[please understand this is my sarcastic voice. And granted, copyright infringement...but she did it first!]

Q: I also wonder how far a writer is allowed to write in a world and to use characters introduced by another author?

If it’s not a commercial project, I don’t see any problem. George Lucas’ Star Wars universe is fertile territory for so-names “infinities,” or alternate storyline material. Thousands of people write them, and they are posted on hundreds of unofficial Star Wars-themed web sites on the Internet. Lucas himself said that as long as no one is making a profit, he thought such tributes were wonderful.

Q: Does your being an editor influence the way you go to work as a writer? If so, could you say in what way?

I made a conscious decision to remove my editor’s cap as I was writing this story. After so many years of being an editor, I wanted the creative freedom of being a writer. It took a whole new type of thinking to just write and finish the manuscript and leave the editing and business decisions for later. And once I got to that point, I was able to really write.

Q: What would you say to others who dream of writing a novel based on an existing world setting?

Writing such a novel is a lot of fun, especially if you have friends who are constantly saying, “Well, what if a certain character were put in a certain situation? I wonder how it would turn out.”
In 1999, that question was put to me, because as you know, the first three episodes of Star Wars were finally in the works. In these new movies, there are additional characters that could have made the older Star Wars universe even more exciting.
That’s what happened to me, as I found the characters of young Anakin and Padmé from Episode 1 and Ryoo and Pooja from Episode 2 impossible to resist. How would they grow and change over so many years? That is a fascinating question.

I do believe that relieves every concern people might have. Oh, yes.

( if I'm being rude to our kind facillitators in any unknowing way by posting this...well, I really hope I am not, and apologize profusely if I am.)

I guess she sees a technical editor's job as consisting of telling people all day long "be more specific about how this works" - evidently she's applying this principle to fiction.

Is WordTech a vanity press? Their front page sort of smells like it to me. As our hosts have said, nothing wrong with that if it's honest.

-r.

Maybe George Lucas could sponsor her, to silence all the complaints of "a fanfic writer could have done better than Episode 1".

Anyone want to start a pool on what legal penalties Ms. Jar-jareo is going to have to pay out?

The stupid -- it burns...

There was a once-published cartoon that got George's attention, many years ago. It was only published once because he made it *very* clear that he'd hang the next person who published it, himself. I think Ms Jareo is in the running for that honor.

http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/928529.html

What I find odd is the debate of rationalizing of an illegal activity among those that like fanfic and want to legitimize it in various places.

Did LucasFilms' lawyers purchase a box?

If they didn't, someone probably sent them a few copies.

Fanfic isn't illegal, per se (I remember the beginnings of the Mageworld series, thank you very much, and bought the books because I remembered those stories), but this kind of stupidity comes under the heading of 'universal capital punishment'.

I suppose someone could write the autobiography of Jar-Jar Binks and claim it was satire, but this...

Yargh.

Does the fact that she copyrighted the material make any difference? I don't believe that fanfic writers can claim copyright even of their own prose, because it's in violation already.

All in all, I wonder if Lucas can ignore this even if he wants to. I know that copyright isn't the same as trademark (in which case she'd be in such a mountain of shit), but I'm thinking that even if he can't lose his copyright by failing to defend it, it is a really bad precedent.

Personally, I'd like to see him come down on her like a ton of bricks. Stupidity should be its own reward. Would it put other fanfic writers at risk? Commercial vs. non-commercial isn't really the division that distinguishes copyright violation, although fanfic writers will continue to insist that it is.

(Note, I have been saying things about copyright, and I am not a legal expert in the field, therefore everything I say could be wrong six ways from Sunday. Corrections welcomed.)

But ye gods, that woman is as much an editor as I am!

Dear Ms. Bauer:

My name is Lori Jareo, and I'm trying to find an agent willing to help get my Star Wars novel, Another Hope, published....

"Only for my friends and family." Yes. That's why it's listed on a very, very public database, instead of on a private website, or a friends-locked catalogue page at Lulu. A public database that you don't get into by accident.

I saw this via a couple of fanfic LJs yesterday. Some fanficcers can write very well indeed, and some of those fanficcers are currently devoting their keyboard time and command of language to expressing their opinion of this sort of terminal stupidity. They are not happy bunnies right now.

I think the best nutshell summary is out of that list of Amazon reviewer tags: "weapons-grade stupidity". I couldn't describe this better if I tried.

Anybody who's read up a bit on the Inquisition may recall that they generally didn't start right off torturing accused witches; the "instruments" would be shown to the accused first, and their use explained, to give them a chance to confess first. Copyright enforcement generally works the same way, although in these modern times, the "instruments" are cease-and-desist letters rather than say, red-hot irons. More's the pity.

Years ago when I was working at Tor I had an instructive conversation with one of a pair of writers who had written a vast opus based on Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain books. The clue-free young woman could not understand why Yarbro was being so mean about her selling her own book, because it was written in her words, and anyway it was an homage to the source material and anyway it was mean to pick on the fans who loved the work, and showed Yarbro didn't love her fans as much as they loved her work and anyway...

It looks like Lori Jareo is cut from the same but-it's-me-so-the-rules-don't-count cloth.

Uh. Most of us explicitly state that we understand that it's not strictly legal. (Unless we write about stuff that's in the public domain.)

And then a nutbar like this pops up and trashes our collective image yet again.

States of course also used torture or its threat routinely to obtain confessions, say if they had an anonymous tip-off about someone (after all, it could just be a business rival, or other beneficiary of their misfortune, or someone with a grudge, and sometimes even a mistake), as well as to get evidence from possible co-conspirators (people close to the accused) as to any suspicious goings-on. Fortunately, a couple of hundred years of fought-over social advancement means civilized countries don't do this any more.

What puzzles me is based on what I read at their web site:
"New Paradigm", "non-returnable", "importance of sales", "marketing tips", this is not a publisher to which I would consider submitting my work. (Well, I don't know much about publishing. Is this normal in the world of publishing poetry?)

Thanks to reading Making Light faithfully, all of these things read to me as saying that you're unlikely to sell very many copies of your book (since they don't seem to work on terms which might encourage bookstores to stock their books) if you publish with them. This makes me wonder if she might have meant it when she said it was just for friends and family? If it's not in the bookstores, who else is going to know about this, unless it has some sort of notoriety like, in this case, copyright infringement. Actually, I suspect Star Wars names are trademarked. If so, there is an issue there too.

Either way, making it available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Powell's was not the most intelligent thing one could do. Even rights holders who tend to look the other way when it comes to fanfic have to take action when something like this happens.

As everyone else has pointed out, she certainly seems to have enough experience to have known better (or at least to know how to make it available only to family and friends).

Because now, no matter WHAT blunders any of us might ever make or obstacles we might encounter, they aren't even close -- I don't think they're even on the same continent -- as this woman's little publishing escapade.

Accidentally submit a story two places at once? "At least I didn't try to sell fanfic on Amazon!" Get a rejection letter? "Well, at least my submission was legal!"

