My brother Tod has written a very funny column for the Las Vegas Mercury about what he learned about parenting while he took care of my daughter last week during my hospital stay.
Lee Goldberg
He’s back…better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster…
I’m writing this using Dragon naturally speaking dictation software. isn’t technology grand? I just got home from three days in the hospital where my shattered right elbow was replaced with a brand-new titanium one. I asked the surgeon to install a laser cannon and a tivo remote while they were at it, but they wouldn’t do it. It’s no fun having two broken arms. You can’t do anything for yourself. You can’t eat. You can’t pee. You can’t button your shirt. You can’t scratch your…well, you get the point. I find myself being far more intimate with my wife than I ever imagined. I’m sure shes as thrilled about it as i am. my daughter is getting a big kick out of feeding me, though. I just wish she’d stop speaking to me in baby talk.
I will try to keep this blog up-and-running…I’ll share with you my efforts to continue writing and producing "Missing"….and making the july1 deadline on my next Diagnosis Murder book… while dealing with my two broken arms. And I might even find a few Other Things to Rant about. So stick around… and forgive the typos!
UPDATE: I will be attending the LA Times festival of books this weekend. I don’t know if I’ll actually be signing my books — but I will be showing up at all of my scheduled panels and signings.
update
Lee is doing fine — he’ll be having surgery to reconstruct his right elbow on Thursday. He’s in very good spirits and wants to start writing as soon as possible. I’m gettinghim dictation software tomorrow. Thank you for all your good wishes and kind words! Valerie
Fanfic Rant II
Karabair defends fanfic on her blog
I think some of these real TV writers need to breathe. Lee Goldberg writes for "Diagnosis Murder," so I’m not sure exactly what kind of artistic or professional integrity he’s protecting. On the other hand, anyone who writes fanfic about "Diagnosis: Murder" worries me much more than someone who writes it for money.
I have to admit, that made me laugh out loud. It’s mean, but it’s FUNNY. No one will ever mistake "Diagnosis Murder" for great literature or even exceptional television. For what it was, a humble little whodunit, I believe it was done well. Whether you agree with that or not, "Diagnosis Murder" represents an expression of someone’s (or a group of people’s) creativity. Those characters belong to somebody. You don’t have to like "Diagnosis Murder", or appreciate it, to respect the author’s right not to have his or her characters ripped off by someone else.
She later writes:
I mean, for most people it’s not a choice of publishing in the real world for money and publishing fanfic among their friends
Huh? I don’t get her reasoning at all.
Writers write. It’s part of who they are. Most can’t help themselves. If they are lucky, they are able to sell their work and make a living at it. If they can’t, there’s nothing preventing them from making copies of their stories for their friends to enjoy. Who says if your work isn’t published you have to write fanfic??
Why is it a choice between "publishing in the real world" and "fanfic?"
Because, um, it isn’t. It’s a bizarre rationalization.
I think it’s far more likely that writers turn to fanfic because it’s a hell of a lot easier than coming up with something original. It’s creative laziness.
This, of course, is coming from a guy who writes "Diagnosis Murder" novels, based on a TV series created by Joyce Burditt, who obviously isn’t me.
Ironic, huh?
The difference is I wrote & produced the TV series for years…I have a certain pride of ownership (if not actual ownership) of those characters. For a long time, they were were my characters… I was responsible for them, and "controlled them," for nearly 100 episodes (with my writing partner, William Rabkin, of course, assisted by a terrific staff of writers and freelancers).
But even if you don’t buy that argument, I’m now getting paid by the copyright-holders to write authorized novels. They have, in essense, given me the characters and their blessing to do with them as I creatively see fit. Big difference from fanfic.
She then argues:
I don’t see fanfic as an attempt to replace the show’s writers or tell them how to do their job. It’s a way to tell stories that don’t fit within the format of a series. Cutting away from Buffy & Spike in the basement in "Chosen" is absolute-fucking-lutely brilliant story telling.
That’s like saying somebody adding lyrics to somebody else’s hit song is engaging in "abso-fucking-lutely brilliant song writing." The logic is faulty, to say the least.
Fanfic Rant
Jim Winter writes:
"I agree with a lot of your points even though I am a recovering fanficcer. I say this because I went in to that particularly literary ghetto with my eyes wide open. I never wrote "slash" or hurt/comfort, and anything resmebling a Mary Sue got personality and depth hammered onto it.
But Lee, you haven’t dealt with the worst of the fanfic community — the Trekkies. Yes, that was the world I inhabited. My approach was to invent an entirely new cast whose adventures took place in a time not likely to be hit upon by any of the series. Until Enterprise (which convinced me I’d overstayed my welcome in fanfic), I pretty much was able to adapt to anything the writing staff threw out there. Others were less accomodating.
