Fanfic

Novik Chimes In

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Naomi Novik, one of the two "pro-fanfic" guests on OPEN SOURCE, comments on the radio show and the discussion here on her blog.
To give you a sense of the bizarre logic behind her arguments, she believes
that writing reference books about television (like my book UNSOLD
TELEVISION PILOTS)  is no different than fanfic.

And the books in the last category profit off the creations of others
*without* authorization — because legally you don’t need to have
authorization to report facts. So in the venn diagram of ‘borrowing
characters to write fiction’ and ‘use without authorization’, where
fanfic writers are in the intersection, he’s got one foot in either
camp even while he’s going after the people in the middle.

Need I say more? Okay, a little more. Here’s how she feels about authors who object to fanfic about their work:

I realized after posting, that the joking remark above might seem to
imply an insult any author who does object to fanfic. Not my intention
— I do understand individual authors who feel strongly that they don’t
want fanfic on their own work out there. If an author feels an intense
negative reaction to fanfic on her work, that is a completely valid
feeling. I don’t think that it obliges people to respect that feeling,
but it’s not ridiculous, it’s how she feels, and I personally do
respect that reaction out of courtesy.

Courtesy?? What
courtesy? She isn’t showing authors any courtesy at all. She "respects
the reaction," but not the author.  Her attitude is basically this:
Fuck JK Rowling if she doesn’t like stories about Harry using his magic
wand to have sex with everybody at Hogwarts.  Anything she writes
belongs to me to use however I see fit.

Her arrogance and stupidity is mind-boggling. Between her, and the
guy who made the "We more emotionally attached" comment, I think you
get a pretty accurate picture of the fanfic community and how they
think. Scary, isn’t it?

(I was amused, though, but her inadvertent acknowledgement of the central hypocrisy of fanficcers. If someday fanfic is written based on one of her
novel, she won’t read..

  …any of the fanfic anyway (just not worth the
potential legal headaches), so what difference does it make to me?

That statement says so much. Fanficcers see absolutely nothing wrong with stealing the work of other writers, even if it the author of the work is opposed to it, but
would sue any novelist or TV producer they think may have stolen something from their
fanfic.  Their work should be protected, it’s everybody else’s that up for grabs…)

The Difference Between Tie-Ins and Fanfic

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In a comment to my post "What Stupid About It, someone asked what the difference is between someone who writes tie-ins and someone who writes fanfic… beyond the fact that tie-ins are written with the consent of the author/right’s holder.

There’s a big difference.

I was hired to write DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MONK novels. It’s something I am being paid to do. It’s not like I woke up one morning with a burning desire to write DIAGNOSIS MURDER novels, wrote one up, and sent it off to a publisher (or, as a fanficcer would do, posted it on the web).  The publisher came to me and asked me to write them. 

I would never write a book using someone else’s characters unless I was hired to do so. It would never even occur to me because the characters aren’t mine. 

Given a choice, I would only write novels and TV shows of my own creation. But I have to make a living and I take the work that comes my way…and that includes writing-for-hire, whether it’s on someone else’s TV show or original tie-in novels based on characters I didn’t create. Ultimately, however, what motivates me as a writer is to express myself…not the work of someone else.

That’s the big difference between me and a fanficcer.

Given a choice, fanficcers "write" fanfic. 

“What’s Stupid About It?”

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I got this email today:

"Fan fic writers have no deadlines, networks/producers/actors to please,
and often have a better grasp on the characters and their history than
the tv writers usually because We Are more Emotionally attached."

You said that comment is stupid. I don’t get it.  What’s stupid about it?

Okay, the email is probably a fake, but I’ll treat it like it’s not.  I create the characters and the world they live in. I figure out the relationships, what they do, and why they do it. And then I come up with every single thing that happens next.  I also hire the actors,  the directors, the writers,  the set designers, the costume designers, the composer etc. etc…. and they all are charged with interpreting my vision of the  show as I see it. We all spend every waking hour making the show (and even non-waking hours…my dreams are often filled with scenes and characters from the show I’ve spent all day working on).

And somebody who merely watches the show says he has a better grasp on the characters and their history than I do? That he’s  more emotionally involved in the series than I am? The guy who created the characters, who came up with every single thing they have ever said or done or experienced?

