On Fanworks

[chubbyleng.livejournal.com]

This was on the LJ front page, and it got me thinking. How do you feel about fanfiction? How do you guys feel about authors disallowing fanfiction of their works? Is it really a "lazy way out"?

I understand the whole copyright issue behind it, and I think that authors have every right to control the way fans use the characters and world they've created, but when I really like a book and find out that the author doesn't like to have fanworks of it, I can't help but feel disappointed. I've been writing fanfiction for a long time, and I think it really helps with understanding characters or at least forming your perception of the characters. And it's always charming to see how other people perceive the characters you read about. And for people like me, I wonder why it has to be a "lazy way out" when I don't even have plans of becoming a published author. (I also don't understand the 'suing' part. Fanfiction writers don't make any money. What are they going to sue from you?)

With that said, for the writers here, or people who are planning to be writers, (or dreaming of becoming one), would you be offended if people write fanfiction of your works? 

How about fanarts? Do fanarts hold the same gravity of rights infringement as fanfictions do?

Comments

[hazelwillow.livejournal.com]

I think I'd be thrilled.

This actually occurred to me the other day. I'm an aspiring writer (I just finished a degree in creative writing). The other day a friend told me she received a drawing of one of her characters, who appears in writing and roleplaying she has published online. It occurred to me I would be just tickled pink if someone sent me something like that. Then it occurred to me that I'd probably feel the same way about fanfiction. Imagine coming across people who have not only read what you wrote, but so loved it that they want to play in the world your words created in their head. That's just awesome.

Inkasrain pointed out above that creative fanworks aren't really different from any other response to writing, like a critical essay or a review. I have to agree. One of the reasons I loved A Very Potter Musical was because it was saying things (mostly ridiculous things) about something I really love. For instance it was so obviously paying homage to the friendship that's at the heart of the books, and also making fun of some of the sillier things. I mean, I love talking about things I really love, so if other people do it for me in an entertaining way, its just doubly great. And the guy who writes "Mark Reads" wrote a piece of fanfiction that perfectly sums up my feelings on the final epilogue in Harry Potter. And reading some fanfiction has been great for suggesting other ways of thinking about the things that happen offscreen.

That said I don't tend to read fanfiction much because it doesn't really satisfy my longing to get back into whatever fictional world... I tend to think of books as places and my re-reading is mostly motivated by desire to visit whatever place again. I can never convince myself that the fanfiction is "the real place", but if it's close enough it's sort of like being painfully teased with something I really want but don't have. :-P So I'm not really motivated to seek it out for that reason. But I do enjoy it if I think of it as illuminating what someone else thought about the original or making me imagine possibilities I wouldn't have on my own, about the original. I sometimes really enjoy it in that light. And since I've tried writing it lately, I've been seeing it in that way more and more because when you're writing you're obviously completely aware of the original and the ways you're extrapolating from it, it takes a lot of thinking about what makes the original itself and is actually a good way of investigating it. It's pretty different from responding to your own creative muse. And I mean, painters are encouraged to copy famous paintings in order to learn how to paint, it was the primary teaching method for hundreds of years.

I absolutely LOVE fanart, especially of places. I can understand why it's easier for authors to accept fan works in other mediums --like art, dramatizations, videos, and writing in mediums that are really different from the original (poetry say). It's harder to see it as imitation, "passing themselves off as me" rather than "a response to something I did". No one's trying to pass themselves off as you (unless they are, which would be wrong). People are responding to what you did. Philip Pullman talks about the democracy of reading...