once you write something and put it out there, it’s there. It becomes the reader’s because every reader brings his own baggage.  That said, it NEVER occurred to me to rewrite others’ characters (books, films, TV), so I didn’t know such a thing as fanfic existed until a couple of years ago.

What do you think? Would you be irritated with someone taking your characters and writing fanfic about them?

Were I so lucky to have a fanbase that would spend its time rewriting my characters to their specifications, I have a good idea where they’d take it. On the other hand, were I to acquire a fanbase like that, there’s nothing I can do to stop them, so why not ride the wave and thank them for the boost, ego, sales, publicity, and otherwise?

I agree with those who say:  I don’t care if you write it, but don’t send it to me and don’t expect me to read it.  Ever.

Teddypig said:

Anyone else here think Annie P might be a bit overly egolicious there?

 
This is a *sniff* I WRITE GREAT LITERATURE HOW DARE YOU YOU UNWASHED MASSES *sniff* hissy fit.

I’m very likely to Joss your stuff.

What does this mean?

Proulx should feel damned flattered.  “Brokies” who write fanfic aren’t trying to make her story better.  I’m sure they’re well aware of its excellence.  Their ongoing involvement in the tale is testimony to how vividly the characters were rendered and how deeply their struggle touched people—gay, straight and bi, male and female.

As much as I admired both the story and the film, I’ll tell ya, they tore me up.  I’ve never written and never will write fanfic but, damn in a basket, I still want Jack and Ennis to have their HEA!

I get where Proulx is coming from, although I think her attitude is unbearably high-handed.  Fanfic is wideranging and if you’ve written a story that captures people’s imaginations, then you, as a writer, have done something right.  How many wonderful stories were borne from the fact that the author read the original source and was inspired by it?

Gregory Maguire’s Wicked series comes to mind here, or Shaw’s Pygmalion, the various incarnations of Shakespeare’s or Austen’s works and the list goes on and on and on and in a manner of speaking, could be considered the ultimate form of fanfiction.

However…

First rule of fanfiction: Don’t send it to the original source
Second rule of fanfiction: DON’T SEND IT TO THE ORIGINAL SOURCE

Liz nailed it.  I’m not going to presume what the ficcers were thinking was going to happen—maybe they really did think that she missed the boat and this is how it should’ve happened, maybe they just see it as the highest form of compliment, the “Ms. Proulx, your story and characters and world inspired me,” and that she’d love seeing their efforts, but you know, as an author, not that I assume anyone’s ever written any fanfic based on my work, but honestly, for a lot of different reasons, I sure wouldn’t want to see it.  I feel very, very proprietary about my characters and and stories I’d probably get my panties in a monumental bunch, even if I tried to play it cool on the surface.  Especially, if we’re being really, really, really honest, a huge amount of fan fic is just absolutely terrible.  It’s got to be hard to see these characters and the world that you spent so much time and care on being more or less butchered.  I’m not saying it’s all bad, but probably that a majority of it is.

However, while this is something that obviously bugs her no end, I think she made a lot of rather unfortunate and cruel assumptions about the writers and their motivations.  Not that she necessarily needs to, what with her awards and deals, but I think in this case, the high road, or at least a more middling one, would’ve been the better one to take.

I’ve written fanfic.  It helped me, as a teenage writer, refine some skills.  It helps me now, from time to time, get around dry spells. 
I haven’t put a lot of it on display anywhere, but it does exist, and I’m grateful to the authors for letting me play. 
So…
Were I published, I don’t think I would have a problem with people writing fanfic in my world.  I have this feeling that my characters might be way too easy to subtextually ship into a variety of combinations that I did not mean for them.  (My heroine and her best female friend have a very Victorian girl-firendship.  This would turn into femmeslash city.  My heroine’s brother is in love with his tutor who winds up in love with the heroine.  I don’t even want to think about this as a triangle, but I think people would write it.) 
Heck, I might even be thrilled to read about heroine’s brother/tutor ‘cause I tried (just to get it out of my system) to write them a scene and just couldn’t do it.  It wouldn’t happen, so I couldn’t do it.  I’d be interested to see, in the hands of a skilled ficcer who is willing to bend the rules, how these two could sensibly get together. 
I’m sure there would be some reason to be irked that I’m not thinking about, but—for the most part—I’d be pretty okay with the idea.  If it helps a young writer develop, gives someone who is not professionally a writer a place to go with their creativity, or just gives someone’s mind a rest, can’t hurt. 
(...though I don’t necessarily want it sent to me.)

I got my start writing fanfic, and so obviously I’m not going to object to fans potentially writing fanfic if I get published. I see it as one of the highest compliments an author can be paid (so long as they don’t try making money off it—that’s not so complimentary). Your readers enjoyed your world and your characters so much, they didn’t want the experience of your story to end. They wanted to draw it out even longer, and they wanted to share it with their friends/the general public/whoever. That’s pretty damn spiffy.

Will I want to read fic of my own work, even once my series is finished? Probably not. I’d be too worried what people would do to my babies, heheh.

Concerning Proulx, while on one hand I can understand why she got pissed that people sent her fix-it fic (because really, that’s just rude), on the other hand, I think she went overboard in her response. I doubt sexism was involved in this specific case, although then again, since I haven’t seen the submissions or e-mails, I’m not exactly in a position to judge.

I have been thinking a lot about the “fix-it” aspect because I just finished No Plot? No Problem, a how-to manual by Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo. (Very good, very funny book, btw.) He suggests that before you sit down to write a novel, you make a list of everything you love to see in novels. When you write your own novel, you should put the stuff from your list in there. Then you should make a second list of everything you hate to see in novels. When you write your own novel, you should make sure none of the stuff from that second list creeps in when you’re tired.

I would need to make a third list of things I have put in novels that I thought were perfectly fine but that editors and/or agents have told me never ever to put in a novel again (marching bands, country bands, rock bands, musicians of any kind, football, monster trucks, heroin addicts, llamas). My biggest problem as a writer, methinks, is that I don’t share the interests or fantasies of a lot of people. So the “fix-it” impulse is absolutely fascinating to me. That’s what I’m generally doing in an edit: trying to predict where the story I’ve written has gone wrong in terms of jiving with the interests or fantasies of an agent or an editor. (Or a reader, you would think. But they really don’t count in this equation. In terms of an author getting a contract for a book, it doesn’t matter what the reader’s interests or fantasies are. It only matters what the agent THINKS the editor’s fantasies are, and what the editor THINKS the reader’s fantasies are, judging by previous sales.) I’m trying to figure out how an agent or editor would tell me to “fix-it,” and then I’m trying to do that to my book myself before I ever send it out. And I trust my critique partners to back me up and catch and “fix-it” anything that slips through. We now refer to their reads of my books as “checking for heroin.”

However, in Proulx’s particular case, it sounds like the “fix-it” people are operating in a completely different genre from her book, so it makes sense that she has no interest in what they’re doing. It would be like someone making one of my romantic comedies into a spy novel. *blank stare*

And yeah, what Liz said. STOP SENDING YOUR FIC TO THE AUTHORS. If I want to Google myself (that still sounds so dirty) and study how people have played “fix-it” with my books, that’s my problem. But don’t send it to me, because that is disdainful and ugly.

I don’t see why fanfiction would bother the original author.  If Proulx doesn’t like it, she shouldn’t read it.  But I agree with her about the characters being hers.  I doubt Margaret Mitchell would have approved of that sequel to Gone with the Wind.  Some endings aren’t supposed to be rewritten.

I completely understand Proulx’s standpoint.  If I wrote something and I determined that it didn’t end “happily” and then was unindated with a bunch of “fanfic” from people who are CHANGING the story to suit themselves, I’d be irritated, too.

Why is this “fanfic”?  They’re actually taking her story and “making it better”.  That’s not what fanfic does.  Fanfic develops the universe the original author created, it does not twist the original author’s work into something that is “happier” or “more fulfilling” or whatever. 

It’s like when Gone with the Wind was suddenly made into a series.  WTF?  But I read the new one and appreciated that this was someone’s attempt to “right the world” and not actually an extension of the original author’s work.  A WHOLE NEW story, built with characters that someone else created, that could ONLY be built legally once the copyright laws for the original were expired.  And if Margaret Mitchell was still alive, I’d bet real money it would never have been published at all.

These are two completely different cases.  One is music, and is being stylized by different personalities.  The other is a story, that is being CHANGED.  The difference is slight, and all in the priciple of it, but it IS different.

