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ETA: Unpublished author Eddie Louise (who cannot write the word "shit" and seems to fail spectacularly at reading comprehension) offers fanfic writers A CHALLENGE!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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sgaana
2010-05-03 10:01 pm UTC (link)

Everything Pariforma says is true, true, true.

Except she forgot the part where Randall ALSO branded Jamie (on the thigh?) with his signet ring, and after Jamie was rescued, pretty much the first thing he did was take a knife and just cut out that whole area.

(Also the part where Claire was threatened with rape by some freakishly large minion if Jamie didn't take her place.)

... Yeah. To say that those parts of the book stuck with me would be an understatement. You know how every once in a while, something (and why is it always a kind of questionable something that you wouldn't WANT stuck?) gets stuck in your head so that years later, YEARS, at random times, the wording and the images of that thing will just pop up out of nowhere, vivid as the day after you read them?

WHYYYYY? I could be using those perfectly good brain cells for SO many other things! (I think it's the same part of the brain that long-term stores Oldies songs, advertising jingles from the 70s, and humiliating moments from junior high school.)

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	msilverstar 2010-05-03 11:51 pm UTC (link)
	I hope the OP adds these to the post! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	midnitemarauder 2010-05-04 02:55 am UTC (link)
	The brand is on his chest. :-P (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sgaana 2010-05-04 03:14 am UTC (link)
	Great. So now my memory is EMBELLISHING to even pornier heights. Fantastic. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	midnitemarauder 2010-05-04 03:22 am UTC (link)
	:-P And he doesn't cut it off himself either - his one hand is smashed and splinted, and the other is too shaky. McRannoch - the guy whose house they're hiding in - does it for him. (Why yes, I've read it juuuuust a few times. g) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sgaana 2010-05-04 03:25 am UTC (link)
	Like that makes it better. ;-) But yes, accurate details, so noted. (I think it's been almost 20 years since I read it? I got it from the library when it came out.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

redtienightly
2010-05-04 12:51 pm UTC (link)

Randall also branded the one-handed kid, Fergus, who he had been paying for sex. It was seeing the brand that lead Jamie to fight Randall and ultimately castrate him. A few books later, Jamie's daughter also castrated her rapist following a fight.

...There was also breast-feeding during a sex scene in one of the books. And a scene where a crowd of people watched horses having sex, because apparently that's what rich people in colonial America did. And for some reason in one the books, there was this odd scene where the heroine Claire bonded with a fellow doctor over how bad the sex scenes were in a romance novel - almost as if Gabaldon was saying her book was better and more accurate than typical bodice-rippers.

I really don't know why I kept reading them. I was about 16 or 17 at the time, and I used to just pick an author and read all their books until I ran out. Gabaldon's books tended to be big and full of historical detail, but to such an extent that the main plot thread became lost in between minor intrigue with oodles new characters, misunderstandings that took 400 pages to undo, and sex scenes. Or maybe that's the point.

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	mrbimble 2010-05-04 05:10 pm UTC (link)
	the heroine Claire bonded with a fellow doctor over how bad the sex scenes were in a romance novel - almost as if Gabaldon was saying her book was better and more accurate than typical bodice-rippers. Oh, that's EXACTLY what she was saying. Diana's had a hard-on for the fact she's shelved with Romance books since .... oh, Dragonfly in Amber, I think. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	jocondite 2010-05-04 09:35 pm UTC (link)
	I hate that I know this, but the rich people watching horses fornicate were in France, because that's totally okay if it's the decrepit French aristocracy! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	lady_ganesh 2010-05-05 10:28 pm UTC (link)
	I sort of hate that I'm asking this, but was it like 'we're breeding these special horses,' or were two horses in the paddock having at it and a crowd gathered or...I am trying to find a mental scenario where this makes sense and failing. Hard. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	jocondite 2010-05-05 10:39 pm UTC (link)
	I think they were Pecherons? A bunch of aristocrats traveled down from Versailles to have a picnic and watch, and they ate small sausages and made jokes about horse dick and it was very strongly implied that the ladies were turned on. ...I read these books when I was twelve, there are things you don't forget. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	lady_ganesh 2010-05-06 01:09 am UTC (link)
	I wouldn't forget that one either. Again I say "wow." (Reply to this)(Parent)

	oddplaces 2010-05-06 05:50 am UTC (link)
	And a scene where a crowd of people watched horses having sex, because apparently that's what rich people in colonial America did. Apparently they REALLY DID, because that entry in Samuel Pepys' diary is BRANDED ON MY GREY MATTER for all time, along with Gabaldon's rape-drama scenes and old advertising jingles from the ~~70s~~ 80s. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	dar 2010-05-12 11:01 pm UTC (link)
	So you are essentially saying bitch is ripping off Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear series. Since people watched mammoths have sex in it. And Auel's books are big and full of historical detail that lose plot constantly, giant misunderstandings that take entire books to undo, and sex scenes. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lbilover 2010-05-05 08:47 pm UTC (link)
	To say that those parts of the book stuck with me would be an understatement. OMG WORD!!!! I wish there was a way to erase them from my mind. I fell madly in love with Jamie, and what happened to him gutted me. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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