Instant silver lining.

Or, you know, anywhere else you can buy books.

Oh, and Troopers was created as an entry into the Star Wars Fan Film contest sponsored by Lucas. Just to remind everybody about that part.

If you bring up the little issue of copyright, you get this, "Geez, you're such a greedy jerk," response.

Writerious: There's certainly some cultural weirdness going on.

It's not some kind of inexplicable mystery, it's just the way humans are. Copyright laws (and similar laws) are only a few centuries old. The impulse to swap around story material goes all the way back before recorded history. It might predate our species.

Making up stories with the characters in your head -- even if they're immigrants, rather than native-born -- is a natural and common human impulse. Wanting to share your stories with other people, likewise natural and common, and now easier than ever. (The Internet makes publishing so easy that it's possible for people to fail to realize that they're doing it.) Realizing that some of the characters who've immigrated into your head are actually still enslaved subjects of their original land, that's something new. Not everybody gets that, and not everybody will.

Passing copyright laws and expecting everyone to go along is like passing monogamy laws and expecting that nobody will stray. It just ain't gonna happen.

There are many impulses behind the creation of fanfic, and thumbing one's nose at copyright holders is only a minor consideration, if at all.

I don't know how long fanfic has been around, but sometime before 1976, which is when I met it. It was doing quite well then, too, but it was pretty much ignored, possibly because a really large print run was still under a thousand copies.

Wanting to tell stories with the characters in your head -- even if, as was said, they're immigrants -- is natural enough. Where entitlement comes into it is when you feel you have a /right/ to spread the resulting work around in public. Or, more specifically, to do so even when the original author says 'please, don't post fanfic of my characters or in my world.'

For my day-job (alas, 'aspiring writer' does not pay the bills too well), I am a software engineer. The software I help write, we sell for $25 a copy. Fairly cheap. Further, there is a free version (which misses a few features) available.

And yet, there are people who don't want to pay... and yet feel they are entitled to the Pro version without paying. There's an entire website for a pirate group who exist solely to pirate each new build of our program and remove the protection from the commercial version, and redistribute it along with all the add-ons from our member site. They and their devotees feel they are entitled to have this software -- when we are slow to release a version, they whine about us 'not giving good service,' they crow about how wonderful new versions are when they come out... yet they never pay for anything.

Before this job, I worked at a video game company. Tons of people would pirate the games, and claim, 'well, if I couldn't have pirated it, I wouldn't have bought it, so you didn't lose any money anyway.' Which is a rationalization... what it boils down to is they don't want to spend money on things, but they feel entitled to have them.

Software piracy, music piracy, and suchnot have an air of entitlement to them -- and I'd say fanfic like this does, too -- because you aren't 'stealing.' Breaking into a house and taking a DVD player, stealing a car from a dealer... those things, the person is left without the original. But an MP3? A game? Characters from a book? Hey, the originals are still right where you left them, so no one loses, right?

And so people who wouldn't dream of stealing a car, or a DVD player, feel entitled to steal these things. Hence the 'attitude of entitlement,' I think. At least, that's my $0.02 + state sales tax.

Fan fiction, fan art, etc. are, whatever you think of their merits, additional material in an already existing (sometimes copyrighted) fictional universe. Fanfic is based on existing material created by someone else; pirated files are existing material created by someone else. If you download a song for free, you may be doing that instead of paying for the album, but if you read or write a story about Jar-Jar Binks and Lieutenant Mary Sue saving the universe from bad novelists or whatever, you're not doing that to save yourself the price of a ticket to the movie. (In fact, you've probably shelled out for a good deal of Star Wars merchandise by the time you start thinking about writing your Jar-Jar/Mary Sue opus.)

I do think that distinction is worth making, even if some find fanfic objectionable for various reasons nonetheless.

The vetting that takes place at Amazon is this: "Has ISBN? Yes/No"

Which is, frankly, all that it needs to be.

Q: What was the easiest/fun part of this project?

The fact that the universe was already created for me.

Q: What was the hardest part?

Remembering how many y's to put in Kashyyyk.

Q: Do you feel that writing an apocryphal novel is much harder work than if you had created a universe or world of your own? What goes into writing an apocryphal novel anyway?

Well, since I've never created my own world...I can't really answer that question. As far as writing an apocryphal novel for someone else's universe, it's like stealing an idea...then using your own publishing company to fund its production. A complete waste of time and money. Completely ethical and oh-so-skippy-neat-o!

Q: Given the chance to write a script or a storyline on which a Star Wars movie would be based, what would be your ideal scenario or plot?
I think I may have just blackballed myself from ever doing work with LucasArts. Oh well, I have two more novels for this series :D .

Q: What do you think writers should take into consideration when writing science fiction?
Originality.Originality.Originality---and a good editor.

Q: How does it feel to have published your first novel?
Yippee! (?!) It was no sweat. I didn't even fear a form rejection.

Q. Does having this first novel create any tension towards writing subsequent books?
See above answer.

Q: Does your being an editor influence the way you go to work as a writer? If so, could you say in what way?

I made a conscious decision to remove my editor’s cap as I was writing this story. Unfortunately the cap was stolen by Bobba Fett and later eaten by the great and powerful Sarlac when Bobba fell in.

Q: Do you use any rituals/practices to stimulate the writing process?
I watch the director's cut of Episodes I,II,III all the time!

Q: What would you say to others who dream of writing a novel based on an existing world setting?
Start a small press first, then publish at will.
* * *

Stooopid hobbitsses. Styupid, styupid hobbitsses.

-=Jeff=-

Now there's an audiobook I'd avoid.

This brings to mind one of my favorite interviews. Take it away, Jim Theis!

Because how many people have had their first story
published at16-even if it is in a fanzine or club-zine? How many professional
writers have written a complete story at so early an age?

Book News St. Timothy's members Kevin Walzer and Lori Jareo both would like to announce the publication of their new books. Kevin's book is called Austere Offices (ISBN: 1933456043) and is a book of poems about corporate life. Lori's book is called Another Hope (ISBN: 1933456027) and her book is a Star Wars-themed science fiction novel. Both are available on Amazon.com. Both Kevin and Lori will be reading from their new books at Over Coffee on December 3. Kevin begins reading at 7:00 p.m. and Lori follows at 7:30 p.m. Over Coffee is located at the corner of Clough and Eight Mile. There is a nice children's area and kids are welcome.

URL (bottom of page) http://www.sainttimothys.com/Pages_publications/Cross_Nov_2005.htm

Oh. I'm sorry. Have my Google skills(z) gone to the Darkside?
Wonder how long it'll take to clear Amazon.de?

-=Jeff=-

An amazing inventory display of books ready to ship to 'friends and family'. Thank you Canada for that link.

Oh well, my path to the Googling Darkside is now complete.

-=Jeff=-

sylvia - Very, very well-said.

As with fanfics, many mash-ups are notable only for the novelty factor, some just aren't worth listening to, and a few are really amazing works of art.