If one of my novels were published and someone wrote fanfic for it, I’d be incredibly flattered. I’d see it as an enormous compliment. But I wouldn’t want to read the fanfic. I suspect it would irritate me (the author would likely get the characters wrong, at least in small details), and anyway I wouldn’t want it to corrupt my own view of the characters in case I should write further in that universe.

Frankly, I would be honored and flattered if people loved my work enough that the characters became part of their lives and they wrote fanfic. 

I think fanfic occupies an important space, the space of the subjunctive, and it has the potential to explore possibilities in a fashion that 99% of original fic cannot.  Of course, Sturgeon’s law is also a fact of life—a large chunk of everything is crap—and not every piece of writing lives up to its potential, no matter the genre or if its fanfic or original fic.  (Well, Sturgeon’s law is that 90% of everything is crap, but I think that’s overstating the case.  Regardless, you have to take the bad if you want the good.)

It also sounds like Proulx hasn’t been exposed to good fanfic. :-/  Good fanfic writers usually know better than to send their work to the author of their source material.

WTF, Proulx? In reading her responses to the questions, I simply boggled - and it had nothing to do with her take on fanfic. My great-grandmother (a member of a pioneering Wyoming family) is spitting nails from her grave at the moment. I found Proulx’s responses to be condescending and misogynistic. (Can a woman be a misogynist?)

Ms. Proulx: I like the phrase “emotional ignorance.” I think that emotional ignorance defines most of us, especially Americans, who believe in romantic, lasting love and happiness. Both beliefs are conducive to an almost innocent expectation of a RIGHT to be loved and to be happy without earning it. Since those expectations are very often dashed in real life, emotional ignorance is often paid for with a laggard sense of betrayal, bitter tears and, eventually, a tablespoon of cynicism.

Emotional ignorance? I just…of all the….that… I’m speechless. HEAs happen in real life. I got the sense from the overall tone of her replies that she wouldn’t be a fan of romance novels. Poor her. She’s missing a lot.

Music and “literature” compares apples and oranges. Songs are “covered” all the time, though usually there’s royalty and permission involved.

As for fanfic? I’ve written a little. Not so much to “fix” as to explore - both the world and the voice of the author as an exercise in creative writing. Would I send the fic to them? Hell no! Would I post it somewhere? Uhm…copyright infringement as far as I’m concerned so that would be a big “NO!” And I’ve seen too many fanfics delve into the ridiculous and slash fic simply because they can.

If I ever create a world that others want to play in? I think I’d be flattered up to a point. But like many pointed out above, this is a litigious society. There’s enough lawsuits over intellectual property even if an author never saw the plaintiff’s ideas or story.

Honestly?  As long as the person wasn’t profiting from my characters, I would take it as a compliment.

Three words.
Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I believe she had to kill the Darkover series, which was a universe open to fanfiction, because of legal battles over who created what.  A fan sued, saying that one of Bradley’s own stories was too similar to fan created fiction.

This is the main reason why authors cannot read fanfic.  The minute you start to look, or admit to looking, or are too helpful or supportive, you create the possibility that someone will come back and sue you for stealing your own work.  And the irony that it could happen in a world where you are God and creator?

Makes my head explode.

As to I whether I would be for or against?  Don’t care to know, don’t want to see, won’t go looking.  Which, with the magic of Google Alerts, is really hard.

But considering some of the TV shows, movies and stuff that I’ve gotten obsessed with, over the years, I can’t exactly point fingers.  I never wrote anything down, but I can understand why someone would want to.

In a lot of reviews I read one of the most common complaints is that readers can’t connect with characters. To me fanfic is the reverse response. A lot of people (this site and its readers are exempted) can barely find time to read, let alone be so inspired or connected with a book, movie, tv series to sit down and write about it. Now whether or not Some fanfic is good writing is up to judgement, but people are so connected they want to continue that relationship with the characters and the story.
However, to send your work to the author is the height of idiocy. Share it with friends, fellow fans, the world of the internet but not the author!
On a related note concerning tv series fanfic can really develop a fanbase or keep up interest. Look at the Sentinel series. Lord knows I kept watching X-Files long after I lost interest just for subtext and to see what fanficcers were talking about!

Emotional ignorance? I just…of all the….that… I’m speechless. HEAs happen in real life. I got the sense from the overall tone of her replies that she wouldn’t be a fan of romance novels. Poor her. She’s missing a lot.

I agree and it explains a lot about her stories.
It definitely points to someone feeling a story is not important if it does not kill off a main character or totally destroy them in some way.

I was always amused at people making Brokeback Mountain out to be a great Gay Romance when it is a tragedy that involves one Gay man in denial and one depressed bisexual pretending not to be involved with each other.

a third list of things I have put in novels that I thought were perfectly fine but that editors and/or agents have told me never ever to put in a novel again (marching bands, country bands, rock bands, musicians of any kind, football, monster trucks, heroin addicts, llamas).

Jennifer, I want to read this one! But I’d change it in my fan fic and make the llama an alpaca. And the alpaca would be addicted to daytime TV, not heroin.

Don’t ask, don’t tell always seems like such a half-assed policy, whatever it’s applied to. But if it protects the author and still encourages creativity, then I suppose it’ll do.

It seems like authors here are split over their reactions to fanfic about their original work; would you say this is a result of the original work being by a single person? I’m asking because I’m much more familiar with fanfic based on media properties like movies and TV series, which seem to be tolerated more easily by the original creators. I’m guessing it’s because the creation of movies and TV series is exponentially more collaborative than is writing a novel. With so many hands in the pot,  I think those folks don’t feel the ownership of the character as closely as do novelists. (On a TV series, the list of people who influence the depiction of a given character includes 5-10 writers, the directors [TV series have more than one], the actor, the cinematographer, the editor, the costume designer, the hairstylist, et al. In terms of writing, the teleplay for a single episode may have one or two writers’ names on it, but usually is the product of input from the whole team.)

Spamblocker: own24. THIS ‘BOT IS FRIGHTENINGLY PSYCHIC.

So the producers of Eight is Enough don’t want to read my short stories (from the summer before 7th grade) in which Ralph Macchio’s character and I get an apartment together?  Good to know. 

I actually never knew about that “rule” of fan fiction.  I mean, it makes perfect sense and all, I just never imagined that such an endeavor actually was governed by a generally accepted set of principles. 

I understand the legal argument against receiving and reading fan fiction, but I wonder about the notion that fans do it to “correct” something and/or don’t get the characters.  An author cannot control readers’ perception of characters or a story once a work is released into the world, presence of fan fiction or no.  Every reader is going to take with him or her a personal truth about either a character or a story which may or may not conform to the author’s vision.  Whether or not that truth is ever written down or otherwise shared with anyone else is beside the point.

I’m pretty sure I’d consider fanfic the ultimate compliment. I created characters that engaged people to that degree? Bring it on! You don’t have to read it, after all. (And yeah, they shouldn’t send it to her.)

I do remember when some young woman wrote a Potter fanfic that was as big as a book, and she got a book deal out of it. I remember being rather peeved at that. The characters were already there. She didn’t create them, and that’s a huge percentage of what it takes to be a writer. I have no idea if that gal’s career went anywhere or not.

I blame the “fix it” fanfiction for Brokeback Mountain on a simple misunderstanding: Proulx wrote a tragedy and most people read it as a romance. We’re trained to want romances to have a happy ending, so readers try to give a happy ending to these characters. (This same misunderstanding is what causes people to point to Romeo & Juliet as the ultimate romance, conveniently forgetting that they both die in the end.)

I think I’d be flattered if someone wrote fanfic about my characters—having perpetuated fanfic myself I’m not going to get my knickers in a twist about it—though I admit when a friend and I tried to roleplay two of my characters on an RP board I was a little put off by her characterization. Where I saw a romantic but naive young man she saw a goth drama queen. There’s not much an author can do, though: once a story is out there it doesn’t belong just to the author anymore.

So the producers of Eight is Enough don’t want to read my short stories (from the summer before 7th grade) in which Ralph Macchio’s character and I get an apartment together?  Good to know.

LOL! And I never sent Lois Duncan my version of Five Were Missing set in my junior high school marching band. No.

MoJo asked:

I’m very likely to Joss your stuff.

What does this mean?

Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the vampire slayer, is notorious for taking fans’ expectations and twisting them. So when you expect a character’s background to be a certain way or a plot or character development to go a certain way (and write fic about it) and then it turns out to be different on the show (often vastly different), you got Jossed.

Fannish shorthand for “My guess was wrong,” really.

Fanfiction as a compliment?  ^_^  It depends on how it’s sent to you. 

