Do you ever have a long weekend where you don’t log in to any social media at all and you cook and go to an archery clinic and meet your neighbor’s new poofy kitten and then do a bunch of stuff outside and read like two books and feel like the world is awesome? I did that last weekend; it fucking ruled. And then on Monday the #litchat hashtag was all aflutter with shit-talking about fanfic (hereafter referred to as ‘fic’).

I’m glad I missed it, in retrospect, because it led to me getting mighty angry and writing a bunch of tweets into space about the snooty attitude of “real” writers (and I’ll keep that in scare quotes, thank you very much) towards fic.*

Which lead to me mostly talking to empty air for the next hour.

Now, look, I’m not here to argue about royalties or whatever. The creators of  original content should be paid, and paid like the professionals they are. Otherwise we’re all a bunch of fucking amateurs. I support the right of artists  to make a living making art. But how many of the casual writers of fic are professionals? More to the point, do they want to be?

Is it that hard to understand for people who make their living doing a thing — be it cooking, or deep-sea fishing, or competitive archery — that other people might also want to do that thing, as a hobby? Not every person who writes teenage poetry or Harry Potter self insert fic wants to be a professional writer. Yes, “real writer,” it’s fairly obvious that they are playing in the sandbox you built and using the sand you ground down with your own over-caffeinated teeth. No one is denying that. You made nice sand, dude! Be happy! People like your worldbuilding and characters so much they want more of them! Why are you upset?

Oh, it’s the myth of lost sales. Okay, let me clear this up for you really super duper quick. People who are fans – yes, even people who steal your ideas — want you to make a living making your art. They like it. They like you. They want more of it.

I’ll say that again.

Who do you think saw the movie made from it in the theater five times, bought two different box sets for commentary, all your tie-in merchandise, and most importantly, would not fucking shut up about that awesome thing you made? Did they tweet about it, tumbl about it, interest their parents, bore their friends senseless?

Newsflash: these are your fans.

And any marketing type worth an ounce of hair product will tell you that you can’t buy word of mouth. There is no greater proselytizer than the enthusiastic convert. These people will sell the shit out of your art, and they will do it for you, because they feel connected to it. One of the ways they do that is by personalizing it and making it their own.

Do you know what people are doing with your characters? They’re using them as templates to talk to one another, to work through their own lives, their own problems and hang-ups. This is a fucking amazing thing. You have nailed empathy, sociality, maybe even verisimilitude. You have to understand that that character isn’t yours anymore. I know that’s uncomfortable, and super weird, and it’s not easy to relinquish control.

I get that, okay? You came up with that character, and now other people are using them in their own stories, willy-nilly? That can’t be right!

“Real writers” — you have made a character leap from your mind into the collective fucking consciousness.** Take a second to think about that before you knock fic writers. ***

*This is not a legal analysis, so spare me the fair use brouhaha, please.

** Cf. Durkheim, “The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness.” I’d even venture to suggest a reading of fic as a Derridean supplement (“…if supplementarity is a necessarily indefinite process, writing is the supplement par excellence since it proposes itself as the supplement of the supplement, sign of a sign, taking the place of a speech already significant…”) but it’s late and who wants to do deconstruction at two a.m., really?

*** The ethics here may be questionable, of course, and I am completely opposed to the idea of mobilizing a fandom for personal and transparent monetary gain, a la Twific.