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ETA: Unpublished author Eddie Louise (who cannot write the word "shit" and seems to fail spectacularly at reading comprehension) offers fanfic writers A CHALLENGE!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 10:07 pm UTC (link)

Well, unless she's actually talking about people having emailed porny fanfic to her directly. Which... some people are dumb enough to do. I'm kind of wondering if that's what happened. I mean, does she SOUND like she's conversant enough with the internet to get there on her own?

Not that I've read up on this yet, so maybe it says. From the write-up, it's just making me wonder if one of her fans saw fanfic for her books on this auction, and emailed her about it (either to "warn" her, or else, equally stupidly, thinking she'd be delighted.)

Note: I have NO sympathy for her position, nor do I see how, even if the fanfic was emailed TO her, she "had" to read it. (Can't you tell something is a fanfic within a sentence or two? What the hell did you THINK it was?)

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ahiru
2010-05-03 10:43 pm UTC (link)

nor do I see how, even if the fanfic was emailed TO her, she "had" to read it.

It reminds me of those parents' groups where they complain about all the sex and filth on TV and point out which exact episodes of which series are objectionable right down to the scene. Like, "Look at that scene of filthy, filthy sex! It's disgusting! I'm definitely watching next week so I can be offended some more."

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	eleutheria 2010-05-03 11:26 pm UTC (link)
	I mean, does she SOUND like she's conversant enough with the internet to get there on her own? She's reccing that people go join a writer's group on Compuserve, so I'd say not. I didn't even know Compuspend still existed! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	mechanicaljewel 2010-05-04 12:13 am UTC (link)
	That would explain all of her fans going "Fanfiction? What is this strange beast?" (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

the_labrat_army
2010-05-05 05:27 am UTC (link)

That made me wonder if those fans were either all mole people (living under rocks) or just never used the internet, at all, ever. I don't see how else they could've avoided hearing about fanfiction. With almost everything that I'm a fan of (books/tv/movie/etc), I pretty much find the fanfiction for it long before I find the actual fandom (as in, discussion and stuff), without even trying. Haven't they ever googled her, or looked her up on LJ?

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	bitca 2010-05-04 05:06 pm UTC (link)
	She started writing Outlander using the Writers' Forum on Compuserve. Of course she'd send people there! (Reply to this)(Parent)

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