Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I was thinking of commenting to say that I write Jewish fantasy fanfic

, but in reality, my writing is mostly agnostic. I make a point of being very vague on the topic of gods, while remaining pretty specific about how spirituality and religion make a part of the characters’ lives. Of course, I’m not published (and may never be), so that might be moot.

Thanks for these links; very interesting!

Diana Gabaldon is complaining that fanfic has sex in it? Hee.

Okay, this really set a fire in me.  And not in the way Ms. Galbadon likes to think of personal fires, either. 

I’ve never read her, but she is on my list, and for good reasons, but as someone who started out writing fanfiction, it hits hard.  I did it when I was in eighth grade, and despite what Ms. Galbadon doesn’t seem to understand, it provided me excellent practice.  MY writing and MY characters and MY dialogue got better.  I did it off of video games, came up with my own plots and versions of flexible characters.  But I needed a crutch.  A fanfiction is like riding with training wheels - you get a basic idea of what writing a story is like, and you get the idea of how you make characters react to each other.  My romances got better, my language improved, EVERYTHING did.

Not only this, but it’s fun.  I mean, it makes me angry to think that this author doesn’t understand the concept of writing for fun.  Even when you write for yourself, the idea of sharing it is always enjoyable, because giving others joy is a big part of the process, too.  I don’t get why she feels so badly about it - people know it isn’t her writing these stories, or supporting them, and clearly they read her books if they look for more. 

To be devil’s advocate, now that I’ve begun finding my voice, I don’t think I can go back to writing fan fiction.  I like my own thoughts too much.  But it remains a good starting point, especially for people that are iffy about writing.  I know I didn’t even think of writing for fun and for originality until after I saw how fun it was through fan fiction.  And plus, fan fiction introduced me to gay characters in romance…and that is a huge thing for me.  :P

Wow, long post.  ^^  Hope it helps some people understand fan fiction isn’t some horribly disgusting thing.  Frankly, I am more wary of Galbadon as a writer, now that I know she feels like people like me aren’t good because we started somewhere.  It makes me wonder if she REALLY understands what fan fiction is for.

I have no problem with Gabaldon not liking and therefore not allowing fanfic about her books to be written. I do have a HUGE problem with her generalizations and comparing fanfic writers with burglars, rapists, and pedophiles. Sometimes it’s better to say less.

I’m really dissappointed in her and I’ve been a huge fan of her books for years.

I think I’m done buying and recommending her books. I can’t stand when an author has such disdain for their own fans.

that first link made no sense, so i sent it around to a few interested practicioners and also immediately got this thread reference response:

http://fjm.livejournal.com/907353.html

which begins by destroying the concept:

Robert Silverberg; Esther Freisner; Peter Davison; Michael Burstein; Neil Gaiman; Marge Piercy (great grand-daughter of a Rabbi); Peter Beagle; Charlie Stross and Michael Chabon (by pure coincidence I have been reading Gentleman of the Road, set in the ninth century kingdom of the Kazars and, as he says in a post-script “Jews with Swords”, all day today).

and then it gets interesting, for instance

If we want to play scrupulously fair with the author, and acknowledge the lack of fantasies by Jewish writers that are 1) multi-volume works, 2) set in secondary worlds, and 3) explicitly concern themselves with the religion of the writer, then it seems to me that the gentile side isn’t that well packed either, being basically a Catholic, a Protestant, and an atheist, two of whom were friends and all of whom were academics at Oxford in the twentieth century.

Okay, so there’s no Jewish Narnia. I just want to know why finding romance novels with Jewish main characters is so razzen-frazzen hard! If I type in the words “Jewish” and “Romance” into my library’s search engine I get three items - THREE. They are “The Saturday Wife”, “The Romance Reader,” and “The Way We Were.”

That’s IT!

I want to know why a religion that finds sex so important that Rabbis have sat down and figured out according to occupation how many times a year a husband must sexually pleasure his wife, where sex on the Sabbath is encouraged, is so under represented in romance novels.

Fantasy smantasy, I want my Jewish romance novel heroes and heroines!

I would LOVE to read such books. Studying Greek/Roman mythology, Christianity, Norse mythology, Eastern mysticism, and the like, I’ve found there are often more similar motifs and symbolism than differences that would enrich any story. Bring it on!

I am in total agreement with Weingrad when he says that Judaism, with regard to

“Its halakhic core is not, I think, convincingly represented in fantasy allegory.”

I think very few religions and cultures have their rich depths explored or utilised to make the valid points about human identity that fantasy literature often makes using christian beliefs. Perhaps this exploration is not what fantasy literature is about. But perhaps again there is simply no one interested in both writing of this sort and wants to, or can adequately, explore religious ideology in this manner.

I think both Judaism (from what I know of it) and many other religions, contrary to Michael Weingrad’s opinion, have a heavy core of myth and mysticism that could be utilised for allegory or depth within world building. Actually, perhaps couching the detailed daily rituals and philosophical concepts that have such specific names and histories as mysticism is what stops their use in fantasy. Perhaps because they are in such widespread use they cannot be regarded as myth and fantasy whereas Christianity, with the exception of maybe orthodox-catholic, sees its biblical stories as only allegory- a tool to teach. I don’t mean to generalise but it seems other religions regard stories or concepts as both reality and allegory at the same time.  For us, perhaps putting something that is actually practised both as a conceptual thought and a daily ritual into fantasy you have to first make it a myth to allow it to work as a reality in another world. However, another part of me thinks- what’s wrong with that?!

I am a Muslim living in the West and when I write Fantasy/Sci-fi most of my mythology stems from Christian/Roman-Greek mysticism and belief. There is such a dirth in most religions including Judaism, Hinduism and Islam that would be prime allegorical material for reference within this kind of literature but as much as I TRY and use specific religious imagery/ ideas within it, I can’t ever quite convey those elements within my writing satisfactorily. Perhaps it is because I am not a good enough writer or that I think other religions are to tied to the language/s I associate with them and thus I can not convey them adequately outside of them. Or that the practitioners of these faiths in the West are more shorn of these mystical elements living in a sort of atheistic, scientific society. If I was in Israel (perhaps not Tel Aviv!) or in Syria or in India I could find elements of the more mythological that would allow me to write convincingly.

Sometimes I do think I can takes elements such as the idea of the unseen or unknowable world, the ‘ghaib’ in Islam, and use it but I think I do worry about where I cross the line from exploration to blasphemy. (In case anyone is thinking it: my lack of or ability to use it has nothing to do with my fear of fatwa-dom. Although I’m sure if this novel ever got created and then published and then it was offensive to someones sensibilities, then that wouldn’t hurt the sales any :P)

Sorry for the ramble and apologies if it’s not decipherable but I just had to get my thoughts down!

I’m sort of scratching my head over Diana Gabaldon. Do I, or do I not, remember her position on the Cassie Edwards scandal as being in the “plagiarism isn’t any kind of a big deal” camp?? Maybe it’s “unless it’s of my stuff?”

The Outlander series was one of my favorites ever. I’ve read the first three books countless times. But I remember being deeply disappointed in Gabaldon over the Edwards thing and her post on fanfic sort of deepens it in a “gee lady, you’re kind of a hypocrit aren’t you?” kind of way.

Do you think a basic difference might also arise out the concept of conversion? Christians are evangelistic and believe in actively recruiting people to their religion. Judaism is pretty much the opposite. Some schools allow for conversation, but not all (or even most) sects. I could be totally off here, but something about this basic difference in outlook and purpose is striking.

And yeah, there are lots of Jewish writers in the Science Fiction and Fantasy sections. Silverburg’s Majipoor books were pretty seminal for me. Far more so than the Narnia ones, which I was never able to get in to.