I’ve had artists send me ‘their versions’ of characters I’ve written, and I do consider it an honor that they would draw these things… and used to wonder how it made my official ‘artist’ feel.

I am bothered to get fiction sent to me on the pretense that they somehow ‘fix’ what I do wrong.  :/  I’ve got emails and seen fics like this: I hated the ending of Only Words, so this is what I think should happen, and voila, a fic attachment I need to read.  I wont read them.  I’ve had fics that change my characters, and this does get to me.  >_<  I didn’t make my mafia hit man vulnerable enough and so this person goes creates a whole backstory for him where he watched his mother die yada yada yada… 

A part of me wants to see if it’s written well because I like good fanfic—on the other I want to say FU stop trying to turn my character into your character.  Then there’s the third hand, the one that no one sees but is there: I respect the compulsion that drives all writers to create, even if it’s my material they’re playing with.

There’s a weird ego-dynamic there.  I can’t quite put my finger on it yet.  I can tell you this…it hurts to see fans say things like - this is so much better than the original.  =_=;

I’m confessing to very mixed feelings about fanfic as well—despite my disclaimer (“but some of my best friends”) and despite my scouring the web, looking for my latest ‘ship “fix”, but then again, I’m not a writer.

What I am is an actor, and what gives me pause is seeing other actors’ faces/bodies reproduced (and sold) as fan art or photoshopped into layouts that never existed outside of the fan’s imagination.  This can be, to quote “Serenity”, mighty creepifyin’.  My face—such as it is—is my fortune and to lose control over where and how it appears is very disturbing stuff.  Not talking paparazzi pics here, just your average working actor doing what he or she was paid for and often not knowing where or how those images are appropriated by fandom.  Yes, I know, it’s a tribute to the actor’s work and the calibre of their portrayal but some of that work goes to very dark and unintended places.

As I signed off my last comment to get back to work I had a thought that I *think* isn’t too tangential.

What about authors who tolerate or even encourage the use by fans of third parties’ creative efforts to express their fandom?  I’ve seen recently book “trailers” wherein an author’s fans mosh up movie or television clips using the scenes to create something altogether different that purports to give clues to the upcoming book or tease the reader with what’s about to be released.  In at least two cases that I can think of off the top of my head the “trailers” were endorsed and promoted by the authors.  (To be fair, I don’t know of the fans who created the trailers sought or received permission from the creators of the visual images that were used - it’s possible that it’s all on the up and up.)

I also know of a few authors’ official message boards that allow fans to create avatars and signature files featuring snippets of others’ work to express devotion to the author’s stories.

I can think of one author who allows and encourages both of the above activities and who has a view of fan fiction that isn’t in keeping with her enthusiasm for her fans to use other people’s in adoration of her own.  I’m not putting this out there as a tattle-tale thing, but I think we need to keep the source in mind when evaluating enthusiasm for or objections to fan fiction.

I think the analogy is like this. You have a group of friends and you adore them all.

Some of them do not care in the least if you sleep on their couch and borrow their clothes. Others wouldn’t dare let anyone sleep on their couch or borrow their clothes because they can’t take the intrusion into their personal space-but they’d do anything else for you.

Writers are going to fall along the spectrum of either not caring about their clothes or not wanting you to even go near their closet. Most writers I know fall into the “okay, write any fanfic you want but, no, I don’t want to see it for legal reasons” and some don’t want to see it because it would drive them nuts.

I don’t think either Proulx or Vega’s position is wrong. It comes down to how comfortable they are sharing their personal space. I do think fans should probably respect the wishes of the writer and if the compulsion to fanfic is overwhelming, then share it privately among friends.

I actually never knew about that “rule” of fan fiction.  I mean, it makes perfect sense and all, I just never imagined that such an endeavor actually was governed by a generally accepted set of principles.

There is a loose set of… I hesitate to say rules, because it’s not like there’s a central authority regarding fanfic. Let’s say “community standards,” which are communicated by more-experienced fans when someone steps wrong. Some of the standards are:

1. Do not send fanwork to the original source.
2. Do not try to pass off another fan’s work as your own.
2a. Acknowledge in a disclaimer that the characters are the property of authors, producers, studios, etc. and that you’re just having fun.
3. Do not attempt to make money off your fanwork (i.e., don’t bind it and sell copies, etc.). If you go pro, it needs to be entirely your own work.
4. Have your work beta-read to avoid bad characterization, poor grammar, copious typos, etc.

I’m sure there are others; I have a hard time articulating the specific behaviors because I’ve been in fandom so long—they’re just automatic to me now.

I do remember when some young woman wrote a Potter fanfic that was as big as a book, and she got a book deal out of it. I remember being rather peeved at that. The characters were already there. She didn’t create them, and that’s a huge percentage of what it takes to be a writer. I have no idea if that gal’s career went anywhere or not.

You might be thinking of Cassandra Clare, who parlayed some fannish notoriety into a YA trilogy that began with City of Bones. I made it halfway through the first book before I had to give up in the face of badly-glued-together pastiche. Apparently the trilogy is doing all right without my readership. *g*

Which is not to say that fanfic writers turned profic writers are bad—I know of at least one who’s really good. (But I’m not going to tell you who, because it’s bad form to connect a fan’s pseudonym or online handle to her real life identity unless she says it’s okay.)

Oh, and it just occurred to me that if you have questions about fanfic and other fanworks, a place to start looking for answers is the Organization for Transformative Works, a non-profit organization started by fans. They just posted their first issue of an academic journal about fandom and have an archive in the works.

I can understand Proulx’s point but her reaction the fic leaves such a bad taste that I really don’t care how she feels.  She doesn’t respond to this fic question elegantly or politely.  There is absolutely no reason for her to give such a fly off the handle belittling response to it.  Quite frankly I’ve never understood the appeal of either Proulx’s story or the movie.  Ms. Proulx seems to have a habit of reacting badly when things aren’t going the way she wants just look at how angry she was when Brokeback didn’t win all the Oscars she thought it should.

The other thing that really annoys me about Proulx’s reponse is that her fandom isn’t all that strange.  Joss Whedon, JKR, Gaiman, Twilight, Kripke, etc. have fandoms with much much strange fic and fans whose actions can be considered beyond creepy.  I can help wondering what Proulx would do if her fandom was one of the ones where incest threesomes were common.  She could have taken her cue from any of those creators in regard to dealing with her fic-writing fans.

I like Joss Whedon’s attitude about fanfiction: after canon (plots, stories, characterization, and such that the original creator has come up with) is closed, fanfiction keeps the fans active in the universe that he’s created.  Tamora Pierce is okay with fanfiction, too, but since she’s still writing, she emphatically declares to all that she won’t read any of it.  That way, there’s no doubt that anything in one of her books belongs to her and her alone.

As a writer of fanfiction, I don’t see it as improving or fixing the original universe.  It’s more like seeing canon as a starting point, but what if one character turned right instead of left?  Or it can be an exploration of what might have happened when the character who narrates the books (like Bella in Twilight or Harry in the Harry Potter books) is somewhere else.

Some authors encourage fanfic.
Some seem to ignore it.
Myself—I think I’d be perplexed and distracted and try to ignore it. 

But if an author gets snitfizzled and annoyed and downright stroppy about derivative creations,  he doesn’t have to justify himself.  It’s his story. 

Not all writers are ‘nice’ children who yearn to share their crayons with everyone at the table. 
Not all writers are ‘good sports’. 

I can think of no conceivable reason why they should be.

If someone wants to turn my stuff into fanfic and celebrate all the enchanted worlds I create, Yey! I’d love to meet one of my dragons! Or one of my heroes, especially the one who cooks and cleans.

On the other hand, I never won the Booker Prize. I might take myself more seriously if I were more like AP.

I don’t care for authors whose problem with fanfiction basically amounts to “I wrote this perfectly and fanfiction is a reader who didn’t get it trying to fix what was already perfect.”

And those do exist. To me, Proulx’s complaints sound a bit like that. Unless she’s producing e-mails from people that state explicitly that they wrote those stories to “fix” her work, that I don’t know if that’s anything more than an assumption on Proulx’s part, rather than the actual reason said fics were written.

And well, we all know what they say when you assume, right?

I think it’s fine to write fiction with a complete rewriting of the endings.  I believe that writers frequently make TERRIBLE MISTAKES in their stories.  In fact, I’m redoing:

To Kill A Mockingbird - Atticus doesn’t shoot the mad dog and the dog bites everyone in town and they all become brain-eating zombies who rest between gorging in chiffarobes.