The Kleptones latest album, '24 Hours' is mind-blowing, and puts a lot of commercial works to shame. Their work keeps getting better with each album; Yoshimi was not bad, Night at the Hip-Hopera was pretty good, excellent in places, but 24 Hours is stunning. I'd say it's a pity that it can't be sold conventionally, except that the Kleptones clearly know exactly what they're doing and have made an artistic choice to work in this medium. (Same as some of the fanfic writers who are very capable of writing professionally, and do, but also love writing fanfic.) If you are not appalled by the whole idea, Google around until you find a Bittorrent or download site for '24 Hours', burn yourself the two CDs, and give it a listen.

P.S. This is the UK Kleptones; don't get confused if your googling turns up a different group with the same name.

A degree in Journalism is hardly a "Certificate Of Genius" (or "Modesty") -- and this case surely proves it...
;-)

Jokes aside -- sad as the "Fanfic Affair" may be, it's symptomatic of human nature. When a work of art becomes widely popular, people start to think of it as "theirs". Same thing happens with celebrities: the fans think of them as "theirs".

Shakespeare's HAMLET? It's a "Saga of Amled" fanfic. (The "Saga of Amled" was written down by the medieval Danish chronicler Saxo Grammaticus, and is in turn rooted in some ancient Indo-European mythology. A fanfic of a fanfic of a fanfic...) Not meaning to defend all fanfiction -- actually I don't really like the genre -- but I can see where it comes from.

And that excerpt from "Another Hope"... whoa! The book should be retitled ALL YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT STAR-DESTROYER TECHNOLOGY BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK.

The distinction that "those are public domain and Star Wars isn't" really isn't all that obvious to someone born after 1977; all these mythologies have been around forever, i.e., since before they were born.

For someone who claims to be an editor with a degree in journalism, though, it's a bit much.

But then how is the sampling done by rappers legal? I've wondered about that for years.

Clearly Ms Jareo is not in full possession of her faculties and fully deserves the public dressing-down she has received. I'm a little disappointed though by the number of posts here that say they *want* her to be sued by Lucas. What is it with the Schadenfreude? Why isn't it enough that she receive the cease-and-desist letter and that she ceases and desists?

The real harm that she has done is not to Lucas's intellectual property, which appears to have survived even his own best efforts to make it unsaleable. The real harm is that Ms Jareo is running a writer's workshop at what appears to be a respected program and is using Another Hope in her bio as evidence of her experience as an author.

Do I want Lucas to sue her? God no. Who the hell wants *more* encroachment by the intellectual property lawyers on public life? But the organisers of the West Chester University Poetry Conference ought to review their decision to allow Ms Jareo to run one of the workshops. Maybe she is still appropriate, but on the evidence at hand I would think she is quite possibly a very bad choice to be put in charge of a workshop aimed at beginning writers. People are paying $85 per workshop for this.

Initially, it wasn't. These days, people who release music based on samples of other music have to go through legal clearances to use the samples and usually pay a royalty to the original artist.

Or they distribute it on the web and hope that nobody notices.

And Dante was doing Virgil fanfic.

Dante wrote Gary Stu fanfic.

To round out the 'fan fic is in legal limbo' discussion, it all comes down to money. ::shrug::

I'd like to keep the distinction, tho it's annoying there doesn't seem to be a simple single word for the deed discussed.

PS: Mr Watt-Evans, your authorlink from Tor goes to your old page. Altho the redirection works, it might look better if it was updated.
(Note to cat-vacuumers everywhere; checking links-to-you are correct is probably an excellent time-sucker-up; possibly with a higher temporal vanishing index than re-checking your links out. There is probably a tool that helps.)

Too true. (And, by the way, I'd never heard the name Gary Stu before. Took me a while to figure it out.)

I think the phrase is "derivative work". But afaik once the serial numbers are filed off (changing the names etc.), derivative works are legally in the clear even if the underlying structures are still recognizable-- Sword of Shannara, anyone?-- which really makes me wonder how the Mitchell estate phrased their Wind Done Gone case, other than losingly.

Hmmm... when Virtual Reality technology finally becomes viable, will we see an explosion of Star Wars fan-VR ...?
;-)

Isn't part of the definition of Gary Stu/Marty Sam/Mary Sue that the character should be an idealised version of the author? The Dante in the Divine Commedy is constantly being criticised by Virgil and Beatrice.

(RPS gives me the willies. Nevertheless, it exists.)

Well, it's not quite VR yet, but there's Star Wars: Galaxies, which is an MMORPG. I have never played it, myself (my heart belongs to World of Warcraft), so I don't know how faithful the experience is, but it's certainly a step in the direction of Star Wars VR, if not "fan" VR.

I don't think it was just one, but the one I remember distinctly was the track "Transmitting Live From Mars" by De La Soul, which used a riff from a song by The Turtles. One of the original musicians caught wind of it and the rest is litigation history.

Fanfiction runs into the same issue from the other direction: it makes it WAY too easy to become a Jedi...

But then, "not everybody gets to have the elite position that all the stories in the actual canon are about" is true of just about all of the fandom games and groups out there. Fanfic makes it way easier than MU*'s to get your character into the position you want, sure--assuming you're writing alone. If you're in a group, you'll probably be dealing with some version of similar rules. Offline Pern fandom groups don't hand out gold and bronze dragons to everybody, either.

Yes, I was using "plagiarize" in a broad sense, but there are a few bits in Dragon Weather that come pretty close to directly swiping paragraphs from the prison scenes in Count of Monte Cristo. It wouldn't be legally actionable even if Dumas were still alive and Count still under copyright, but it's close enough that I wouldn't have done it; it would have felt unethical.

Ms. Jareo doesn't seem to have the same ethics.

The Count of Monte Cristo is Public Domain, having been written in 1844. Had Walt Disney written Steamboat Willie, things might have been different, but as it stands, The Count is Public Domain. And while you are unwilling to "plagarize" a Public Domain work, it is completely legal, while Jareo "plagarized" a work still protected under copyright law. So, Jareo may not have your ethics, but what you're talking about doing is completely legal, while what Jareo did is illegal.

As an aside, wikipedia says that The Count is based on a true story, that Dumas found in a memoir written by a man named Jacques Peuchet. So, perhaps one could argue that while Jareo doesn't have the same ethics as you, she does have the same ethics as Dumas. I don't know how much Dumas lifted from the original, so it's just speculation...

Dante did not write Virgil fanfic. He did not use Virgil's characters or situations. He incorporated Virgil, himself, the author. Dante did use some fictional characters--Odysseus, for example--but most of the persons he used were quite real. (And I am not at all certain that Dante would have regarded Odysseus as fictional.)

The analogy would be to including George Lucas as a character in your novel. I suspect George's lawyers might have something to say about that as well, but not on copyright grounds, and perhaps not on very strong legal grounds of any sort.