YAY!  Finally a fan-fic policy that makes sense!  (And doesn’t insult the readership.)  Thank you, Jim Butcher.  As for Diana Gabaldon, I agree with robinjn.  I’m pretty disappointed, because she didn’t even TRY to think harder about finding a solution to the eBay Cancer Lady Issue, and because she didn’t even TRY to remember that the people writing good/bad/ugly fan-fic about her characters are the same people BUYING HER BOOKS.

@ktg I find it humorous that anyone thinks they’re allowing/not allowing people to write fic. You can get the big fic sites to disallow tagged and labelled fic of your stuff because they don’t like dealing with your lawyers, but stopping people from writing it is impossible, and if you’re worried about someone making money from it, driving them into the world of zines is not the way to prevent that either.

I’m sort of scratching my head over Diana Gabaldon. Do I, or do I not, remember her position on the Cassie Edwards scandal as being in the “plagiarism isn’t any kind of a big deal” camp?? Maybe it’s “unless it’s of my stuff?”

Considering how dismissive she is of romance in general (and how eager she is to assert that she does NOT write romance), it’s unsurprising to me that she’d take the position that Edwards’ plagiarism was not worth making a fuss over. It’s all junk to her, why would she care?

Another really interesting post responding to that “Why there is no Jewish Narnia piece” here.  An excerpt:

Mostly, though, I found myself thinking about the fact that the author strikes me as looking for “Jewish fantasy” in the wrong place: in the trappings of the worldbuilding. I’ve only written two clearly Jewish stories (one dealing with Hanukkah and issues around violence/nonviolence; the other dealing with Passover and vampires). But of course all my stories are Jewish. It informs my worldview. I don’t construct narratives quite the same way a Christian, or a Muslim, or a Tohono O’Odham writer.

@Tifferet

Lots of authors say they do not want fanfiction written about their books. What usually happens is the bigger sites won’t allow those stories to get posted. I do not think it stops people from writing it. It’s just harder to find.

But if that makes authors happy? Great.

What makes me angry is how she is comparing fanfiction to stealing, breaking and entering, husband stealing, etc.

Way to alienate your fanbase.

Jim Butcher is a very talented writer and a mensch to boot.

What is it with hysterical diva authors? Do they honestly fear that people will mistake fanfic for cannonical works? Do they think fanfic somehow despoils or dilutes their brand and if so, WTF? As long as fanfic authors don’t attempt to make money off their stories, who’s harmed and is it really an infringement of copyright (IANAL)?

Gabaldon’s tirade reminds me of the poor author whose id exploded all over an Amazon reviewer (don’t remember the author - it was the stellar feller galactic competition book). Or Alice Hoffman’s tweeting of the Boston Globe reviewer’s personal contact info, or the historian who went beserk on a reviewer’s website.

I wonder how many authors, if they took Sasha Baron Cohen’s questionnaire, would land firmly inside the autism spectrum? I guess it would make sense. Many writers are introverts and writing is a solitary, often lonely, occupation. So perhaps a lot of them never developed adequate social skills.

The hair trigger outrage, inability to distinguish criticism from personal attack (or literary homage from child rape) or to disagree with other adults in a socially acceptable manner, the poor impulse control…it’s either autism, or these speshul flowers* with their fragile little psyches shouldn’t have any contact with the reading public or anyone else outside the voices in their own heads.

*I first saw the term in a comments thread here and I use it a lot now….

@John J.
I totally agree with you.
Fanfiction isn’t done for profit, it isn’t done to insult the original author and it’s a really good way for (especially teenagers) to start getting into writing and see if they have a flair for it when, let’s face it a lot of them wouldn’t bother otherwise.  Those who do have talent tend to go on to write original work, those that don’t carry on being fans of the source material.  No harm no foul.
The line about people using her characters in fanfic (is there a lot of Outlander fanfic out there?) being akin to seducing her husband is pretty damn funny though.  There’s getting close to your characters and getting close to your characters.

There’s getting close to your characters and getting close to your characters.

Well, LKH admits to Christmas shopping for her characters . . . and Anne Rice isn’t a whole lot more connected to reality when it comes to Lestat.

Sarah, for the record Archie did NOT end up with Veronica.  It was all a three issue imaginary story which was followed by a three issue imaginary story where he married Betty.  The two stories were pretty cute though.

I’d like to throw out an additional reason out there why Judaism and fantasy have not meshed the way Christian (and its subsumed pagan) traditions have. Christianity has a template for a hero, drawing on other mythic traditions, and while their hero’s ultimate triumph hasn’t yet happened, the important stuff has. The world has already been saved, or at least, salvation has been offered. Good has triumphed, and if Evil has not yet been eradicated, it totally will be, really soon. (Any day now….)

The main tropes in Judaism, on the other hand, are not of triumph but of endurance. So many holidays—and historical occurrences—can be summed up with, “They tried to kill us, but we lived (yay for God who helped us not all die).” Fighting back without being slaughtered wholesale is something that we’ve only been able to do for the past sixty-some years.

As worthy as endurance is (and as glad I am that we have endured) it would be very difficult to build up a comparable fantasy tradition around simply not dying. Even the heroes in the Tanakh are either flawed or of the quiet sort—and I think that too goes back to something that was said above. Along with the lack of proselytizing is the lack of a burning need to save the world through grand, sweeping gestures—tikkun olam is just how you live, which is incompatible with bashing people with swords or toasting them with fireballs.

So I don’t think that a Jewish Lord of the Rings is possible, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. What we need is a Jewish something-else-awesome-in-a-different way—and, just as important, the market to support it.

Those who do have talent tend to go on to write original work, those that don’t carry on being fans of the source material.  No harm no foul.

Also, if it takes the author of the original works a while to get the next book, fanfic can help keep the fanbase alive. It’s been ages since I read fanfic, and longer since I wrote any (I sucked, but it was so much fun to do), but everything I read and wrote was intended to tide me over until the next book or to fill in gaps left by the original story. I don’t see that as a bad thing.

All I know is if anyone liked my world and my characters enough to take the time to write their own stories and share them with other readers, I’d be rapturously thrilled.

Seriously, it’s like my sister complaining that she hasn’t lost enough weight and her husband won’t let her buy new furniture. I’d gladly trade bodies and budgets with you, baby, now STFU…..

@Quizabella

Exactly!  The idea that fan fiction is bad is so lame-ass and annoying.  It made me into a pretty good writer, especially for a teenager, and while most of my fan fics will never be updated or read again by me, they represent important stages in my development.  Plus, without them, I would never have discovered my flair for writing.  I was interested in reading and writing them, and eventually just matured out of them.  And for profit?  I find that funny.  Akin to Nora Roberts’ dislike of them, too.  For her I think it’s a matter of being sued in case she accidentally uses a plot, considering all of her books that are published…Which is understandable, but rarely do I think an author and fan fiction writer have qualms with legal decisions.  The writers do it for fun, the authors for fun and profit. 

And her reaction was so messed up.  Talk about overdramatic.  I agree with the possible introvert theory.  I mean, if you really get that worked up about it, you may spend too much time with everything.  And comparing it to cheating on her husband?  Wow.  Just wow.
@LG

Exactly!  I stayed with Harry Potter long after the books ended because I became obsessed with Draco/Harry haha.  While it was childish, it helped me get some gay romance in, and it kept the obsession alive a little longer.  It’s kinda gone now, but I remember reading the fan fiction with fond memories.  I think the problem with some fandoms is that they are so popular that everyone wants to write a hit fic.  The smaller ones generally have better ones, because its a smaller fanbase who are more focused.

On the fan-fiction front.  I started reading it to tide me over between Harry Potter books.  I got hooked on one author who was awesome.

Then I found out she writes her own books and still has fun doing the fan fiction.  I now have nearly every book she’s written and still go back to read her fan-fiction.

For the record Jean Johnson rocks.

Michael Weingard needs to read more.