Romeo & Juliet - The kwazy kids ldon’t die, but get married and have kids and argue all the time.  Their neighbor, Larry constantly comes in asking to borrow gardening tools and Juliet’s always screaming, “My mama told me not to marry a Montague!”

Lolita - Humbert Humbert only wounds Claire Quilty in their confrontation.  Feeling guilty, he moves in to care for his fellow pedophile and they become roommates.  But Humbert is fastidiously neat and Claire is a beer-drinking slob.  Wacky hijinks ensue when they both get jobs at a private grammar school!

To Kill A Mockingbird - Atticus doesn’t shoot the mad dog and the dog bites everyone in town and they all become brain-eating zombies who rest between gorging in chiffarobes.

Romeo & Juliet - The kwazy kids ldon’t die, but get married and have kids and argue all the time.  Their neighbor, Larry constantly comes in asking to borrow gardening tools and Juliet’s always screaming, “My mama told me not to marry a Montague!”

Lolita - Humbert Humbert only wounds Claire Quilty in their confrontation.  Feeling guilty, he moves in to care for his fellow pedophile and they become roommates.  But Humbert is fastidiously neat and Claire is a beer-drinking slob.  Wacky hijinks ensue when they both get jobs at a private grammar school!

Oops. I laughed so hard I had an accident.

I think that if someone wrote fanfic of my work, I would not, on balance, be flattered. It does carry with it the implication that you’ve not done it right, particularly if you write back into the canon. If you write A and B together, but all the fanfic has C with B then it can be very disconcerting to see the characters you’ve sweated blood and tears over being carved up by someone else to make them fit their idea of what should happen.

Why should Proulx be pleased when someone sends her fanfic which says she did it wrong? She had an artistic vision which she brought to fruition and then someone else criticises it.

That’s the point that people are missing here. It’s not flattery, it’s not a compliment, it may be attention, but it’s critical and undermining of what she wrote.

Now, I write fanfiction, but that doesn’t mean I expect the author to be flattered at what I’ve done to her characters. I’m sure she’d be horrified. ~shrugs~

Can a woman be a misogynist?

Two words: Ann Coulter. (Admittedly, the jury’s still out on her species, never mind her gender…)

I was always amused at people making Brokeback Mountain out to be a great Gay Romance when it is a tragedy that involves one Gay man in denial and one depressed bisexual pretending not to be involved with each other.

Let’s face it, not everyone understands the Rules of the Romance Lexicon, which include the mandatory HEA.  As Jenna pointed out,
these are the same people who think Romeo and Juliet is a romance, and probably includes the deluded men sending Proulx their happy endings, not understanding that there are Fanfic Rules.

w

hat if one character turned right instead of left?

I’d be annoyed if someone wrote a Brokeback Mountain ending that had Ennis turning into a right-wing Christian nut and renouncing his homosexual ways. But the solution is to not read it. Trying to control fanfic is futile.

And while I hesitate to interpret Proulx’s words, I agree that “emotional ignorance” that includes “an almost innocent expectation of a RIGHT to be loved and to be happy without earning it” is not realistic, and I would argue that in a good romance the characters have to earn their HEA.

If Jake and Ennis came out of the closet, moved to San Francisco, got married, and lost friends and family in the process, then they might have been entitled to a HEA. That’s the point of Brokeback Mountain. They weren’t true to themselves so they weren’t happy.

Two words: Ann Coulter. (Admittedly, the jury’s still out on her species, never mind her gender…)

My turn to have an accident.  *g*

The silly thing about condemning fanfiction is that it’s been around forever and is not going to stop. Many works are based off of other works are based off of other works. I mean, any book that takes ‘characters’ from the bible should count as fanfiction, in a strange way. There’s some good bible slash out there. “In Principio” by Thamiris comes to mind.

And every book that has been written has interconnecting pieces of other people’s art in them. Even if an author doesn’t say “I was thinking of this character from this film when I was writing my hero” it happens all the time.

Ownership is meaningless in the long run, and only applies now because our culture has forced us to put dollar signs on art.

I wish I was more knowledgeable about it so that I could give more concrete examples, because I know there are thousands of cases of well-respected or ‘classic’ (etc) writers unabashedly taking pieces of someone else’s art to incorporate into their own. Before copyright laws, it wasn’t even much of an issue. This whole idea of the ‘purity’ of someone’s own world/characters is ridiculous. Everybody builds off of something already created in order to create the shiny new things.

3. Do not attempt to make money off your fanwork (i.e., don’t bind it and sell copies, etc.).

In the last few years many of the fanbooks being made in Japan have been short story collections and novels. [nearly all the fan stuff made for shows like Oz, 24, and Prison Break are printed fiction collections].  When my circle began creating for Gungrave, none of the other circles were making fan-comics; it was all novels doujinshi.  So that’s what we did - we printed and bound fiction anthys and traded them [sold some here to cover the cost of printing the trade-offs.]  However, all these fics are available online, so its up to the fan if they want to read for free or buy a bound copy.

The point isn’t that Proulx should be flattered or pleased by fanfic, or that she should allow it. She can feel however she likes about it, and that’s her prerogative. She can complain about it all she likes; she can sue their pants off if she wants to give that a go (although, as the fanfic in question is simply mailed to her and not sold or posted online, it could be argued it’s not a violation at all.)

I just believe there’s no need to be rude, degrading and cruel. I don’t think most people deserve that kind of treatment, and especially not those who are trying, however stupidly, to indicate that they were touched or affected by one’s work.

Is it okay to walk into a store and order the employees around as if they’re slaves? To cut in front of others in line at the movies? To reply to a stranger’s “Have a nice day!” with “Go fuck yourself, moron!”? No. Because as people we should treat each other with at least a modicum of respect.

As writers we put our work out there to the general public and ask them to let our words into their minds and hearts. We ask them to feel something or to think something or to reconsider their views on something. To turn around and attack them for doing what we wanted them to do because they’re not expressing it in the way we think correct is a lousy thing to do.

No, all writers don’t have to be sweetness and light, just like we don’t expect every stranger we meet to be sweetness and light. But when they’re not at least polite, at least somewhat respectful of their fellow human beings, we’re still allowed to think they’re shitty people.

And Proulx’s remarks don’t make her a bad writer, just a shitty person.

As writers we put our work out there to the general public and ask them to let our words into their minds and hearts. We ask them to feel something or to think something or to reconsider their views on something. To turn around and attack them for doing what we wanted them to do because they’re not expressing it in the way we think correct is a lousy thing to do.

No, all writers don’t have to be sweetness and light, just like we don’t expect every stranger we meet to be sweetness and light. But when they’re not at least polite, at least somewhat respectful of their fellow human beings, we’re still allowed to think they’re shitty people.

I’d stand up and applaud, only my family already thinks I’m weird enough as it is. I’m sending my mental applause across the pond.

Fanfiction is the natural evolution of a process that is thousands of years old.  A storyteller comes to the village, takes a story of a hero slaying a dragon for the sake of the beast’s treasure.  He collects his coins, and leaves, and the next winter a farmer tell the story to his kids, except the dragon is now three-headed and the hero is now trying to rescue his lost love.  Take collected works of Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm and compare the Table of Contents.  You will find two different versions of the same story.

Fanfiction can’t be stopped, shouldn’t be fought against - it’s futile, and will persist no matter what authors/publishers do.  You can try to shut it down, like Anne Rice, but really right now someody is probably writing it somewhere.

That said, it’s the height of bad manners to send your story to an author, saying, “Hi, I fixed it for you.”  No.  You didn’t fix it, you nitwit, you wrote a version of the story that you personally liked by infringing on the author’s copyright.  As long as you don’t make money off of it, no harm is done.

As an author, I don’t mind if people write fanfic.  I won’t read it, I won’t look at it, because I don’t want to be sued later, but if it inspires someone to sit down and write, please go ahead.  But please don’t email it to me.

I once had an email from a person that said, paraphrasing, “Hi, I wrote a story.  Here is the thing, it’s kind of based on your world.  Here are some elements I borrowed.  Could you please look at them and tell me what you consider yours?”

I like Joss Whedon’s attitude about fanfiction: after canon (plots, stories, characterization, and such that the original creator has come up with) is closed, fanfiction keeps the fans active in the universe that he’s created.

Yes. If nothing else, it’s good advertising. I think most readers/viewers understand that fanfic is NOT the original work and is not necessarily reflective of the quality of said original work. It just means people are interested enough to continue talking about it.

I think of some fanfic as another way to discuss the story, much like writing meta posts about it. This is sometimes different from writing wish-fulfillment or PWP fanfic. Some fanfic exists to fill in the gaps in canon or to smooth over plot holes, etc (Supernatural, I’m looking at you).

