January 10th, 2012 § § permalink
(this post has been partially bastardized from a comment on A Different Forest in the campfire on this topic.)
So Master of the Universe/Fifty Shades of Grey made quite the splash on Publisher’s Weekly today. I think I’ve made my stance on publishing fanfiction pretty darn clear, and I don’t think there’s a lot of “grey” area. Either you, as the author, know in your heart of hearts that you are using another author’s IP (and not just creating a character based on the same archetype, or using a theme from the story, or being inspired by the story). Even if you’re never caught, I know I for one would walk around feeling like I’d gone several days without a shower.
The big debate seems to be, if MoTU makes it big, will SM do anything? The arguments in favor seem to be “she can’t take this lying down” or just people’s desire to see an author who’s produced a lot of fandom wank get her comeuppance. The arguments opposed seem along the lines of, “No one should fault the author for not knowing she was going to write a popular book” or “It’s so different from Twilight that SM has no ground.”
I actually can see both sides. But really, I would argue, the bigger issue is not our fandom, or MoTU/FS, or SM at all. The bigger problem is the undermining of a lot of hard-won ground in fanwork, and the even more precarious place that fanwork occupies in the world of digital publishing. It used to be that to publish a filed fanfiction, the person had to remove all evidence of the canon on which the book was based, find an agent, or at least a publisher, manage to convince said agent or publisher that the work was original, and subsequently hide any evidence that it began life as fic. Now, publishing a former fanfiction takes an hour of find-and-replace and and a twenty minutes uploading the file to Amazon and setting a price.
It’s a different world out there right now, and holders of copyright are being cautious and observant. And this sort of thing is exactly the kind of thing that starts to make those people nervous.
Looking at it from several sides:
On reasons why SM would sue:
- You don’t have to be assured of victory to bring suit. Especially if the other party is likely to cower and run away because they don’t have the funds to fight you.
- In this day and age, there are many parties who would be interested in making sure that an author couldn’t do on purpose what SQuID did. Otherwise, the new method to self-publishing success is, write a book that appeals to the audience of an existing book, post it as fanfiction, garner attention and fans, then pull and e-publish. There are MANY people who would like to see that not happen and would like to see a test case go in favor of that source author.
- There’s a long tradition of “filing the serial numbers” off fanfiction. There have rarely been cases where the author who did the filing didn’t try to distance herself as much as possible. As such, there hasn’t been a test case that actually says, “This book was published acknowledging another’s IP, and now is being published with only the names changed and claiming it is all the new author’s IP.” It’s murky, and people concerned with IP law don’t like murky. They like the courts to say what’s what.
On reasons why SM would not sue:
- It’d make her look bad.
- 30,000 ebooks is still not *that* much money.
- After this little publicity stunt, James has pretty much made sure no one in the industry will touch her work with a ten-foot pole because they’re worried about potential copyright issues. So it’s probably moot–anyone who could get the kind of following SQuID has is also likely to be followed around by people going, “THIS WAS FIC THIS WAS FIC THIS WAS FIC” and isn’t that big a threat anyway.
On reasons why SM won’t shut down Twilight fanfiction:
- She has no books in the pipeline right now. There are no release dates for sequels to THE HOST or her mermaid book. Keeping Twidom alive is the way to continue her brand, which the publisher would like to do (as evidenced by the incredibly slip-shod book that they put out as the Illustrated Guide). Fanfic keeps her brand alive while she works on the next thing down the line.
- She’s come out very vehemently in favor of it, and to “flip-flop” would reflect negatively on her.
My point, and why none of this is really the real issue at hand anyway:
Here’s the person who loses in this scenario. There’s a twelve-year-old who right now is reading Judy Blume, but six years from now is going to read the hot new teen series that has the gorgeous actor in the leading role and who all her friends in high school are giggling over. And she’d like to dig into a fandom, maybe read and write some fic. But she can’t. You know why?
Because the author of the hot new teen series has put the kabosh on fanfiction from the start. As have most of the authors of the other new series. Since the intellectual property thing is so dicey, and since it’s probable that the courts won’t side with them if someone posts something as fic that is so far from their world that all the author has to do is change the names and call it her own…the best thing to do is just not to allow fanfiction at all.