Josepha Sherman, Joan Vinge, Janni Lee Simner, Neil Gaiman, Michael Chabon, Harlan Ellison, David Brin, Ellen Kushner,Sherri Tepper,  Phyllis Eisenstein, Esther Freisner, Jane Yolen . . .

Seriously, this schmuck does not know what he’s talking about. Part of the problem is that he doesn’t know, or read, genre fic—he’s in the throes of a crush on lit fic.

If he reads Yiddish or Hebrew, there’s an even longer list, that includes not only folklore but Biblically inspired mythic fantasy—and graphic novels.

And for the really curious, I’m perfectly willing to make a case for most of the the Medieval Irish texts contained in Lebor Gabala, the Book of the Takings of Ireland as Jewish fan fic (Ireland was in part settled by descendants of Noah, and Jonah holidayed there).

Regarding Diana Gabdalon’s books and fanfiction of it, I only have three words: Internet Rule #34.

“If it exists, there is porn of it.”

“Michael Weingard needs to read more.”

Yep. Two words: Avram Davidson.

I understood his argument to be “There is no epic Jewish fantasy on par in influence and scope with Tolkien and Lewis,” not “There are no Jewish fantasy writers.”

Just because a writer is Jewish doesn’t mean that they write Jewish fantasy. I wouldn’t, for example, classify Gaiman as a writer of Jewish fantasy; he’s far too broadly mythic in focus.

He’s also my boyfriend, though neither he nor Amanda Palmer know it.

The main tropes in Judaism, on the other hand, are not of triumph but of endurance. So many holidays—and historical occurrences—can be summed up with, “They tried to kill us, but we lived (yay for God who helped us not all die).....As worthy as endurance is (and as glad I am that we have endured) it would be very difficult to build up a comparable fantasy tradition around simply not dying.”

The fantasy novel/series that comes to mind with this description (and I agree it’s a good one) is P.C. Hodgell’s Godstalk, followed by Dark of the Moon and (I think) one more (To Ride a Rathorn, maybe?).  I ran across Hodgell’s work in her short story “Stranger Blood” and hunted down the original in the pre-internet days of wearisome searches.  (Thank you, Powell’s bookstore.)  One of the things that attracted me about Hodgell’s world is that it’s people are basically losing over a series of millenia.  Not noble, elf-like fading from the world Tolkien losing, but bitter, nasty, slow eradicating battle losing.  And as a result they’re some mean, nasty, bitter, narrow-minded and intolerant people.  But it WORKS as a fantasy.  I have no idea if PC Hodgell is Jewish.  (Any of the Smart Bitches know this fun fact?)  But it works for me as an epic.  Judging from its commercial success, I’m a weird person though.  For anyone who likes dark fantasy, and the original kick-ass urban fantasy heroine in Jamethiel, I’d highly recommend it though.

Just because a writer is Jewish doesn’t mean that they write Jewish fantasy. I wouldn’t, for example, classify Gaiman as a writer of Jewish fantasy; he’s far too broadly mythic in focus.

Likewise, isn’t Tolkien far too broadly mythic to be considered a Christian author?  Middle-Earth strikes me as being predominantly derived from a pre-Christian Norse tradition.

I think that most fantasy is a blending of cultures and ideas from all over—high fantasy is often pseudo-medieval or Arthurian, which does give it particularly Christian (and pagan) historical background.

Michael Weingrad, the author of the original article, also wrote a reply to critiques of it—which can be found here.

As for fan-fiction, I’m all for it.  I grew up reading Harry Potter fan-fics, while the HP community waited for the release of the next book and the next.  It is really good practice for writing about original characters (though some fan-fics do deviate so wildly from the original characters that they remain the same in name only).

A lot of professional authors begin with writing fan-fiction. Tessa Dare, for example, wrote Jane Austen fan-fics, and I adored her first trilogy of books.  Dare’s novels are not even vaguely ripped-off of Austen—but they are very well-written and entertaining, and undoubtedly more-so because Dare had a firm grounding in the indomitable Austen’s works.

It is really good practice for writing about original characters (though some fan-fics do deviate so wildly from the original characters that they remain the same in name only).

I didn’t mean to use “original” twice.  Possibly I should clarify that I meant fan-fics are good practice for also writing about one’s own original characters… but that sometimes the characters in fan-fiction who ostensibly were created by the non-fan-fic (professional) author little resemble that author’s real characters.

What is it with hysterical diva authors?

Ha! Great comment. Gabaldon’s rant definitely comes off as unbalanced and maybe even slightly loony.

Sasha Baron Cohen’s questionnaire

Bruno wrote an autism questionnaire?  That would probably be hysterically, if uncomfortably, funny.

Attention, Diana Gabaldon:  “Things You Control” and “Things that People Who Aren’t You Write”—in a boolean graph, these two concepts WOULD NOT intersect.  At all.

Religion and fantasy.  Hmm.  I’ve always kind of enjoyed fantasy as an exploration of non-Christianity.  Gods walking and talking, interacting with people, provably and without a doubt in existence.  Interfering in mortal lives for shits and giggles and their own nefarious purposes.  The stories could set aside the whole agnostic dilemma and get on with the plot.  And when deus ex machina happens, the gods have motivation and foreshadowing and stuff.

I wonder if one of the differences is due to Judaism being fairly strictly defined, whereas Christianity just kind of appropriated pagan traditions to bring new people in, and then kept reinventing itself as people came along and protested the old guard.

I had a really interesting conversation one time (that I wish I could remember more clearly) with a Hindu co-worker who’d married a Catholic.  She said that she had to attend all these conversion classes, which was all well and fine, but Hinduism is very inclusive.  There is no line (apropos of adoption other theologies) that you can cross that can make you non-Hindu.  You can add other theologies onto your Hinduism, but you can’t really divest yourself of your essential Hinduism.

My profound apologies to Hindus everywhere for horribly butchering that concept.

@John J Your journey to writing original work and mine are so similar, it’s spooky, except that I began writing much later. Like you, I don’t want to return to fanfiction, but I’m very grateful for the start and skills and confidence it gave me, and I would recommend it to anyone having trouble knowing how to begin learning the craft.

What is it about successful authors, to whom fanfiction can means zero impact on income or reputuation, pissing all over their most loyal fans? I am just insanely jealous of any author whose readers love their work so much that they can’t help but express that love in their own creativity. I mean, how effing awesome is it to have art created because of something you wrote? Even if it’s art at the kindergartener finger painting level? Dude, you inspired someone to make something!

On the Jewish Narnia book, I remember quite a number of hostile responses along the lines of this, and this. Even if the initial premise was true, I’m not sure the lack of a Jewish Narnia means anything, considering the strong role Jewish writers have played in speculative fiction for a very long time. Fantasy is not inherently more wonderful or worthy than s/f, or vice versa.

Of course there’s a Jewish Narnia.  Huge, sprawling, epic series. Entitled ‘most of the iconic super-heroes featured in American comic books’.  Its no accident that Superman is a messiah-figure; or that the cover of Captain America’s first appearance features him punching Hitler; several years before America entered World War 2.  And the super-hero idea even works well with Weingrad’s analysis of Judaism’s ‘science fiction’ focus.  Rather than spend their time in invented worlds; these heroic figures exist in (give or take a few jaunts to other planets), and for, our own.

@Suze, @kinsey
Simon Baron-Cohen, cousin of Sascha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Baron-Cohen

Dangit, I had to put off finding the FJM post that rebuts Weingrad until this evening, and now I discover I’ve been beaten to it. :-(  So much for my major contribution to the discussion.

But yeah, Weingrad is either wrong, or defining his argument so narrowly it becomes useless.  Why isn’t there a Christian Mahabharata?  Why isn’t there a Hindu Neon Genesis Evangelion?  Different religions will produce different kinds of stories, so if he’s really looking in specific for a Jewish Narnia, then the answer to “why” is “because Judaism is not Christianity.”  If he thinks there’s no important fantasy informed by a Jewish worldview, he isn’t paying attention.