Dearest Family and Friends,

Please give Amazon twenny bux (each), so that you may read my brilliant Star Wars fanfic. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I am sure you will be willing to trade 20 portraits of President Washington (looking somewhat green) for 90,000 words! It's like getting 70,000 words for free! The things I do for you, my family and friends, it amazes even me. My work is over 77% free to you.

While I am sure there is no potential legal issue, I advise my friends, and indeed my family, to purchase at least one copy right away, so that if it becomes a collector's item, you'll have one to keep!

I look forward to the royalty checks and strong words of praise I am sure to be getting soon from my friends and family. Isn't that what friends are for?

If you find yourself with other questions about what would happen if two characters from someone else's story were put into a particular circumstance, I'm sure I can answer it for you for $20. I already have lots of Ideas about Legolas and Quickbeam!

Your friend (or family member),
Lori Jareo
aka Lorja Jacle

* Her lying about this isn't helping her case either. "Friends and family", my shiny metal ass.

Actually, I've heard that Mr. Lucas just adored this.

That's what he said about the Chevalier d'Artagnan, too. And Cagliostro (who we all know is not that Vinegar Joe Balsamic guy the Masons tried to fob off). And Cesare Borgia, who whatever else you can say about him at least made the trains run on time. And the Phantom of the Opera. No, wait, he didn't write about the Phantom of the Opera, that was Gaston Leroux, before he went into vaudeville with Alphonse. Well, never mind, I happen to know that one of the original "Corsican Brothers" was named Maria Susanna. I don't know what to make of that.

Anyway, I am only saying that we vaguely historical personages, wherever we are,* really do not mind very much being taken for a walk around the yard by writers, at least ones good enough to give us a few snappy lines. Julius Caesar has been dining out for a long time now on "'Et tu, Brute!' Of all the stand-ins for that particular verb I've heard, 'et' has got to be the funniest." As your King Louis the Vaguely Absent's favorite economist said, "In the long run, we're all oygeshpilt."

Yours very,
M. Planchet
Adventurous Supernumerary and General Dogsbody

*I have a nice flat in La Défense. Alphonse Donatien François, Marquis de Vous-Connais-What, is adjacent, but thank God he is downstairs. Comte de Richelieu says we are in Hell, but then he is what the English call a Eurosceptic..

Funny stuff, that.

get thee to a nunnery....

I don't know. It's clear that if a fictive work is of diminished coherence -- or even nonsensical -- when one hasn't read some source opus, then that work is at least artistically derivative. But should that be enough to make it legally derivative in terms of copyright law? If a global search-and-replace is enough of a legal fig leaf, why shouldn't fanfic writers just write "Garry Topper" stories. Others can then distribute a separate set of emacs and Microsoft Word macros which let readers remove the fig leaf. Or maybe fans would develop a taste for Garry/Snipe slash...

It's a bit more original than that makes it sound, and IMO much more entertaining than Dr A's series (which has, also IMO, not aged that well). I have trouble with some of the measurement stuff being way over my head (at least the worst of it is in an appendix)! And the cover art is just almost worth the price in itself.

Storytelling is basic to our species. It's one of the ways we parse our experience of the universe. Whatever moves us or matters to us will show up in the stories we tell, whether or not we have a socially approved outlet for those stories. It might surprise you to find out how many writers have works of personal erotica tucked away in their unpublished-or-unpublishable manuscript trunks. There's no good way to get those published, but they write them anyway, because they're writers, and eroticism is an important part of our lives.

Good fiction gets under our skin. It can change the way we see the world. But whatever its effect, it's a significant experience. It would be a bizarre thing -- unnatural, even -- for writers to not engage with that experience. They always have. I could show you stuff centuries old -- heck, some of it's millennias old -- that's fanfic by any modern definition.

Of course, it would have to be a modern definition. In a purely literary sense, fanfic doesn't exist. There is only fiction. Fanfic is a legal category created by the modern system of trademarks and copyrights. Putting that label on a work of fiction says nothing about its quality, its creativity, or the intent of the writer who created it.

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this year went to March, a novel by Geraldine Brooks, published by Viking. It's a re-imagining of the life of the father of the four March girls in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Can you see a particle of difference between that and a work of declared fanfiction? I can't. I can only see two differences: first, Louisa May Alcott is out of copyright; and second, Louisa May Alcott, Geraldine Brooks, and Viking are dreadfully respectable.

I'm just a tad cynical about authors who rage against fanfic. Their own work may be original to them, but even if their writing is so outre that it's barely readable, they'll still be using tropes and techniques and conventions they picked up from other writers. We have a system that counts some borrowings as legitimate, others as illegitimate. They stick with the legit sort, but they're still writing out of and into the shared web of literature. They're not so different as all that.

Fanfic means someone cares about what you wrote.

Personally, I'm convinced that the legends of the Holy Grail are fanfic about the Eucharist.

This really is a basic impulse.

I've never heard that George Lucas had a mad on for fanfic. I hope that's true, because he's probably the most successful bricoleur in late 20th Century narrative art.

Lori Jareo is stupid because she put her fanfic into print and put it up for sale on Amazon. I still can't quite believe that a working editor with a degree in Journalism could pull a stunt like that. That's as far as my condemnation goes. My only problem with her writing fanfic per se is that she's so bad at it.

Other than the typographical trick, this approach would seem to satisfy the hypothetical situation of plagiarizing text in the public domain. Or at least, it seems like the literary equivalent to hip-hop sampling or some kind of mashup.

(Obligatory disclaimer when linking to a commercial site: I'm not affiliated with Tim Lucas or his publisher in any way, and, again, have not even read the book beyond the linked excerpt. I do read VideoWatchdog online and lurk at the Classic Horror forums, which is where I heard about it.)

First, it's different from, not different than.

Second, neither of those characteristics is necessarily present in or absent from fanfic. Some fanfic is satirical. Much isn't. Some of it -- especially that dreck Mary Sue writes -- has an implicit desire on the part of the author to become part of the fictional world being written about; but not all fanfic has that, and that tangible desire turns up in non-fanfic stories as well.

If only bad fiction were a prosecutable offense. I've read some stuff that makes me wonder just how much do I really oppose capital punishment. I realize there would be fundamental problems in determining what is and is not objectively punishable, given fiction's inherent subjective quality, however, I believe I've come up with a quite simple solution: Appoint me as sole judge and jury to the court of bad fiction. Given the possible repercussions of such an appointment, it would have to be a lifetime offer with a guaranteed salary for life so that politicians and the unruly mob that is the public would not be able to attempt to sway my opinion with monetary threats. I know such a thing would be a heavy burden, but for the small sum of a six figure salary, plus perks (list to follow) including Secret Service protection from physical threats, I'd be willing to dedicate myself to this sorely needed public service. Vote now.

aw shoot. I better go tell my boss I was only kidding about the two weeks notice....

I think it depends on what you mean by "working editor". Lori's other Amazon credit is editor for 2001's My Search for the Son of Sam, published by Writer's Club Press/iUniverse (POD).

Or the Lousy Potato Salad Team.

You want to be Oprah?

