Is Fanfiction really that bad?

[felice]

I do maintain that anybody who is seriously suggesting that they couldn't distinguish fanfic from the Aenid absent that context is a, probably wrong, and b, saying this to try to support a definition of fanfic so inclusive as to be essentially meaningless.

The Aeneid can easily be distinguished from pretty much any modern work of fiction because dactylic hexameter isn't currently a popular form for storytelling. But take a chapter from the middle of a long fanfic whose source material you're unfamiliar with, and a chapter from the middle of a self-published original novel in the same genre, and I think it would be a lot harder to distinguish which was which.

[john]

Publishing books about characters who are not under copyright is not fanfiction. Once the copyright lapses those characters or landscapes or events are a legitimate tool in creating original work. Flashman isnt fanfic and neither are books about Sherlock Holmes or Dracula.

Anthony Horowitz recently wrote the only Holmes book approved by the Doyle estate, but the only difference between that and a Holmes book anyone could knock up in their spare time and submit to a publisher is that he can put 'with the backing of the Doyle estate' on the blurb.

That doesn't mean you couldnt write a thing about Dracula or Holmes that could be arguably called fanfic. I'd define fanfic as this - a piece of writing, with some kind of playful intent, where the purpose is generally the exercise of writing, rather than producing some specific result.

As long as fanfic is like that it can tolerated or even tacitly encouraged by the copyright holders. But if someone was just to, for example, write a Jack Reacher novel, with an original story and setting and in the style of Lee Child, but without any evident element of homage, and publish it online - then i'm pretty sure the lawyers'd get sent in sharpish, even if it was supposedly just a piece of fanfiction.

[Ran]

It really isn't! Sure, the part with the dice being rolled actually happens, but Trogdor and Strong Bad aren't really present, and no head biting actually occurs. The events said to occur as a result of the die roll are entirely fictional.

They are present, just as a king, queen, and knight are present on a chess board, in the form of pieces that loosely represent these things. There's really no difference. Characters are the playing pieces of a role playing _game_. Those participating in it are _players_ in a game, not writers or actors. A summary of your campaign is a documentation, a report, not a work of fiction in itself.

[TheSilverMint]

It doesn't actually bother me and I'd never be sniffy about it. I've read some decent stuff, where the writer has captured the 'voice' of the original author but I've also read some crud. Admittedly I haven't touched any of the dodgy incest/rape/real life people stuff as it wouldn't be my bag at all! I quite like (well written) fanfic for shows that ended too soon etc. as it's a way of exploring what could have been with some favourite characters. A lot of the writers seem to be quite young, if their biogs can be believed, so maybe it's a way for them to practice or hone their writing before trying something original.

[TrueMetis]

There is no place on the internet where you will find this stuff placed as fan fiction, so far as I know. AARs and campaign reports are documentation -- whether highly dramatized or not -- of players doing stuff through their characters.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8641303/1/Forgotten-Realms

See forgotten realms, which is described as a summary of a five year long D&D game. Arguably not fanfiction cause the characters are technically original, but placed on a fanfiction site none-the-less.

And I'm sure there's more examples, some far less summary than forgotten realms in the 1000+ examples of D&D fanfiction on this site.

http://www.fanfiction.net/game/Dungeons-and-Dragons/

[felice]

Publishing books about characters who are not under copyright is not fanfiction. Once the copyright lapses those characters or landscapes or events are a legitimate tool in creating original work.

That's a strictly legal definition which has nothing to do with the work itself. And it would mean that a piece of fiction based on War of the Worlds currently counts as fanfic in the UK, but legitimate original work in the US; a definition that varies geographically doesn't strike me as an ideal tool for literary criticism.

I'd define fanfic as this - a piece of writing, with some kind of playful intent, where the purpose is generally the exercise of writing, rather than producing some specific result.

Except I think that would exclude a great deal of what's generally recognised as fanfic, possibly the overwhelming majority.