(Okay, I can’t resist plugging: in July, Norilana Books will be publishing Clockwork Phoenix 3, an anthology which contains my Christianity/Judaism/Secret Ingredient Mashup Story “The Gospel of Nachash.”  Those of you who speak Hebrew will even find hidden, uh,

Easter eggs

Passover matzoh? in the story.)

Re: fanfic. It happens. Get over it. It means someone fell in love with your book or characters and wants to play with them like action figures.

Re: Jewish Narnia. Holy crap, that is a fascinating concept. Someone up the thread (too lazy to scroll back up) mentioned the importance of mere survival in Jewish history and tradition. If you live through the day, that’s a happy ending. Not such a strong fantasy concept so if it informs your worldview, it must surely have an impact.

Tolkein and LOTR, though written by a Christian, represented a Christian worldview pre-salvation. So, in essence, the importance of fighting to survive evil without the benefit of a savior. Hobbits were in many ways Jewish. Underestimated, not necessarily respected by other races, and stronger than anyone gave them credit for. When push came to shove, it was hobbits who saved the world, not the bigger, stronger, badder, more violent races that surrounded them. Not unlike the diaspora. Europe derided Jews for milennia yet benefited enormously from the cultural and educational influence of Judaism.

The other factor to consider is that most Western literary tradition has its roots in European literature. Middle English, Middle German, Chaucer, Beowulf, The Faerie Queen, The (anonymous) Pearl poet. During the Middle Ages through the early Renaissance nearly all art forms, not just literature, were disguised as religious. The value of art was to expand Christianity. The Church said so. Any artist who wanted to succeed (or not be excommunicated or worse) stuck with religious and moral themes rooted in Christian philosophy.

A rich Jewish literary tradition would not have been permitted. This doesn’t mean there were not any Jewish writers, just that the smart ones kept to themselves and their communities. Any work they produced would have been suppressed. Which pretty much sucks.

@John J and @Ann Somerville nailed my sentiments exactly. I started writing in fanfic simply to see if I could write at all. I needed the pre-made characters, setting and world - heck even the dialogue rhythms I knew so well - to support me as I explored the basics of telling a story. Before long I found myself adding new characters, and those characters became more interesting to me than the original fanfic ones. Now, the idea of writing fanfic seems boring because I’d rather focus on my own things. But without that beginning, I never would have began writing in the first place. Fanfic is the writer’s equivalent to those little push toys babies use to learn to walk. Pretty soon they realize they can stand on their own two feet and don’t need them anymore.

Too, even the probably-false praise decent fanfic can earn is a huge boost to a fledgling writer’s ego. Putting something like that out in the world is a major risk. Doing so with the cushion of a pre-made fanbase who is mostly happy for stories in which the spelling and grammar are decent is necessary to build up that confidence needed to send your babies to the big bad meanies in the real publishing world.

Published writers who get their panties in a twist over fanfic really do turn me off. What I wouldn’t do to reach that point in my career where people love my work so much they are inspired to keep my characters alive any way they can. As long as no one is trying to cash in or claim ownership, then what’s the big deal? They should be grateful for the free publicity their characters are getting while they are busy writing the next book.

I wonder how many authors, if they took Sasha Baron Cohen’s questionnaire, would land firmly inside the autism spectrum? I guess it would make sense. Many writers are introverts and writing is a solitary, often lonely, occupation. So perhaps a lot of them never developed adequate social skills.

Argh! Would people please stop doing that? Just because someone has an egotistical, speshul snowflake freakout on the internet does not mean they’re autistic!

And you’re not autistic if you’ve “never developed adequate social skills”; you’re just anti-social and possibly even a jerk. It’s not that autistics don’t develop social skills, so much as we lack the means necessary to have them instinctively. While I struggle at times, my social skills are overall quite adequate when I need them to be, mainly because I’ve learned. I’ve had to. When someone smiles at you, you smile back; I don’t have that instinct. I have to remind myself to do it.

I don’t think Gabaldon has been in the business enough years to be one of those authors who could’ve made it in spite of a complete lack of social skills. Even if she was autistic and didn’t know it, she would have had to develop some. But honestly, I don’t think that’s her problem. Generally, I don’t think that’s the problem of most speshul snowflakes on the internet.

So I (and likely other autists) will thank you kindly not to pull the autism card when this sort of thing happens. We’ve got enough problems with Internet Aspies running around.

P.S. Sorry if that sounded a bit harsh, but this riles me terribly. Being autistic =/= egotistical, mean-spirited, stupid, greedy, ignorant, and/or etc. etc. etc. Those traits are, fortunately, doled out on a person to person basis.

Diana Gabaldon’s rant points out that she does not really understand what fan fiction is about. I would point everyone to this post that has tons of examples of well regarded published fanfiction including Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next series and the musical Rent.

Let’s not forget that Ms. Gabaldon has previously stated that she based the character of Jamie on a Doctor Who character.

Also, her argument about writing fanfiction then changing the names is baffling.  A character and world should be unique enough that just changing the names is not enough to erase any familiarity.  By that logic I should be fine writing about Maggie James who travels with a ChronoDuke called The Physician in his marvelous ship that looks like a telephone box.

All in all authors like Jim Butcher have a much more rational and realistic stance on fanfic.

I’d like to step sideways on this discussion about Christian/Jewish fantasy fiction with this idea: Smart Bitches are looking for Love—and we want to read Romance. We want our favorite authors to give us romance that leads to undying love in all it’s incredible diversity. We want authors to introduce us to romance that shows love in all ways; we want stories of sexy, emotional and often spiritual experiences as evidence of true love between a couple of human beings, no matter their gender, or human/other beings, no matter their furry/fanged or alien otherness. WE WANT LOVE!

And we are getting it. Romance is THE best selling thing around in most cultures (off the top of my head here) because we NEED to believe in love. Religions preach that, but often don’t act it out except in bizarre ways that often look like intolerance or hatred.

I believe that romance writers and readers are helping human beings to IMAGINE a world of love, where love triumphs, where sex is GOOD, not some version of original sin caused by a woman, where women are strong BECAUSE they LOVE, even when thay also kick butt, fight evil with guns etc.

Second point about myths: As soon as oral traditions were supplanted by the alphabet and writing, women were systemically erased from important balancing roles by male scribes, priests etc. In my view, the almost constant and universal bashing of women’s fiction over hundreds of years is part of the analytical, linear thinking of the left brain that developed as more and more people became literate. Literacy is a good thing, but those who invented and practiced it created a world where the positive contributions of half the population were erased or distorted, and historical texts made the the XX chromosome EVIL!

Romance as we Bitches love it today, is, I think, a crucial “underground” rebirth of women’s place in the universe. Someday, when Bitches have righted the balance by expanding the opportunities for women and men to embrace their creative, loving, sexual, accepting and including sides, the world will be in a better place.

For anyone who would like to follow this poorly made argument with some extremely well written and science based discussion of myth/belief/religion, get a copy of The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, by Leonard Shlain, a vascular surgeon whose experience with brain surgery helped him understand the differences between the hemispheres of the brain.

JamiSings said

Fantasy smantasy, I want my Jewish romance novel heroes and heroines!

...May I introduce you to Elinor Lipman?  I’d suggest trying The Inn at Lake Devine first.

Thank you, MB! I was starting to despair. My library system is full of Jewish mysteries and Christian romances, but Jewish romance - like I said, only three things come up and two of them aren’t even romances and I’m just not that into Barbara Streisand.

@ JamiSings: Not a book, but have you seen Crossing Delancey? One of the best movies EVAH.

