Fanfiction: an overall positive media piece for once

[meridian_rose]

There's a really nice piece about fanfiction here; it's worth reading in it's entirety but I'll give you what I think are the highlights. It starts by positing that fanfiction "is still the cultural equivalent of dark matter: it's largely invisible to the mainstream, but at the same time, it's unbelievably massive." It differs from most articles on fanfic by talking to professional writers who still write fanfiction, taking away the accusation that fanfiction is merely an amateur pursuit.

Naomi Novik, whose Temeraire novels are best sellers and have been optioned by Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings movies, writes fan fiction. "Fanfic writing isn't work, it's joyful play," she says. "The problem is that for most people, any kind of writing looks like work to them, so they get confused why anyone would want to write fanfic instead of original professional material, even though they don't have any problem understanding why someone would want to mess around on a guitar playing Simon and Garfunkel."

Emphasis mine; this is why I get so annoyed at the 'lack of creativity' opposition to fanfic; every musician who only plays cover versions, every orchestra that only plays classical music, is as guilty of a lack of creativity as a fanfic writer. More so, I'd argue.

The reporter talks to Racheline Maltese and describes her as "38. She's an actor and a professional writer — journalism, cultural criticism, fiction, poetry. She describes herself as queer. She lives in New York City." Maltese's blog, Letters From Titan is well worth reading for her take on how the lines between media and real life can be blurred, on media representation, on queer culture. She's also on LJ: rm, freely admitting to her fannish identity and to the fact that she writes not only what could be called 'professional meta' but fanfiction. Obviously, she's on the pro-fanfic side:

"To say that a story stops after we close a book is absurd," says Maltese. "To say that we can think certain things about a story or what might happen next in a story or what might have happened if someone had turned left instead of right but that we can't write them down is absurd."

And another blow to the 'lack of creativity' defence:

Up until relatively recently, creating original characters from scratch wasn't a major part of an author's job description. When Virgil wrote The Aeneid, he didn't invent Aeneas; Aeneas was a minor character in Homer's Odyssey whose unauthorized further adventures Virgil decided to chronicle. Shakespeare didn't invent Hamlet and King Lear; he plucked them from historical and literary sources. Writers weren't the originators of the stories they told; they were just the temporary curators of them. Real creation was something the gods did.

It also points out to those authors who handwring over their 'children' being kidnapped and abused by evil amateurs that:

A writer's characters are his or her children, but even children have to grow up eventually and do things their parents wouldn't approve of. "We don't own nonfictional people," Maltese says, "and at the end of the day, I don't think we can own fictional ones either."

Comments

[sheryden.livejournal.com]

Wow, this is awesome. It says so much that I've wanted to say. Thanks for posting this!

[meridian_rose]

You're welcome :D
It's so nice to read something written about fanfic that views it in a more positive light, and that it's published for Time and talks to 'professional' writers gives it 'clout' - I thought the writers on my flist would love it, and we all ought to bookmark it for the next 'waah, you're unoriginal talentless hacks who're stealing my babies' debacle.

[brontefanatic.livejournal.com]

What a refreshing article. It's nice to see a positive take on what so many of us enjoy doing.

It is creative to explore all of the what-ifs, and I love the comments from Maltese. There are so many books being published now that rely on previous material I don't know whey people continue to be so dismissive - I've lost track of the Pride and Prejudice sequels.

Also, if I'm recalling my English literature class correctly, weren't some of Shakespeare's plays actually re-worked from earlier plays written by other authors?

I really enjoyed this - thanks for sharing.

[meridian_rose]

Maltese is fairly unique in that she adores fandom, and makes her living from commentating on it and creating it - she's a performer, amongst other things - and also still being part of it. She gets why and how we interact with texts.

Yes, the constant question as to whether Shakespeare actually wrote some/most/any of his plays. Either way, there's no question that Romeo and Juliet the starcrossed lovers trope, for example, existed as an earlier story in one or more cultures well before Shakespeare put quill to paper.

You're welcome :D It just got posted at inclusive_geeks where some people are 'meh, mainstream discovers fanfic again' but I see this as more thoughtful and positive than most articles preceding it which focus on fanfic writers as the 'other' and get hung up on the sexual aspect - you'd think there was no porn or erotica outside of fanfic reading some of those articles :P

[hrhrionastar.livejournal.com]

This is great - thanks for posting this :D

I find it ironic that people who don't like fanfiction miss that excellent point about Virgil and Shakespeare - people rewrite those stories all the time, and so fanfiction based on the Bible, or the Odyssey, or Othello gets published with no problem. If the only difference is time - all those authors are from longer ago - how can people condemn fanfiction as uncreative or unworthy?

I love Maltese's comments ;D

[meridian_rose]

You're welcome; I wanted every fic writer to see it :D

Maltese is pretty awesome. It's so rare to have someone speaking out about media as a critic, and as a 'professional' creator, and as an 'amateur' creator who doesn't just 'read' it but lives and loves fannishness :D

Biblical fanfic; yes, Anne Rice ought to read this piece. She hates fanfic but when she - for a time - became Catholic again, she wrote a whole novel about Jesus from a first person POV. But then those most against fanfic are often the ones using rl characters, other people's worlds and/or tie-in novels, or building on fairy tales, themselves with no sign they recognise the hypocrisy.