yet another opinion on fanfic...
May. 10th, 2010 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
boogieshoes
Anyway, in the comments, I came across a sentiment I've finally hit my limit on:
"Fanfic is for writers too insecure or unimaginative enough to come up with their own works, or worse, exploiting the success of another's creation. Never understood it. Same with fan films. Invest in your own talent, not someone else's."
I've left the commenter's name out, because he's voicing something that is frequently opined among the many people who just don't get fanfic fandom as a whole. Mr. Stross offered a very nice, and traditional, rebuttal to this, for which I thanked him. I went on to add (1):
"[This argument] has always been one that irked me. Fanfic, for me, is specifically a hobby, and probably always will be. For one, I know enough writers and have heard the story of how hard it is to break into the book market to know that I really don't care to take on the stress of trying to make it as a published author right now.
For another, I have invested in 'my own talents' - I've got a bachelor's degree from Texas A&M in aerospace engineering, and a master's degree from U. of Cincinnati in fluid flow and propulsion. I'm currently employed by a Dept. of Defense contractor doing systems integration engineering, and computational modeling. It's a great job, and I love it, not the least because I'm a math and science nut.
So I have developed my own talents, and put them to good use. But I write fanfiction when I want to do something else with my time, the same way I cross-stitch, or garden. I'm not expecting to get anywhere, although I'm delighted when I receive praise for my works. But there are other things in the world than our one-true-talent, and I like trying to do new and challenging things. Like writing."
I'd like to expand on that, for a moment. I'm at the beginning of my career, and expect to be doing this for a long, long time. And I'm good at it. That sounds an awful lot like ego, but it isn't, it's based on feedback I've gotten for my work and offers I've gotten based on my resume. I'm not the king-god of the engineering world, but all in all, I'm a very decent engineer, with a career potential that makes the average writer's career potential look like slave labor. It is not at all unreasonable for me to expect to make a steady, 6-figure-a-year income at some point in my career, and it will be doing something that I love to do. How cool is that?
And then there's the second and third careers: I'm not only very good at this numbers game, but I'm also very good at passing on what I know. I would like to become a professor at a university at some point. There's a good chance I'll be published when I do: engineering disciplines are ever-expanding, and there is always the need for new textbooks to educate the next generation of engineers.
Looking at it economically, it literally makes no sense for me to turn to writing as a profession right now. More to the point, I don't have the push, the impulse, or the discipline to push out 300pg novels one after another to the point of supporting myself in the lifestyle to which I wish to become accustomed. And I also work very badly under that sort of pressure, even if it's only present internally.
This all brings up a pro-fanfic argument that's been hashed out many times before, but which I'll re-iterate, because I strongly resonate with it. I've never, ever, had people ask me why I don't go pro with my stitching. There's never, ever been criticism of me because I prefer to stitch to patterns of other people's designs rather than come up with my own. There has never, ever been an expectation that I'm just cross-stitching those pictures for 'practice', and that eventually, I'll do some 'real' embroidery or stitching. There's never been accusations that my stitching is plagiarism, stealing, or 'just like assaulting the author's original design', and this is true even though I frequently modify a design to suit my own tastes, such as my Mag7 doggies piece (scroll down to see pics). And I've never heard of other stitchers running into such a attitude, either. (There are some who have the bad luck to have had their stitched gift offerings rejected or insulted, but even then, it's never been a case of 'not good enough because it's not pro', it's always been a case of 'not good enough because it didn't cost money' - some people are amazingly rude.)
Stitching is a respectable hobby. Gardening is a respectable hobby, even when people suck at it, like I do. The same with painting, woodwork, etc ad nauseum. Why isn't fanfic respectable? Especially since most people who write it do it at least, in part, to think of something other than work. Like, you know, a hobby.
In sum, fanfic is one of my hobbies. I love it dearly, but I know where my talents lie, and I have developed them, thank you very much, and have a career I very much enjoy. People who don't get fanfic or fanfic authors, please stop intimating that we're all lazy gits because we're not professional writers. Fanfic authors have lives other than fanfic. Fanfic authors have talents other than their supposedly dubious (in your point of view) writing talents. The fact that those talents are in the direction of, say, decomposing geometry and eating partial differential equations for breakfast and teaching people that Newtonian calculus is a stone bitch, does not preclude fanfic authors from also being interested in being well-rounded, or taking on a challenge they are not otherwise used to getting.