Okay, let’s say I’m not the creator. I’m a hired gun, one of the writer/producers. I am working hand-in-hand with the showrunner to articulate his or her creative vision of their show. All I do every day is live with those characters, whether I’m writing a script of my own, rewriting someone else’s script, plotting a story, editing an episode, prepping an episode with a director, or discussing character with one of the actors. I am as emotionally involved as it’s possible to be. The show is all that I do and all I am thinking about for most of the working day…and, because I am a writer, I can’t stop thinking about it once I go home, either (even if I don’t have a script or story to write/work on every night).

And somebody who watches the show thinks he’s more involved than that? Knows more about the  characters than I do?

That’s why it’s a stupid comment.

…but I can see how the fanficcer’s emotional involvement with a show is very different than the one that I have as a TV writer/producer. A TV show is something I write, something I do, it’s not my world, it’s not my religion, it’s not who I am and my reason for breathing. It’s not my obsession.  I don’t dress like the characters, wallpaper my house with their pictures, or fantasize about having sex with them.  Whe the show is cancelled (or I leave it for whatever reason), I stop thinking about the characters and their "lives." I move on creatively and emotionally to something else. There are viewers who are incapable of doing that…who become so emotionally attached to fictional characters and an imaginary world that they can’t ever let go. And in that sense, yeah, a fanficcer is more emotionally attached than I am.  Frighteningly so.

“We Are More Emotionally Attached”

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Fan fic writers have no deadlines, networks/producers/actors to please,
and often have a better grasp on the characters and their history than
the tv writers usually because We Are more Emotionally attached.

The incredible stupidity of that blog comment tells you all you need to know about fanfic writers…and the tenor of the "discussion" on NPR’s OPEN SOURCE (the comment above comes from their blog). The radio show did a terrible job yesterday exploring fanfic —  and I’m not
just saying that because it was 45 minutes into a one-hour show before
the bewildered host remembered I was there. 

I think that the guests and listeners on both sides of the fanfic debate would agree that the host was woefully unprepared for the discussion.  He didn’t have a grasp of what fanfic is and seemed to be stumbling around blindly in search of a point or an angle (something his producers should have prepped him on more thoroughly beforehand). He was unfocused and, therefore, so was the discussion, which is why I’m not at all surprised by his baffling "post-game analysis" of the show on the OPEN SOURCE blog:

The poverty of fanfic is its confinement by television and what seem
the limited stock of Star Trek characters—and the bodies of Charley’s
Angels. But the courage of readers who, all along, have been
reimagining outcomes and dialogue and motives is awe-inspiring. I guess
it is just as well that we waltzed right past all those confounding
lit-crit riddles of post-modern textuality. Naomi Novick tried to tempt
us with a sweeping dismissal of authorial intent, and I cheerfully let
it go.

What is he babbling about? I was on the show and I can’t make sense out of it. By the way, I was the only fanfic naysayer invited to participate (and then only included in the discussion as a brief after-thought).  He spent the bulk of the show talking to the two dimwits who felt there’s no difference between a modern retelling of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and STAR TREK mpreg fic (for one thing, the authors the fanficcers are ripping off are still alive)  So it’s no surprise the host ultimately comes out in favor of fanfic…or at least his blurry notion of it.

Common sense about music makes me wonder why any of it should be
copyrighted. Music is not something human beings own; it something
people love, make and do every hour of the day, socially and alone. So
much of the music I love is recreated: like Brahms’ transcription of
Bach’s Chaconne for left-hand-only at the piano, or Chucho Valdes’
reconception of Chopin’s Preludes as jazz. Up with imitation, then, and
the geniuses who can make it original.