When you have a leaky faucet that you can’t fix, you cut the water off at the line. And I will put good money down that this is EXACTLY what authors are likely to start doing.
Fanwriters and artists have worked hard for decades to get authors, artists, movie studios, directors and other creators to allow them to create within their world. Even with all that hard-won ground, there are still very popular authors like Diana Gabaldon and George R. R. Martin who stand firmly against it.
We are the ones who can either value what we have here in the ability to use another’s world, or we can make certain that authors just say no from the outset. It’s ultimately our choice.
I’d rather not spit in the face of the person who created the characters I love so much.
But that’s just me.
December 30th, 2011 § § permalink
WARNING: This note and the fic itself contain spoilers for the Hunger Games trilogy, particularly Mockingjay.
So it seemed everyone in Twidom read The Hunger Games, and the whole world was waiting for Mockingjay, the third in the series. They looked good, both in terms of their content and as physical books—the jackets that Scholastic put on the hardcovers still, to this day, make me want to buy all three every time I see them on display (which is often—I think we’ve had them on some sort of promo display at work almost every month this year). I find myself constantly remembering that I already bought the boxed set last August.
I waited until Mockingjay came out and read them all. They were addictive, and quick, much like Twilight. But like many, I wasn’t terribly happy with how they resolved. I was eager to write fic for it, especially for my favorite character, Cinna (I fell in love with the character who was the father figure…I bet you didn’t see that coming.)But I have, at last count, four long-ish Twifics in progress and felt guilty about writing in a different fandom.
ADF seems to be the source of a lot of my new one-shots these days, and this one is no exception. A fic prompt meme on 12/29 got me thinking about a critical moment in the series which I thought went less than well, which was Katniss’s decision to go back on her word about not having children. In canon, I thought Collins rushed that revelation by jumping straight to the epilogue. So when someone asked for a fic chronicling Katniss’s choice, I jumped at the chance to spend some time exploring that, without losing the acerbic, straight-shooting character who was in the other two books.
I knew I’d gotten it right when the prompter said, “I love this because I want to smack this Katniss in the face.” And perhaps that wouldn’t be seen as a compliment by most, but it was exactly what I was going for.
So, here it is: my first foray into Hunger Games fanfiction, prompted by and written for neuroticris. Happy Reading!
(And yes, for you patient people I hope to update SB just after the New Year. Thank you for sticking with me on it.)
October 28th, 2011 § § permalink
The Volterra chapters are harder for me to write, I admit. And part of it is because although deep down I know where the conflict is, it’s hard to put on the page (and it’s also a very slow-moving conflict, unlike the 1918 conflict and the 1667 conflict). One of the questions you have to ask about the tensions between the brothers and Carlisle is, “What’s not to like?” Because it’s hard not to admire and be drawn to Carlisle. I’ve even developed a bit of the idea that this might be his superpower—his ability to draw people to him and connect them to others.
So, for me, it’s interesting to explore why it is that Carlisle is so unnerving. Malianani first pointed it out in her review of the first Volterra chapter, when she commented on my unintentional imagery of Carlisle standing all wet and dripping on the floor in the Volturi main chambers. He is, more than anything, an upset to their balance. Simply by his existence, he challenges everything they stand for. What they consider unchangeable–that their kind must prey on humans–he proves to be a choice. They want power, he wants love. They have beautiful floors, he goes out in the rain and brings the wet and the muck—and all of the life that goes with it—back in.
I often post chapters on my website first, if I’m unable to do a full 5-site post at once as I was this afternoon. So sometimes I get feedback before I’ve really had time to compose my note. In this instance, it was invaluable. Sisterglitch comments:
Caius seeks to destroy him for not caring. Aro seeks to seduce him with powerful intimacy. They glorify their own importance but Carlisle’s honesty and relative innocence negate it effortlessly.
And I think that’s really what this boils down to. Yes, it’s a slow burning conflict, in part because the characters themselves don’t realize what they’re fighting. Carlisle is fighting to figure out what he wants, which is not what the brothers Volturi want him to want. And they’re figuring he’s going to fight them for what they want, but they’re wrong.
Carlisle’s simply not after the same things. So the question is, who’s going to figure that out first?