I got food poisoning after eating some street-vendor food in Tijuana. Does that count?

Well, I don't have much luck with bets.

Should you have occasion soon to speak with His Lordship Your Downstairs Neighbor, would you be so kind as to pass along that one M. Ducasse has just come into awareness of the idea of "Real Person Slash," and would the honorable Marquis be interested? - Though I hasten to add that it is possible Monsieur le Comte has misunderstood the term.

As a General Dogsbody, I am always glad to introduce persons of quality to one another, for a most modest considertation. And as M. le Marquis has never, in my admittedly limited experience of him, refused an introduction of the type to which you refer to anyone, or indeed anything, I can only suggest that you have gentlemen on immediate call to refurbish the boudoir in question.

You must excuse me now, as I am to accompany my sometime employer M. d'Artagnan and his associate M. Zoltan-Brust on an affair involving several cases of Tokaj Essencia and most likely a number of dead people. Fortunately, I wield a slashing mop, as you will learn upon the publication of my roman de cape et d'épée The Man with the Golden Gut, in which my actual role in secret affairs of state is fully disclosed for the first time. I trust that there will no trouble in such a publication, given what I read here, though the fine house of M. Retif de la Bretonne assures me that no difficulty exists.

As far as Lucas and fanfic, my understanding from the fringes of TPM fandom is that Lucas doesn't approve of fanfic. (He especially doesn't approve of fanfic of the Master/padawan slash variety--silly him!) Of all the fandoms to pull this in Star Wars fandom may have been the most likely to get Ms. Jareo in real legal trouble.

On a related topic, the nytimes has this article...
Young Author Admits She Copied Another Writer with a really misleading title. It could be fertile ground for all of us to discuss the precise limits of what 'too much' appropriation is. The article give some comparison examples that are pretty interesting.

-r.

Oh, the title is "How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life" by Kaavya Viswanathan, pub by Little, Brown.

Well, the analogue would be to create a George Lucas who really had been to the Star Wars galaxy, and put him in your work. And then go time and space travelling.

Actually, one is quite taken with this idea.

What if George Lucas were to really go to the SWG, and then meet various famous personages, in their interactions with the canonical characters?

Thatcher vs. Vader! Really, that would be fascinating.

A lot of it is simply shades in a spectrum. Some works are derived 90 percent from one source, and 10 percent from everything else. That covers FanFiction and Shakespeare remakes. Other stuff might take character archetypes from 3 different stories, throw them into a world from another story, and create a new combination. It's still derivative in one sense of the word, it's just a question of how diffuse.

As for quality, I don't see why the label "fanfic" should indicate any sense of quality, any more than "horror" or "thriller" does. You can have sucky horror stuff, and you can have great horror stuff. Personally, I don't care for Horror or Fanfic, but that's just my general reaction to the genre's, which isn't the same as saying they're bad, just that I don't like them, the way I don't like seafood.

TNH, well-said, and definitely one of the most intelligent comments I've read from anyone on the subject. (The whole thing, not just the bit I quoted.) I hope it's an essay in the making.

Why, you just aren't seeing that those books are literary and transcend genre, kind of the way Nicholson Baker's Vox escaped being actual porn purely because of who wrote it. I shall inform the Literary Snob Committee of your transgression forthwith.

Greg, "derivative work" has a specific legal meaning. People who want to get a good grasp on this stuff without learning it from the business end of a lawsuit are well advised to check out Nolo Press; they have a shortish book on trademark, copyright and patent that your local library in all likelihood has on hand.

If someone made that argument into a desktop image or a screensaver, I would use it. Um. Or if it would be ok for someone make that, I'd do it myself.

Dante's character is much more complex than a Gary Stu. The poem is written by the real Dante from the point of view of a Dante-narrator reminiscing about a Dante-wayfarer's trip through fantastic realms. And that's just in the first nine lines.

Slightly off-topic but heartfelt: I wish there were a law against remaking already crappy movies from the Sixties and Seventies -- e.g. the new Love Bug, and now I hear they're remaking The Poseidon Adventure. (It's OK if the Simpsons do it, as in last Sunday's mini-episode. All three of those shipboard yarns were funny.)

Of course, she lies, it was simply interesting to see that someone can be almost as stupid as Lori Jareo was. Or someone who sees other people as stupid.

Her excuse is her tender age and that she didn't violate any copyright laws when she published her book on Lulu. No one in her right mind would rip off something that crappy.

I take it you're a fan of Galaxy Quest?

Now that's how to do it ...

Must... control... fist... of... death...

In terms of literary craftsmanship, there's no natural law that says "Fanfiction=Lousy Writing." But I've got a bad feeling about fanfiction nevertheless. Fanfic-writing is like using training wheels.

There's nothing wrong with training wheels when you're new to using a bicycle. But at some point the training wheels should come off.

Almost every writer starts out by trying to emulate something else. That impulse -- to emulate, to seek comfort in familiarity -- is much easier to indulge in fanfiction.
To go from fanfic-writing to original writing is to take your first step into a larger world.

Search your feelings, Teresa. In your heart you know it's true.

Oh, for. Why must they? Because the only purpose of writing is to sell it? Nobody tells the knitters I see on the bus that they should stop knitting unless they plan to open their own clothing shop.

Also, writing good fanfiction requires a lot of literary skills and techniques that are as difficult as those needed for original fiction--if different. It isn't, to quote an earlier commenter, equivalent to doing paint-by-numbers. And its purpose goes far beyond operating as "training wheels" for people who want to publish professionally.

Why does the (omg never-ending) argument about fanfiction always come back to the premise that something derivative cannot have any quality? And that that makes it by definition unethical?

And published writers who sneak into the fanfic bars on the bad side of town and whip off a story or two? What, exactly, are they doing?

--

Actually, I don't disagree, completely. Sure, for some writers, fanfic is like training wheels -- and some of them will move on to your 'larger world'.

But another analogy might be that the fanfic writing world is like a world with lighter gravity. Sure, you can choose to build up your muscles and learn how to walk on Earth -- and you'll need to if you want to walk with the big guys -- but the low gravity means you can do a lot of cool fun things you can't do on Earth, so a lot of people don't see the point in moving on.

Should we hope that it doesn't become available?

Today's Amazon.com Sales Rank: #12,901 in Books

Or maybe, you've been to Earth, looked around, and decided that it wasn't your thing.

I know people in the fan fiction world who HAVE been published, with their own original fiction, in their own original worlds, and have decided to return to fan fiction. Because the fiction publishing world doesn't fulfil what they're looking for. That's not saying that either is better or worse than the other, but that different people want different things out of and for their creation.

She's a precious little snowflake, she is.

You can't tell me this person took the steps to procure distribution (whether through Amazon Marketplace or through getting listed in Ingram's database) and didn't think there would be an issue... what a crock.

Look, you're throwing around a term that has both a colloquial and a legal meaning, and it's in the context of a discussion that includes legalities. I don't know why that incites you to violence.

