masqthephlsphr (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
masqthephlsphr) wrote2012-08-14 08:07 am
masqthephlsphr) wrote2012-08-14 08:07 am
Entry tags:
Yikes
Yesterday, I sent my website designer the content for my new website. It contains a lot of things about me, my published novel, my current writing projects, my past projects. One of the things it contains is a blurb about and link to my fan fiction story, The Destroyer. I figured, why not, I worked hard on that story and readers liked it. It is an example of my SFF writing and series writing skills.
I think I forgot how few people out in the webosphere really understand what fan fiction is and why it can be a legitimate art form--an engagement with and reinterpretation of a text, yada yada. Too many of them still think it's sixth graders with no imagination wishing themselves into someone else's story, or something those with no talent and imagination of their own write which is therefore d00med to show all the elements of bad fiction.
http://www. thepassivevoice. com/08/2012/ewan-morrision-strikes-fan-fiction-down/
(link broken so I don't create a pingback).
I don't engage when I see these types of battles. So I won't bring in Gregory McGuire, or the Mists of Avalon (to name a couple examples I see immediately on my own bookcase), or a thousand other stories that are fan fiction.
ETA: I realize the issue in the linked article, and in the discussion on the blog, was how a novel (50 Shades of Grey) started out as fan fiction and now she's making money off it (in essence, making money off "fan fiction" which=bad), but what bugged was how quickly that argument devolved into "all fan fiction is bad writing, therefore, fan fiction (not bad writing) is the enemy that threatens the future of good commercial story-telling." No one seems to grasp that (1) most fan fiction is not-for-profit and frankly, done for the FUN of it, and (2) not all fan fiction is bad writing by amateurs who "can't come up with stories of their own," and (3) commercialized fan fiction has been around forever.
I think I forgot how few people out in the webosphere really understand what fan fiction is and why it can be a legitimate art form--an engagement with and reinterpretation of a text, yada yada. Too many of them still think it's sixth graders with no imagination wishing themselves into someone else's story, or something those with no talent and imagination of their own write which is therefore d00med to show all the elements of bad fiction.
http://www. thepassivevoice. com/08/2012/ewan-morrision-strikes-fan-fiction-down/
(link broken so I don't create a pingback).
I don't engage when I see these types of battles. So I won't bring in Gregory McGuire, or the Mists of Avalon (to name a couple examples I see immediately on my own bookcase), or a thousand other stories that are fan fiction.
ETA: I realize the issue in the linked article, and in the discussion on the blog, was how a novel (50 Shades of Grey) started out as fan fiction and now she's making money off it (in essence, making money off "fan fiction" which=bad), but what bugged was how quickly that argument devolved into "all fan fiction is bad writing, therefore, fan fiction (not bad writing) is the enemy that threatens the future of good commercial story-telling." No one seems to grasp that (1) most fan fiction is not-for-profit and frankly, done for the FUN of it, and (2) not all fan fiction is bad writing by amateurs who "can't come up with stories of their own," and (3) commercialized fan fiction has been around forever.