Thank you.
(1) Edited for capital letters (I usually write in all lower-case, but this being a rant, most people find it easier to read long text with caps on hand) and emphasis tags (in the original, I used stars to indicate emphasis - I'm a rather old hand at this internet stuff, and some habits ae hard to break).
-BoogieShoes, the peeved off
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Date: 2010-05-11 02:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 01:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 03:07 am (UTC)So - Much - Word. I've ranted similarly, though not so well. This part especially resonates with me -
I've never, ever, had people ask me why I don't go pro with my stitching. There's never, ever been criticism of me because I prefer to stitch to patterns of other people's designs rather than come up with my own. There has never, ever been an expectation that I'm just cross-stitching those pictures for 'practice', and that eventually, I'll do some 'real' embroidery or stitching. There's never been accusations that my stitching is plagiarism, stealing, or 'just like assaulting the author's original design', and this is true even though I frequently modify a design to suit my own tastes,
- and that I *have* said, though I think I used cooking and painting as an example. It chaps my butt every time. Why is this one particular hobby not 'acceptable' as a hobby? (Rhetorical question; there is no answer.) Hell, the County Fair is full of examples of awards for cooking, baking, preserving, pickling, gardening, sewing, photography, painting, flower-arranging, animal-raising, quilting, scrapbooking, etc, etc, etc - and all of it is required to be non-professional - and everyone is proud to show off their hobby, and praised for their efforts. Why can't writing fanfic get the same respect?
(StarWatcher puts on shoes, then kicks something)
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Date: 2010-05-11 06:52 am (UTC)I may try again some time, but then again I may not. Writing for fun is fun... writing to order (which, to make a living, all but the very greatest must) is not so much.
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Date: 2010-05-14 04:50 am (UTC)Writing for fun is fun... writing to order (which, to make a living, all but the very greatest must) is not so much.
Exactly. When I went to college, there was a science-fiction critique course offered by Jack Williamson - yes the man himself. Although I was a huge sci-fi reader, I didn't take the class; I was sure that tearing apart the stories to nitpick at them would ruin all my enjoyment. Similarly, I didn't try to go into horse-training as a job; if I had to, it would cease to be fun.
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Date: 2010-05-11 01:28 pm (UTC)-bs
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Date: 2010-05-14 04:51 am (UTC)Oh, yeah. I wasn't suggesting that fanfic should be judged at the county fair (as if anyone around here would even understand the concept, LOL!); just pointing out all the hobbies people can engage in without encountering pressure to go pro.
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Date: 2010-05-13 05:14 pm (UTC)Of course the big Montana farmers think anyone running under a thousand cow-calf units are hobby farmers. It may be the only profession in the world more petty and status-oriented than academia.
Julia, from the cow-people :-) (and cruising by from metafandom)
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Date: 2010-05-13 11:24 pm (UTC)-bs
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Date: 2010-05-14 04:54 am (UTC)You're right, of course. I was focusing on the 4-H kids when I was thinking of non-pro.
I haven't seen 'pro' divisions in the various arts and crafts units; maybe our county fair isn't big enough. State Fair may be a whole different matter, but I've never made the six-hour trip.
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Date: 2010-05-11 03:13 am (UTC)For that matter - well, I like to think I'm pretty close to pro-level fiction myself, and I'm not going to rip up the checks I expect to see in the next five years. But I'd probably stick a gun in my mouth if I had to write fiction and do nothing else for a living. My brain would get destroyed either way, but at least with the gun it'd be instantaneous.
If you're going to do something, you may as well do your best to get good at it. I utterly fail to see how that logically extends to "and then do it full-time for a living."
That said, there *is* the category of writing not-going-to-do-it-commercially-not-trying-to fiction in one's *own* universe. Oh, I understand the appeal of fanfic, but the notion of writing original fiction for the fun of it - for the same motivations people write fanfic - seems never to be included when these debates come up, and I don't know why.
Sure, writing in an existing pattern is easier, I guess. But there's also something to be said for stitching something together from whole cloth - commercial ambitions regarding it be damned.
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Date: 2010-05-11 10:12 am (UTC)Nobody is saying one can't amuse oneself writing orig. fic! If that floats your boat, go for it.