And I’m deferring to the vast knowledge of the bitchery, here, but it seems odd to me that there is not more Jewish romance. Jewish men are teh hot. They respect their mamas and transfer a lot of that to their mates. They embrace the power of an education. They don’t spend their adult years in chest beating rituals of masculinity because when they are thirteen they stand up in front of God and their families and announce, “Today, I am a man.” And they believe it, as does their community.

Plus, in Jewish tradition children are raised to believe that your purpose as a spouse is to serve your spouse. Husband or wife, your role is servant to the other. How awesome is that? And very romantic.

Laurel wrote:

A rich Jewish literary tradition would not have been permitted. This
doesn’t mean there were not any Jewish writers, just that the smart ones
kept to themselves and their communities. Any work they produced would have
been suppressed. Which pretty much sucks.

Tthere’s medieval and Renaissance material in Yiddish, including some interesting takes on Western myths. There’s just not a lot of people with the skills and access to deal with mss. in Yiddish. There are tales about Esther for instance, and even a Middle Scots version of Yiddish in a few mss. But it requires not only a great deal of facility with Yiddish, but a conventional background in medieval paleography, and philology.

B:

You’re right. I didn’t mean to be flippant, but I was and I apologize.

When people behave like Gabaldon, the chick on Amazon, et al, I’m inclined to think there must be a reason besides “she’s an asshole.” Gabaldon’s far from the worst, of course - her little rant reeks of entitlement and self-obsession, but she didn’t melt down in full view of the Internet.

I’ve never understood why anyone would think that an utter disregard for other peoples’ opinions and feelings would be good for a career. Even if you didn’t care about being mean, it would seem counterproductive, so I always figure “gee, X must not realize how this sounds to other people.” But you’re right -  it’s much more likely that they just don’t care. Being a self-entitled twit clearly hasn’t hampered Gabaldon or Hoffman or lots of other authors. Maybe success warps authors just like it does movie stars.

I was thinking of my mother in law, and of a friend of a friend, both of whom struggle with personal relationships and frequently cause hurt and offense quite unawares. No one’s ever told them “Your social receptors don’t function properly. You’re not connecting, and people don’t understand that.”

But then, they don’t behave like these authors either so, yeah. You’re right.

JoAnn Chartier wrote:

As soon as oral traditions were supplanted by the alphabet and writing, women were systemically erased from important balancing roles by male scribes, priests etc.

Yeah, no. First of all, romance as a modern literary genre grew out of Medieval romance, and women were the primary readers of medieval romance. The mss. were made for them and quite often, by female scribes and even more often, by female illuminators. Look too at the influence of women like Marie de Champagne on literary genre; look at the works of Marie de France; all of the lais are built around romantic love and passion.

In terms of erasure, yes, it’s harder to find signed works in early texts, and of those it’s harder still to find works by women. But there are a very large number of romances specifically dedicated to and written for women, and romance mss. that were owned and created for women.

I’m quite convinced that more often than not, Anonymous was a woman.

@ Lisa: Yiddish is probably why they survived. That and low levels of literacy until after the printing press was invented and everyone wanted to learn to read…so they could read the Bible, which for the first time was made widely available in native languages.

The Church did Latin, not Yiddish, or they may have taken a more active interest in these mss.

@Laurel - I like your stance on fan fiction! lol

Here is a link that I tried to post yesterday, which got flagged for spam (moi?!) and so I am going to attempt to re-post it now. It is an animation of Diana Gabaldon’s blog entry, with minor revisions. ;-)

Bon Apetit

Jim Butcher totally rocks.  He and Shannon came and spoke at a teeny tiny 30 person fanfic writing convention I attended a few years ago and they were wonderful.

To this day I am blown away that they were willing to do that.

Of course there’s no Jewish Narnia.  C.S. Lewis was a devout Christian who wrote a thinly veiled Christian resurrection story.  But, that doesn’t mean there are no Jewish fantasy writers.  Check out super heroes.  Superman is Jewish, for one.  Seriously, most super heroes from the old comic books are Jewish.
My heroine in my science fiction work, Captured, is Jewish, and I plan to write more Jewish heroines and heroes. 
Besides, Jewish mysticism is a buried strain in Judaism.  Ask most Jews what they think of Kabbalah and they’ll mention Madonna.  That’s pop-Kabbalah.  It’s like a word of the day calendar or a piece of chocolate.  Entertaining, maybe even tasty, but meaningless.

Ok, OK, give Gabaldon a break here guys.  I remember fan fiction around Star Trek that was painfully awful.  I mean, while you might have daydreamed that Spock would take one look at you and renounce logic for the rest of his days, no no too painful to read porn where he suddenly takes to threesomes with Bones and the ensign.  I can’t imagine the pain of an author carefully crafting a complex and sensitive gay character like Lord John to read some drivel where he suddenly discovers he’s “cured” by the love of some virginal, magic who-ha! 

If you spend months and months writing and rewriting to get just the right phrase of a conversation and just the right tone in an interaction you might start off on an ill-considered rant that you cringe to read later about someone bumbling like a bull in a china shop through your world.  I’m sure she probably wishes now she’d taken the Creative Commons route and even more, wishes she’d hit delete instead of send.  The problem with email and the internet is that we make it painful clear to the world when we post something illadvised why we write and re-write dialog before we send it to the publisher!!

I believe the issue with Nora Roberts regarding fan fiction is not the plagiarism issue. There was a huge grouping of fan fiction about 10 years ago that consisted of adaptations of Nora’s books, with literally the character names and locations changed to that of the fictional world (soap operas, I believe). That is considerably more than someone than most fan fiction writers do. In that case, I’m completely on Nora’s side.

As I said on Diana’s website, I write fanfic and original fic. If my sales equaled my fanfic numbers (60,000 unique hits per month, as per the stats of one of the more popular websites), I would be a very happy author indeed.

I know it might be annoying, maybe even painful (although the sensitive artist thing bores me) to pour your heart and soul into a story and then read some ridiculous fanfic about your lovingly crafted characters - b/c joyken is right, there’s some weird, nasty, turgid and ungrammatical crap in fanfic land.

It’s not fun to pour your heart into a story and then watch a reviewer rip it to pieces, either, especially when it seems like the reviewer has a reading comprehension disability or didn’t bother to read the book at all.

But it’s something you just have to live with. If you’re going to create something and then put it out there for all the world to see, you have to be prepared to have it judged (fairly or not), talked about (nicely or not) and maybe (if you’re lucky) serve as inspiration for fanfic.  (It’s FANfic, after all - people don’t write fanfic based on books they hate.) The only thing you have a right to not deal with is plagiarism.

But you can’t control the discourse. You can’t tell people how they may or may not speak about your creation. That’s what authors who hate fanfic are doing - they’re trying to control how people talk about their work. I don’t understand why they want to do it or why they think they can.

Now, I do understand concerns like Nora’s, that some goofus who wrote Nora Roberts or JD Robb fanfic will pick up a book and decide Nora stole her idea. Unfortunately crazy people file lawsuits all the time.  I don’t know if it’s likely, and I’d like to think such a suit wouldn’t get far.

I don’t know of any authors who’ve actually sued fanfic sites. I know networks and production companies try like hell to keep fanfic about shows off the Internet, but I think they’ve been ineffective so far. Am I wrong?

@joykenn
“I remember fan fiction around Star Trek that was painfully awful. “

I don’t think the quality of fanfiction has anything to do with the morality of fanfiction. Or the motivation, or anything else.

I’ve read pro books which are worse edited, squickier and vastly less entertaining than fanfiction. In fact, if you’re talking about m/m, I’d say most pro stuff struggles to reach the same level of readability and sheer interest that the best fanfiction does. The quality issue is a red herring, and certainly should never be a basis for trashing fanfiction authors or calling them criminals.

