Fanfiction and the original author

[maharetr]

zebra363 sent me these links about Robin Hobb's reaction to fanfic, and I want share and see what you all think (esp. with minds like cupidsbow and chaosmanor around!):

Here is Hobb's original rant:
http://www.robinhobb.com/rant.html

Here are some of the rants that developed from it:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/amanuensis1/103104.html?style=mine

http://www.livejournal.com/users/sistermagpie/94537.html?style=mine

http://www.livejournal.com/users/isiscolo/196774.html?style=mine

ETA: I just found a point by point analysis of Hobb's rant.

In a totally unrelated happening: while searching for the meanings of words of many sylables (all guilt, tar and feathers can be directed wobowikkles's way), I stumbled across this. Keep in mind you're reading the words of someone who barely knows her times tables, let alone how to count out an accurate amount of change. Add that to the fact that I'm swooning and swaying and dancing to the Battlestar Galactica soundtrack (a thousand kisses, vegetariansushi. Does "A Good Lighter" make anyone else teary? :)), and the page looks utterly beautiful and mysterious, like an alien language, something that Daniel might find on a wall on the planet PX3whatever...

Comments

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

Trying to think of one that I wan work 'lenticular' into...

[black-samvara.livejournal.com]

err.. "can" work 'lenticular' into...

pt i

[vegetariansushi.livejournal.com]

I would like to act like I'm smart and comment on the Robin Hobb stuff, here, but realistically I've skipped almost all of the discussion because i feel like it's been gone over a million times. Pretend that Cathy posted before me, and then amend 'word' to whatever she says, okay?

...oh, hell. I just remembered that I'm procrastinating and went off and read her stuff anyhow. BALLS. Curse you for making me think! or, um, curse the fact that I'm lazy enough that I think that thinking about this sort of thing is more interesting than doing anything that I should be doing.

My first thought on Hobb's rant is that she's merely bitter. I have to admit that I don't know anything about her, but one of the things that I've noticed over and over again is that the authors who are most outspoken about the great evils of fanfic are the ones who are -- I hesitate to say lacking, as I'm not a writer myself, but what the hell -- lacking. Frequently they're people who've created huge worlds (see: Anne Rice, Anne McCaffrey) and have a multitude of books and other creations relating to these worlds. It seems, though, that for a lot of these people, there's an inverse relationship between quality and quantity - I know that in my (admittedly somewhat limited) reading of this sort of author, it seems that the further I go into the series, the less I feel like it's maintaining an internal consistancy and logic. So I think that for certain authors, they get a hugely disproportionate number of fanfics wherein something in their world is being 'fixed' - where characters are being given new motivation, where actions are being changed and the ensuing plot is being rewritten to encompass that change.

I can understand authors not liking that sort of thing, not because I feel that it's at all an inappropriate thing to do, but because in many instances, it does - to at least some degree - imply that the author has done something 'wrong'. Something has gone against the internal logic of the world, or one of the characters has undergone a dramatic character change. It's understandable that no one would like being called on that sort of thing and could easily take offense.

Her claim that the 'fixing' type of fanfic described above comprises everything that she's read, though, makes me question her whole rant. How much fanfic has she read? Because I've read more than I care to admit to, sometimes, and I'd argue that less than ten percent of it falls into that category. The remaining 90% are things like missing scenes, or rewriting canonical events from the point of view of another character, or putting the characters into a different universe entirely.

She goes on to talk about how this is damaging to the author's vision, and waxes rhapsodic about authorial intent, which is something that I've never been comfortable with. The idea that the author's intent somehow should add weight to the words on the page seems to me to be little more than an excuse for sloppy writing. If the intent of the author is to show us that character X is evil despite his liking for fluffy bunnies and his exceptional ability at growing orchids, then that must be communicated through the text, not merely through the author later stating 'but clearly, this person is evil!'. Anne Rice famously admonished her readers for 'interrogating the text from the wrong perspective', but I would argue that there is no wrong perspective - that one person's interpretation of a given text is no more or less valid than anyone else's, including the author's. Assuming that there is seems to me to be an insult to the intelligence of both the reader and the author -- why shouldn't an author be able to construct a work that could be interpreted many ways, depending on where one's personal sympathies and politics lie? At the same time, why shouldn't a reader be able to find an unintended meaning in something? Are we to assume that just because the writer didn't intentionally include something, it is nonexistant?

Re: pt ii

[vegetariansushi.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine once posted a rather dark ficlet, and after reading it, I commented on her use of adjective and adverbs to set the mood. She'd used rather atypical words for what she was describing, and they were all descriptors that are generally associated with violence and roughness. I thought that it was brilliant, because the words weren't so atypical that they were noticable on first or second reading, but after several times I started to notice how they had been worked in and how well they'd worked to set the scene - a scene which, in and of itself, was not nearly as dark as I had read it to be. When I commented on all of this, though, she sort of puzzled about it, and said she had to go back and reread - the inclusion of that particular set of adjectives wasn't intentional. As she put it, 'gosh, my subconscious is helpful sometimes!'

