It’s getting kind of hard for me to get worked up over authors making sweeping ignorant statements about fanfic, but it’s also impossible to ignore. The latest culprits are big names: Time-travel romance author Diana Gabaldon and epic fantasy MVP George R.R. Martin.
And luckily, there are plenty of folks stepping up to the plate this round: I particularly appreciate Catherynne M. Valente’s take:
So much ire spent over something that ultimately helps books, keeps the conversation going past the long tail of marketing, keeps them alive and loved—I’ve never understood it. Quashing fan activity is not only self-sabotaging, but unkind. I have always been delighted when told there was a piece of fanfic inspired by a book of mine floating about. I don’t read it for legal reasons, but I’m thrilled to know it’s there. Someone cared. Someone loved it enough to spend their free time writing about it for free.
And with a more bare-bones look at things, Kate Nepveu:
People gossip about their favorite characters; become fascinated by unexplored characters, locations, histories, themes, implications; imagine what would happen next, or if, or instead; and critique every aspect of a work. Sometimes this takes the form of passing in-person conversations, sometimes of blog discussions, sometimes of scholarly works, and sometimes of stories. (Sometimes, even, of critically-acclaimed, award-winning, professionally-distributed stories.) I would be astonished to hear that your own writing never was influenced by this impulse—I say this not to suggest that you’ve been writing fanfic all along, but to point out the strength and universality of this impulse.
(What fan activity isn’t born of that impulse?)
Granted, for the most part, my personal experience with fanfic has been within Star Wars, and Lucasfilm has, for the last, oh, 20 years or so, pretty much turned a blind eye. (No, this wasn’t always the case.) But I’ve been in a few smaller author-based fandoms over the years where it was politely asked that fans not engage in fanfic of the books at hand, and people complied. (And not only that, they self-policed.) It’s not perfect, and may be hard to enforce with a larger fandom, but treating your fans with respect is never a bad move. Doing otherwise just makes one look like a bully – and a particularly petty one at that.
It’s getting to be that time again… StarWars.com posted their own mammoth Best of 2009 this morning. Below is my personal list. Since it is personal, it’s clearly missing some things. (As always, I don’t speak for all of Club Jade. I just post a lot.) So let’s get to it: (more…)
IMMA LET YOU FINISH. Congratulations, it’s a week-old meme in Star Wars form!
Talkies. If you’re in the mood for some old school audio drama, Star Wars en Direct’s Dany Pépin is starting some aural fan fiction, ‘In the Shadows,’ next month.
Han Solo Adventures is a freeware “interactive fan fiction” game currently under development by Stacy Davidson. The video above doubles as a trailer and contribution the the Star Wars Uncut project. (via)
The term ‘fan fiction’ is one of the new additions to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. Here’s their definition, according to the Associated Press:
Fan fiction (1944): stories involving popular fictional characters that are written by fans and often posted on the Internet.
Other new words and phrases making the cut this year are ‘flash mob,’ ‘frenemy,’ ‘sock puppet,’ ‘vlog,’ and ‘webisode.’
Seriously guys, when your creator has a history of pitching fits in the style of a 16-year-old BNF who’s not getting enough reviews? It’s probably not wise to gleefully infringe on her copyright. One can be written off as just a random nutter, but two? That’s stupid crazy. Meyer has money, she has lawyers, and I don’t doubt that they will cut you – and maybe everyone else who’s doing their Twilight fan fiction without asking money for it as well.
Here are some of the things I’ve micro-blogged over @clubjade in the last week or so.
Hollywood hyperbole. Sony’s Amy Pascal thinks that James Cameron’s Avatar could be the next Star Wars. I’m just trying to think of an upcoming genre movie I care less about than Avatar and failing miserably.
Duck and cover, Dallas. Will Texas be able to handle the squee produced by an official Twilight convention? We can only hope the lack of Robert Pattinson gives them a fighting chance.
Space blob approaches! Guys. GUYS. Waru is coming! I repent of all my Twilight mocking. Okay, not really.
But the real question is, who did they ship?Wired’s Scott Brown takes a brief look back at Sherlock Holmes fanfic.
Presented without comment.Guess who wants to write a Wonder Woman novel?
Swarming with self-righteous judgments and slander galore, some of these postings have gone as far as to threaten Lady Sybilla and her team with everything from boycotting the novel, reporting it to web administrators, and even stalking the addresses listed under Whois registrar entries.
Slander is a term used for defamatory speech. The term she’s actually looking for is libel. But wait, there’s more:
Blown out of proportion falls short of describing the overzealous crusade that has given these teens “a common enemy,” as one of them has called it. Some of these volunteer soldiers are so militant about their cause, that eBay buyers appear to have been contacted one by one in an attempt to persuade them to request refunds on their Russet Noon preorders.
Now we all know that sometimes fandom will get a bit… overzealous in reaction to people trying to publish fan fiction of copyrighted works. Some of it might even qualify as libel, though most of what I’ve seen is simple boggling at her ignorance. But that is the absolute most minor reason not to do it. In short? Lady, if you don’t want people saying mean things about you when you do something stupid on the internet, maybe you should stop fanning the flames.
A recent theory, however, could mean her behavior isn’t born out of arrogance and ignorance, but instead something even less savory. Could Lady Sybilla have manufactured this situation simply to get more views on her site and cash via Amazon affiliate links? If so, she wouldn’t be first in fandom to attempt to (fandom_)wank her way to profit, but perhaps the most successful to date…
Once again, a huge tip of the hat to Caito and the folks at Fandom Wank.
I hate to make two Twilight posts in a week, but now it seems the fandom has their own Lori Jareo wannabe in the form of LadySybill, who’s written Russet Noon, a post-Breaking Dawn story about Bella’s other love interest, Jacob Black. Nothing surprising about that as a fanfic: But she’s calling it a “tribute novel” and was directing readers to… eBay? And it seems she thinks she can get away with it because… Stephenie Meyer didn’t draw pictures of her characters:
The characters in SM’s novels were not copyrighted because she never drew them or hired an artist to draw them. Today she shares her character copyrights with Summit. And, no, Russet Noon does not have direct permission from SM to publish this sequel, which is why the article says that it is a “Tribute” or “Unauthorized” Sequel.
When fictional characters become such an intricate part of the popular psyche, as is the case with the Twilight Saga, legal boundaries become blurred, and copyright laws become increasingly difficult to define.
Yeah, that would totally hold up in court. Get the rest of the story and boggle at length at Sparklefield and Fandom Wank.
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Will it blend? Saturday Night Live’s 
Wowza. 
Twilight fans, I’m sorry, but it’s becoming clearer and clearer that there is a deep vein of crazy running through your fandom. Hot on the heels of 
Here are some of the things I’ve micro-blogged over 