Once a book is out, trying to control the reaction of readers or reviewers is a waste of time, intellectually barren. Fanfiction is a reaction of affection, and authors needs to get over the fact they can’t decide which reactions they will allow. I’ve had fanfiction written about my fanfiction, and it was pretty damn horrible, but god, it was amazing that anyone cared that much.

Gabaldon needs to see a doctor about her raging case of authoregoentitlmentitis.

There’s a pretty rich and constant Jewish literary tradition, not all in Yiddish.  Sephardic Jews published in both Spanish and Hebrew throughout the Middle Ages.  After their expulsion from Spain in 1492 they continued to do so, although their Spanish gradually diverged from the mainstream spoken language to become “ladino” or “judeo-spanish.”  (In Amsterdam refugee Sephardic Jews went into publishing in a big way, because Spanish was the lingua franca of the 17th century, but the inquisition’s censorship made publishing in Spain difficult.  To this day, “Querido” is one of the major Dutch publishing houses.)  A number of Spanish-Jewish writers are absolutely part of the Iberian canon (I’m thinking of Yehuda Ha-Levi here) and much of their non-religious work was love poetry.

That said, I think it’s a striking confirmation of Weingrad’s point that so few Iberian Jews turned to the novelas de caballeria (e.g. sword and sorcery fantasy novels) parodied by Don Quixote.  Guzman de Alfarache was written by Mateo Aleman, who I think was a converso (i.e. from a Jewish family that chose conversion rather than expulsion from Spain), but I don’t think he was actually Jewish.  And when the historian and poet Daniel Miguel Levi de Barrios started writing profane literature he harked back to Greek myth and called it the “Flor de Apolo.”

I’d add that the best fantasy treatment of golems that I’ve seen comes from Terry Pratchett’s Feet of Clay.  (I always cry at the end when Dorfl writes about “words in the heart.”)  Pratchett is not Jewish, but the Discworld does a better job than most of incorporating golems (and the “deep down dwarves” in The Fifth Elephant are hysterical, and do seem to recall the orthodox at times).

So I do think Weingrad has a point: Jews who are interested in theology tend to not use fantasy as a medium, but rather turn toward history (past or future).

Sorry for the long post.  This has been on my mind lately because of a work-in-progress.  (Give me a year and the good luck to find an interested publisher, and I might have a historical romance for you, Jami. ;)

Superman is Jewish, for one.

Where did Ma and Pa Kent find a mohel with a kryptonite knife?

For Jewish Sci-fi - Kathleen O’Neal wrote a great Trilogy called “the Powers of Light (Abyss of Light; Redemption of Light and Treasure of Light) in 1990-1991.  She conducted Ph.D. studies at the University of California in Los Angeles and did post-graduate studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel and she was an archeologist before turning to full time writing.  But this series was excellent - until that point I had never considered Sci-Fi books in a religious context - always more adventure. 
.  Here is a description of Abyss of Light off of her website ” quote]WHEN THE GALACTIC MAGISTRATES -
aliens with incredible destructive capability - forced world after world to join their Union of Solar Systems, only the Gamant people continued to resist subjugation. For although the Magistrates’ Union brought peace and prosperity, it also stole the individuality of its member races.

And to the humans known as the Gamant people, their heritage was more important than life itself. For they were the Chosen ones, blessed with the gift of the Mea Shearim - an interdimensional gateway to God. But were the beings of light with whom wearers of the Mea communed actually God and the angels? Or were they aliens beyond the comprehension of flesh and blood mortals, a race to whom the Gamants were mere pawns in some universe-spanning game?
Either way, the Gamant faith would soon receive its ultimate test as the Galactic Magistrates mobilized to put an end to their rebellion, even as many among them turned to a messiah who might betray them all…

@JamiSings wrote:

I’m sorry, if you want to break up Gambit and Rogue to set him up with another woman, fine, but Gambit has been established time and again as straight.

Let me introduce you to this amazing new concept - it’s called bisexuality.

Write with respect and don’t change their sexual preferences, beliefs, or moral attitudes.

Oh come on, where’s the fun in that? If Guy Ritchie had followed your advice, we wouldn’t have had the wonderful Sherlock Holmes being played as gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Do you really believe that Conan Doyle’s Victorian sensibilities should prevent people reinterpreting Sherlock Holmes over a hundred years later, so brilliantly? (And if you think Irene and Mary mean Holmes and Watson weren’t as married as a married thing in that movie, well, I guess we saw different movies.)

For someone who claims to write fanfiction, you sure don’t understand the point of it at all, or how imagination or creativity functions. And like Ms Gabaldon, you really don’t get the central principle at all - whatever fanfiction does to a character, doesn’t change that character in your head. One writer can kill off a beloved character, another one can revive them. One can write them as a flaming great queen, the other can write them as a stoic, unemotive closet case. One can marry them off to her favourite Mary Sue, and another one can set them up with their best friend or pony. None of that alters the original concept and incarnation!

Think of it as alternative universes. Or sandboxes. Or cubicles. You play in yours with your resolutely hetero versions, and I’ll play in mine with the ones which like it coming and going and having five in a bed every other Saturday night, wearing a cockring and anal plug while they’re out fighting crime. Your version is no more - or less - valid than mine, and mine is no more or less valid than the creators. Characters aren’t your children, and even children get to go out in the big wide world and have their hair messed up by strangers.

@Rebecca earlier: Yes, there’s a lot Jewish-inspired in P.C. Hodgell’s Kencyr people, I’d agree—and in their religion, too, with its distant God who demands obedience more than worship, with its books of Law; and with the very Jewish trait of reading the Law with an eye to its technicalities.  Also their being monotheists in a polytheistic world, and being a Chosen People.

It might interest you a lot to learn that Hodgell was picked up in recent years by a major publisher, Baen; her earlier works have been reissued (as two volumes, covering volumes 1&2, and 3&4 respectively), and a fifth volume came out in March; she’s working on a sixth, and there are more to come after that.  The fifth one sold out its first printing and is being reprinted, which is a good sign.

@JamiSings

Lol… I have first dibs with Bob the skulls whose eternal search for love or at least ‘sweaty activities’ is very close to my heart! I’m thinking some fanfic of a prequel, before Bob became just a skull and actually had head.

Ooops! ...had A head! hee-hee

@ Ann Somerville: I think (not sure, just read that way) that you misunderstood what Jami was saying or her overall intent. Or maybe I did.

If I read it right, I agree with her. There are a few valid reasons to write fan fic, one of them being personal enjoyment. When you decide to share your endeavors with other people who know the world and characters, though, it does seem reasonable to attempt to keep them in character. To go in non-gender orientation direction, for example:

A staunch, avowed atheist character captures the interest of a Bible thumpy Christian fan. Said Christian fan wants to reshape the character to better suit her liking. Character experiences a spiritual transformation.

Presto, you are no longer writing about the same character. Well written characters are fully developed people. Some people are bisexual, atheist, religious, whatever. But if the character isn’t bi- or homosexual, or straight for that matter, they just aren’t. Just like in real life. It isn’t an implied judgment that no one should be those things, just that it probably would disturb an author to have a person they know so well represented as something other than what they are.

That being said, the author should still just deal with it. Come on.

I’m with Ann on this one, although I don’t write or come across too much fan-fic.  I think the whole point of it is falling in love with some characters, thinking, “Hey, wouldn’t it be cool IF…” and then running with it.

Anything goes.

And if you offend some other fans’ notions of what’s cool and right and wrong, and the whole thread goes down in a flame war, so be it.

Then again, I often put cheese in seafood dishes, and don’t sweat following the recipe too closely, and switch out ingredients according to my preferences, and laugh at creating “authentic” ethnic food. White wine doesn’t go with red meat?  It does in MY world!  So make of that what you will.

