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There's been a LOT of stuff flying lately about authorial opinions on fanfic, and essentially whether we have the right to it, and so on. I'm sure everybody's read themselves sick on it, or chosen to ignore it because we all have the same arguments every year or two with a different group of authors.
Obviously I think fanfic's okay. Fanfic is modern-day storytelling, the kind of remixing that happened around campfires and hearthfires for thousands of years before the concept of copyright was invented. What the Brothers Grimm collected was fanfic. Paradise Lost is fanfic. Most of Shakespeare is fanfic. The modern fairy-tale retellings are fanfic, Star Trek novels are fanfic, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is fanfic. Dave Barry wrote Peter Pan fanfic. Modern-day comics writers are essentially writing fanfic for Batman and Superman and Spider-Man. (HERE ARE MORE EXAMPLES!) People have been telling and retelling and recreating stories since the telling of stories began, changing things around to suit the tale they're telling and their audience. It only got complicated in the last century or so, when people (and corporations) were able to take their stories and say, hey, this is MINE and you can't have it unless you pay me for it. I don't have a problem with copyright. The problem is when you say that something is protected, then all the people who were inspired by that story, to do something with the story, are now somehow committing a violation when they do what they've been doing all along.
Smart writers (and I don't call them smart just because they agree with me) acknowledge that fanfiction (and art, and cosplay, and roleplaying) is a way in which people interact with stories, and that modern novels and TV shows and movies are our mythology, the stories that impact our culture, and if you write something that causes people to react to it, to embellish it or draw it or whatever, you've done something right as a storyteller. The story didn't end when the reader closed the book or turned off the television or threw their empty bag of popcorn away on the way out of the theatre. You've made an emotional impact on people. That, at a fundamental level, is your JOB.
The problem with making an emotional impact on people is that they then feel the urge to do something about it. Some people make Tweets, some people write reviews, some people squee incoherently at their dwroll, and all of those things are socially acceptable. But for some of us, the characters keep talking after the source is through, or we spend hours pondering what would happen if X had happened instead of Y, or if the sex had been a LITTLE more explicit, or what it looks like when Character A admits his undying love for Character B BECAUSE IT'S OBVIOUS TO ANYONE WHO WATCHED THE DAMNED MOVIE, JESUS. And then we talk to each other, sometimes, and come up with crazy ideas like WHAT IF THEY WERE ALL IN HIGH SCHOOL ON MARS? or whatever.
Some authors are okay with it, some authors are happy about it (but they won't read it because they don't want to accidentally steal someone's ideas), some authors are accepting so long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to actually make money at their jobs and IF YOU TRY TO SELL SHIT THEY WILL CUT YOU.
And then there's George R. R. Martin.
George saw Diana Gabaldon totally lose her shit all over her blog (I have not read much of this, so Diana losing her shit doesn't inform this argument, it's just linked there in case you're wildly curious), and he thought about fanfic, and he determined that when he was a wee lad that wasn't what fanfic WAS and he disagrees with calling that weird shit we do fanfic, and also Lovecraft allowed people to write (and PROFIT OFF OF) stuff in his universe and he died IMPOVERISHED AND ALONE unlike Burroughs who made BILLIONS AND BILLIONS selling Tarzan to people who liked that sort of thing. Also, his shared universe Wild Cards that involves RPF and thinly disguised super heroes and stuff is TOTALLY DIFFERENT because he's the editor, bitches.So the takeaway is that GRRM is a control freak.
Then he made a follow-up in which he admitted that he doesn't know the first damned thing about how the laws he's talking about actually work but he doesn't CAAAAARE.
Finally, he said this, which is the important one that you should actually read before continuing. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Okay, ready? Good.
So, George argues that he understands that people love his characters, but they're his CHILDREN and he loves them MOOOORE.
And this is where he's wrong.
Not about loving his children more, he might. But the part where his loving his children is relevant to the rest of us.
A long time ago, Mr. Martin was sitting in his study (or a coffeehouse, or taking a shower, or whatever he was doing) and he came up with the idea for a world. He developed that world, and the characters in it, telling the story as best as he was able. He poured heart and soul and sweat and dreams into the world, as you do. Eventually, what emerged from his fevered brow and frantic fingers was a book. It was called A Game of Thrones and I hear it's very epic. It certainly looks epic, in the suitable-for-dealing-with-The-Intruder sense. He loved this book! The characters in this book were his children.