They are present, just as a king, queen, and knight are present on a chess board, in the form of pieces that loosely represent these things. There's really no difference. Characters are the playing pieces of a role playing _game_.

In chess the pieces are physically present, and are named "king", "queen", etc; the extent to which they represent actual royalty is irrelevant, you could called them "pineapple" and "uvbyurif" without making any different to the game. RPG characters are not pieces, they're not physically present, they're not defined by their character sheets (some NPCs don't even have game stats), and much of the game is collaborative storytelling that doesn't involve the rules at all. You could say that regular fiction writing is an RPG version of solitaire 8)

[Veltigar]

Definitely a gap in age. Partly because elder readers have read more stuff, including a buckload of crappy books, and are therefore more experienced to sort the BS and the good stuff ;)

Not that people didn't deal with fan-fic in earlier decades, but they just kept it to themselves, or at best shared it with a few friends and brothers/sisters. Nowadays, we suffer the same issue with fanfic than with pretty much everything else: when people take a shit, they feel the urge to share that big breaking news with the world, thanks to blog, Facebook and the like.

I'm reminded of John Howe at some book signing way back when the movies were released, who basically said:

"5 years ago, I found in my attic 2 cardboards full of my first and very early drawings, when I was 18-20 years old. I looked at them, and I burned the whole stuff in my backyard, because the world really didn't need to see this."

Some people know when the world doesn't have to see/read it, others never learn.

I agree. I'm a young guy (part of the Harry Potter generation) and I hate fan fiction in general. I mean sure as a kid I also had my own stories about Hogwarts but I never felt the urge to bother anyone else with it or even write it down because I knew it would be shitty. That's the main grudge I have against fan fiction, that it's almost always badly conceived and poorly executed. In fact to this day, the only exception to that rule that I have found is Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

[Ran]

RPG characters are not pieces

Of course they are, in the abstract sense -- they are the tools by which players manipulate the game. They have their character move, as a chess player has a chess piece move, and it does (or does not, according to the rules). Further, one notes many games will use maps and markers and even miniatures to represents positions of players. On a MUSH, a player character is a player object, which is moved about a grid at the direction of the player.

they're not physically present

This is unnecessary. I mean, there are chess players who can mentally play out whole games of chess without ever putting a hand to a piece.

they're not defined by their character sheets

Well, in some games they aren't. It's whatever the rules of the game says regarding that.

much of the game is collaborative storytelling that doesn't involve the rules at all

Storytelling is not automatically fiction. I agree that interactive storytelling is a large part of the appeal of RP. But creating a story is not the same as writing a work of fiction, and recounting the story that you made during an RP session is not the same as writing a work of fiction. You are ultimately describing the actual gameplay events, and so are documenting something tangible rather than inventing something.

You could say that regular fiction writing is an RPG version of solitaire

If you used a rule book and rolled the dice occasionally, possibly. You stop being a player and start being a writer when you go from, "I am going to play a game and write about what happens," to "I want to write something."

[Sci-2]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8641303/1/Forgotten-Realms

See forgotten realms, which is described as a summary of a five year long D&D game. Arguably not fanfiction cause the characters are technically original, but placed on a fanfiction site none-the-less.

And I'm sure there's more examples, some far less summary than forgotten realms in the 1000+ examples of D&D fanfiction on this site.

http://www.fanfiction.net/game/Dungeons-and-Dragons/

Yeah, I think Ran offers an interesting argument but there is a lot of dressing in the storyhours I've read.

It's hard to see how that isn't collaborative fiction. The recounting is "Zanzibar the Comet Elf casts fireball and burns the ice dragon's hide" not "Joe rolls a twenty for a critical hit."

[Datepalm]

The Aeneid can easily be distinguished from pretty much any modern work of fiction because dactylic hexameter isn't currently a popular form for storytelling. But take a chapter from the middle of a long fanfic whose source material you're unfamiliar with, and a chapter from the middle of a self-published original novel in the same genre, and I think it would be a lot harder to distinguish which was which.

