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ETA: Unpublished author Eddie Louise (who cannot write the word "shit" and seems to fail spectacularly at reading comprehension) offers fanfic writers A CHALLENGE!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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herongale
2010-05-03 06:07 pm UTC (link)

Hell, I think that Harry Potter fanfic actually helped contribute to the popularity of that series. People who write fanfic tend to be uber fans. Henry Jenkins actually discusses this in his book "Convergence Culture," and points out that the truly savvy media production companies, writers, and artists understand that invested fans help push the franchise, and create a market for ancillary items that serious fans will want to buy.

A writer doesn't even need to be that good to understand that indulgence towards fans can be financially rewarding. Look at all the Twilight merch that's out there. You can't tell me that most people buying it are simply consuming the books and movies without interacting with them. Fanfic equates to emotional investment on the part of fans. I can't understand why any writer would seriously want to suppress that. And I agree: there are instances where writers have been burned by malignant fans, but those situations don't happen very often, and fans who try to do that shit end up being seriously shunned by the fandom they wish to court.

These days, everyone should be aware of the story of Harry Potter fandom... and should understand that a robust, active fandom is actually the best DEFENSE of the author's interests, because fans will always want to protect their favourites.

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cleolinda
2010-05-03 07:02 pm UTC (link)

I feel like there should be two cardinal rules of ~~Fight Club~~ fandom--We Don't Make Money Off Fanfic and We Don't Show It to the Author (both create legal problems that can result in the sandbox being shut down for everyone), but other than that? It strengthens the fandom, and a strong fandom is financially good for the author, by which I mean "helps her to be able to afford to keep writing."

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	lady_ganesh 2010-05-03 09:12 pm UTC (link)
	This. And I have actually bought/legally viewed or read the canon source of things I read fanfic for first, or checked them out because my fanfic-writing friends were getting into them. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	artimusdin 2010-05-03 09:13 pm UTC (link)
	You are not alone in that. Sadly, a great majority of my fandoms happened that way. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	lady_ganesh 2010-05-03 09:30 pm UTC (link)
	Icon is appropriate. Not to mention that ~~truly embarrassing~~ Weiss Kreuz box set I own. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	artimusdin 2010-05-03 11:01 pm UTC (link)
	That is one fandom where the fanfics are better than the source material. And that's not saying much. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	lady_ganesh 2010-05-04 12:17 am UTC (link)
	Say what you want, the best tentacle porn ever written is in that fandom. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	artimusdin 2010-05-04 12:30 am UTC (link)
	oh I donno, the FF7 fandom has a few fun ones too. Even if at least one tent!fic is more plot than porn. The author is constantly "..." over that, too. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	trialia 2010-05-08 02:09 pm UTC (link)
	I do remember a tentacle-fic I read a long time ago that was Tifa/Aeris/Don Corneo dubcon. I wish I could find it simply because it was my first fanfic experience! But I can't, as I forget both author's name and title... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	artimusdin 2010-05-08 07:58 pm UTC (link)
	... and now, I am left wondering which one had the tentacles. o.O (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

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trialia, 2010-05-08 08:13 pm UTC

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artimusdin, 2010-05-08 08:22 pm UTC

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trialia, 2010-05-08 08:33 pm UTC

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artimusdin, 2010-05-08 08:59 pm UTC

	amaresu 2010-05-04 12:40 am UTC (link)
	Half the reason I own most of my dvds/boxsets/books is so I have the ability to review stuff I'm writing fic/discussing stuff about. If I wasn't doing that I really wouldn't have a big pressing need to own the stuff. (Reply to this)(Parent)

vorpal_blade
2010-05-04 04:53 am UTC (link)

I have a friend who just did that--read some fic for a show she doesn't watch (it's been canceled on broadcast but picked up by cable) and got into the universe, and now she's bought the DVDs that were released of the two seasons the show was on and she's got me watching it too.

She BOUGHT AND PAID for the DVDs after reading FANFICTION and is pulling in other people WHO ARE NOW FANS.

So THERE, Diana Gabaldan.

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quantumreality
2010-05-04 05:07 am UTC (link)

You know what got me interested in the 1970s Colditz TV show? Fan fiction. Specifically, slash fan fiction. I don't even remember how I first stumbled across it, but having already read Pat Reid's book on the castle, it was a fun read without ever having seen the TV show.