@laurel

A staunch, avowed atheist character captures the interest of a Bible thumpy Christian fan. Said Christian fan wants to reshape the character to better suit her liking. Character experiences a spiritual transformation.

Like I said, that in no way alters the original creation, so why does it matter? Both incarnations can exist without harming the other. It’s not impossible that a fanficcer may write a version of a canon character which a large group of fans find more appealing - I believe this is the source of Cassandra Claire’s popularity despite her well-established plagiarism - but even CC’s much followed Draco Trilogy and her leather pants wearing Dom!Draco can’t come close to matching the success or following of the original Harry Potter books. The movie version of this character was, according to Rowling, very much nicer and more appealing than her conception of him. So what?

But Jami made a special point of mentioning slash as being particular obnoxious to her, and I’m sorry, but that’s a really touchy issue. The heteronormative domination of popular media is exactly one of the things fanfiction specifically attacks, and for a very good reason. Fans want characters to reflect them, and a lot of fans are GLBT, disabled, victims of crime, have chronic illness etc. So when they express their own experiences, their own reality through the filter of fanfiction and established canon, they are only doing what artists and authors have done since Grog first spat paint on a cave wall. They are shaping, reassessing, analysing, making sense of what is often a nonsensical and sometimes offensive canon, as well as a hostile world. To stake out a character’s apparent sexuality as immutable and inviolable not only flies in the face of psychological reality, but is essentially a slap in the face of fans who see themselves and their experience reflected in some way in that character.

In other words, what you - Laurel, Jami - see as unalterable and unchallengable - is not what another reader or viewer will see, or even what the artist or author will see. Authors are not the last word on what their works mean, or how the characters present. Sure, they can express the intention they had in creating the work, but that doesn’t mean the interpretation is set in stone. And what about creators who change their mind about their own characters? Were the people who wrote Dumbledore as gay before Rowling made it canon, wrong? Were the people who made WIllow a lesbian before Tara appeared, wrong? Were the people who refused to accept Ursula K LeGuin’s assessment of women’s magic being less than men’s, wrong before she decided to revise her opinion?

No, I have no patience whatsoever with this line of argument. The only control an artist and author can have is in the creation. The reception, interpretation, reinterpretation, whatever, is not in their hands, and nor should it be. It’s stultifying, and ignores how the human mind works.

@ Ann:

I don’t disagree with you about experimenting with a character in your own mind, I’m just saying I get how an author might find it disrespectful for someone to essentially insert a different character under the name of someone she knows. If you write 15K words of backstory that you never intend to publish just as an exercise of fleshing out a character, it probably chafes.

And regarding immutability, I disagree with you from a roundabout way. I’ve heard the arguments about how my gay friends can be “cured.” I think it is CRAZY. For many reasons. Number one, they are not SICK.  They are homosexual. They were born that way, just like I was born with brown hair and some of my other friends were born left handed. It is not mutable. They will not become straight because they or anyone else want them to. I think this applies to straight folks, too. Some of us are lucky enough to fall in love with people rather than genders but for the most part we are what we are and there is no fault or flaw in how we are made.

So if you write fan fic for speculative reasons, I think your camp is right. If you write fan fic as a sort of tribute or desire to stay in the world the author created, observe the characteristics (and characters) of that world. It’s actually a really good exercise in creativity to do so, because it’s very, very hard.

I don’t expect you to agree, but does that at least make sense?

The only control an artist and author can have is in the creation.

P.S.: I totally agree with this sentiment, by the way. Once you send it out there, people will do what they will. As long as it isn’t piracy, you need to just shut up and deal.

@Laurel

I don’t expect you to agree, but does that at least make sense?

No, not really.

Look, I’ve been there, okay? Someone was following a (finished) work I was releasing in parts, and she kept ‘predicting’ what the next thing to happen would be (and she was wrong each time). I felt very strongly she was trying to change and direct the story, and it got up my nose. But did she have no right to do this? Was she being disrespectful? No. Annoying, yes, because she was doing it right in my face, but that was the only problem I had with it.

Would I get annoyed if someone turned my Kei or Arman into Jesus-quoting homophobes? Yes. But I can guarantee my readers would be the ones to strenuously argue with them over the interpretation. I would just whine privately to my friends and let natural selection sort it out. That’s what happens when someone gets too weird with canon characters - it’s other fans who argue the toss. And that’s how it should be. The author needs to butt out.

There is no disrespect when a reader interprets a character according to their own belief system, and it’s up to that reader’s prospective audience to decide if she’s made a case for ‘her’ interpretation. Yes, the interpretation might look whacky, or be offensive to most reasonable people, but the reader/consumer of the work has the right to their interpretation absolutely without qualification. Copyright law will in some cases restrict what she can do with that interpretation, but ‘respect’ isn’t relevant, or an issue.

Disrespect is sending your fanfic to the original creator when they haven’t invited it, or showing your fan art to actors who haven’t shown an interest in it. Simply creating fanfic or fanart isn’t disrespectful, immoral or theft.

Gabaldon is wrong in her attitude, and I believe, so are you.

Ann said:

Gabaldon is wrong in her attitude, and I believe, so are you.

That’s kind of ironic, because I agree with you about Gabaldon and I pretty much agree with what you’re saying. I just felt like you came down a little hard on Jami, who I don’t think is in left field, either.

So, cheers, dears! No hard feelings on my end, okay?

@Laurel

No hard feelings on my end, okay?

Of course, and none at all on mine.

Ann wrote (over the course of several posts):

Think of it as alternative universes. Or sandboxes. Or cubicles. You play in yours with your resolutely hetero versions, and I’ll play in mine with the ones which like it coming and going and having five in a bed every other Saturday night, wearing a cockring and anal plug while they’re out fighting crime. Your version is no more - or less - valid than mine, and mine is no more or less valid than the creators. Characters aren’t your children, and even children get to go out in the big wide world and have their hair messed up by strangers.

In other words, what you - Laurel, Jami - see as unalterable and unchallengable - is not what another reader or viewer will see, or even what the artist or author will see. Authors are not the last word on what their works mean, or how the characters present. Sure, they can express the intention they had in creating the work, but that doesn’t mean the interpretation is set in stone. And what about creators who change their mind about their own characters?

There is no disrespect when a reader interprets a character according to their own belief system, and it’s up to that reader’s prospective audience to decide if she’s made a case for ‘her’ interpretation. Yes, the interpretation might look whacky, or be offensive to most reasonable people, but the reader/consumer of the work has the right to their interpretation absolutely without qualification. Copyright law will in some cases restrict what she can do with that interpretation, but ‘respect’ isn’t relevant, or an issue.

*applause*

If it weren’t 11:50 pm and if I didn’t have to get up in 5 hours and 40 minutes—yeah, I should have gone to bed an hour ago—I’d probably expound on that.  However, I’m tired and I don’t trust myself to play nice, so I’ll just leave it at a show of approval for your wonderful explanation of the mutability of the interpretation of any artistic [removed]yes, even the written word).  Brava!

(And no, I absolutely don’t think you were too harsh.)