It bothers me a touch that I do sometimes read original novels that feel like fanfic and have a fanfic aesthetic. For me, fanfic (well, effective, good fanfic) is a fundamentally different form of writing from original works, and is supposed to deliver a different reading experience - much more like reading a discussion thread than a book, really. Good writing (or TV or movies or whatever) is often challenging, frustrating, contradictory, opaque, etc. That's what lets it sink it hooks into you and take up residence in your brain. Reading (or writing) fanfic is a way of grappling with that, and offering up (one) interpretation of it. Fanfic can come along and offer solutions (a variety of them) to the problems of the text, it can be detailed where it's skimpy, explicit where it's coy, satisfying where it's frustrating. That is it's job - it's not trying to make the story less, it's trying to make it more, but it only works in relation to the original story, and doesn't really stand on it's own, for the most part. So it bugs me when original books seem to go down that path (i'm thinking Gail Carriger and Carol Berg, off the top of my head) where you end up with rather bland, 'fanservicy' stories, because they're not bouncing off anything else.

[Galactus]

The Aeneid can easily be distinguished from pretty much any modern work of fiction because dactylic hexameter isn't currently a popular form for storytelling

It is here I give the obligatory kudos to Martinson's Aniara, because science-fiction poems are cool.

[felice]

Of course they are, in the abstract sense -- they are the tools by which players manipulate the game. They have their character move, as a chess player has a chess piece move, and it does (or does not, according to the rules). Further, one notes many games will use maps and markers and even miniatures to represents positions of players.

In the same sense that characters are the tools by which writers manipulate the story. A character is a character, irrespective of whether the story it's being used in is an RPG or a novel. The actions of RPG characters aren't constrained by the rules; the rules exist only to resolve the outcomes of a certain subset of actions, and a good GM will happily break the rules where necessary for the sake of the story. Miniatures and maps are an optional extra for RPGs, not a core part of the game, and they can be used by writers too; the use of maps is quite common (including real world maps for non-genre fiction, not just published fantasy maps), and I'm sure it's not unheard of for a writer to use miniatures or other markers in plotting out a complicated action scene.

Well, in some games they aren't. It's whatever the rules of the game says regarding that.

No, in any role playing game the characters have a personality that transcends whatever numbers are listed on their character sheet. It's possible to play RPGs with no character stats at all, but a game where the "characters" are nothing but lists of stats isn't an RPG.

Storytelling is not automatically fiction.

That's debatable.

I agree that interactive storytelling is a large part of the appeal of RP. But creating a story is not the same as writing a work of fiction, and recounting the story that you made during an RP session is not the same as writing a work of fiction. You are ultimately describing the actual gameplay events, and so are documenting something tangible rather than inventing something.

The gameplay itself largely consists of inventing something, though. Documenting events you invented earlier is not documenting real events. Technically it would be documenting actual events if it was in the form "Bob said his character was going to investigate the strange noises coming from upstairs, but Jane said her character was going to stay in the bar and drink some more", but I don't think anyone actually does that, and it doesn't change the fact that the events being described are people inventing things.

If you used a rule book and rolled the dice occasionally, possibly.

You can play an RPG with no rules and no dice.

For me, fanfic (well, effective, good fanfic) is a fundamentally different form of writing from original works, and is supposed to deliver a different reading experience - much more like reading a discussion thread than a book, really. Good writing (or TV or movies or whatever) is often challenging, frustrating, contradictory, opaque, etc. That's what lets it sink it hooks into you and take up residence in your brain. Reading (or writing) fanfic is a way of grappling with that, and offering up (one) interpretation of it.

That's one thing fanfic can do, certainly, but I don't think it's something fanfic has to do. Good fanfic can be challenging, frustrating, contradictory, opaque, etc in its own right.

[The Marquis de Leech]

That's a strictly legal definition which has nothing to do with the work itself. And it would mean that a piece of fiction based on War of the Worlds currently counts as fanfic in the UK, but legitimate original work in the US; a definition that varies geographically doesn't strike me as an ideal tool for literary criticism.