The fanfic I like to read tends to be well written and stays true to the tone of the show and/or voice of the character. And it’s more the scribbling in the margins type than long, plotty fics or stuff that branches off from canon into its own alternate universe. Though PWP is also enjoyable sometimes. I stay off fanfic.net and most other fanfic hosting sites; I wait for fic writers I like to write their stories or for stuff to get recommended. Not unlike how I look for new books to read.

1. Do not send fanwork to the original source.
2. Do not try to pass off another fan’s work as your own.
2a. Acknowledge in a disclaimer that the characters are the property of authors, producers, studios, etc. and that you’re just having fun.
3. Do not attempt to make money off your fanwork (i.e., don’t bind it and sell copies, etc.). If you go pro, it needs to be entirely your own work.
4. Have your work beta-read to avoid bad characterization, poor grammar, copious typos, etc.

5. Respect the wishes of the creator (or copyright holder, I guess). If they’ve said they don’t like fanfic, don’t send it to them. Maybe even keep it under friends-lock or something if they’re the type to go after fan-sites.

I wonder, though, if the difference in opinion between, say, Whedon’s tacit (or outright) approval of fanfic vs other authors’ disgust/disdain/dislike of fanfic has to do with the medium in which they work?  I mean, personally, I don’t often find myself looking for fanfic of books; I also don’t often get hugely fannish about them the way I do certain TV shows. It seems to me most TV creators are more tapped into fandom, if not involved with it too, and support it, for the most part, or just don’t care that much, while a number of author’s opinions I’ve seen on this subject has been to disapprove of fanfic/fandom or have no idea what it is, if they even have one. Or maybe it’s simply the people whose work I like who are like this.

I should add, for full disclosure, that I’ve written and sold what amounts to a work of fanfic.  On Spec, a Canadian magazine, just bought my short story “The Last Wendy,” which features Peter Pan coming back for a descendent of Wendy’s in the modern day.  (I sold it in Canada because I cannot legally do so in the U.S., where the original work is in a very murky copyright mess.)

I am damn proud of that story, because I absolutely think it lives up to the kind of thing derivative works can do: it’s critical commentary on problems I perceive in the source.  And there are legal works like that out there; what is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead but a whacked-out piece of Hamlet fanfic?  So to argue that fanfic is somehow inherently bad or disrespectful is to attribute way more force to IP law than I think it deserves, as if somehow a derivative work is dumb sixty-five years after my death, but it’s okay after seventy-five.

As writers we put our work out there to the general public and ask them to let our words into their minds and hearts. We ask them to feel something or to think something or to reconsider their views on something. To turn around and attack them for doing what we wanted them to do because they’re not expressing it in the way we think correct is a lousy thing to do.

Word with a spicy side of word sauce.

I found Proulx’s responses to be condescending and misogynistic. (Can a woman be a misogynist?)

So I went and read the interview with Anne Proulx and what came across to me is that she doesn’t hate women, she hates men. She thinks that women are treated as second class citizens (I got the feeling that she thinks most women are deluding if they consider themselves equal). What took my breath away was when she says “beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can.”

It seems to me most TV creators are more tapped into fandom, if not involved with it too, and support it, for the most part, or just don’t care that much, while a number of author’s opinions I’ve seen on this subject has been to disapprove of fanfic/fandom or have no idea what it is, if they even have one.

This is what I’ve seen, too, and why I was asking the authors on this thread about it above. I’m not a writer, but my guess is that TV production is so collaborative, that TV creators don’t have as much of a sense of ownership of the characters, and that leads them to being more accepting of fanfic. Although as far as groups of TPTB being accepting of fanfic goes, no one beats the first-season cast of Lost, who used to read fic aloud to one another at group dinners—if the story was about your character, you read it aloud to the group!

WOW - learning new things all the time. 

I often drive long distances over very empty roads and will admit to reworking a storyline from a novel in my head - mostly inserting myself into the story to entertain myself on the boring drive - I had no idea that people actually wrote an alternate version of an authors work, AND THEN SENT IT TO THE AUTHOR.

That just floors me, in some ways it is flattering, in others, it is quite insulting, especially if the letter/email begins with “you didn’t get this right” or something along those line. 

Regardless of how the author feels about fanfic - the author should be flattered that her work has obviously touched something within that fan.  And she should behave accordingly.

Although as far as groups of TPTB being accepting of fanfic goes, no one beats the first-season cast of Lost, who used to read fic aloud to one another at group dinners—if the story was about your character, you read it aloud to the group!

Heh. The Supernatural people are rather encouraging of it too. Although Jensen Ackles (who plays Dean Winchester) bringing up wincest at a convention was rather a o.O moment. And apparently Jim Beaver (Bobby) wore some sort of slash shirt (as in [character]/[character]), though I don’t recall who the characters were. I think it was Kim Manners (director, formerly of the X-Files) who clued them in?

And I’ve never seen a creator try to please his fans more than Eric Kripke. If “to be Jossed” means you get the unexpected, then “to be Kripked” means you get almost exactly what you expected. And it’s still awesome, usually; though the writing on SPN is no where near the quality of writing on Joss’s shows.

[quote=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21dowd-sorkin.html?_r=3&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin]Is it still fanfic if the creator is writing it?

(RPF, too! Though not RPS.)

Oops. That should have been a link, not a quote tag:

Title: A Meeting of Obama and Bartlet
Author: Aaron Sorkin
Characters: Jed Bartlet, Barack Obama
Fandom: The West Wing, real life
Rating: Gen
Summary: Obama seeks advice from Bartlet on his campaign.
Disclaimer: Jed Bartlet was created by Aaron Sorkin, though I think he’s still owned by NBC (Bartlet, not Sorkin). Obama belongs to himself. No profit is being made, no harm is intended.

Three words.
Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I believe she had to kill the Darkover series, which was a universe open to fanfiction, because of legal battles over who created what.  A fan sued, saying that one of Bradley’s own stories was too similar to fan created fiction.

This is the main reason why authors cannot read fanfic.  The minute you start to look, or admit to looking, or are too helpful or supportive, you create the possibility that someone will come back and sue you for stealing your own work.  And the irony that it could happen in a world where you are God and creator?

Makes my head explode.

MZB is a great object lesson on the issue of fanfic/derivative work.  She allowed and even encouraged other writers to write stories set in her world; although she didn’t consider them canon, she edited quite a few anthologies that contained one or two stories of hers and a bunch of other people’s.  That stopped in 1992.  Here’s her version of what happened:

        “. . .While in the past I have allowed fans to ‘play in my yard,’ I was forced to stop that practice last summer when one of the fans wrote a story, using my world and my characters, that overlapped the setting I was using for my next Darkover novel. Since she had sent me a copy of her fanzine, and I had read it, my publisher will not publish my novel set during that time period, and I am now out several years’ work, as well as the cost and inconvenience of having a lawyer deal with this matter.

        “Because this occurred just as I was starting to read for this year’s Darkover anthology, that project was held up for more than a month while the lawyer drafted a release to accompany any submissions and a new contract, incorporating the release. I do not know at present if I shall be doing any more Darkover anthologies.

        “Let this be a warning to other authors who might be tempted to be similarly generous with their universes, I know now why Arthur Conan Doyle refused to allow anyone to write about Sherlock Holmes. I wanted to be more accommodating, but I don’t like where it has gotten me. It’s enough to make anyone into a misanthrope.”

So yeah, if you’re an author, don’t read fanfic based on your stuff.  And if you mean your piece of fanfic as a complement to the author’s original work, don’t put her in a difficult position by asking her to read it.  (Or him, of course!)

To be accurate, MZB did not have to “kill” the Darkover series; she just couldn’t get that particular book published, and she stopped doing the anthologies.  She did outline a bunch of her unpublished story ideas to a couple of co-authors, who finished the books and published them after MZB’s death, under both names and with full permission of her estate.

MZB never would give permission for a Darkover-based role-playing game, but that’s another story….

No one can control the private feelings of authors about fan fiction—obviously.  If one case involving one author serves as a substantial deterrent for authors, well, maybe they wouldn’t be easily persuaded to feel friendly toward fan fiction to begin with. 

Where I start to get frustrated is when authors proclaim that fan fiction is inherently IP theft, that it patently violates copyright, or when authors promise that they will legally pursue fan fiction writers.  SOME fan fiction will likely be found to infringe copyright, but that’s not a universal and it’s not a guarantee.  But even if some ff does infringe copyright, some of that subset of work might be deemed Fair Use if challenged.  Because Fair Use recognizes that infringing is not necessarily a bad, unethical, immoral, criminal, go straight to hell “theft” of intellectual property. 