I write fanfic and I've done so for as long as I care to remember. Why do I write it? Because I want to know what happens next. I don't do it because I want to be a part of that universe.

It's fun to come up with possible scenarios. I was horrible in the beginning, but I do allow myself to believe that I've gotten better over the years. I would never try to sell my stories, though. Why? Because the characters I write about aren't mine. I try to stay as true to the original characters as I can and share my stories with people who like to read them.

I'm happy that someone strikes a blow for fanfic, because this Jareo-woman sure isn't doing us fanfic writers any favors.

Fanfic, to me, is like a hobby. It's similar to rebuilding models of great ships or planes or whatever. You put your own touch on it, but the characters should essentially remain the same.

Would I like to become a published author some day? Sure. But for now I'm happy just writing fanfic and I really don't see any reason for stoping. It makes me happy and there are some out there who like to read what I write.

All in all, I hope Amazon pulls that book soon. Maybe someone should tell Lucas Ltd about it? :) (sarcasm galore here)

I can't speak to the publishing world, but from a fanfic writer's point of view, I must say I don't envy the person responsible of keeping track of all those fanfic writers. That would be an industry in and of itself. (Not to mention that the majority of fanfic writers use a pseudonym, and most cannot easily be traced back to their real identity, so I'm not sure how that would work, anyway.)

I know Orson Scott Card and his writing workshops come down very heavily against fanfic.
Took me a few moments to find it, but here's his statement (along with one answer in a longer Q&A interview.

But suppose one *doesn't* want to write for a franchise/shared universe? What if one wants to do something entirely new?

Let me ask a question: If fanfiction writing is equally creative as "from scratch"-writing... if fanfic comes with no intellectual/creative limits whatsoever... then how come the following fanfic communities do NOT exist:

1. "Robot" fanfic: stories centered around robots/thinking machines programmed with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

2. "Heinlein Persona" fanfic: novels and stories that could have been written by Robert A. Heinlein, and are just as good as his best works.

3. "2001" fanfic: fiction set in the universe of Arthur C. Clarke's novels 2001, 2010, 3001.

4. Shakespeare fanfic: plays written in the unmistakable idiom of The Bard, exploring through deep tragedy and low comedy the many facets of human nature.

"Oh, come on," you say now. "You're just asking too much of fanfic. You can't expect fanfic to be THAT good."

But what if you wanted to write really, really well? Would fanfic help you do that, or constrain your creativity and skills in a set of artificial limitations?

Frankly, the first three are a little thin on the character/emotional side. And for the fourth, the language is too remote.

(a) Nobody's arguing that EVERY wannabe author could or should be writing fanfic or that fanfic is a perfect preparation for every type of writing.

(b) Besides, I *don't* want to be a published author. I know several and read their journals and have decided I don't want to deal with agents and lengthy turnaround times anad page proofs and the rest of the scutwork. I want to write for fun and immediate gratification (by posting it online and seeing the number of hits and getting feedback) and move on.

As somebody else said in this or the other thread, I can enjoy cooking without thinking of it as preparation for opening a restaurant. I could play hoops without trying out for the Celtics, or knit without plans to sell clothing. So why treat fanfic as a "training wheels" stepping stone to publication, when most of the writers I know don't think of it that way.

(c) "Oh, come on," you say now. "You're just asking too much of fanfic. You can't expect fanfic to be THAT good."
And that conclusion is a logical fallacy from what you've previously posted.
Just because you haven't seen the kinds of literary fic you claim doesn't exist doesn't mean they're not out there. [And right now, I don't have time to look for them. Stories centered around Asimov's 3 Laws aren't necessarily fanfic, as those have been adopted by many others in the genre. I have seen other fanfic set in the "style" including some great drawing room mysteries. And I do know of a Bard slash community.]

I don't know if any of your other three examples exist, but it's certainly not obvious to me that if they did exist they would be better than any current fanfic. I'm a little mystified as to what those examples are supposed to prove.

But, moving to what I take to be your main point, if anyone said that fanfic doesn't "constrain your creativity and skills in a set of artificial limitations" then they were obviously nuts. Of *course* it constrains creativity. So does the sonnet form, or haiku, or the limerick, or the novel. Or any genre. Providing a useful and interesting set of constraints for writers to work with -- or against -- is part of what literary traditions are for.

If you wanted to write really good original fiction, then writing fanfic would develop some skills you'd need but not others. It would also develop a few specialized skills that you'd never need in your publishable writing -- like the ability to convince people that the Kirk, Harry, C.J., or Magneto in your story is not just some other interesting character by the same name but actually the one they know and love. I don't think that "training wheels" is a very good metaphor for this.

And the various "continuations" of Austen and Bronte are certainly fan fic.

On the other hand, there is plenty of published writing using historical figures as major characters, where you do have to convince readers of authenticity in just the same way. For example, Ron Goulart wrote and published a series of mysteries featuring Groucho Marx. [I haven't read them, but how does that differ in skillset?]

Similar analogy applies for recreating settings.

1. "Robot" fanfic: stories centered around robots/thinking machines programmed with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

There have been attempts at starting communities, but they seem to have been overwhelmed by fic for the movie.

There is a smattering of Foundation fic out there, some in traditional fic channels and some published in book form. (Yes, I consider Foundation's Friends to be birthed from the same impulse that gives us Harry Potter fic.)

2. "Heinlein Persona" fanfic: novels and stories that could have been written by Robert A. Heinlein, and are just as good as his best works.

Er, when did writing in the original author's voice become a requirement?

At any rate, what mealworm said. I could perhaps see something similar to men's action-adventure books set in the Starship Troopers world. Frankly, the people I've known who might have the interest to turn their hands to such an endeavor seem to get more satisfaction from Trillion Credit Squadron than from writing character-driven narrative.

3. "2001" fanfic: fiction set in the universe of Arthur C. Clarke's novels 2001, 2010, 3001.

Not open enough, I think. What story could you set there that wouldn't work in any other optimistic near-future setting? I have seen Rama fanfic, though.

4. Shakespeare fanfic: plays written in the unmistakable idiom of The Bard, exploring through deep tragedy and low comedy the many facets of human nature.

Heh. I've seen a couple of attempts, but the impulse never seems to last past the first 500 lines or so. There's a reason poetry teachers try to discourage their students from writing in archaic language, after all.

As an alternative, may I suggest Chaucer's Blog?

Old Man's War, complete with damn-near Mary Sue authorial insertion. And it's a fine, kick-ass book.

But suppose one *doesn't* want to write for a franchise/shared universe? What if one wants to do something entirely new?

Plenty of fanfic writers have done that, too. Plenty of pro writers have done fanfic, either before or during their professional careers.

Shakespearean fanfic would be publisheable as Shakespeare is int he public Domain. To a certian degree, I thought The Lady's Not for Burning was just that; an attempt to write in a Shakespearean style and mentality that was good enough to publish on its own merits (Thoughy whether it was really successful at capturing Shakespeare is another question.).

