a fanfiction rant

Tinka blogged about a recent web article and an on-going blog argument concerning fanfiction. Is it good, bad or illegal? No one has yet to come to a conclusion, but I've been mulling it over lately, and thought I'd send my opinion out into the void.

First of all, I really think that Lee Goldberg of all people cannot possibly get up in arms about this, considering he makes his money writing about characters that he himself did not create. Now, he has (repeatedly) said that the difference, what makes him legitimate and oh-so-much better, is that he does this with the full endorsement, permission, and advice of the original creator of the characters. I would buy that, with the exception that he later points out that he believes that fanfiction of materials in the public domain (Shakespeare, for a notable example) is not illegal, but ill-advised and generally demonstrative of a lack of creativity. (I paraphrase, of course. Lee Goldberg has not called Laurie King a hack directly; he only calls online fanfiction writers of Sherlock Holmes hacks.)

Now insofar as authors who have used plots/storylines/characters of other authors' whose work has now fallen into the public domain, their work is like all other authors of fiction and non-fiction, as well as fanfiction authors for that matter; it falls into Good and Bad and some that's just Awful categories. Can I provide some examples, you ask? But of course.

1. Laurie R. King, author of the Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series based on Conan Doyle's characters. Now, at first glance, these books tend to smack of the bad-end of fanfiction-- the creation of a female reoccuring character who falls in love with the hero-- a Mary Sue, if you will. What makes the later books in the series good fiction is Ms. King's careful attention to the original: Sherlock does not become a moony schoolboy, he is still more passionate about solving crimes than he is about his wife, and Russell herself doesn't become ridiculous with feats of heroics, or weeping fits and/or longing glances, or motherly aspirations. Not to mention there is considerable attention to preserving "the canon" and historical facts.

2. Susanne Alleyn's A Far Better Rest, a novel of Dickens' character Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities. This, I think, is the best example of a published fanfic because it made me go back to the original text and appreciate Dickens so much more.

3. Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife by Linda Berdoll, a smut book cleverly disguised as a continuation of Austen's Pride & Prejudice-- which oddly enough has several sequels written by modern novelists. Berdoll's book, however, leaves much to be desired, leaving witty reflection, character study and development, as well as historical fact along the wayside while Mr. & Mrs. Darcy, um, become better acquainted in numerous rooms/positions/etc.

4. While I'm at it, the many thinly disguised versions of Much Ado About Nothing in chicklit. And while we're talking about Shakespeare spin-offs, what about Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter as a Macbeth retelling? For some reason, Shakespeare remakes (with the notable exception of the chicklit) and stories that feature the great poet as a protagonist abound in fiction. Is this bad? Is it good? Obviously, Shakespeare's in the public domain, so legality shouldn't be a question, but these books provide as great a spectrum on fanfic as no other. A sampling:

Hamlet's Dresser: a Memoir by Bob Smith. Doesn't feature any characters or Will himself, but a great deal of Will's original text as inspiration for an original character's motivation.

Much Ado About Murder, a compilation of short murder mysteries set in the Elizabethan era featuring characters from WS' plays.

A Mystery of Errors and the subsequent series by Simon Hawke, that features WS as an amateur detective with partner Symington Smythe.

Falstaff: a Novel by Robert Nye, which resurrects the character from Henry IV.

The Devil's Bride, a sequel to Much Ado About Nothing by Joan Silsby.

Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters. One of my favorite fluff series (freely admitted!), it establishes the four main characters as following in the Beatrice/Benedick and Hero/Claudio fashion.

5. Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, which I have been meaning to read for years, that is based upon an innumerable bunch of literary characters getting all jumbled up (if I've read the descriptions right). However, historically speaking, it has been no great affair that a humorist use cultural or literary references, even as elaborate as Fforde's.

6. Jill Patton Walsh's Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane books based on Sayers' extant notes about her characters' later years, Thrones and Dominations and A Presumption of Death. It has been remarked that Walsh is an esteemed writer, though I must confess I've never read her original stuff. I have read both the new Wimsey books and found them to be a poor substitute for the original Ms. Sayers' work, especially the more recent one. The wit was gone.

Maybe I'm biased-- and perhaps I am, because I've done two works of Wimsey fanfic that were generally well-received. They were terrifying to embark on-- I don't write a lot, nor do I feel anywhere near adequate when I do, much less when I'm trying to synch styles with one of the greatest mystery writers EVER-- but the fact that people have commented positively on them overwhelms me with a sense of pride. It's not that I believe that I can write like Sayers, or that I'm now emboldened to write an entire novel using her characters, but it affirmed things for me. I wrote two "missing scenes"-- and seeing that others think that those occurences I'd dreamed were the most natural thing in the world helped me to realize that I'd gotten them: I've figured out a little of what makes these intense, complex characters in this dense British world tick. And that's exciting from a harmless fan's perspective.

I use this example more to illustrate that not all fic is written by googoo-eyed tweenie boppers who can't get enough of Captain Jack/Will Turner slash fic to the detriment of their intellectual development, (as certain original authors in the debate have implied) but to show that many people endulge in serious fictions as an every once in a while indulgence, not nearly frequent enough to be called a hobby, and not important enough or taken seriously enough to be called anything else.

Anyway, dear Void, that's all I have to say. ;)