So he had this story that he loved, and he could have locked it in a box and never showed it to anyone, or only to his family or close friends. But that's not what he did. Instead, he called up his agent and said, "Hey, I have this book." Eventually Bantam went, "We would like to give you moneys for this book, okays?" and he's all, YES PLS. Because that's what he does, as a pro writer. He writes books, people pay him for it, it's all super-awesome. He wrote some more books, and he even turned his book into a roleplaying game and okayed a series on HBO.
And then fans got a hold of it and did stuff. They wrote fic. Some of it was slash! Some of it had characters doing things he would never approve of! (Like each other, I'd imagine.) Some people had characters who were OBVIOUSLY STRAIGHT being all INTO TEH GAY. And he became unhappy! Because these were HIS CHILDREN, people, his CHILDREN. And we should not do this to his children.
This is where he's wrong, you see. Because he didn't lock his book into a box. He gave it to Bantam and they sent it into the world. His children? Grew up. They went out into the world to make (him) a fortune. They made friends and influenced people. And when your children go out into the world, you no longer get to control who they talk to and what they do. Whether your adult kids become drug addicts or engage in kinky sex or graduate magna cum laude, you don't get to control that. You can express your disappointment that they're not married and giving you grandchildren because they're gay (or experimenting with gay as a phase! or experimenting with straight as a phase!) but you don't get to tell them that they can't be gay, or straight, or bi, or poly, or vanilla. You don't control who their friends are. You don't control who their lovers are. You may be able to stop them from visiting your child in the hospital or tell them that they're not invited to Thanksgiving dinner, but if your child then turns around and tells you that he's not coming home for Thanksgiving unless his lover is invited too, you can't control that.
Fans are the adult friends and lovers of your children. You can't stop them from writing kinky sex scenes with your children, or high school AUs, or introducing them to their OCs - especially when you publish a roleplaying game that encourages people to do just that. You can't stop them from drawing naked pictures of your children.At least you don't have to worry about your kids putting them up on Facebook. You won't be able to stop them from creating music videos with your children's television show. And really, no matter how uncomfortable you feel, you really don't want to. Because the people who love your children are the ones who are making sure your kids send you regular checks in the mail, so you can pay your bills and slowly write more wacky adventures for your existing kids to engage in and have more kids like a literary Mormon or something.
You love your children? So do I. And just because you got there first, Dad, doesn't mean that I don't have a right to have an impact on their lives. I don't think about what my fiancé's mother might think about what I'm doing with him, and a fan doesn't have to think about what YOU might think about what she's doing with your "children."
If you don't like it? Lock them in the basement and never let them out.
Obviously I think fanfic's okay. Fanfic is modern-day storytelling, the kind of remixing that happened around campfires and hearthfires for thousands of years before the concept of copyright was invented. What the Brothers Grimm collected was fanfic. Paradise Lost is fanfic. Most of Shakespeare is fanfic. The modern fairy-tale retellings are fanfic, Star Trek novels are fanfic, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is fanfic. Dave Barry wrote Peter Pan fanfic. Modern-day comics writers are essentially writing fanfic for Batman and Superman and Spider-Man. (HERE ARE MORE EXAMPLES!) People have been telling and retelling and recreating stories since the telling of stories began, changing things around to suit the tale they're telling and their audience. It only got complicated in the last century or so, when people (and corporations) were able to take their stories and say, hey, this is MINE and you can't have it unless you pay me for it. I don't have a problem with copyright. The problem is when you say that something is protected, then all the people who were inspired by that story, to do something with the story, are now somehow committing a violation when they do what they've been doing all along.
Smart writers (and I don't call them smart just because they agree with me) acknowledge that fanfiction (and art, and cosplay, and roleplaying) is a way in which people interact with stories, and that modern novels and TV shows and movies are our mythology, the stories that impact our culture, and if you write something that causes people to react to it, to embellish it or draw it or whatever, you've done something right as a storyteller. The story didn't end when the reader closed the book or turned off the television or threw their empty bag of popcorn away on the way out of the theatre. You've made an emotional impact on people. That, at a fundamental level, is your JOB.
The problem with making an emotional impact on people is that they then feel the urge to do something about it. Some people make Tweets, some people write reviews, some people squee incoherently at their dwroll, and all of those things are socially acceptable. But for some of us, the characters keep talking after the source is through, or we spend hours pondering what would happen if X had happened instead of Y, or if the sex had been a LITTLE more explicit, or what it looks like when Character A admits his undying love for Character B BECAUSE IT'S OBVIOUS TO ANYONE WHO WATCHED THE DAMNED MOVIE, JESUS. And then we talk to each other, sometimes, and come up with crazy ideas like WHAT IF THEY WERE ALL IN HIGH SCHOOL ON MARS? or whatever.
