Feel free to comment; I can talk about what I had to change in order to meet the licensor requests.
Ooh, that would be fascinating. Though it may take a while for me to get to it, as the to-read pile has filled the top of the fridge and must now be whittled before I have a tragic head bopping accident.
That's interesting, though. I know a number of writers who are less than willing to say they don't care about fanfic one way or the other in a public forum -- but they don't care if people do write it.
*nods* this is partly the frustrating part about the under the radar thing -- if I take silence as permission, I risk offending someone; if I take silence as refusal, I am missing out on all the people like this (and I know a few myself).
Having said that, I don't think I know of anyone who would read fanfic based on their original fiction.
I'm told some people did back before the Yarbro thing. Now it's too risky that someone will claim you stole an idea.
I feel that my presence in the discussion would stifle the discussion or kill it.
I get that. Heck, I stay out of a fanfic mailing list discussion in part because I'm one of many authors occasionally discussed there, and I don't want people to be inhibited about saying bad stuff if they want. Though if the fandom's big enough I think there's some utility to having one forum where the PTB hang out and one where they don't.
If fanfic is like writing with a net -- in that the world and canon is already established, and all that remains is to pour your own imagination into it -- having the author preside over it seems almost beside the point. Or possibly detrimental to it.
It'd certainly have something of a stifling effect -- I think that's the reason that most of the fic from that mailing list's archive is about minor character or missing scenes, and G rated. There's not that same freedom to do the wacky with the material.
On the other hand, if an author doesn't want the wacky done with their characters but doesn't want to say so outright -- or knows that would be ineffective -- presiding over it is a pretty effective way to both make fans feel happy and valued and keep a choke chain on the stuff that makes them uncomfortable.
I'm assuming that in this case you've read and liked the original work.
Oh yes. I'm not that dedicated. I did reread one volume of the series for research purposes, but it was not exactly a hardship. :)
If you can have a discussion about season six that doesn't end in a meltdown, I'm impressed .
Only with the choir, I'm afraid. We've had enough meltdowns by now to know who shares our basic opinions.
Fan editors have partial say in the final story? Or do they serve the function of a workshop?
Some of each. The most common is a "beta reader" who serves the function of a workshop, with the writer having final say.
There are edited zines where the editor has a partial say -- and a couple where the editor has made unilateral changes, although that's frowned on. But Buffy is mostly an online fandom, so I don't have much experience of that.
I'm more accustomed to juried sites, which are more like the acquistion editor of an understaffed publisher -- they have final say on what gets posted there, but they don't do much line editing if any. It's mostly in or out. Some of them you can submit to, but many host fic only by invitation.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2004-10-20 09:13 pm (UTC)Ooh, that would be fascinating. Though it may take a while for me to get to it, as the to-read pile has filled the top of the fridge and must now be whittled before I have a tragic head bopping accident.
That's interesting, though. I know a number of writers who are less than willing to say they don't care about fanfic one way or the other in a public forum -- but they don't care if people do write it.
*nods* this is partly the frustrating part about the under the radar thing -- if I take silence as permission, I risk offending someone; if I take silence as refusal, I am missing out on all the people like this (and I know a few myself).
Having said that, I don't think I know of anyone who would read fanfic based on their original fiction.
I'm told some people did back before the Yarbro thing. Now it's too risky that someone will claim you stole an idea.
I feel that my presence in the discussion would stifle the discussion or kill it.
I get that. Heck, I stay out of a fanfic mailing list discussion in part because I'm one of many authors occasionally discussed there, and I don't want people to be inhibited about saying bad stuff if they want. Though if the fandom's big enough I think there's some utility to having one forum where the PTB hang out and one where they don't.
If fanfic is like writing with a net -- in that the world and canon is already established, and all that remains is to pour your own imagination into it -- having the author preside over it seems almost beside the point. Or possibly detrimental to it.
It'd certainly have something of a stifling effect -- I think that's the reason that most of the fic from that mailing list's archive is about minor character or missing scenes, and G rated. There's not that same freedom to do the wacky with the material.
On the other hand, if an author doesn't want the wacky done with their characters but doesn't want to say so outright -- or knows that would be ineffective -- presiding over it is a pretty effective way to both make fans feel happy and valued and keep a choke chain on the stuff that makes them uncomfortable.
I'm assuming that in this case you've read and liked the original work.
Oh yes. I'm not that dedicated. I did reread one volume of the series for research purposes, but it was not exactly a hardship. :)
If you can have a discussion about season six that doesn't end in a meltdown, I'm impressed .
Only with the choir, I'm afraid. We've had enough meltdowns by now to know who shares our basic opinions.
Fan editors have partial say in the final story? Or do they serve the function of a workshop?
Some of each. The most common is a "beta reader" who serves the function of a workshop, with the writer having final say.
There are edited zines where the editor has a partial say -- and a couple where the editor has made unilateral changes, although that's frowned on. But Buffy is mostly an online fandom, so I don't have much experience of that.
I'm more accustomed to juried sites, which are more like the acquistion editor of an understaffed publisher -- they have final say on what gets posted there, but they don't do much line editing if any. It's mostly in or out. Some of them you can submit to, but many host fic only by invitation.