To which I, Lee Goldberg, say: no offense intended, but why bother? If you are creating a "new cast," why not just write an original novel that takes place in space? Using other people’s characters seems like a collosal waste of time and talent. Jim writes:
I cannot believe the sheer numbers of people who really believed that Kirk and Spock were so gay that they made the Queer Eye guys look like cousins to The Rock. The worst case was one group, who like me did an original cast of characters, that threw a very public temper tantrum when Deep Space Nine changed writers and upset the intricate little universe they created.
I, on the other hand, and a few others knew we were just having fun with our favorite show (though I’d come to really hate it by the end of Voyager’s first season), that we were "playing in someone else’s sandbox," and that none of us would make a dime off of this. (Hell, I lost money on a fanzine and still give the evil eye to anyone who says, "Hey, Jim, you should try editing.") Several of us had to post reminders on a few Usenet groups that what we wrote was subject to the whims of someone else, and no one in Hollywood was bound by anything "established in fanfic."
By 2000, though, it occurred to me that, if I was as good as my friends were telling me (and every fanfic writer who gets a following hears this), I was wasting my time on copyright infringement that would make no one any money. I also realized I never really liked reading science fiction much. So I switched to crime fiction. I went from being an obscure fanfic writer to an obscure crime fiction writer, dropping fanfic altogether when I wrote my first novel.
Money and copyright aside, what an incredible waste of creativity. Why toil on characters you don’t own in a world that’s not your own? It’s not even literary masturbation. It’s more like the literary equivalent of having sex with an inflatable woman who looks like Halle Berry. I honestly don’t get it.
Sixteen years ago, my then-girlfriend (and now justifiably acclaimed novelist) Karen E. Bender was trying to break in to publishing. I got her a job working as an editorial assistant at Starlog magazine, where one of the editors gave her this sage advice:
"You want to break in to writing, the best place to start is with a Saavik story. Writing for the secondary characters is where the literary giants of tomorrow get their experience. If you make a mistake with them, it’s a lot easier to fix in later fanfic. But blow it with Kirk or Spock, and your reputation as a serious writer is ruined." (I later used that quote in my book "Beyond the Beyond").
He also said writing sequels to movies, like his own to "Planet of the Apes" and "Superman," were good ways to hone her craft. The poor schlub didn’t see any difference between the fanfic world and the literature.
Last I heard, he was still living with his mother. Jim writes:
So, Lee, I really do sympathize. I hope to God I never come across any Nick Kepler fanfic. I understand the motivation and the appeal of it, but really, 95% of it proves that Shatner was right during his SNL skit. Or, at least, the evil Captain Kirk from… um… 10? "The Enemy Within".
Or was he really saying just pay attention to the movies?"
UPDATE: Jim expanded on his thoughts about fanfic in a lively rant on his own blog.
The Mail I Get…
Because I am a “TV producer,” I get all kinds of weird solicitations… mostly people asking me to read their script, buy their script, or give their script to Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, or Martin Scorcese (like they hang out with the guy who wrote “She Wolf of London.”) The following letter is real, it was emailed to me through my website last month:
“Dear Lee
I have just read your very interesting observations regarding the choice of actors for “James Bond” and I agree with you completely. I have read all the books over many years and had a picture in my “minds eye” of what he looked like.
Now comes the ‘crunch’……he looks exactly how my son looks!!! – Please don’t stop reading at this point and call me a doting Mother!! – I have other children who do not have “IT” but James most certainly does.
Everyone who meets my son is ‘captured’ by some factor I cannot really define, other than to repeat he has “IT” – Wherever he goes people (especially females) stare at him and want to talk to him or even just touch him!! – He is 6’ 2” and the proverbial tall dark and handsome guy. He also has great style and is very cool..i.e.nothing phases him!!
As a child he did some acting and I made him give it up and concentrate on his education, perhaps |I was wrong to do that! – He recently went to install some new computer equipment at a private hospital, a t.v. unit where there to film its opening and decided on the sput of the moment to ask James to appear on the film!!!..The camera loves him…it is impossible to take a bad picture of him.
Having said all that I wonder could you please point us in the right direction…i.e. who could we contact with regard to getting him into films? Preferably the next Bond movie or something else perhaps?
If you can help at all or indeed telll us who to contact we would be most grateful.
