In a sense, the spirit of generosity that allows the fanfic to exist can only be generous, in my view, because of that -- the other works are not canonical. They don't change anything. They don't touch or mark or move the original, and they don't open or close the avenues the original series can move in. The creator feels free to ignore them entirely.
Absolutely. And I wouldn't ever want that to change. It would just be nice to think that I could put my real name on my writing and not risk a law suit for it, and not worry that in this very discussion I'm breaking the ettiquette of fannish self-preservation by indicating to some PTB that my journal is a place to start looking for this stuff.
When you're dealing with fanfic based on written work, you're suddenly dealing with the exact same medium, which is why I think more tension exists.
There's been tension in the film medium too, from time to time. But you could well be right. I've only written a couple pieces of bookfic, one in a fandom for a former fanfic writer who encourages fanfic, and the other so under the radar that I'd be surprised if anyone read it.
Reviews, critiques-- these don't really change the way people view the original.
Sometimes they do. Sometimes they've changed how I view an original, by shifting the context in which I see it.
Are they public? Yes. But in some sense they relate to the canonical work.
And fanfic doesn't? I don't get that.
They make no attempt to change the work; they can savage it, they can praise it, they can dissect it for meaning -- but they're not there to rework to it; at most, they can shift the way we view what's already there.
Oh, I see. They relate to it as is. But parody does change it, while still relating to the original. This is why, to my mind, fanfic *is* parody -- albeit the unfunny kind, like the Wind Done Gone.
In the case of fanfic, the work is the stepping stone, the foundation, the thing people stand on while they branch out; the anchor to which they tie their own skills, developing their own voices and abilities.
*nodsnods* Yes, I agree completely. But I guess, to me, that's part of why I used the term artistic conversation -- not just the analysis of a particular work, but the way one work inspires the next work inspires the next work, in agreement or in rebuttal, or some of each.
Some of my favorite pieces of art are reworkings of other pieces of art -- Grendel, Till We Have Faces, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Wicked, etc. A lot of those originals are in the public domain, of course. And some of the others use other's characters in ways that the courts have, in the past, allowed. But it's getting harder and harder to do that.
And since it now takes longer than a human lifespan to get out of the public domain, it strikes me as too high a price to pay that people can live and die never being able to react, in fiction, to the fictions that moved them most. I don't think anyone would mistake Wicked for L. Frank Baum's canonical take on the wicked witch of the west, even though they're both novels, precisely because the canon was the stepping stone to a new voice. And I would be very sorry not to have been able to read it.
At this point in time, one can sort of assume that readers and writers of fanfic have read or watched the originals, so there's a certainty of informed creation,
That's not always true. There are people who will follow a favorite fanfic writer to a new fandom. However in spirit you're totally right. It's extremely rare for them not to then go out and get the canon and become familiar with it. And even if they don't, they're certainly aware that there *is* a canon that this is merely riffing off of.
No conclusion to come to, I'm just noodling along as best I can.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-10-20 01:27 pm (UTC)Absolutely. And I wouldn't ever want that to change. It would just be nice to think that I could put my real name on my writing and not risk a law suit for it, and not worry that in this very discussion I'm breaking the ettiquette of fannish self-preservation by indicating to some PTB that my journal is a place to start looking for this stuff.
When you're dealing with fanfic based on written work, you're suddenly dealing with the exact same medium, which is why I think more tension exists.
There's been tension in the film medium too, from time to time. But you could well be right. I've only written a couple pieces of bookfic, one in a fandom for a former fanfic writer who encourages fanfic, and the other so under the radar that I'd be surprised if anyone read it.
Reviews, critiques-- these don't really change the way people view the original.
Sometimes they do. Sometimes they've changed how I view an original, by shifting the context in which I see it.
Are they public? Yes. But in some sense they relate to the canonical work.
And fanfic doesn't? I don't get that.
They make no attempt to change the work; they can savage it, they can praise it, they can dissect it for meaning -- but they're not there to rework to it; at most, they can shift the way we view what's already there.
Oh, I see. They relate to it as is. But parody does change it, while still relating to the original. This is why, to my mind, fanfic *is* parody -- albeit the unfunny kind, like the Wind Done Gone.
In the case of fanfic, the work is the stepping stone, the foundation, the thing people stand on while they branch out; the anchor to which they tie their own skills, developing their own voices and abilities.
*nodsnods* Yes, I agree completely. But I guess, to me, that's part of why I used the term artistic conversation -- not just the analysis of a particular work, but the way one work inspires the next work inspires the next work, in agreement or in rebuttal, or some of each.
Some of my favorite pieces of art are reworkings of other pieces of art -- Grendel, Till We Have Faces, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Wicked, etc. A lot of those originals are in the public domain, of course. And some of the others use other's characters in ways that the courts have, in the past, allowed. But it's getting harder and harder to do that.
And since it now takes longer than a human lifespan to get out of the public domain, it strikes me as too high a price to pay that people can live and die never being able to react, in fiction, to the fictions that moved them most. I don't think anyone would mistake Wicked for L. Frank Baum's canonical take on the wicked witch of the west, even though they're both novels, precisely because the canon was the stepping stone to a new voice. And I would be very sorry not to have been able to read it.
At this point in time, one can sort of assume that readers and writers of fanfic have read or watched the originals, so there's a certainty of informed creation,
That's not always true. There are people who will follow a favorite fanfic writer to a new fandom. However in spirit you're totally right. It's extremely rare for them not to then go out and get the canon and become familiar with it. And even if they don't, they're certainly aware that there *is* a canon that this is merely riffing off of.
No conclusion to come to, I'm just noodling along as best I can.