sholio | OTW and fanfic and Scalzi and stuff

I can't believe that I just spent three hours reading all 400+ comments at John Scalzi's blog entry on the Organization for Transformative Works (and there are probably a lot more comments now, but I WILL NOT READ THEM because I have to sleep at some point).

It was actually a remarkably civil, reasonable and pleasant discussion. Or maybe I've just been unlucky enough to get sucked into exceedingly unpleasant discussions in my earlier fannish existence, when the topic of fanfic came up between fanfic people and pro writer people.

I actually created this fan journal back in '04 in large part because a lot of the readership of my original journal,

glacierdust, had been involved in those discussions, and a few of the people who knew me in real life (who I still wanted to stay on good terms with) were vehemently anti-fanfic. I didn't use my glacierdust journal for my fanning because I didn't want to get into a fight every time I posted something fanfic-positive. Looking back on it, I think I might have been unreasonably sensitive on the topic; still, there had been some nasty fights on the comics message board where I used to be (and technically still am) a co-moderator, to the point where the other mod and I actually banned the topic of fanfic completely, because people couldn't discuss it in a civil manner.

It made me happy to find everyone (well, almost everyone) on Scalzi's board discussing the topic like reasonable adults. It also made me happy to see the fanfic side being represented by a lot of articulate, smart, well-spoken people, and most (not all, but most) of the WTF-ery happening on the "anti-fanfic" side.

One of these days, I want to make a long thinky post about fanfic vs. original writing, and my relationship to both -- the changes my opinions on both have gone through over the years, the ways I've shuffled back and forth between the two of them until coming to the rewarding balance that I have now (which may change again in the future), the way that I feel they complement each other rather than being in opposition. But right now, I'm sleepy and I have the last 50 pages of Temeraire book 3 to finish, so I think I'll go do that instead.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Makes plenty of sense! It's just such a complex issue: free speech, right to privacy, etc. It's hard to know where to start. Of course, if one just goes for black and white, it's clearly unethical and intrusive (i.e., wrong) to publish RPS and RPF. But shades of gray do exist, and it's hard to see the actual harm such writing does.... Anyway, thanks for the interesting discussion! Love, mxm

OTW and fanfic and Scalzi and stuff

Re: Rambling and reminiscing...