Me, BTDT. Never could get the hang of it. Much prefer to spend the few minutes of writing time I get a week on something that's fun and that I'll finish and which other people might actually read.
- Helen (mommy, engineer, fanfic writer, church lady, occasional alto and bass guitarist)
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Date: 2010-05-11 01:30 pm (UTC)possibly because it brings in less hue and cry than fanfic, although original fic does tend to be looked down upon as a hobby as well.
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-14 05:03 am (UTC)but the notion of writing original fiction for the fun of it - for the same motivations people write fanfic - seems never to be included when these debates come up, and I don't know why.
I suspect two reasons. [1] There's so much less of it floating around that most people don't know about it, or where to find it. [2] Since the biggest gripe against fanfic is using other people's characters, that gripe doesn't arise with orig fic.
Sure, writing in an existing pattern is easier, I guess.
I do take exception to that, though. Sure, I have an established universe and characters when I write fanfic, but so does any pro author who writes books #2 - #20 in an ongoing series. That doesn't mean I don't sweat over storyline, plot, structure, language use, etc, etc, etc. It's like any other hobby; people can dash off a project on a whim, or give every ounce of effort of which they're capable. It's entirely up to the person involved in the activity.
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Date: 2010-05-11 04:42 am (UTC)I notice there's at least one of her hardcore fen on Charlie's board arguing in her favour now. Probably because she's since taken down those original posts and has stopped allowing comments.
Seriously, the people on Diana's blog surprised the hell out of me, though. Because there were so many of them that had never heard of fanfiction before and they immediately thought it was about money for us. I'm not even joking.
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Date: 2010-05-11 07:15 am (UTC)I don't get why. *Many* authors have said essentially the same things about fanfic.
My own position is that if an author goes on the record as saying they don't like it - well, go play in more fertile grounds. Plenty of other authors say they don't care or are flattered by it. What's the commotion about?
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Date: 2010-05-11 12:42 pm (UTC)in essence, my post is somewhat tangential, talking about one particular argument that gets bandied about far too often in discussions like this. still, it's an essential point that i often feel has been lost in some of these later rounds of 'fanfic is good/evil/horrible/awesome!'
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-11 02:14 pm (UTC)*I* didn't have a problem with her asking people to stop writing in her universe (I didn't see one single comment that said they would refuse her request) but I had issues with her two-fold for the way she went about it and then patently lying about a couple of things she was saying on her professional blog and then turning around and saying different things real-time on a separate public compuserve forum. It made her apology seem disingenuous at best but, hey, I'm just a lowly unpublished writer with no reading comprehension skills, what do I know.
What blew up her comment threads were the writers trying to discourse on fanfiction and then, of course, the great argument about the legal ramifications of writing derivative work.
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Date: 2010-05-11 01:32 pm (UTC)Diana's fans can perhaps be forgiven ignorance, because her works, although i loved the first book, are not what usually garner a presence in fandom - it's not hard-core sff. *shrugs*
*tosses popcorn at slavelabour*
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-11 02:26 pm (UTC)I'm glad you addressed your point here and in Charlie's blog. He's done well trying to express his own opinion (which seems to agree with ours) but some people will always disagree.
BTW, did you finish your Mag7 doggies? I may have missed it!
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Date: 2010-05-11 02:55 pm (UTC)i hate allergy season. gah!
i promise i'll post updates when i get back 'round to the doggies, though - they're really exciting to me. :-D
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-11 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-11 12:43 pm (UTC)grrr, argh!
*hugs wneleh*
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-12 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-12 02:17 am (UTC)i always went to yell at those folks, 'you want challenge? here, solve the 3-body problem in physics...'
*snorts*
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-12 01:06 am (UTC)parodies
MSTs
mashups
and collages
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Date: 2010-05-12 02:18 am (UTC)-bs
Here via metafandom ~
Date: 2010-05-13 06:04 am (UTC)Re: Here via metafandom ~
Date: 2010-05-13 11:25 pm (UTC)-bs
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Date: 2010-05-13 06:16 am (UTC)As a, ahem, "comfortably remunerated" IT worker, trying to get into pro writing right now would be financial suicide. I mean, I'd like to do it, but I'll do it in my 40s. Yanno, when we plan to retire on the income from our current careers. o_O
But so much yes on the hobby thing. Interestingly, I do art as a sideline as well; no-one ever hassles me about why I'm not doing that professionally. It really seems like writing is, like, the only thing you're "not allowed" to do non-professionally. For... some completely unfathomable reason.