Always the worst of times
force the worst of choices.
Should one rise from bed at the wolf's hour,
and drag ones feet like prisoner's ball and chain,
and let one's water with a weary head,
and fail to fall asleep again?
Or stay in bed, half asleep, in bladder pains, trapped between the worlds of dream and waking life,
until one soils the sheets and makes them smell like a pathethic infant's crib?
What wonder is Man's body, that holds its water like a sieve.
For Man's control of water's nothing but a brief dry spell,
Between the newborn's moistened diapers
and the trembling aged man's Depends.

Westside Story? Films like O?

Certainly there's Shakespearean fan fic in the eighteenth century, with all the alterate endings / rewrites by Dryden et all -- there's a very famous version of Lear where Cordelia doesn't die--I thought surely that had been mentioned, but I can't see in the thread.

I'm waiting for someone to opine that Shakespeare's oevre is Marlowe fan fic . . .

All Things Considered, April 27, 2006 · This week, there are two stories of novels that draw too heavily on the work of other writers. Novelist and book critic Lev Grossman says that Kaavya Viswanathan deserves all the criticism she is getting.

But, Grossman says, Melissa Jareo (who wrote an unauthorized Star Wars book) is one of the unsung heroes of the wired, post-modern cultural universe: a fan-fic, or fan fiction, writer.

There's an old "don't ask, don't tell" policy among most copyright holders regarding printed fanfic. If you had to type it on a typewriter, manually cut and paste, pay to have it Xeroxed, pay again to have it bound (or buy your own equipment), then drive to the nearest con to sell it (or take out an ad in another fan publication), you weren't likely to produce a big run of your Uhura/Chekhov romance anthology--and the cover price rarely covered your costs. In general, copyright holders considered these scarce and obscure titles to be so insignificant that it was cheaper just to ignore them.

The keywords here are "scarce" and "obscure." Take your hypothetical Uhura/Chekhov romance anthology online, start your own POD or e-book publishing house, get some ISBNs, and advertise on sites that reach millions of people every day--well, that's a whole other ball game.

So far, as far as I know, the people who are buying and selling the old printed zines via the Web are still escaping official displeasure because they're dealing in an ever-diminishing pool of old printed matter. Scanning an old zine into one's computer and printing on demand (or selling e-books) probably would result in at least a cease-and-desist letter, however. People who print new works of fanfic to sell at cons are on shakier ground, if I recall correctly, because Joe Fan now has an easier time producing something that looks professional in relatively large quantities. Still, they're minnows.

But, behold, I am young in the ways of fandom and ignorant of lawyerdom. Here is your grain of salt. Bon appetit.

Ah.
Jareo is "post-modern". That makes all the difference.

See, Kaavya Viswanathan isn't a "plagiarist", she's "post-modern". James Frey isn't a "con man", he's "post-modern".

Oliver North wasn't a liar, he was a "post-modern soldier" fighting a "post-modern" war. *1980s timewarp!*

Of course, some feel that `idiotic' and `Post-Modern' are the same. I agree, sometimes.

Shakespearean homages of all sorts, likewise, are to be found in your friendly neighborhood bookstore. Heck, some of Neil Gaiman's Sandman counts for this.

(There are things Man was never meant to know...)

Caveat: FFN isn't the only place where fanfic is posted, and it's really only a good judge of recent fanfic. I'm sure if you looked back at all the zines and APAs, Star Trek has history in its side.

That said, reasons why Harry Potter is head & shoulders more popular:

Harry Jenkins of MIT has done academic research on fanfic and fan communities, if you're interested...

Henry Jenkins

Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture

is the book I've got in my to read pile

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Jenkins

http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/perilith/179/ripoff.html

Because fanfic thrives in fandoms that are full of holes -- poor plotting, inconsistent characterization, half-realized worlds are the building blocks fanficcers use.

It's the tales where the *story* is good and the execution is iffy that that attract fanficcers. That's why Star Wars, Star Trek, and Harry Potter are big fandoms, and West Wing or Les Miserables fandoms are comparatively *small*. There's a lot of wiggle room in Wizarding Britain because JKR tends to wing her world-building (and can only count to hrair, which makes determining the relative ages of her characters impossible), while it's pretty well known how the White House works, if you look at the real thing.

Also, fanfic about books is a lot rarer than fanfic about television or movies. Focusing on written works, when fanfic is more often about *performed* works, is only going to get you so far.

"fanfic thrives in fandoms that are full of holes -- poor plotting, inconsistent characterization, half-realized worlds are the building blocks fanficcers use. It's the tales where the *story* is good and the execution is iffy that that attract fanficcers."

Now there's an intriguing reply. Fanfiction abhors a vacuum!
:)

I can understand and respect that impulse, but... I don't share it.

Because I think stories SHOULD be incomplete. There's something oppressive about a narrative that tries to cover every single minute and detail of its characters' lives.

I believe Gödel's Theorem should be applied to fiction: reality cannot be fully explained and understood. Some part of it, of ourselves, will always remain untold.
(For example: Can you remember your own birth? The most important day of your life, and you FORGOT it!)

I think I may agree with the concept here, but I can't buy any of the descriptors.

There's room for fan fiction when the source material leaves such room. Series television (and series novels) almost always create larger worlds than the author chooses (or can) fill. There must have been other Lensmen beating the Material Cosmic Crap out of Eddore while the Kinnisons were center-stage; I'll bet cool things happened to some of them. (And, of course, other people, beginning in Smith's lifetime and with his approval, have written stories set in the Lensman Universe.)

Some things don't leave that kind of room. There was actually a short-lived radio series called "The Lives of Harry Lime," with Orson Welles, about the early adventures of the character -- presumably when he was still a good guy (and the story doesn't work if he never was). But of course the Good Harry Lime is just another international adventurer. And we know what went on offstage in "The Procurator of Judea."*

I certainly accept that much fanfic is inspired by what the writer perceives to be bad characterization and faulty plotting, and in some cases -- probably many cases -- evidence could be found to support this. But:

-- This is the writer's assessment. To pick an example that's already widely known, a "happy ending" to "Puff, the Magic Dragon" in which Puff and Jackie get to live forever is to have not one single neuron attuned to what the song is about.
-- In the case of ongoing source works, the source author may have things in mind that will, down the pike, cause the "sloppy plot" or "mischaracterization" to make perfect sense -- and if the author is subtle and skilled, cause the shift to seem obvious in hindsight.

A "half-realized world" would be one that doesn't make complete sense from what's in the source. In this case, practically every novel ever written has been set in a "half-realized world." It's not the same thing as "Gosh, they didn't spend as much time as I wanted in the Slough of Despond. I'll bet there were neat monsters there that they could have fought." (Yes, that's a cheap shot, but so is the "half-realized" line.) Now, if you meant "incompletely filled-out" world -- or universe, since there must be thousands of Lucasian planets** we haven't seen in the fillums or books, that would be a quite different thing.