It's also problematic in that it means there couldn't have been any English-language fanfic until at least 1710 (when the Statute of Anne introduced the concept of authorial copyright). Someone could do all the things modern fanfic authors do (Alexander the Great apparently wrote Hercules stories in his freetime), but it wouldn't be fanfic because modern copyright didn't exist yet. As such it becomes less an issue of literary criticism, and more a plaything of law-makers.

[Broken Fox]

It doesn't affect me at all because I don't read it, but if people enjoy writing it more power to them. They aren't hurting the original story in any way so who cares.

[Ran]

In the same sense that characters are the tools by which writers manipulate the story. A character is a character, irrespective of whether the story it's being used in is an RPG or a novel. The actions of RPG characters aren't constrained by the rules; the rules exist only to resolve the outcomes of a certain subset of actions, and a good GM will happily break the rules where necessary for the sake of the story. Miniatures and maps are an optional extra for RPGs, not a core part of the game, and they can be used by writers too; the use of maps is quite common (including real world maps for non-genre fiction, not just published fantasy maps), and I'm sure it's not unheard of for a writer to use miniatures or other markers in plotting out a complicated action scene.

And yet in one case, people are playing a game. My describing that game is reporting an actual event. Non-fiction.

No, in any role playing game the characters have a personality that transcends whatever numbers are listed on their character sheet. It's possible to play RPGs with no character stats at all, but a game where the "characters" are nothing but lists of stats isn't an RPG.

This does not matter one bit. A game is a game is a game. Just because a baseball player names his bat "Wonder Boy" and has a back story about it does not turn the latest baseball game into a work of fiction.

That's debatable.

No. Works of non-fiction also tell stories.

The gameplay itself largely consists of inventing something, though.

Of course. But it's still a game. When you describe the result of a game, you are describing the result of something that actually happened in the sense that people made choices and results were determined. It doesn't matter if what you're describing is how Bob's character found a star-spawn muttering strange noises or how Messi finessed a pass.

Technically it would be documenting actual events if it was in the form "Bob said his character was going to investigate the strange noises coming from upstairs, but Jane said her character was going to stay in the bar and drink some more", but I don't think anyone actually does that, and it doesn't change the fact that the events being described are people inventing things.

This is merely a matter of diegetic levels. Whether I describe it at the extradiegetic level ("Bob had his character Throndor do this") or diegetic level ("Throndor did this") doesn't change the fact that I am describing the results of players playing a game.

You can play an RPG with no rules and no dice.

And yet it remains a game that people are playing, and my describing that game is reporting an event until such time as I spend more time inventing new details than recounting what actually happened.

[Kat]

Aren't there levels of text RPGs that are basically interactive storytelling, though, Ran? I mean, the entire reason I know about this website is that once upon a time I saw it in your status on Elendor in like 2002-3 or something. For about 10 years I was extremely into text RPGs (MUSH, MOO, etc.) and my gameplay consisted entirely of the storytelling sort, in paragraphs. At one point I got featured on Elendor (for those uninformed, a text RPG based on Middle Earth) and was offered a character from the books. I tried it for a while and it did not appeal to me; I always enjoyed playing fringe original characters more. Similarly, my delving into writing fanfic has been extremely brief, and I only dabbled in a few fandoms and mostly read it, because I don't like sticking to someone else's character even while I like interacting with someone else's worldbuilding. Still, I would challenge the idea that written RPGs aren't essentially collaborative fanfic, because you're writing the text down as the events, in a fictional style, rather than re-telling events that happened earlier around a tabletop.

I don't think there's anything wrong with fanfic; as I mentioned, I have both read and written it. I still do read it, although even if GRRM approved of fanfic in his world I probably wouldn't read it after interacting with his canon so deeply and for so long. I did read this one crossover story just because the premise sounded so unlikely :uhoh: but for the most part I stick to obscure fandoms.