Authors may *feel* that fan fiction is stealing.  Hey, Shakespeare may be spinning in his proverbial grave because of all the adaptations that have been done of his work over the centuries.  And who knows what Jane Austen would think of the liberal use of her characters (let alone the broader ways in which her book has been translated through myriad genre Romances).  I think it’s perfectly reasonable and understandable for authors to be squicked out by the idea of someone else riffing off their work, that it’s part of the proprietary impulse people have toward what they produce and want to see as special and unique in all the world.

But I think it’s important to keep personal feelings separate from the very serious threat of legal intervention and from patent assertions about copyright (or trademark) that may or may not be true or applicable.  That these things are often smushed together may seem logical and even reasonable for those who have strong feelings about fan fiction.  And certainly they have overlap for many people. 

But I think the conflation confuses an already incendiary issue, imbuing copyright codes with a moral sensibility they just don’t possess, and substituting legal principles for moral and ethical values that deserve their own terms.  Which IMO makes it difficult to really look at the diversity and character of fan fiction in terms of its own cultural and literary production.  Like we spend so much time debating whether it’s bad or good, allowed or prohibited, that we don’t really look much at what it is or isn’t as actual work.

Like we spend so much time debating whether it’s bad or good, allowed or prohibited, that we don’t really look much at what it is or isn’t as actual work.

Thank you, Robin. I’m always impressed with the clear thinking you bring to these discussions.

I’ve written fanfic—actually, enough that I have an incomplete novel I’m stalled out on.

I can tell you that sometimes, I just get an idea I want to see on paper, and want other people to see. So I start writing it. I can’t draw worth a flip, so if I want to show someone a character, I have to describe it. I’m a little tonedeaf, have a horrible singing voice, and have never been played in music. I’m pretty uncoordinated. But read some of the stuff I write on a good day and I can make you laugh, I can make you cry, I can make you bloody well fall in love or start to hate someone.

But the motivations of fanfic’ers…well, for my ‘novel’ (it really just seemed to have grown as I went along), I really enjoyed the setting, the characters, and, oh god, I loved the plot of a video game called Tales of Symphonia. So the story ended, and I started thinking about what could happen afterwards. Then my encyclopediac knowledge of the game kicked in, and a year after I first played it, I had a plot drop into my head, all at once. So I started writing it. I write in respect of the source material, and try to keep the characters, well, in-character.

I don’t have a problem with fanfiction as a concept. It becomes a problem to me when it gets posted on the internet. Why? Because, as we know, the internet is forever and who knows what will still be out there ten, twenty or more years down the line. It’s possible that some of this fanfiction will become cross-pollinated with the original work, and there will be no way to know what’s the original and what’s the addition. That’s a nightmare scenario for me.

If someone wants to take my characters and do with them what they will, I don’t really care (as long as there’s no profit), but the minute they put it online, then yes, I’ve got a really big problem with it. 

Wow, your spamfilter IS psychic. using24.

This has always been a hot-button issue for me. I see no reason to put unreasonable restrictions on your fans if they aren’t doing anything to hurt anyone or actually taking money out of your pocket. If I ever wrote something that someone was enough of a fan of to want to write about it, draw pictures, make music, or anything fan-like, I think I’d consider it an honor.

I’m soured against authors that stand against fanfiction, it just seems like such a slap in the face.

Seems to me those most concerned with the use of their ‘intellectual property’ feel they dearly need to hold on to it because they don’t have a lot of intellect to begin with.

... As far as Annie Proulx goes, unless her original short story was drastically different from the movie that I saw… Well, anything’s bound to be better than that massive bore.

I’d definitely be flattered if people identified with and cared about characters I’d created enough to want to write their own stories about them.  I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to read them though and I don’t think I’d be thrilled to find people rewriting the ending of my stories.  I just find it bizarre that people send their stuff to Annie Proulx - what response are they expecting when they’re basically saying, look I know you’re this famous, well-respected, prize-winning novelist, but don’t you think I can do it better than you?  So rude.

I don’t have any problems with fanfic being shared online for free (and I’m sure that in some cases this has actually helped promote the original - I started reading Lois McMaster Bujold because of a story I’d read online, and the Harry Potter fan world has grown out of all proportion at least partly because of the fanfiction) but I certainly think it’s wrong for anyone other than the original author to be making any money from it.

@Chicklet. I suggest Foresmutters before I ever direct anyone to OTW.

@HandyHunter, that was great. And there are Lion in Winter allusions in it!

@Marie Brennan: Have you encountered the Lost Girls Pirate Academy and the Wendy Trilogy yet?

@Emmy:

What took my breath away was when she says “beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can.”

Why does it take your breath away? She’s accurate. I find that assumption quite common among men, and especially among male fans. Something about believing that possession of the Penis makes them infinitely superior to mere women.

I used to write fanfiction. A lot of it. In 24 different fandoms. Books, movies, TV shows.

Some of my pro-writing is still technically fanfiction. I have one that’s a thinly disguised Star Wars/Persian Boy crossover. And I just submitted a transgender Robin Hood reworking.

But for the most part, I’m too interested in playing in my own universes these days to play in someone else’s.

It’s possible that some of this fanfiction will become cross-pollinated with the original work, and there will be no way to know what’s the original and what’s the addition.

Do you really think viewers/readers are that stupid that they won’t know the difference between fanfic and the original work? Or is it that the fanfic might be better or have greater longevity than the original fic?

Is it that much different from, say, Laurie R King writing Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes stories? I can tell the difference between her Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle’s. Ditto the cameo of Lord Peter Wimsey, though I haven’t read any Sayer books.

I’m sure that in some cases this has actually helped promote the original - I started reading Lois McMaster Bujold because of a story I’d read online,

Yep. I got into Supernatural because of fanfic; it crosses over well with other shows. Also Slings & Arrows, a bunch of comic books/graphic novels, Bones (after giving up on it in season one; I am enjoying it much more now), Sports Night…

“beneath every mangled rewrite is the unspoken assumption that because they are men they can write this story better than a woman can.”

Proulx obviously has failed to notice that many BbM fanfic writers are women.  Moreover, some of the “rewrites” aren’t all that mangled.

I completely agree, however, with the unwritten rules of fanfic posted earlier.  At the very least, give a nod to the source . . . and then leave that source alone.

I’ve had people write fanfic of my fiction, and I like it when people let me know about it.  I don’t read them any more, though.  Not because I’m worried about being sued (as it’s small-press published, they’d be wasting the stamp), but because it started getting uncomfortable.  People wanted to know what I thought about their stories, and even wanted me to give it some kind of stamp of authorial approval as being in character, etc.  I fundamentally don’t think that’s the point of fanfic.  I don’t want to have the power to tell people ‘you’re reading it wrong’, even if they ask me to.

I was so bemused by the first mentions of Annie Proulx being sent fanfic, but when she said it was mostly from men it made more sense.  Virtually anyone who’s come up though media fandom would know better than to do it.

...when you expect a character’s background to be a certain way ... and then it turns out to be different on the show, you got Jossed.

Jenna, thank you!

Hey, Shakespeare may be spinning in his proverbial grave because of all the adaptations that have been done of his work over the centuries.

Doubt it.  He ripped off a lot of his stuff from his contemporaries and/or immediate predecessors.  He was just better at telling the stories.

My personal theory is that art begets art.  If an artist produces something that moves people, then they have done their job—fan-fic is a by-produce of making your characters so memorable, so moving, that they want ownership of your world.  Most of us have read a book or story and imagined ourselves in the main character’s place—fan-fic is the electronic extension of that (since I’m pretty convinced people would just let these fantasies exist in their own brains if it weren’t so damn easy to type them out!) and more power to the reader who wants to interact with the artists work. 

Very often, artists will take a character/painting/song that moved them and interpret that in their own work.  As long as the artist has done the groundwork of taking that initial inspiration and MAKING IT HER OWN CREATION the result is simply art in evolution.  If it’s a blatant rip-off, people will know.  (Sometimes, even if it isn’t, even if it’s just inspired by and adapted from, people will assume that because the secondary work has some basic cosmetic similarities to the first one, it is a rip-off.  Not necessarily true.  It all really boils down to theme—if the themes are completely different, the heart and soul of the works are different, even if some of the mechanics—vampires/elves/alcoholic super-heroes/what-the-fuck-ever—are similar.  Getting my students to recognize the function of archetypes is one of the most frustrating things EVER.) 