Some authors are okay with it, some authors are happy about it (but they won't read it because they don't want to accidentally steal someone's ideas), some authors are accepting so long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to actually make money at their jobs and IF YOU TRY TO SELL SHIT THEY WILL CUT YOU.
And then there's George R. R. Martin.
George saw Diana Gabaldon totally lose her shit all over her blog (I have not read much of this, so Diana losing her shit doesn't inform this argument, it's just linked there in case you're wildly curious), and he thought about fanfic, and he determined that when he was a wee lad that wasn't what fanfic WAS and he disagrees with calling that weird shit we do fanfic, and also Lovecraft allowed people to write (and PROFIT OFF OF) stuff in his universe and he died IMPOVERISHED AND ALONE unlike Burroughs who made BILLIONS AND BILLIONS selling Tarzan to people who liked that sort of thing. Also, his shared universe Wild Cards that involves RPF and thinly disguised super heroes and stuff is TOTALLY DIFFERENT because he's the editor, bitches.
Then he made a follow-up in which he admitted that he doesn't know the first damned thing about how the laws he's talking about actually work but he doesn't CAAAAARE.
Finally, he said this, which is the important one that you should actually read before continuing. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Okay, ready? Good.
So, George argues that he understands that people love his characters, but they're his CHILDREN and he loves them MOOOORE.
And this is where he's wrong.
Not about loving his children more, he might. But the part where his loving his children is relevant to the rest of us.
A long time ago, Mr. Martin was sitting in his study (or a coffeehouse, or taking a shower, or whatever he was doing) and he came up with the idea for a world. He developed that world, and the characters in it, telling the story as best as he was able. He poured heart and soul and sweat and dreams into the world, as you do. Eventually, what emerged from his fevered brow and frantic fingers was a book. It was called A Game of Thrones and I hear it's very epic. It certainly looks epic, in the suitable-for-dealing-with-The-Intruder sense. He loved this book! The characters in this book were his children.
So he had this story that he loved, and he could have locked it in a box and never showed it to anyone, or only to his family or close friends. But that's not what he did. Instead, he called up his agent and said, "Hey, I have this book." Eventually Bantam went, "We would like to give you moneys for this book, okays?" and he's all, YES PLS. Because that's what he does, as a pro writer. He writes books, people pay him for it, it's all super-awesome. He wrote some more books, and he even turned his book into a roleplaying game and okayed a series on HBO.
And then fans got a hold of it and did stuff. They wrote fic. Some of it was slash! Some of it had characters doing things he would never approve of! (Like each other, I'd imagine.) Some people had characters who were OBVIOUSLY STRAIGHT being all INTO TEH GAY. And he became unhappy! Because these were HIS CHILDREN, people, his CHILDREN. And we should not do this to his children.
This is where he's wrong, you see. Because he didn't lock his book into a box. He gave it to Bantam and they sent it into the world. His children? Grew up. They went out into the world to make (him) a fortune. They made friends and influenced people. And when your children go out into the world, you no longer get to control who they talk to and what they do. Whether your adult kids become drug addicts or engage in kinky sex or graduate magna cum laude, you don't get to control that. You can express your disappointment that they're not married and giving you grandchildren because they're gay (or experimenting with gay as a phase! or experimenting with straight as a phase!) but you don't get to tell them that they can't be gay, or straight, or bi, or poly, or vanilla. You don't control who their friends are. You don't control who their lovers are. You may be able to stop them from visiting your child in the hospital or tell them that they're not invited to Thanksgiving dinner, but if your child then turns around and tells you that he's not coming home for Thanksgiving unless his lover is invited too, you can't control that.
Fans are the adult friends and lovers of your children. You can't stop them from writing kinky sex scenes with your children, or high school AUs, or introducing them to their OCs - especially when you publish a roleplaying game that encourages people to do just that. You can't stop them from drawing naked pictures of your children.
You love your children? So do I. And just because you got there first, Dad, doesn't mean that I don't have a right to have an impact on their lives. I don't think about what my fiancé's mother might think about what I'm doing with him, and a fan doesn't have to think about what YOU might think about what she's doing with your "children."
If you don't like it? Lock them in the basement and never let them out.