Trekkies and Kiddie Porn

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05Maclean’s Magazine investigates the revelation that a surprising number of pedophiles arrested by the Toronto Police are Trekkies:

The first thing detectives from the Toronto
police sex crimes unit saw when they entered Roderick Cowan’s apartment
was an autographed picture of William Shatner. Along with the photos on
the computer of Scott Faichnie, also busted for possessing child porn,
they found a snapshot of the pediatric nurse and Boy Scout leader
wearing a dress "Federation" uniform. Another suspect had a TV remote
control shaped like a phaser. Yet another had a Star Trek
credit card in his wallet. One was using "Picard" as his screen name.
In the 3 1/2 years since police in Canada’s biggest city established a
special unit to tackle child pornography, investigators have been
through so many dwellings packed with sci-fi books, DVDs, toys and
collectibles like Klingon swords and sashes that it’s become a dark
squadroom joke. "We always say there are two types of pedophiles: Star Trek and Star Wars," says Det. Ian Lamond, the unit’s second-in-command. "But it’s mostly Star Trek."

Neva Chonin at the San Francisco Chronicle isn’t convinced there’s a connection.

"Star Trek" fans get no respect. When they’re not being derided for
living in their mothers’ basements, they’re being mocked for studying the
Klingon alphabet. Life for Trekkies is especially tough these days, with their
television franchise finally fading into retirement after decades of spin-off
series and film adaptations.

And now this. An April 27 Los Angeles Times story on the exploits of the
Toronto Police Service’s Sex Crimes Unit reported on "a dark fact" uncovered
by its Child Exploitation Section: "All but one of the offenders they have
arrested in the last four years," the article revealed, "was a hard-core
Trekkie."

Wha … who … huh? I know that the Vulcan mating ritual of Pon Farr can
arouse some unruly passions, but hey. Kiddie porn? Child exploitation among
those benign nerds who flock to comic conventions in their Federation
uniforms? Say it isn’t so. Or at least present plausible evidence why it is…

…Yeah, right. Color me skeptical, but I require a little more to sell me
on the "dark fact" that "all but one of the offenders they have arrested in
the last four years was a hard-core Trekkie." If there’s empirical evidence,
trot it out. (Hard-core Trekkie membership cards? Salacious action figure
dioramas? What?) If there’s a causal relationship, at least try to explain it.
If you "can’t really explain it," don’t bring it up. Geeks get enough grief as
it is, man; they don’t need to be labeled perverts.

The Revered, Rep Level SeaQuest Writer

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I got two emails today from SeaQuest fans.

One email invited me to share my memories of Jonathan Brandis as part of an online fan memorial.  I’m afraid I don’t have any special memories to share.  I didn’t know Jonthan well, though in my few encounters with him he always struck me as a bright, friendly, serious young man. I thought he’d go far as an actor and I was saddened to learn of his suicide.

The other email directed me to a  SeaQuest fan blog posting that the sender felt "defines a Talifan."

I really can’t stand new people who enter my fandom for the first time,
"debuting" as though they’re already a well-known and respect author
like Chance, Diena Taylor or Rachel Brody.. or sometimes they even act
as though they’re Lee Goldberg.

Especially because usually, they
really haven’t been paying much attention to what has actually been
going on in the fandom for the last, oh, ten years. They don’t know
what fiction has been written, what developments have been made, who
the people are, any of the ways we interact.. It’s all "Tah dah! I am
your quasi-proffessional seaquest epic writer. My episodes are of
exceptional quality due to my experience. Aren’t you people lucky?"

Um,
no.. actually I feel patronised and I since I honestly believe I’ve
been around longer than you, I feel like a six year old who’s just
started playing a sport I’ve been playing for years is coming on the
feild and give me ‘tips’, as though they’re at rep level.

Sadly,
these people will miss out on what they could have learned from us, and
a lot of other things you can enjoy in the SeaQuest fandom without
putting yourself out as an author who is already revered.

There are SeaQuest fanfic writers who not only have reached "rep level," but are actually  "revered?" Wow. Who knew? Though I can’t imagine why anyone would aspire to be a "quasi-professional SeaQuest epic writer."

Obi-Wan Love Sandwich

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Are your erotic fantasies filled with visions of  "an Obi
Wan/Amidala/Qui-Gon intergalactic love sandwich?" If so, then Fleshbot has found the STAR WARS slash for you at the Obi-Wan Torture Oasis.