Failures aren't "building blocks." You can't build on sludge. You can, however, carve a block that fills the volume the sludge occupied, and you can fill lacunae. The thing is, sometimes the gaps in the wall were left there for deliberate aesthetic reasons -- like, for instance, to reduce the overall weight. It is not always necessary, in a large, complex novel with many intersecting characters, to know what each and every one of them was doing at all points in the narrative. (I am in the middle of such a novel right this here minute, and suddenly I want someone who's been Elsewhere Doing Other Things to show up and say, "Look, I ate and slept and went potty a few times. Also there was this guy with a split-level hayloft. We have more important things to worry about than where the fandango I was." I probably won't, though. Another book.)

Look, I'm not going to call anything a priori a bad reason for writing a story. But of the many reasons (all valid) for writing fan fiction, wanting to "fix what's broke" is among the less likely to satisfy anyone who does not precisely share the author's conviction as to what was broke in the first place.

*Which I don't think I would classify as St. J. the D. Fanfic, though it seems that some folks might.

**There is a wonderful story in this -- it could even be Trek fanfic, but that is the Left Hand Path Making a Rude Gesture -- and if I were Charlie Stross I would write it as soon as I could.

Fanzines are arguably in that definitely gray area as opposed to the maybe gray of fan fiction in that the majority of fanzines (majority, not all) are compilations of the works of multiple fan writers which are assembled by a third party and then sold, ostensibly for cost, although that's arguable too depending on what method is used for printing and binding. (i.e. entirely self-published using your home printer and/or copier or printing then copying at work or kinkos -- or taking an entire galley to a local printshop and allowing them to do the work). Anyway, I think you get the point. The best regarded of the fanzines publishers (and by that I mean those considered more legitimate than others) are distributing and selling their zines for the approximate cost of the actual production and that price may or may not include shipping costs. There are plenty of zine producers who abuse that base-line understanding of what is and isn't acceptable and what's considered legitimate costs and others who regularly take a personal financial loss to produce something they love.

But in most (again not all) it's not the writers who are selling their work -- they aren't being paid for their work. They are likely to get a trib copy or two but that's pretty much it.

But Zines do come under more scrutiny and most of the C&D letters I am personally aware of have been issued to zine producers (regardless of whether they observe the base line cost recoupment or not) for just that reason. Accepting money for fan authored works makes them higher profile and yet zines are one of the oldest forms of fan wiritng exchanges out there.

The only even partial claim, as far as I'm concerned, zines have over other fan created textual work is both historical (they've been around longer) and in a few cases editorial -- but editorial oversight in zine production isn't universal and the quality of it, as in all things, varies greatly.

Overpriced zines annoy the hell out of me because yes, I do know what it costs and the effort involved and I've been known to slap down more than one producer for trying to get even $15 on a single column, too much white space, single writer story that comes in at 100 pages with bad typesetting.

I don't have an issue with fans recouping costs (for good or bad, agree or disagree, that's my line in the sand for the most part), and I like the physical appeal of a good zine the same way I appreciate a good book or magazine.

Fortunately or unfortunately, there is no great fannish consensus on anything, even among a single fandom, much less spread over the several thousand active fannish communities. So, while there are regular slap downs for the most egregious violators of common sense, there is not nor ever has been an appointed cadre of fannish police.

But I readily admit that many fans can be and are delusional to the point of stupidity at times. And many of them are the ones you look at and say loudly, "Stop being on my side. You aren't helping." Because they aren't.

And to those who think they've got tacit or implicit permission to sell their goods and wares, I have to admit to a certain amount of unattractive self-righteous smugness when their noodly little ideas get slapped from their heads with some authority. Arguably I wish they wouldn't do it at all.

They, like Jareo, are screwing things up for the rest of us who are quietly agreeing with the original creators and sources in saying, "What's yours is yours, and what's mine is yours and thank you for not taking my (your) toys away. Here, let me buy another book/DVD/tie-in product to show my devotion."

The only next generation of fans I can influence are those in my immediate circle and yes, fannish ethos and behavior are frequent topics in my circle, but there's a point where I'm preaching to the choir and we all sing a little off key most days anyway.

Take that choir on a world tour hon. Sell the t-shirt and autographed colectors albums. ;)

In a perfect world, the relationship between J.K.Rowling and the people who write Harry Potter fanfic would be full of mutual respect and affection.

But here in the real world, psychological tensions must emerge between the two parties. I don't need to ask Rowling how she relates to fanfic writers. But how do fanfic writers relate to Rowling?

Does the fanfic writer see the original author as
A) a competitor?
B) A parental figure, to be rebelled against or negotiated with?
C) A nuisance who steals the fanfic writer's place in the limelight?
D) A creative demiurge to be deferred to?

Or a mixture of all four?

In any case, I can't imagine fanfic writers feeling entirely neutral about the original author.

I can understand and respect that impulse, but... I don't share it

Yes, but if you are not curious about how the Jedi work, there are a lot of people who are and will come up with their own theories based on what was seen in the movies. Some of them will write fairly nifty essays telling about how the Jedi might work. Others will write stories showing how the Jedi might work. And some people will cosplay it out at conventions. It really depends on how people express their creativity.

Lots of media fanfic works on the idea of "how does X work is tv series Y?" or "what would character Z from movie W do if stuck in situation v?"

That is, if fanfiction is driven by that impulse, then fanfiction is fiction minus n, n being greater than zero and defined as the number of elements that are borrowed.

chuckle.

Depends on your OTP, especially after Half-Blood Prince.

Want to see the crazy in fandom? Just check out the Harry/Hermione fans.

That is, if fanfiction is driven by that impulse, then fanfiction is fiction minus n, n being greater than zero and defined as the number of elements that are borrowed.

Plot bunnies don't care about that distinction. Sometimes, you have to write out the fic just to get the characters to stop intruding on the non-fic story.

Surely I'm not the only one here who remembers A Midsummer's Tempest?

More Shakespeare: He's a major main character in Harry Turtledove's alternate history book "Ruled Britannia", dealing with 'what if the Spanish Armada conquered Britain'. The book's also written with the dialogue in the proper Shakespearian language. Total "AU", to use a fanfic term, but it's really engrossing.

Oh, wait, you meant...well, of course. You'd have to have spelled even your NAME incorrectly if you were!

Oh, wait, you meant...well, of course. You'd have to have spelled even your NAME incorrectly if you were!

Actually, we may be on to something. We can start a philisophical school of thought based on denial of being each other. We'd be denialists.

I would agree with you -- except that the first time I ever heard anyone sing such a thing, it was Peter, Paul and Mary in concert. I was... well, taken aback. To put it mildly.

yep that works in preview, suppose it will work in post as well, so follow this link:

http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/html40/entities/latin1.html

the characters are represented by the & followed by a sequence of letters ending in a ;

Look for the character map in your Accessories folder, and you'll see that each character has a numeric code which can be entered by holding down the ALT key and typing in the number from the keypad. For example, lower-case acute-accented 'e' (é) is ALT0233.

AliceB: Good luck!

[posted from 222.66.57.38]