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I love it when people get it
No, really. I love it when people get it. This made me unreasonably happy.
I found this via![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
deadbrowalking and thought I'd share. This is pulled from a MUCH longer Q&A here.
@619: I personally HATE fanfic so I was wondering..... 1)How do YOU feel about fan fiction? 2)Does it irk you that so many people "borrow" your characters and use them in their own crappy stories? 3)Do you think of fanfic as a form of flattery? 4)Do the other writers and the actors feel the same way?
1.) I think fanfic is the sign of a healthy show. Here's what it boils down to: you're telling me that in today's crowded media space, our show made someone love it so much they take time out of their own life to talk about it? Holy. Crap.
To be fair, I have a somewhat different attitude toward media/fans than most people. I think what TV/corporate media had wrong for a long time was how they understood the idea of a "water cooler show." They saw it as making the audience talk about their show, on their terms. So any fan-created media is them losing control of their material. I see this more as the natural evolution of culture in a shared digital age. I will be blunt -- other than the satisfaction of our own creative urges (and all that entails: the quest for perfection, artistry, craft, etc), our job in media is to give you stuff to talk about in your conversations, to integrate into your social circle in whatever way you see fit. I doubt that's TNT's official stance, btw, but they are much cooler about this stuff than most companies.
2.) As far as "borrowing" our characters -- to paraphrase Alan Moore, they didn't go anywhere. There they are, sitting right up on the shelf. Waiting for us to let them loose again. Besides, how many people read a fanfic story? A couple hundred, tops? We have, on average 3.5 million viewers, well into the 4 million range when you get the DVR numbers in. I just don't see someone taking control of our Ideaspace through sheer force of Slashfic.
Sure, a lot of fanfic is crap. Of course it's crap. It's written by people who are not professional writers. If I paint, what I paint is crap. Does that mean I should give up painting and displaying stuff in my neighborhood art show?
3.) Is fanfic flattery? Again, depends on how you define flattery. If someone's writing fanfic with intention of currying favor for some ... er, frankly unguessable benefit, then they're really engaged in an exercise in futility. If you mean flattery as in: it's flattering to think someone is so entertained by our work that it inspires them to talk about it and create around it, then aces.
4.) Most writers and actors don't feel this way. Some, including writers I both like personally and greatly admire, hate the idea of fanfic.
Look, end of day, you should always be trying to create your own material. But fanfic, etc, is a different process than original creation -- which I think is the source of a lot of the controversy.
People who do original creations assume the fan is taking some sort of unearned ownership, somehow implying their act is the same/as difficult as the original act of creation. Which, of course, tees them off (doesn't tee me off, but I'm a very relaxed and often drunk guy).
And some fanfic humans are under the impression that creating fanfic is the same creative process as creating original material -- and are sometimes frustrated that they're not accorded the same respect as the original creators. That's also wrong. Fanfic to me is spiritually much closer to the fan-created music videos.
The basic rule I follow here is one I learned in stand-up comedy: Always punch UP. I am a relatively successful typing human whose words are physically produced using millions of dollars and is distributed nationally by a massive billion dollar corporation to millions of people. Exactly how is a free web page with a 1000 word story about Eliot and Hardison fighting a trans-dimensional incursion of Elves hurting my brand, exactly?
Tell you what -- if some fanfic writer is so good they manage to amass a million-person audience with their web-distributed free stories using my characters, I am going to consider that evolution in action and hire that bastard. Or, at the very least, urge them to go create their own show. But odds are it ain't gonna happen. And that's okay. We write for different reasons.
Wow, that response could be its own blog post. I may break it out later, and shine it a bit.
This makes me love Leverage (PARKER AND HARDISON AND ELIOT, Y'ALL!) even more than I already did.
I found this via
deadbrowalking and thought I'd share. This is pulled from a MUCH longer Q&A here.@619: I personally HATE fanfic so I was wondering..... 1)How do YOU feel about fan fiction? 2)Does it irk you that so many people "borrow" your characters and use them in their own crappy stories? 3)Do you think of fanfic as a form of flattery? 4)Do the other writers and the actors feel the same way?
1.) I think fanfic is the sign of a healthy show. Here's what it boils down to: you're telling me that in today's crowded media space, our show made someone love it so much they take time out of their own life to talk about it? Holy. Crap.
To be fair, I have a somewhat different attitude toward media/fans than most people. I think what TV/corporate media had wrong for a long time was how they understood the idea of a "water cooler show." They saw it as making the audience talk about their show, on their terms. So any fan-created media is them losing control of their material. I see this more as the natural evolution of culture in a shared digital age. I will be blunt -- other than the satisfaction of our own creative urges (and all that entails: the quest for perfection, artistry, craft, etc), our job in media is to give you stuff to talk about in your conversations, to integrate into your social circle in whatever way you see fit. I doubt that's TNT's official stance, btw, but they are much cooler about this stuff than most companies.