"There is something so wonderfully demoralizing about sodomy;  takes all the fight out of a man, to be conquered from within." (from Zen & nancy’s "Little Earthquakes")

It’s more than a kink, it’s a biological imperative. We Ladies of Slash must hurt young Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Hurt him bad. Hence this site, and you know the rest. We’re not too inclined these days to wonder just *why* we enjoy Obi-Wan (or Mulder or Bashir or Blair or a host of other icons) displayed in such a visceral state. At least, we wonder no more so than men who question why they enjoy lesbian porn flicks. Just relax and enjoy the rollercoaster.

 

The Strangest Fanfic Obsession of All

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"
Hello, and welcome to my homepage. My name is Ulrich Haarbürste and I like to write stories
about Roy Orbison being wrapped up in cling-film. If you have written any stories about Roy
being completely wrapped in clingfilm please send them to me and I may put them up on the site.
If you have a site with stories about other pop stars being wrapped in cling-film mail me and we
can exchange links."

How many people could there be writing about pop stars wrapped in cling-film? It’s too frightening to contemplate.  Somebody has put one of Ulrich’s stories to music and it’s
hilarious…whether it’s meant to be or not, that’s another story.
Here’s the link.

(For more on this, see my brother Tod’s post here in January.)

Fanfic as Folklore

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Diane Werts, a terrific TV columnist and feature-writer, wrote about fanfic this week and champions a view very different than my own:

Fan fiction has become a booming hobby, with millions of stories written for
cyberspace by ordinary consumers of TV shows, movies, books, even video games.
"Fanfic" recycles well-known characters by taking them down fresh paths,
recounted in epic-length chronicles, 100-word "drabbles," explicit character
vignettes and crossovers between completely unrelated series. The reimaginings
use existing entertainment icons to present an alternative mythology to the
"official" version – a modern grassroots folklore subverting corporate control
of "intellectual property."

I wouldn’t characterize KIRK/SPOCK slash as "grassroots folklore," but I certainly agree that it’s "subverting corporate control of  intellectual property" as well as the authors intellectual property rights (something she makes only passing reference to in her piece).

Diane definitely sees fanfic as something positive and buys heavily into the romanticized notion of  fanfic as modern-day folklore, continuing traditions began around the campfire centuries ago. Obviously, I don’t agree… but since Diane and I are friends, and my views on fanfic are hardly a secret,  I’ll leave it at that.

Selling Fanfic to Publishers

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Seaquest2032_aI received an email today from a guy who writes fanfic in "the SEAQUEST universe" and would like to see it published as novels. Here’s part of what he wrote me: 

We see novels based on other universes published all the time. Be they
the Extended-Universe Star Wars novels written by people like Timothy
Zahn or the Star Trek novels which go largely uncreditted by Paramount
studios, and they seem to do fairly well. Do you have any tips on how
I may actually go getting Atlantis published? Obviously there would be
copyright issues that need to be resolved with Universal studios and
so on, but I don’t have the foggiest on where to begin!

First off, your initial premise is wrong: Paramount maintains rigid control over the STAR TREK novels as does Lucasfilm over the STAR WARS books.

I would say it would be impossible to get Atlantis, your SeaQuest-derived work, published and it would be an utter waste of time to pursue it. But, for the sake of argument, you would have to contact Cindy Chang at Universal Licensing in Los Angeles for permission to shop it around. Then whatever publisher you found would have to pay Universal a license fee to publish your work.

There are two ways that licensed novels are usually pursued.

1) The studio offers their TV or movie property to publishers.
2) a publisher contacts a studio and says they are interested in a particular property, what would it cost to license it?

In either case, the studio is paid a license fee, receives royalties, and usually maintains creative control over the property (ie they can approve or reject writers, stories, manuscripts, etc.).
For instance, in my case, Penguin/Putnam had tremendous success with the MURDER SHE WROTE novels (licensed from Universal) and wanted to come up with a companion series that would appeal to the same audience. So they approached Paramount and licensed DIAGNOSIS MURDER from them, then they came to me to write the books (though I had to be approved by Paramount first). I am paid an advance and a royalty. Paramount, in addition to the license fee, also gets royalties.  All my manuscripts are read, and approved, by Paramount before they are published.

My advice to you is to move on. It’s time to write something original…and to put your efforts into getting that published instead.