Recently I got my mitts on DVD transfers off the VHS tapes :D

The fic is called "The First Duty". :)

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mydarkstar
2010-05-04 09:26 am UTC (link)

That's exactly what happened with me and Supernatural - I stumbled across some fic, was so sucked in by the idea of the show, started watching, and ended up buying the entire series (well, what's currently available) on DVD. Then I started converting others, who also bought the DVDs. All told, me reading one fanfic story means that the producers of SPN have at least an extra $1000 that they otherwise wouldn't. So suck it, Gabaldan.

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	frequentmouse 2010-05-04 07:32 pm UTC (link)
	See: me and SGA, me and due South, and, I'm willing to bet, most of the C6D fandom, at least in that one hears of Wilby Wonderful Hard Core Logo, Twitch City, H2O, etcetera and so on ad infinitum in comment threads on due South meta, or on fics linked in related communities... (Reply to this)(Parent)

the_labrat_army
2010-05-05 06:42 am UTC (link)

This. Truth be told, that's exactly how I got into watching most of the tv shows I now watch on a regular basis -- before the fanfic, I only paid peripheral attention to them.

I definitely think fanfic benefits TV shows more than books in this particular way (because it's possible to watch an episode from a tv show and not really be interested in it until you've read a fanfic, but I likely wouldn't read a book-fanfic unless I've read the book first. Just because unlike with the TV show I'd at least be somwhat familiar with, I wouldn't have any idea who is who and what's going on in the book-fic). But I've always found that the the sheer amount of fanfic in the fandom of anything, is the strongest indicator of the level of investment fans have in that thing. Which is just good, free publicity for that thing (makes a casual viewer want to know what all the hubbub's about).

Why Gabaldan wouldn't want to take advantage of that is just...*shrug* [/tl;dr]

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	cmdr_zoom 2010-05-03 09:14 pm UTC (link)
	As usual, you are awesome. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cleolinda 2010-05-03 09:22 pm UTC (link)
	Well, I don't know that it's "awesome" so much as "sensible." I'd say the single best case for "huge involved fandom = financially successful writer" is Harry Potter and JK Rowling. She's set good boundaries in regards to fanfic, but otherwise let people do what they want, and look how she turned out. Didn't hurt her none. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	cmdr_zoom 2010-05-04 02:57 am UTC (link)
	Yes, very sensible. However, I trust you're familiar with the saying about "common" sense? (Reply to this)(Parent)

sgaana
2010-05-03 10:18 pm UTC (link)

I am completely on board with both of those Cardinal Rules. That's how I was raised in fandom, and both seem entirely logical and sensible.

But people who don't believe in those rules isn't even just a New Fandom vs. Old Fogies thing, because lord knows, my fannish memory goes back to the very early 80s, and there were plenty of stories of BOTH things happening back then and dating back to the 70s and 60s. There was near-universal disapproval of it, but it didn't keep it from happening entirely, even with people being unable to use the internet to make it easier.

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	bacon_lover 2010-05-03 07:04 pm UTC (link)
	This. Fanfic often generates 'good will,' and she missed that point. Her 'it's my ball; I want everyone to pay me to look at it but never play with it' argument doesn't work here. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	tachikoma01 2010-05-04 05:30 pm UTC (link)
	Unfortunately, I can recall plenty of times when a writer (strangely, usually writers for TV shows) wanking about how fans should shut up, sit down, and buy the licensed merchandise and not do anything else fannish because that's just creepy and/or copyright infringing. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	mighty_mouse 2010-05-04 09:13 pm UTC (link)
	Do not name the writer's name, he is kind of like The Candyman, and Beetlejuice, post his name on a webpage, and he will appear out of thin air! Don't even mention the fandoms where he writes. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

tachikoma01
2010-05-05 05:01 pm UTC (link)

Unfortunately I can't name names because I can't remember any specific instances, only that I've read such arguments in the past. They're probably archived somewhere, on one of the three main wank communities I read regularly, or on a fandom_wank wiki somewhere, but I'm not even sure how I'd go about finding them again without taking the time to sit down and read through every previous entry until I found them again.

Which would be more time consuming than it's worth at this point.

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goddessleila
2010-05-04 07:14 pm UTC (link)

One of my favorite shows is Supernatural, but I don't think I would have gotten as into it as I did if it weren't for the fandom. And not only do I own all four seasons that are out, I also have gotten more than ten different people watching the show, two or three of which have also bought all four seasons. The awesome thing about fans is that when they care about something, they try to make other people watch/read it and care about it, too. It's actually a no-lose situation, financially.

Plus, Stargate? I got into those shows through fandom, and now own twelve box sets plus three movies, all told. Fandom provides money for the source material, not takes it away.

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