Yeah, I definitely don’t get Diana Gabaldon’s hardliner stance on fanfic. Seriously, lady, people like your work enough to write stories about it. Take that, and be flattered. Look at Jo Rowling, (as already mentioned), Jim Butcher, and Joss Whedon, who have all expressed pleasure with fanfiction written of their works. Is a lot of fanfic bad? Yes0- like any other artistic work, fanfic is subject to Sturgeon’s Law! But a lot of published work is terrible, too, and you don’t hear someone saying how bad published work is like pedophila. Frankly, I think her stance is really insulting to her fans, and she lost me A LOT of respect with it. I’ve always enjoyed her books, but someone who is callous enough to compare the things as horrible and lifeshattering as white slavery (or any kind of slavery) and pedophelia to something as innocuous as fanfiction pretty much loses any respect I might have had for them. Way to minimize and trivialize the experiences of those who have actually gone through those things- some things should never be used in metaphors, and those are two of them. Thanks, Ms. Gabaldon, for joining Anne Rice, Laurell Hamilton, and Anne McCaffery on the list of authors who I can no longer read or respect because they act like such assholes to the fans who support them and care about their characters. You know, as much sex as you have in your books, and as many horrible things as you do to your characters, you really don’t have a right to be griping about fanfic- because I really don’t see how anything a fanfic writer does could be more porn-tastic or nastier to the characters than what you’ve already done in canon. Stop clutching your pearls and get with the world today. No one is forcing you to read the fanfic, madam. If it bothers you that much, DON’T LOOK AT IT! I don’t like slashfic (with a few exceptions), so I don’t read them. I’m sure people who don’t like hetfic don’t read them, either. Is it any different from saying “Oh, I don’t particularly care for X show, so I don’t watch it!”? No, it is not. So, just as I would tell someone bitching about a particular show to turn off the TV or change the channel, I’ll tell Ms. Gabaldon to avoid sites that have Outlander fanfic. It’s called the back button, dear. You simply click it and never go to that site again if you see something you don’t like! It’s a radical invention, but I’m sure someone as smart as yourself can figure out how to use it.

I just wanted to say I’ve really enjoyed the links and paragraphs and debates about the No Jewish Narnia link.

Ziggy: Eww, Reggie/Betty? Mind, I don’t really think Archie deserves her either, but Reggie was such an ass. :)

The heteronormative domination of popular media is exactly one of the things fanfiction specifically attacks, and for a very good reason. Fans want characters to reflect them, and a lot of fans are GLBT, disabled, victims of crime, have chronic illness etc. So when they express their own experiences, their own reality through the filter of fanfiction and established canon, they are only doing what artists and authors have done since Grog first spat paint on a cave wall.

Like Tina C. said, *applause*

And yes, I wrote it so I could do the dirty with Spock. But I did not have Spock do it with Kirk.

This is why one person isn’t in charge of what is okay and what isn’t, since Spock/Kirk slash had subtext in canon. (Perfect example here. On the ho yay continuum, they’re one of the more agreed upon ones.) So am I not allowed to have S/K slash because it goes against what the author intended or what you say the author intended?

(Jut to clarify I’m not arguing any fanfic should have to stay in the parameters the author originally made, but that even the parameters are debatable over “sure things”.)

Beyond the specific arguments against the concept remains the unfortunate fact that a terrible lot of fan-fic is outright cringe-worthy and ought to be suppressed on purely aesthetic grounds.

You know, that’s an argument people say about romance. Usually people who’ve never read a romance. Though according to someone up-thread she doesn’t think much of romance either, so maybe she can work on deleting that next. Then again she’ll be losing a lot of fans…

However, I’m tired and I don’t trust myself to play nice, so I’ll just leave it at a show of approval for your wonderful explanation of the mutability of the interpretation of any artistic [removed]yes, even the written word).

What the heck???  That [removed] word was “expression”.  What on earth happened there?

@Ann -

Oh come on, where’s the fun in that? If Guy Ritchie had followed your advice, we wouldn’t have had the wonderful Sherlock Holmes being played as gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Do you really believe that Conan Doyle’s Victorian sensibilities should prevent people reinterpreting Sherlock Holmes over a hundred years later, so brilliantly?

Actually I think the movie sucked because of this. And also the semi-steampunking. Either go all the way, or don’t steampunk at all. Plus, while Robert’s a good actor, they should’ve casted someone who’s actually English to play Holmes.

Sorry, but I feel very strongly about this.

Back when I thought I could write I was involved with a group that was trying to launch a comic book company. One of the editors hired to do my books tried to change the locations from California to New York, make my lesbian character straight, change the bad guy, etc. I was SO angry because he totally changed everything and made my work completely unrecognizable. Why? Because “New York settings sell better then California ones” and the rest just because he didn’t like it. So yeah, I totally sympathize with authors who hate it when fan fiction turns their babies into something they never intended.

If anyone doesn’t like it, too bad. Just because you disagree with my feelings doesn’t make them any less valid.

JamiSings: I don’t think your feelings aren’t valid. I’d personally hate if someone took a character I worked years on and turned them into, say a raping scumbag. But they have the right to do that, just like I have the right a. not to read it and b. not to write it.

@Jami Sings

Because “New York settings sell better then California ones” and the rest just because he didn’t like it.

I appreciate that you feel strongly about this issue, but you are not comparing like with like. In your case, you are describing someone directly interfering with your original expression. Fanfiction doesn’t do that because the original expression has to happen before fanfiction even occurs.

No one is going to Diana Gabaldon and other authors and saying, sorry, you can’t write your books how you want to because some teenage fanfiction author in Upper Bumfuck, Queensland, wants to write sparkly unicorn mpreg with your characters. Ironically, authors like Gabaldon are sometimes forced to alter elements of their creative vision by their editors for marketing purposes - but you never hear them complaining about that being a violation, theft, rape, or like someone pinching your roses, do you?

@Matthew J Brown

Hurray, more Kencyr books!  Thanks for the heads up.

Actually I think the movie sucked because of this.

I just saw the movie last weekend, and I loved it.  The relationship and the inventions all worked for me, it was smooth, and not a thing jarred me out of the story.  It actually has inspired me to watch Iron Man (up for this weekend) because Downey impressed me so much.

People and tastes, oh how they vary.

It actually has inspired me to watch Iron Man (up for this weekend) because Downey impressed me so much.

Me too!  I watched Sherlock and said “Damn he’s aging well! When did he get so sexy?” And the Hub said something like “shut up” but I wasn’t paying attention cause RDJ has gotten seriously hot…

As far as fanfiction goes….I totally look forward to the day when I can be a published author with fanfics about her characters. I guess I’m biased because I started out writing fanfics and every so often when I need a break from my original stuff I pop off a fic.

I understand if an author says “please don’t write fanfiction of my stuff.” That’s their right. But…you need to say it politely.

ha. True Story: I started reading the Smart Bitches blog about a year(?) ago in dire hopes that I’d be able to find some published romance novels that I’d find as satisfying as the fanfic I’ve been enjoying for a decade now. Your blog is awesome. However, I’ve been… only minorly successful. Sorry to say, but fanfic writers often give me less creepy gender dynamics and they can explore things that The Corporate Overlords won’t sign off on. And I honestly cannot be made to care much about the HEA of 2 people who apparently fell in love 150 pages in (or sooner!). Now, gimme tons of plot & character interaction prior to falling in love (maybe hook them up after 3 books) and then give me a permanent HEA—and I will enjoy that as much as any fanfic. (of course there’s tons of trash fanfic too, but no one puts a gun to your head and makes you read things you don’t want to on the internet.)

My general response to this entire argument is simple: You submitted something to pop culture. You now no longer own it—screw legalities, let’s talk reality: there is no Thought Control Police. Your creation now lives in the general public’s brains, and they will do craaaaazy stuff with it. Because people are weird, and fun, and interesting.

If you don’t want people thinking about your words, DON’T SHARE THEM. Write that novel, film that movie, and then keep your stories in a drawer, and enjoy them privately. Be amazed what you created, and hug it to your chest in secret joy. If you do that, then no one has the right to these thoughts but you. They will never be appreciated by the outside world, or discussed, but they will also never be misinterpreted or changed. No one makes you put it out there. That’s your choice. This choice will have the consequences. If you can’t handle the mess, stay out of the kitchen. Leave all the money and fame to someone who can handle the messy stuff that comes with it.

I do not feel bad for you. There are thousands of struggling artists who are dying to take your place, and would allow an avalanche of gratuitious character deaths & hardcore pornography using their creations (including bonus necrophilia!) in a heartbeat for a chance to get their stories sold and beloved by the masses.