I think that most written pieces have more depth to them than the writer means to imbue them with, and also have more (and quite possibly different) meanings than the reader would generally be aware of. Hobb's arguement that fanfic is a violation holds no water with me. She claims that things are left nebulous because they're 'meant to be nebulous'. If things are actually unclear, if there are actually multiple ways that something could have happened and still have led to the canon events, she is presumably saying that readers should fill in their own interpretation of the events. What is that, though, but a predacessor to fanfiction? We should fill in these events, but never, ever speak of them.

Her next point is that she wishes for us to read things 'exactly as [she] wrote it'. And, well, good fucking luck with that. She spends tons of time thinking about the words to use and the angles to present? Good and fine. But in saying this, she's again essentially eliminating the value of reader interpretation of the text. If the internet has taught me nothing else, it's how even though we're all theoretically speaking the same language, the words change from point A to point B, even within a given country. No one is ever going to read anything exactly as she's written it, exactly as she's intended it to be read, simply because no one will have the same references that she's drawing on, no one will have the same sense-memories associated with descriptors, no one will have the same idea of what 'blue' is other than that it absorbs red and yellow and refracts the rather abstract colour of blue. Even if we can agree on the exact angle at which blue is refracted, there's still the issue that some of us will see it through glass, some through water, through sunglasses or through eyes that have exceptionally poor vision. She's looking for an impossible consensus, and blaming the reader when she doesn't get that.

Re: pt iii - cursed character limits!

[vegetariansushi.livejournal.com]

Finally, I find it funny - or would find it funny, if it wasn't so pathetic - that she argues that fanfiction requires no creativity and has no literary value. The history of fanfic (yes, it has one) is far longer than most modern authors are willing to attribute to it. One of the earliest written examples that I can think of is Siege of Thebes, published in the fifteenth century and is essentially fanfic for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and self-insert fanfic at that! Siege is hardly alone in its place as published fanfiction, though. Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has inspired quite literally dozens of ‘sequels’, published as early as the early 1900s and as recently as this year. The fairly recently-published (and quite popular, if memory serves) Scarlett was fanfiction for Gone with the Wind. Actually, older than any of these, it’s argued that The Aeneid is essentially a fan tribute to Homer’s Odyssey.

Even RPS has a strong historical backing - Remember that Shakespeare fellow that you had to study for a while? Macbeth was based, at least loosely, on King Macbeth of Scotland. Julius Caesar was, again, based on real people and events. The Wars of Roses plays were, again, all based at least loosely on historical events and real people. I won’t even try to go into the number of books (and movies, and plays,) based on things like Alexander the Great, Troy, and anything from the Bible. More recently, we have things like Kerouac’s On the Road, which was freely admitted to be based on actual people and experiences, albiet with name changes. Primary Colors was an amazingly successful book based on a ‘hypothetical’ Democratic candidate’s bid for office, though to anyone who had even a passing familiarity with politics, it was apparent that it was, in fact, a slightly fictionalised telling of the Clinton bid for presidency.

If we accept Hobb’s arguements, we’ve just agreed that none of the above-mentioned titles have any literary value, because they are, after all, only cake mix to the gourmet cooking of ‘real’ literature, such as the innumerable and terribly creative romance novels and chick lit novels that are presented to us in glossy covers and bright paper. Maybe it’s just me, but I’ll take fanfic over that any day of the week.

[vegetariansushi.livejournal.com]

Also, re: BSG soundtrack - Honestly, the whole damn thing makes me weepy. A Good Lighter gets me, but Passacaglia and The Shape of Things to Come absolutely gut me, as does Bloodshed. When does the new season start, do you know? I'm desperate for it, now.


/comment spam. sorry.

Re: pt iii - cursed character limits!

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

I think Cathy will be saying 'word' to you! I have read a good portion of Hobb's work, and there's some merit in what you say about internal consistency, also that for two of her three trilogies, the narrator isn't very likeable. I'm re-reading her second triology from the beginning, (The Liveship Traders, which doesn't have the annoying narrator) very hot on the heels of reading a brilliant piece of fanfic recced by Cathy (SGA), and it's not standing up. It's a good piece of writing, no contest, but I'm editing it in my head, and changing the 'camera angles' so to speak, and doing resistant readings all over the place. (Wondering at points if Hobb *really* meant her characters to come across like I'm reading them, for eg.) I'm tempted to try and work up the courage to *ask* her when I see her at Continuum, but I don't know yet! :) Thanks for the amazing analysis! xxxx

Mona Lisa

[emma-in-oz.livejournal.com]

Actually there's a heap of art which works on Mona Lisa. Some by Duchamp is now recognised as 'art' in its own right.

[maharetr.livejournal.com]

*mumble*damn Americans, seeing everything first *mumble* Actually, I have no idea if you have that channel, but I remain green with envy regardless because, like, airing date! Soon!

Also, commet spam is welcome any time :)

[vegetariansushi.livejournal.com]

Oh, oh! That's so soon!

I hope that someone encodes it in hrhd as it airs. Do you have broadband? Could you download it, if I walked you through it?