Entry tags:

author entitlement, authors, creator wank, doesn't mean what you think it means, fanfic, suck it up and deal, writers are often pompous douches, your kink is not okay

Diana Gabaldon, author of the wildly popular Outlander series, has an opinion on fan fiction: I think it’s immoral, I _know_ it’s illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.

Highlights include:

Writing fanfic is just like breaking into someone's house.
Fanfic is WAY WAY WAY TOO PORNY omg ick people have sexual fantasies!*
What to do about an auction offering fanfic to raise money for a cancer patient? She doesn't want to "seem heartless"! So she seeks advice in the comments. Which are mostly full of "Fanfic? I have never heard of such a despicable load of garbage! Also, CRUSH THAT CANCER PATIENT!"

ETA: Unpublished author Eddie Louise (who cannot write the word "shit" and seems to fail spectacularly at reading comprehension) offers fanfic writers A CHALLENGE! Accept it if you dare, sniveling pedo thieves!

ETA 2: Previously, Ms Gabaldon has said fanfic is like selling your children into white slavery. Well. Now. I don't even know what to do with that.

ETA 3: Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has some discussion on the topic.

ETA 4: And bookshop on LJ/DW has a rebuttal.

ETA 5: See what happens when I leave the sweet embrace of the internet for a few hours? Ms. Gabaldon updates her blog!

ETA 6: Evidently Ms. Gabaldon deleted all evidence of her hissyfit, but some wankas have screencaps in this thread.

ETA 7:

kate_nepevu has screencaps and the text of Gabaldon's posts here. And via

alchemynerd, more screencaps available here:

http://www.sendspace.com/file/tiz4vp
http://www.sendspace.com/file/ibidpj
http://www.sendspace.com/file/r6zik6
http://www.sendspace.com/file/hlknqo
http://www.sendspace.com/file/d9alsh

Thanks for all the links! :)

MOD REMINDER: Remember, my little wankas, we DO NOT troll the wank. Nor do we write fanfic after the author has specifically requested people not and post it in the comments here, no matter how tempting it may be. Carry on. oh god my inbox ow ow

*Just as a point of interest, I was a bookseller for 12 years, and had several customers tell me about the sex scenes in her books. Some were pro ("My friend told me to read these books for the sex scenes, and she was totally right, they are so hot, this is best thing to happen to my sex life in years!") and some were con ("What is up with all the sex all the time? Where's the story?"), but one thing you can't say about her books is that they're sexual-fantasy free. :D

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quantumreality
2010-05-03 05:39 pm UTC (link)

(in cases like the fan author alleging "I had that idea first and you stole it from me!")

You know, when I see things like that my first instinct is to think, "what an utter asshat that fanfic author is", 'cause wankery like that is usually what makes an author just throw up their hands and give up. I remember one reported case where it ALMOST got amicably settled and then the fanfic author buggered up the deal by pushing for more money - result? No more books, EVAR.

Apparently, this is why a lot of authors these days explicitly disavow fanfic - they're not keen on jumping into the quagmire. I can also see why some authors would overreact and insist that fanfic is bad for... well (insert reason here).

Eh it's early in the morning and I need to do other things now :)

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	pariforma 2010-05-03 05:49 pm UTC (link)
	Yes, as you said in your comment further up, stating "for legal reasons I cannot read or review fan fiction and I cannot protect you from the legal consequences of writing it" really should be enough. Because the sort of thing you reference does happen--and the fan writer is an asshat who makes it hard for all the rest of us. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	talec 2010-05-04 08:04 am UTC (link)
	Yeah, J. Michael Straczynski has said that he avoids fanfic for that reason, and that one episode of Babylon 5 had to be sidelined until a deal could be made with a guy who posted his awesome episode idea! on the newsgroup (that JMS was omnipresent at). (They did reach an accord, and "A Late Delivery From Avalon" was finally produceable) (Reply to this)(Parent)

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