Very Best Regards”
Fanfic Sequel
From my brother Tod’s latest column in the Las Vegas Mercury:
“The Single Best Piece of Fan Fiction I’ve Read This Year: A few months ago, I wrote a column about people writing fan fiction; subsequently, I’ve been on a nonstop search for the most bizarre entry into this sordid world. I’ve read “Diagnosis Murder” fan fiction that includes a near-anal rape of a main character. I’ve even read “Star Trek” slash fiction, which illuminates a dimension to Sulu’s sometimes contemptuous relationship with Capt. Kirk in a rather, uh, prickly fashion. But it wasn’t until I happened upon Lance Bass fan fiction that I truly understood what it means to love.”
Fanfic
Many years ago, I was a writer-producer on Steven Spielberg’s science fiction TV series SeaQuest, which featured Roy Scheider and a crew that included a talking dolphin patrolling the oceans of the future in an unbelievably phallic submarine. I joined the show in its third and, as it turned out, final season.
Because I was new to SeaQuest, I didn’t know anything about the show’s small, but very passionate, fan following. I soon found out. I was assailed by fans for writing scripts without consulting “the fanfic” first. Fanfic is short for fan fiction — unauthorized stories, books, scripts and comics written by fans using TV characters they didn’t create and don’t own.
The fans were upset that the lives of the characters depicted in my scripts deviated from the histories and relationships “firmly established in the fanfic.” They actually had the gall to chastize me, a writer/producer on the show, for daring to make creative decisions and tell stories without clearing everything with them first. Their argument was that I was writing for money, they were writing out of love, so their “fanfic” should be considered “the true history” of the characters.
I thought, at the time, that this kind of insanity was a phenomenon unique to science fiction shows. I ended up writing a comic novel about my SeaQuest experience called “Beyond the Beyond” and, afterward, figured I’d never encounter that kind of fanaticsm again unless I worked on another scifi show.
I was wrong.
Weekly, episodic, television series… actually, television characters… have the amazing power to inspire passionate devotion from an audience in a way that novels… and literary characters…do not. And all it takes is just one or two episodes.
I’m not exaggerating.
A few seasons back there was a science fiction show called Mercy Point, sort of an E.R.-in-space, that was cancelled after three episodes. Within weeks, devoted fans of Mercy Point spent thousands of dollars on a full-page advertisement in Daily Variety, the industry trade magazine, pleading for the show’s immediate return to the airwaves. Fans of Prey, an X-Files-esque series that lasted half-a-season over five years ago, are still clamoring for its return to this day.
Again, I’ve cited two scifi show as examples, but I was surprised to discover that all TV shows, whether they are dramas or sitcoms, have passionate fan followings. I’ve encountered it on every series I’ve worked on since…even Diagnosis Murder.
Yes, that’s right, a show most people think of as strictly for the elderly had, and still has, an avid following. Try running a Google search on Diagnosis Murder some time…. you will be astounded by the number of websites around the world devoted to the show and to “fanfic” about the characters. In fact, you can Google just about any TV series and find the same thing.
That kind of fan devotion is both a blessing and a curse. The fans can keep a show alive… especially if it’s “on the bubble” ratings-wise…and be enormously supportive and inspiring to the writers, cast and crew. But with any show, there’s always a loud minority of fans who, at some point, begin to feel as if the show and the characters belong to them… that writer/producers are obligated to seek their approval or input before making any creative decisions. And yet, as strange as it may seem, this minority of fiercely devoted fans don’t actually want writer/producers participating in “fandom” — because it undermines the authority of the self-proclaimed leaders of the fan community.
This kind of fanaticism, this sense of audience ownership of the characters, doesn’t seem to happen with authors and their literary series characters… at least not with the intensity that it does with TV characters. With one exception… if you’re writing books based on a TV show.
I was the executive producer of Diagnosis Murder, and now I’m writing original novels based on the show, which starred Dick Van Dyke as a doctor who solves crimes with the help of his homicide detective son, played by his real-life son Barry Van Dyke. The vast majority of Diagnosis Murder fans are wonderful, kind, intelligent people. I love meeting them and hearing what they have to say, good and bad, about the books and the characters. It’s important to me that they are happy with what I’m writing.
But there is a tiny, very aggressive, group of fans who openly resent the control I have over “their characters” and see me as a threat to their personal vision of the series. Often, these fans are also fiercely devoted to an individual character, or rather to the particular actor who played the character, confusing the two and thinking of them as one. Then again, so have many actors I’ve worked with.
“I’ve never been to Cleveland,” an actor once told me, arguing against a line of dialogue he was supposed to say.
“Yes,” I said, “but your character has.”
The actor looked at me, confused. “How could he if I’ve never been there?”
