So, Fanfic then...
Apr. 18th, 2006 06:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f4f3Fanfic, what is it good for? No, no, it's a serious question (well, about as serious as any question about a neologism written at 6.40 because I can't be bothered filling in my expenses could be.
It occasionally bothers me that I don't get Fanfic. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a fan. And of roughly the right things, too. Not Harry Potter, obviously, but Jennings. Doctor Who. Firefly. Various incarnations of Star Trek.
And also I can get very into my fandom - I've gone to Cons, even a meejacon (Hitchercon, back when the continents were in a very different shape). I know more about mid-'70s Marvel Comics than anyone has a right to, but I've never been tempted to do a Deathlok the Demolisher meets Killraven story. Or even, to be slightly less obscure, Jack Aubrey meets Harry Flashman. I once considered putting Flashman into War of the Worlds, but it never got beyond a standing joke with one of my mates. Suffice to say that the Martians would have died of an easily transmitable earthly disease, but not the common cold.
It may be because writing is what I do for a living. However I've dressed up and disguised the fact in my job titles (Consultant, Relationship Manager, Proposal Manager, er, Writer) I write stuff and people pay me. When I write fiction, it's always with a view to having it published professionally. Although, when I think of what some of the semi-prozines of my cyberpunky youth paid (i.e. £Nothing) that's stretching the point a bit. Using someone else's copyrighted characters guarantees that no one will pay you to publish your stories.
So why do people do it? Most of the fan-fic I've read has been of at least a competent level (this is high praise from someone who believes as firmly in Sturgeon's Law as I do). Obviously the writers get something out of it, the readers got something out of it.
I'm not someone who thinks fan-fic is beneath him - hello, I'm the guy who cackled in glee when he found out that The Essential Moon Knight contained back up stories from The Rampaging Hulk which I hadn't read before, and who stayed up till 2 a.m. to read them.
SO WHAT AM I MISSING HERE, GUYS?
It occasionally bothers me that I don't get Fanfic. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm a fan. And of roughly the right things, too. Not Harry Potter, obviously, but Jennings. Doctor Who. Firefly. Various incarnations of Star Trek.
And also I can get very into my fandom - I've gone to Cons, even a meejacon (Hitchercon, back when the continents were in a very different shape). I know more about mid-'70s Marvel Comics than anyone has a right to, but I've never been tempted to do a Deathlok the Demolisher meets Killraven story. Or even, to be slightly less obscure, Jack Aubrey meets Harry Flashman. I once considered putting Flashman into War of the Worlds, but it never got beyond a standing joke with one of my mates. Suffice to say that the Martians would have died of an easily transmitable earthly disease, but not the common cold.
It may be because writing is what I do for a living. However I've dressed up and disguised the fact in my job titles (Consultant, Relationship Manager, Proposal Manager, er, Writer) I write stuff and people pay me. When I write fiction, it's always with a view to having it published professionally. Although, when I think of what some of the semi-prozines of my cyberpunky youth paid (i.e. £Nothing) that's stretching the point a bit. Using someone else's copyrighted characters guarantees that no one will pay you to publish your stories.
So why do people do it? Most of the fan-fic I've read has been of at least a competent level (this is high praise from someone who believes as firmly in Sturgeon's Law as I do). Obviously the writers get something out of it, the readers got something out of it.
I'm not someone who thinks fan-fic is beneath him - hello, I'm the guy who cackled in glee when he found out that The Essential Moon Knight contained back up stories from The Rampaging Hulk which I hadn't read before, and who stayed up till 2 a.m. to read them.
SO WHAT AM I MISSING HERE, GUYS?
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-26 04:57 pm (UTC)While I don't usually do more than lurk here, [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] is a friend of [Bad username or site: @ livejournal.com] where I do post... so what am I getting at?
I have enjoyed fan/fic/slash for way more years than decent for all sorts of obscure reasons and in backtracking your LJ now see several LJ friends of my own there...
And finally, yes I am old enough to still be impressed with the wonders of technology and worldwide communications... or maybe as I get even older, I am more easily entertained.
So, I'll just be wandering off now... singing to myself. Simple pleasure for simple minds and all that...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-26 07:20 pm (UTC)The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year went to March, a novel by Geraldine Brooks, published by Viking. It’s a re-imagining of the life of the father of the four March girls in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. Can you see a particle of difference between that and a work of declared fanfiction? I can’t. I can only see two differences: first, Louisa May Alcott is out of copyright; and second, Louisa May Alcott, Geraldine Brooks, and Viking are dreadfully respectable.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 08:12 am (UTC)What I'm pondering over is if there is any real distinction between fanfic and what used to be called Sharecropping books, licenced and set in the Star Wars/Star Trek/Buffyverses, apart from the official endorsement.
I'm also starting to wonder when fanfic was christened, and if it predated licenced books. I know the Start Trek books go back to the late sixties, and the first time I was aware of fanfic was the orginal (I assume) Kirk/Spock slashes of the mid seventies.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 08:07 am (UTC)I've already been amazed at the links I'm seeing between LJ and RL friends. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the connectives - Six Degrees of Separation and all that - but it still gives me a start (and makes keeping this LJ anonymous a bit problematic!).
I'm disapointed that I couldn't read much over the weekend, but intend to make up for that ASAP.