As always, thanks to my intrepid betas, Openhome and Julie, without whom this story wouldn’t be what it is. Miaokuancha also gets my great thanks for catching an important anachronism in the last chapter, and Camilla my thanks for catching an Italian topography mishap. Haven’t edited those yet, but I will tonight.
September 16th, 2011 § § permalink
And so finally, we truly meet Edward.
There are a lot of things I’m moving with in this story that aren’t completely laid out for us in canon. One of them is, why Edward? He was seventeen, Carlisle really needed a companion, not a child, or at least, that’s what he thought he wanted. So I’ve chosen to focus a little more on the Carlisle-Elizabeth relationship (and to foreground it with Elizabeth Bradshawe!) so that the business of turning Edward becomes this passing of the reins from Elizabeth to Carlisle. A number of people asked why I chose Elizabeth’s POV as the second POV for 1918—this is why.
This chapter, for reasons unknown, took almost two months to pen (I write a chapter ahead—the chapter just completed was chapter 12.) It turns a page in this story, to be certain. From now on, this is as much Edward’s story as it is his sire’s.
Thank you to Openhome and Julie for their intrepid beta skills as always, and thank you to everyone for reading.
September 10th, 2011 § § permalink
Rant. Brace yourself. This is me not being very nice, but being very real. (I started ranting on twitlonger, but it twitted VERY long, so now it’s a blog post.)
First rights are important in publishing. This is why where you publish your book matters. Yes, it’s true that more good publishers are willing to take a risk on something that’s been self-pubbed or badly pubbed (provided the rights have reverted), but it’s also still true that most won’t. Is it shifting? Maaaaybe. But I wouldn’t stake my career on it changing, and I don’t recommend you do it either.
Many, many, MANY authors make the mistake of doing something with their first book they later regret. They self-publish it when they didn’t really have the wherewithal to put in the kind of work that will generate sales. They publish it with a vanity press that they didn’t realize was a vanity press. They pick the wrong small press, and the press doesn’t know what they’re doing so the book doesn’t get sold, or worse, the press goes under. The list goes on and on.
In Twidom, we’ve seen a lot of authors make a different mistake with their first book, which is to post the first draft online as a fic. Unfortunately, because the internet is considered a published medium, this has a lot of the same effect on first rights as doing anything else with your first book does.
I hear a lot of very sympathetic, kindhearted people who say, “Well, but they didn’t *know* they had a book in them when they sat down to write” or “Well, they don’t think they’re ever going to write another book.” And I get that. I really, really do. I’m good friends with a wonderful writer who had no idea she had the capacity to write a fantastic novel until she started writing fic.
But the sad reality is, the wad is shot once it’s shot. An author is going to have an uphill battle trying to publish something that’s already been published, even if it was only published online, and especially if the work hasn’t been substantially revised. (Where by revised I mean subplots have been added/changed/removed, characters have been shifted, dynamics have been altered.) If the work was posted as a fic on FFnet, the author isn’t that much better off than the guy who was suckered by Tate Publishing or Publish America (except that she doesn’t have to fight anyone for her rights back). The first rights are gone…they were used when the author made the choice to post it.
I’m not saying I don’t feel bad for people in this situation. I do. I may be an NT, but I’m not that cold-hearted, contrary to popular opinion. It’s a really regrettable mistake to have made. But that doesn’t make it not a mistake.
I’ve heard first rights compared to virginity, so I’ll take the analogy a step further. If you want to preserve your first rights, keep your story in your pants. It sucks BIG TIME to write without people cheering you on every chapter. And if you can get a small group of fandom people to cheer you on, by all means do it…but keep the story to yourself.
I’d love to see more women in this fandom publish. But I also want to see them publish well. And for me, this means standing up and speaking out instead of just saying, “I feel bad for you, so I’ll defend what you’re doing.” It’s not fair that there are huge consequences to posting your story as fic. It’d be nice if it didn’t matter and you could republish a fic if you realize it’s gone a lot further, because let’s face it, we all do put a lot of time into our fanwork. But publishing simply doesn’t work that way, and not understanding how publishing works will hurt you.
If pointing this out means that others think I’m an elitist, a bitch, or not supportive of other authors in the fandom, I gladly accept those labels. If you end up hating me, but use this to end up with a good book on the shelves of Barnes & Noble, I’ll promise—I won’t be offended.
And I’ll also gladly buy the book.