On Fanfiction
My views on fanfiction can be summed up very briefly with: YES. Yes, please.
To me, fanfiction is one of the greatest compliments an author can hope to receive. Fanfic doesn’t take anything away from either the original author or the original work, and it doesn’t harm the author’s vision in any way. How could it? Readers are never passive “recipients” of a story, anyway; they are always the ones who create the story in their minds through the act of reading. There are already as many different versions of the story as there are readers.
If someone finds an author’s fictional world and characters so compelling they want to pour their time, effort and creativity into spending more time within this world, engaging with it, and transforming it, then that cannot be anything but a good thing.
I read fanfic. I write it. I love it. And should someone create fanfic about one of my books, I’d be thrilled.
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Could not agree more! Well said, Alex.
Well said, but now I really want to know where your fanfic is hidden ;) pretty please? ;)
Gillian wrote: "Could not agree more! Well said, Alex."Thank you, Gillian! :-)
A while back, a number of mainstream authors spoke out against fanfic, and to me this seemed to be mainly down to the fact they hadn't really engaged with the subject and were misinformed about it, and/or misunderstanding the motives behind it.
I don't actually know of any authors in the m/m romance genre who've spoken out against fanfic. Perhaps this is because the genre as a whole is so connected to both readers and alternate ways of publishing and interacting with the text? Or perhaps it's because of something else entirely. ;-) Whatever the reason, I'm glad!
Bitchie, I tried to write you a private message, but goodreads won't let me... Meep, check your messages! :-)
I might have it to friends only, I'll go fix it.
I remember when Amazon was first allowing people to publish fanfic for cash and I think that upset a lot of authors who didn't otherwise mind fanfic. Which is understandable -- once money is involved, things get weird. But personally, I'm with you. I've actually left story hooks/unexplained things in my stories in the hopes that someone might want to explore them. I can dream, anway ;)
Oh, absolutely - for me it's one of the basic rules of fanfic that it's free! If people are asking money for works set in someone else's universe without permission, that's a different story entirely. (Pun! *g*)Gillian wrote: "I've actually left story hooks/unexplained things in my stories in the hopes that someone might want to explore them."
I understand completely! :-) Somebody nominated "Love for the Cold-Blooded" for the Yuletide fic exchange this year, and I couldn't be more thrilled. I don't really expect anything to come of it, but I love that somebody wanted to read fanfic based on it - and someone else offered to write it. It's a lovely compliment!
Yep. Completely agree. Curious about the fan fiction you've written now :)
Fanfic for the win! :-)I actually started out in X-Files fandom, four score and seven years ago... Mulder/Krycek, of course. ;-) Those were the days...
I have pretty much just devoured everything you have published professionally and would love to delve into your fanfiction if it is still available online!