But I digress…
I think what makes TV characters so powerful, and the reason some people latch on to them so strongly, is that they come right into your living room, almost as flesh and blood. Characters in books exist purely in your mind, they are imaginary and you know it. No matter how brilliant the author is, it’s impossible for any two fans to have a shared vision of exactly what the character looks and sounds like, how he or she smiles. But once an actor assumes the part, it makes the character all too real for some people. And on those rare occasions when TV characters are recreated in books, for a minority of fervent fans it’s as if the novelist is writing about real people instead of fictional characters.
Which might explain the handful of bizarre and angry emails I’ve received, amidst many more kind and enthusiastic notes, since Diagnosis Murder: The Silent Partner was published in September…
“Have you shown Barry Van Dyke his scenes in the book so he can fix them? Does he know what you have him saying?”
“Sorry, Lee, but here’s one person who will not be reading your book. In my mind and my fanfics, Steve is happily married with children.”
“You shouldn’t be writing books about DM. The success of DM had nothing to do with you. It had EVERYTHING to do with the WONDERFUL actors.”
“There aren’t any hurt/comfort scenes between Mark and Steve in this book and that’s a big mistake. There should be at least one hurt/comfort scene in each book. One with Steve/Jesse would be good, too.”
“They should be publishing the fanfic instead of your books but you won’t let them because you are so selfish and egotistical and all you want to do is make money and see your name. Who made you the boss of DM? It belongs to the fans, NOT you!!”
“You ABANDONED the show in 1999 to do another show so who do you think you are writing books about DM now? You should be FORBIDDEN from doing it.”
“Once again you are forcing your view of DM on the fans and asking them to accept it. I refuse and I won’t read your books!”
“I love coming up with new ways to hurt Steve and I just love to read one of my ideas come to life. I don’t care for stories that have Steve hurting because someone close to him is hurt. But I will support those that do. I’m strictly a Steve hurt/comfort fan.”
“You don’t care about DM. We write for a hobby, not for $$$$. Our stories are pure. You just want to buy a big house.”
“Jesse shouldn’t be dating Susan. We told you we don’t like her and yet you refuse to listen. You should read my story XYZ at FanficHQ — that’s who he really loves. You can use her if you want.”
Can you imagine Sue Grafton, Michael Connelly, Ian Rankin, Nevada Barr, James Patterson, Janet Evanovich or anybody else with a mystery book series getting mail like this (not that I’m putting myself in their league, of course)?
No one questions a novelist’s ownership of his or her characters, to do with them as he or she pleases. Yes, we might wish that Spenser finally got rid of Susan, but we’d never presume to demand that Robert Parker do it, or take issue with him personally over what he was doing with “our” characters. Not that readers don’t have influence over the choices an author makes (take Sherlock Holmes’ premature death and forced resurrection, for example). But fans of books, even the most passionate, seem to recognize the line between reality and fiction, between their loyalty to the books and the author’s creative right to do as he or she pleases with the characters.
Not so with TV. And, it seems, not so with books based on TV shows.
The Habit
The best hamburger place in LA. I eat at the Woodland Hills place four or five times a week. Always the same thing. Double charburger with cheese, protein style. I’ve also fallen into the habit (nice segue) of eating breakfast on my way to work at the local Dennys. I’ve only been going in for two weeks now, but I am already a regular. They don’t know my name yet, and I don’t know any of theirs, but they know what I like to eat. I don’t have to order at all. I just smile when I come in, find a seat, and five minutes later there’s my Grand Slam, two eggs over medium, all bacon (soft, not crispy) and a large Diet Coke (which they keep filled and transfer to a to-go-cup when I go to pay at the counter). It’s comforting…small townish… and kinda scary. I’ve started to notice the other regulars. The guy who sits at the counter drinking one Iced Tea after another (he comes in every day and stays, I’m told, for HOURS). The enormous fat guy with a weeks worth of newspapers to read EVERYDAY. He uses a cane and has the look of a hardcore sci fi fan. Also video geek. Odds are he has tapes of everything Heather Locklear has EVER done. The big table of school bus drivers. There are more. They all seem sad to me… until I realize I am one of them. Then I wonder what they are thinking about me (“Look at that judgmental jerk over there… looking at me like I’m some kind of loser. Is that a nose on his face or is he eating somebody’s arm?”) The fun people are the illicit lovers who come in from the dive motel next door. I love eavesdropping on their conversations.
Who said TV writers don’t lead glamorous lives? Okay, now I am officially rambling.
My Brother On The Atkins Diet
My brother writes a terrific column for the Las Vegas Mercury. ..especially when he’s writing about my Mom.
All of us Goldberg men are lard-asses… so we are on the Atkins Diet. Well, I am. Tod quit because he couldn’t poop anymore… and wrote a very funny column about it called The Crap Free Diet. If you’re eating “protein burgers” and counting carb, you gotta read this.