2.) As far as "borrowing" our characters -- to paraphrase Alan Moore, they didn't go anywhere. There they are, sitting right up on the shelf. Waiting for us to let them loose again. Besides, how many people read a fanfic story? A couple hundred, tops? We have, on average 3.5 million viewers, well into the 4 million range when you get the DVR numbers in. I just don't see someone taking control of our Ideaspace through sheer force of Slashfic.
Sure, a lot of fanfic is crap. Of course it's crap. It's written by people who are not professional writers. If I paint, what I paint is crap. Does that mean I should give up painting and displaying stuff in my neighborhood art show?
3.) Is fanfic flattery? Again, depends on how you define flattery. If someone's writing fanfic with intention of currying favor for some ... er, frankly unguessable benefit, then they're really engaged in an exercise in futility. If you mean flattery as in: it's flattering to think someone is so entertained by our work that it inspires them to talk about it and create around it, then aces.
4.) Most writers and actors don't feel this way. Some, including writers I both like personally and greatly admire, hate the idea of fanfic.
Look, end of day, you should always be trying to create your own material. But fanfic, etc, is a different process than original creation -- which I think is the source of a lot of the controversy.
People who do original creations assume the fan is taking some sort of unearned ownership, somehow implying their act is the same/as difficult as the original act of creation. Which, of course, tees them off (doesn't tee me off, but I'm a very relaxed and often drunk guy).
And some fanfic humans are under the impression that creating fanfic is the same creative process as creating original material -- and are sometimes frustrated that they're not accorded the same respect as the original creators. That's also wrong. Fanfic to me is spiritually much closer to the fan-created music videos.
The basic rule I follow here is one I learned in stand-up comedy: Always punch UP. I am a relatively successful typing human whose words are physically produced using millions of dollars and is distributed nationally by a massive billion dollar corporation to millions of people. Exactly how is a free web page with a 1000 word story about Eliot and Hardison fighting a trans-dimensional incursion of Elves hurting my brand, exactly?
Tell you what -- if some fanfic writer is so good they manage to amass a million-person audience with their web-distributed free stories using my characters, I am going to consider that evolution in action and hire that bastard. Or, at the very least, urge them to go create their own show. But odds are it ain't gonna happen. And that's okay. We write for different reasons.
Wow, that response could be its own blog post. I may break it out later, and shine it a bit.
This makes me love Leverage (PARKER AND HARDISON AND ELIOT, Y'ALL!) even more than I already did.
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*dances along*
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I love, love, love the recognition that fandom is a force to be reckoned with, beyond just batshit insane wank/kerfluffles. And even if I am a wee churchmouse in the fannish wilderness it's a strange and wonderful thing to be part of.
By any chance are you familiar with Naomi Novik/the OTW? I found it recently through the Temeraire fandom.
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I love, love, love the recognition that fandom is a force to be reckoned with, beyond just batshit insane wank/kerfluffles. And even if I am a wee churchmouse in the fannish wilderness it's a strange and wonderful thing to be part of. Absolutely!
I have conflicted feelings about OTW. Because on the one hand, they do some great things with preserving fandom history and being a huge participant in projects that keep important fanworks from disappearing. Which is sheer, unadulterated awesome.
On the other hand, I think maybe they're pushing for too much, with wanting it to be embraced by society at large. I think fandom thrives on neglect. It's kind of like during the whole Harry Potter Lexicon Kerfuffle: all the fans wanted JKR to win. Because if she lost, then everyone would crack down on us, which is a scary, scary thought. So in some ways I'm just fine with us all hiding over here in our little bitty corner and writing our fic and making our art and wanking away and having fun.
But yeah, it does some great things. I haven't read their academic journal, but I totally want to. Fandom is definitely an area that should be studied more!
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What an amazingly evolved person! Ha! That's such a great way of putting it! My feelings exactly!
Anytime you take an existing story and rework it: fanfic! The differentiation he is making is between amateur and professional fanfic, I suppose. Definitely on both counts. Add to your list things like, say, Wide Sargasso Sea or Paradise Lost, which are both high literature, and you've got some serious writing going on.
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I actually love that. I'll never get a million readers. I won't geta thousand readers. But it's wonderful to feel like you're in some sort of time lapse where everything meshes together like an ... era of fanfiction. When you were apart of it. It's amazing.
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*loves it harder*
I LOVE MY FANFICTION!
As we all know, your writing is atrocious.