[Ran]

Yeah, MUSHes basically operate in a largely ruleless way and it's all about collaborative storytelling. RPGs in general tend to be about collaborative storytelling as well.

(Had no idea you were on Elendor, I think!)

A transcript of these roleplaying sessions would never be mistaken as literary fiction, however, and when we talk fan fiction we really have to include form -- fan fiction always emulate the forms of literary fiction, at least to my knowledge. A log of an IRC or MUSH roleplay session may recount a fictional narrative, but on one level it's recounting players playing a game because it's clearly cast in the form of Player A -> Player B -> Player C -> Player A, etc.

In a past discussion on this, I said that at best they would be pre-fiction -- the stuff you could take and recast in a literary form. As I said, from a review of a dozen threads on RPG.net, I found just one example that actually seemed more interested in fleshing out the fiction and avoiding reminding you that this was a report on a game, rather than sharing a sense of a communal gaming experience. I'd say that this suggests that most people who write campaign summaries, however much they dress it up with techniques drawn from fiction, are cognizant of the fact that the pleasure in what they're doing is reporting what they did rather than trying to invent something new.

[Kat]

I haven't played in a while; I was most active from about 2001-2004 and kept to my small part of the world. I also mostly played male characters. I keep meaning to join Blood of Dragons, but I don't have much time for roleplaying anymore these days.

But yeah...I dunno. I could dredge up some of the logs of some of the scenes I'd do, and some of the people I RPed with were really into writing and we ended up making it...well, if not entirely in the style of regular fiction, because we still had to take turns, it was not in your typical RPG style. We would have a lot of NPCs, a lot of paragraphs thrown in for setting, etc. On the other hand, when I tried that style on another game I was an admin on, I got pushback from players who thought it was unclear and hated having things that were not clearly one player's actions. So it depends, and you're right that mostly it's a different style.

And then there are authors who get so far into their RPGs that they end up writing 10-volume series about it...

ETA: But I tend to fall mostly on the side of 'I know it when I see it' with regard to fanfic. So I sometimes get a little confused when people mention speculative discussions on the board as being close to fanfic, because for me it's all about style. If an RPG isn't fanfic, then a discussion written in prose isn't either. And I respect George not wanting fanfic about his works even if my personal belief is that it's a harmless hobby and ways for fans, particularly the culture of female fans, to interact in other fandoms. (And don't see much harm given that most of the people who are writing fanfic are the same people who own all the works by a particular author, maybe even multiple copies, because who other than giant geeks does this stuff? :P)

[Ran]

Yeah, I've never understood those who take the leap that speculative discussion is fictive enough to be fan fic. Form and function has to matter, surely. But then, I think it comes back to those who also say intent should not matter -- which I can never agree with, since intent is part of the context in which any work arises. Trying to divorce content from context is lunacy at all times, IMO.

[felice]

And yet in one case, people are playing a game.

They're also telling a story. And by some definitions, it's not actually a game at all; it's not something one of the player can win, or a competition between the players and the GM (while the GM may control adversaries in the players' path, they generally want the players to succeed in defeating said adversaries), or a cooperative attempt to beat a rule-defined enemy (the GM has total control over the game world), and it doesn't have to have any defined endpoint.

Just because a baseball player names his bat "Wonder Boy" and has a back story about it does not turn the latest baseball game into a work of fiction.

But Wonder Boy's back story is a work of fiction; it's just not part of the baseball game. Whereas the back stories in an RPG are part of the game.

This is merely a matter of diegetic levels.

Diegesis is a term relating to fiction.

And yet it remains a game that people are playing, and my describing that game is reporting an event until such time as I spend more time inventing new details than recounting what actually happened.

What actually happened is some people sat around a table talking, and maybe rolling dice occasionally. The fictional events described in the process of playing the game did not actually happen. And I think looking at writeups of gaming sessions is a bit of a distraction; it doesn't have to be written down to be fiction. If for example GRRM made up a new Dunk and Egg short story at a live reading, it would still be fiction, even if first presented orally rather than in printed form.