As long as people aren’t making money from fan-fic, it’s really just really literate mental masturbation, and, quite frankly, I wouldn’t have survived my teenaged a little sumpn o’ dat!

*blush*  YEARS, ‘teenaged YEARS’ without a little sump’n o’dat’  *grumble*  frickin’ proofreading!

handyhunter Jim Beaver wore a shirt with “I ship read John/Bobby” Picture is here: http://users.livejournal.com/_sin_attract/198220.html

I just keeping wondering why Proulx is so upset by such tame fic.  Her fandom (small as it is) doesn’t have very much strange stuff going on it.  Makes me wonder how she’d react if the fandom was a over the top as Twilight or Harry Potter or even Buffy.

@ Alex:

But the motivations of fanfic’ers…well, for my ‘novel’ (it really just seemed to have grown as I went along), I really enjoyed the setting, the characters, and, oh god, I loved the plot of a video game called Tales of Symphonia. So the story ended, and I started thinking about what could happen afterwards.

I hope everyone else can forgive some off-topicness (if not, I’ll be quiet), but Alex, who are you writing about? (I never expected to find a fellow fan of Tales of Symphonia here…!)

That’s really great read for me, always enjoying your posts.

@Vyc

Go on Fanfiction.net and look for the Exsphere Saga.

Looking back now, I can see some things I’d have done differently. Maybe some time I’ll get my motivation back and re-write.

But here’s a link, for your conveniance.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2483177/1/The_Exsphere_Saga

Thanks, Alex! *bookmarks it for later perusal*

Do you really think viewers/readers are that stupid that they won’t know the difference between fanfic and the original work? Or is it that the fanfic might be better or have greater longevity than the original fic?

The fanfiction is typically on the internet. I know there are things out there on the internet that I posted on message boards 10+ years ago. The original context of the post is lost because those message boards are gone, but the post is still there. Books in many cases don’t have as long a shelf life as electronic posts for obvious reasons. You might still find the original work in a UBS, but unless they too are online it’s very possible that the only easily accessible file will be the fanfiction.

People have contacted me to say they’ve written fanfic of my books. I don’t mind. I’m flattered that the books meant enough to the person/persons to inspire them to play in my world.

BUT, I can’t read any of it, for the same don’t-sue-me reason multiple authors have listed. And when I get those occasional “I fixed what you did wrong with Character A or Book B” emails, then my appreciation for the enthusiasm that led to the fanfic wanes a bit. Still, as long as the fanfiction is free and done for fun, go for it! Just don’t try to sell it. Or ask me to read it. Or email me and tell me to please repeat what you did in your fanfic so my books will be better, lol.

Hmm..tough one. Stories referencing things that no longer fall under copyright laws(like Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas and so on) do get sequels and some are good while others are not. The same holds true for fanfiction..There’s genuine creativity going on and there’s people who can barely spell. It does seem like a good rule to not send your fanfic to the original creator though.

Whedon sometimes references things in his shows that are not shown(like why Dracula owed Spike money) and that seems like bait for the fans to come up with their idea of how things happened.
But that’s not something for every creator to do.

i loved the lost duke of wyndham. i have quite a few julia quinn books but i haven’t read thomas’s story yet… i’ll pick that one up ASAP…

i thought i was commenting on the lost duke of wyndham thread… not sure what happened….????

I’m late on this one, but I absolutely loved it when my fans wrote fanfic.  Until I lost my original message board in a sad twist of technological fate…I used to join in and drop spoilers that way.  :)  Hopefully I can start it back up on my new board and get just as involved again.  But I never looked at it as an invasion of my personal creativity…I saw it as a great way to interact with my fans and let them have some fun.

I’m also late on this, but I just wanted to throw something out there: it seems to me that the reason why this topic is so complicated is that people are coming at it from a bunch of different standpoints - ethical, legal, personal, historical - that don’t really jive with each other.  Our current legal understanding about intellectual property isn’t really based on ethics so much as business interests so looking at the topic from these two viewpoints will inevitably result in vastly different results.  Several people have mentioned Shakespeare and his thieving ways, which to me is a good example of this difference: intellectual property didn’t exist as a concept during his time so the legal question that we are talking about has pretty much nothing to do with him and his works. 
For me personally, I don’t like the way that intellectual property laws work so if I was published (which I do hope to be some day) and people wrote fanfic based on my work and even in some way profited from that fanfic, I would be fine with that.  My characters stop being mine when they are out in the world and as long as the facficcer didn’t claim to be me or claim that there work is the “original” then they can do their thing.

You might still find the original work in a UBS, but unless they too are online it’s very possible that the only easily accessible file will be the fanfiction.

In my experience, such as it is, if something in fanfic is intriguing, I will often go look for the original material. Thanks to UBS, ebay/half.com, amazon, etc, etc. it’s not that difficult to find out of print books; sometimes the price might be a bit steep, especially for something I’m just trying out, but wait long enough and you might come across a copy that’s more reasonably priced. Although this is more the case, for me, for tv shows (and the occasional movie).

But I still maintain fanfic/fandom is good advertising, if nothing else. I might not have even heard of [obscure book/show/movie] if people weren’t posting stuff about it. I don’t know why that would be more preferable to people not writing fanfic (or meta) about it at all.

This is an odd one for me ... my coauthor and I have several completely original works that are in various stages of completion (none published, yet).  We took some time off to write a fanfiction story, though, for two main reasons: she’d had the rough outline of the tale in her head for almost 15 years (since seeing Superman II), and we were so excited by the possibilities presented by the recent movie in the franchise, Superman Returns.  There were also certain things about the film that left a lot of hardcore Superman fans scratching their heads ... we wrote a fanfic to answer those questions and to pave the way for the story my coauthor wanted to tell since she was 12 years old.

Now, this story became quite widely read and known within the fandom, and the writing of it really honed our skills - nothing like instant, weekly reader feedback!  People created art for our story, which was just amazing.  One reader actually asked our permission to set a one-shot story in our version of the ‘verse ... a fanfic of a fanfic.  So I’m looking at this from four perspectives: author of original work that may one day be fanfic-ified, author of a fanfic, author of a fanfic that has its own fanfic and fanart, and as reader of all of the above.

The way I see it, there’s One True Story in my head, one particular conglomeration of characters and plot points, that is sacred and inviolable, forever and ever amen.  Ditto my coauthor, a hardcore Superman fan (her name is actually Lois, I kid you not), and she has even been known to claim that licensed usage of her beloved Lois Lane is out-of-character. 

I think if we, as authors and readers, really love a work of art enough, we will get protective of the way we relate to it.  When we encounter a version of it that seems wrong to us, whether it’s our own work or just something we know really well and deeply identify with, we tend to get upset, hence Proulx’s reaction.  The whole point of an ending like that in Brokeback Mountain is to leave you with a bittersweet taste in your mouth, the joy of the love that was and could still have been, but for the grief of loss.  It’s natural for people to want to give their favorite character a happy ending ... but that doesn’t serve the story.  My advice to Ms. Proulx would be to accept people’s fanfic as a compliment - she made them feel something so deeply that they had to write about it. 

Which is basically how I feel about anyone else using my original characters in fanfic.  If you’re not making a profit, then fine, you can play in my sandbox.  Enjoy!  If I think your characterization sucks, I won’t tell you.  I inspired you to do something, and if someone reads your work, it may result in free publicity for me.  Readers of our fanfic story have told us that they went and purchased the earlier Superman films, solely because of our story.  Some even bought the recent film when they otherwise wouldn’t have, because we delved into the depths of character and backstory that you just don’t have time for in a movie.  Look, oh high and mighty owners of the copyright, we just made you some money!

Code help58 ... yeah, I need help writing shorter comments…

Great post.

Fan fiction is flattery. It’s a sign that people are so engrossed in your characters they feel they know them really well. In some cases they may even get so engrossed they feel they own them.

I’ve been (only slightly) involved in making a fanfilm in the Star Wars realm. (I just helped with the grammar, haha). George Lucas is incredibly generous with his universe and allows others to play in his sandpit as long as you don’t try and make a buck out of it. As others here have said, it’s great publicity for the original works. But I do think there is a bit of arrogance about it too - I mean, who didn’t watch The Phantom Menace and think “I could do better?”

Everyone donated their time and skills to make the short film. Some people involved used the experience as a springboard for movie careers. We have fun spotting a friend’s names in big-budget movies (in the technical jiggery-pokery section).

If my books reach a big enough audience that people start writing fan fiction, I’ll be delighted. But I seriously hope nobody sends me their stuff. I won’t read it because
a) won’t have time
b) it might upset me
c) don’t want to open myself up to “you stole my idea” claims.  Better to stay arms length from it.