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Date: 2010-05-13 11:29 pm (UTC)and because we *have* that other job, there's no pressure/need to publish. which, frankly, considering sturgeon's law, is probably a good thing - and i include myself in that! *wry look*
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-13 06:39 am (UTC)No one ever says, "You shouldn't play out in the pub, then, if you're not playing professionally! You should just do it at home, where no one can hear you!" in the same way that anti-fanficcers say, "You shouldn't put fanfic on the internet! If you have to do it, keep it private or just between you and your friends!" Why? because sessions, like fanfic, are not just for us , there are those other people the ones listening
readingon the fringes, who enjoy it and might even say so by passing over a free pintfeedbackor two by way of showing their appreciation. It's all about having fun together with people of like mind, enjoying a hobby with others who enjoy it too, without the pressure of Grand Ambition leeching all the joy out of it.Okay, I got a bit wordy there but I hope that makes sense :-)
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Date: 2010-05-13 11:30 pm (UTC):)
-bs
From metafandom
Date: 2010-05-13 09:05 am (UTC)But on your main point, I think fanfiction is considered the Rodney Dangerfield of hobbies is because for a large chunk of fandoms, you're using other people's property. Despite how many fans talk about "my Harry" or "my Buffy", the characters don't belong to us. We can't publish any stories about them. And especially in American culture, owning something = the potential to make money off it.
Unfortunately, in American culture, hobbies that are just hobbies get confused looks, too. A janitor at my high school did woodcarving, in African motifs. One of my teachers had him bring in a couple one day. They were stunning, absolutely beautiful works of art. One of the first questions asked was, "Would you sell them?" His answer: "No, never."
The frequent attitude of some fans toward the source material when it doesn't go the way they like ("omg this fanfic is soooo much better!") doesn't help, either. To people outside fandom, it comes across not always as discontent, but jealousy.
Re: From metafandom
Date: 2010-05-13 11:34 pm (UTC)fanfic, otoh, suffers more from this 'why not make money from it?' issue than other hobbies, even in american.
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-13 03:08 pm (UTC)(It's totes more fun than crosstitch. Really. So much more variation with stitches, and so much more...freedom with a painted canvas. Counted charts on the other hand, are a test of counting and accuracy, which are fun in their own right.)
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Date: 2010-05-13 11:37 pm (UTC)in all actuality, i'm tentatively getting into needlepoint, and i'm looking for some decent stumpwork introductions. it would be nice if that intro included designs closer in spirit to Subversive Cross-stitch, too, but i'm not sure that exists.
:)
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-15 01:32 pm (UTC)I've been thinking and thinking why it is that writing, specifically, is so impossible to understand as a hobby--because this argument is made by a lot of people who are not pro writers who, as you say, would never question other hobbies.........no answers yet, just questions that all connect with what you say here.
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Date: 2010-05-17 09:29 pm (UTC)the other possible reason almost calls for feminist discussion. it really wasn't so long ago that women were supposed to be highly educated, or to *use* their education for anything other than home-making arts and, perhaps, teaching the very young. to that end, writing for almost any reason, except for setting down recipes or instructions for working garden plots, would have been seen as an uppity act - unseemly for a woman, certainly, to display her education, imagination, etc. writing as hobby now, either fanfic or original fic, is seen almost entirely as a female endeavor, and the unseemliness of a women overstepping her bounds - that feel of the anti-fanfic arguments may come direct from the more recent modes of feminine suppresion.
but this is just off the top of my head, and i'm not as up on social movements and etc as you are, so take with the appropriate grain of salt.
-bs
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Date: 2010-05-15 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 09:17 pm (UTC)-bs
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Date: 2010-05-18 07:51 pm (UTC)I'd love to be published, sure, but most of what I write is fanfic, for fun. It's not that I'm incapable of writing original fic, but I prefer fanfic. Or, actually, what I do is more of a mix of fan-and-original fic, I guess. I'm sort of making up their characters based on what I know of their personalities. It's a fine line. Either way, though, I'm still a writer, I'm still a storyteller. I just happen to not be getting paid for my work, which does indeed make it, as you said, a hobby. And not an invalid one either, much as some people would like to say it is.