"It is better to ask forgiveness than permission", II

[scarfman]

Several months ago I posted here a comment I never got to write in the comments on fanfiction under a Websnark post. It occurs to me that there's a comment I did make in that discussion which also ought to be preserved here.

The element of writing fanfiction that is least understood by the Why don't you just create your own characters? school of detractors is that it's the loved characters which provide the inspiration.

Melville was inspired by whaling. Graves was inspired by history. White was inspired by Le Morte d'Arthur. Eric [Websnark, demiurgent] is inspired by mythology, superheroes and science fiction. I am inspired by the Doctor, Captain Kirk, and Buffy Summers.

When I started Arthur, King of Time and Space (which may or may not constitute creating my own characters when Arthur commands a starship and Merlin has a time machine), I had already been uploading daily Doctor Who crossover cartoons to the web for five years. And I haven't stopped them since AKOTAS - for daily updates from me you have to go to AKOTAS, but much of my most (and least) inspired humor and pathos can't be migrated there because it's just too character-specific.

What do you write about? You couldn't, and wouldn't, stop - or switch to a different subject or genre - just because your family and friends didn't understand, could you? Perhaps you've even tried, and found it wouldn't work? That's because this is something you're passionate about, isn't it?

Comments

[athelind.livejournal.com]

You do realize I have you to blame credit for that alt-DC Universe RPG setting I'm running, don't you? You pretty much single-handedly made fanfic respectable in my eyes... or rather, helped me realize that, for any setting or character that outlives its original creative team, EVERYTHING is fanfic.

(This icon, incidentally, is my "Magnum Opus".)

[scarfman]

helped me realize that, for any setting or character that outlives its original creative team, EVERYTHING is fanfic

Then I have not lived in vain.

Though you'll find here and there on the internet instances of me using the word fanfiction as if it were defined as you have done here, in truth the definition is a little narrower than that, incorporating the concept of violation of copyright which doesn't apply to all instances of characters outliving their original creative teams. But what that means is that anyone who can't understand the attraction of creating fanfiction when in possession of all the facts is probably hung up on the idea that anything that takes as much work and time as writing is only worth doing for pay.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Honestly, even though Gene was behind it, I always thought TNG was more than a little fanficcy. Moreso even than some of the subsequent Trek manifestations.

Of course, I'm invoking some vague je nais se quois of "fanficness" that's less rigorous than "copyright violation".

There's a post brewing here about the current state of the DCU, but my eloquence circuits aren't engaged.

[scarfman]

I just wanted to make the point that fanfiction does mean something slightly different than revival or licensed tie-in, because if it didn't there wouldn't've needed to be a new word. Cases like comics and Doctor Who, where a generation of fans have gone and grown up to be pros, make the distinction both blurred and necessary.