3. Do not attempt to make money off your fanwork (i.e., don’t bind it and sell copies, etc.).

Binding it and selling copies is precisely how much fanfic was distributed back in the Dark Ages before net access was widespread.  They’re called fanzines. Been there, done that, as both writer and publisher. There are still a few fanzines around even today, because some of us prefer our reading material on dead rainforest. The key point is “making a profit”—covering your production costs and maybe making a bit of seed money to cover the initial costs on the next issue was fine, making a tidy profit on it was Frowned Upon.  (Which didn’t stop one or two people treating their zines as their second income stream.)

As for how I feel as a profic author about the possibility of people writing fanfic of my work:

a) What Scalzi Said, only I’d like to see the yaoi art, thanks.

b) if only…

And having hit “post”, it occurs to me that I should expand a little on fanzines. As mentioned, this was a very common way of distributing fanfic, and it was a form of underground publishing. It wasn’t just an author slapping together their stories and selling them—much fic was published in anthology zines, where lots of authors submitted their stories to an editor (who in many cases actually *did* edit), who would then put together the zine and distribute it.

Longer stories might be published as standalones, but even there, many authors would send their novels to an experienced editor/publisher, for pretty much the same reasons that a lot of us send our original fic to an established publishing house rather than self-publishing.

personally, the whole twilight thing creeps me out. And these twits seems to think their stupid little series is somehow more emotionally deep and fulfilling than Harry Potter how? Oh, wait, it’s not strictly romance, which Twilight claims to be, therefore it really doesn’t matter anyway, right? Tell that to the twitlighters I’ve been unfortunate to come across and hear about. It’s cool that a small town is embracing its new found fame and all, but really you gotta think about something when you look at that. These are girls dropping everything they can to roadtrip over to a small town just to oo and aw over it and then later complain that it isn’t exactly like what is written in the books.

In the article I read, they gave even creepier instances of people being harassed by these crazy people. A kid lost his library card only find out later some girls picked it up and kept it, probably auctioning it off at ebay or something. Some out of town mothers approaching a Forks cheerleader and offering money to take her uniform. Girls giggling as they take driftwood from LaPush and watch a Quilute indian chop wood. HP has its share of absolutely crazy people (The whole of the Harry/Hermione ship), but at least the grand majority has the sense to not try to make a trip over to England and Scotland just to see if they can find people playing quidditch in a back garden or something. Then, you’ve got the Avatar crazies (The Zutarians) who go nuts at the slightest provocation, but STILL they can’t be compared to the absolute craziness of the twitlighters.

And then of course I have my working theory as to why these girls and their moms love the series so much: A) hot guy gets with supposedly ordinary girl who turns out to not be so ordinary, but the author doesn’t really show us exactly why she’s not so ordinary, but it gives these girls hope that they too can find their own perfectly perfect vampire boyfriend. 2) The education system has slowly been taking various things OUT of the education system so that I have to actually explain who Jeanne D’Arc and Robin D’Loxley are to people in a game that should be filled at least in part with the same nerds as I am and if this is the case then they’re likely taking out bits of English out until these girls can’t tell the difference between real, well written litterature and trash lit. (And no Romance is not in the trash lit section as far as I’m concerned. I love my romance novels, but I’m incredibly picky about them, however that’s not the point. The point is that my definition of “trash lit” is pretty narrow and boy have I seen doozies.)

oh, the fanfic debates….  I do believe these happen everywhere that some form of fanfic has been created.

Some people say - Don’t do it, you’re stealing other people’s creations and you can get sued to dust.  I’ve also heard ‘why would someone waste their time writing fanfic when they could write something original?’  And I’ve heard the old ‘but the authors don’t like it’ and this generally points towards Anne Rice.  And let’s not forget the often heard “how could you write those characters doing that?!?  It’s just not right!”

Other people say - ‘but it’s just for fun’ or ‘why discourage something - anything - that causes our children/teens to read and attempt to write.’  I’ve also heard/read a lot of people saying ‘it’s great practice for writing skills’ and ‘it’s a form of therapy’ or it helps build a feeling of emotional connection to others who liked that same book/series/movie.

I’ve read fanfic for several years.  I’ve written some fanfic.  I’ve seen all sorts of debates over it, and been in a few mild ones with people I know.

Let me add a few normally accepted fanfic rules from most of the places that I’ve been at…

1 - Include warning labels for things that might squick people, such as a higher degree of sex or violence than the source material, or non-canon slash, incest, non-consensual activities, or character death.  If a fic involves romance, it s normally requested that the characters are identified, so people who don’t want to read about character #2 or anyone dating Character #7 or anything but #3/#8 can avoid such things.

1a - many fandoms have multiple characters who share an initial.  There is a frequently repeated cry to identify characters with more than an initial - who is ‘A’, or ‘P’?  Which of the three people who have that combination of initials do you mean?  If you want to read about Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley and click on a fic labeled as containing H/G only or discover that it contains Hermione/Grawp or Hagrid/George or Horace Slughorn/Gilderoy Lockhart then you will be horribly disappointed.  And possibly appalled.  Likewise, for the BtVS fandom, does ‘A’ stand for Angel, Anya, Ampata, Anne, Angelus, or ADAM?

2 - Disclaim!  Disclaim often and freely, and forget not to cite the original author or legal owners if you can - though it can be tricky to sort out exactly who owns the rights to a particular movie or television series.

3 - Certain authors have made statements that they do not wish to see certain things in any derivative works involving heir characters, such as JKR once said she didn’t want to hear about people writing the children of her series engaging in under-aged sexual activities so that young readers couldn’t stumble onto a fanfic and be shocked/appalled at what Ron and Harry were doing (or Harry and Ginny.  Or ___ and ____.  I don’t think the specific people were the point.)  I believe Anne McCaffrey requested that if people wrote stories involving her dragon riders, that they not contain any explicit sexual details.  It is generally considered the polite thing that if the Author of the Canon Work requests Thou Shalt Not… then don’t.

4 - most prefer if you label a fic that may contain spoilers, particularly for television series, as not all nations are on the same broadcasting channel, or not all fans get and read a book at the same rate.  That way, a person who wants to not know until they read it/see it can wait, while someone who can’t wait or doesn’t mind can choose to read.

I have to agree that there are large quantities of fanfic that can best be described as bad.  Spelling by phonics.  Minimal grammar, punctuation and formatting (do these people understand the concept of paragraphs?)  Plot-by-numbers.    Part of this can be explained by the age of the authors, and part of it makes me cringe for the educational levels of this country.

But there are also fics that may be tolerably written that just don’t appeal to me - a fandom I’ve never read/seen - why would I read fanfic with characters from a book I’ve never read?  A genre that I don’t care for - something labeled as ‘mystery’ if I’m not in the mood for that, or labeled ‘horror’ when I’m craving something light and fluffy. Or ‘dear God, not another fic about character #19!’ - Something isn’t ‘bad’ because it doesn’t appeal to me (or you, or Todd, or the guy in the corner…’

Some are written to explore things the creator didn’t cover - just what did cause Jesse to miss the bus and arrive late at the meeting?  Why was Sarah’s lipstick smudged?  What happened to the pet dog that we never see again after the 4th week of the season?  Others explore how an event could have impacted people, the stuff that isn’t shown because the series/books go on to the next week’s (mis)adventures, or because it affects a side character.

Others take a ‘what if’ approach - what if she had got there a few minutes earlier, and caught the thief?  What if someone had caught the secret lovers in the act?  What if he’d said ‘yes’ (or no, or…)?  What if the character used some of the intelligence they’re supposed to have, or gave in to that fiery temper?  What if the hero hadn’t been in time to save the day?

Sometimes they are written because the fans didn’t like something - they hurt that a favorite character was killed.  Sometimes this is to remember them, sometimes it’s used as emotional therapy.  (of course, you DON’T SEND IT TO THE CREATOR OF THE SHOW!!!) 

And sometimes things are just… strange.

Many people use fanfiction as ‘practice writing’ - you can play with plot pacing, dialog, action sequences, personality interactions, description and mood - and get people’s commentary on what you did and how it worked, didn’t work, or could be improved (take those comments carefully).  This sort of thing can help someone’s writing improve tremendously.

...but for the love of… everything, don’t try to claim ownership of someone else’s work, be it a minor character created by the author, or someone else’s story about where that guy got his tattoo and why.

And at the end of the day, it’s not something that you should let get your blood pressure up.  Unless it’s your story that got stolen.