When It’s Not Yours

This is something that has been weighing in with less-than- heavy, but slightly-more-than-medium impact on my thoughts of late. The reason will probably be abudantly clear in a few months (ah, hindsight, how obvious you are), but for now, let’s just play in generalities.

I’m talking about Fan Fiction. That is, when a writer or aspiring writer runs into the already established playground of another person’s story/world/characters and starts mucking around with it, creating stories of their own based on that other person’s creation. Neil-O was actually asked about the issue of fan fiction a few years back, and the fan wanted to know what Neil-O himself thought of fan fiction. Neil-O’s response, somewhat abbreviated was this:

Er, no, I don’t read fanfiction.

I think that all writing is useful for honing writing skills. I think you get better as a writer by writing, and whether that means that you’re writing a singularly deep and moving novel about the pain or pleasure of modern existence or you’re writing Smeagol-Gollum slash you’re still putting one damn word after another and learning as a writer.

But I do think that, in the final analysis, all a writer really has to give is the stuff that only she or he can give the world and no-one else can. That the sooner you sound like you and tell the stories only you can tell, for good or for ill, the better. And from that point of view, I suppose I think of fan-fiction as training wheels. Sooner or later you have to take them off the bike and start wobbling down the street on your own.

This strikes me as a fairly sensible approach to writing. Others, it would seem, took major offense to this, as Neil-O himself found out the very next day. He lists the varied and angry reactions to his statements:

Having said that, it also looked like a lot of the people telling me off hadn’t even read the whole post, or had just seen other people on other sites quoting the last paragraph, which was then extensively quoted back at me as evidence that: I don’t know what I’m talking about; do not understand that people are writing fan-fiction for pleasure, or that fan-fiction is a valid artistic purpose in itself; that I am myself nothing more than a glorified fan writer; that people writing movies and TV shows and comics and books are really writing fan-fiction; that real life is really fan-fiction; that all comics writers are writing fan fiction and what about that time I wrote (insert comics/historical/mythical characters I didn’t create here)?; that Shakespeare was writing fan fiction; and that my choice to write fiction that I do not call fan-fiction should not be seen in any way as a reflection on those who wear their fan-fiction proudly. Also if I’d just read some decent Buffy/Smallville/Legolas/Gone With the Wind fan-fiction I wouldn’t have been so rude about those who choose to write it.

This whole notion of fan fiction, and what it is, isn’t and its merits is something I’ve been mulling over in odd moments. I suppose in the strictest sense, one could say that fan fiction is the creation of one person that is interpreted by another. Although the angry critics of Neil-O above were taking it to a fairly furious extreme, on some level, one could make the argument that unless the original creator is doing it, anything else is fan fiction. This isn’t always the case however. If you want to go the legal/corporate route, then fan fiction is anything that isn’t officially “endorsed” in some capacity by the creator or the corporate/legal entity that holds rights to a particular intellectual property.

This is the more practical, every day definition that people are used to, and that is why even though a new writer will come on board for the Batman comic, the Dune series of novels or the latest James Bond film, these new works are still considered “canon” even though the original creators had no hand in it. They also have the benefit of some kind of professional transaction, ie, someone got paid to write this, as opposed to the amateur sphere in which no money (and therefore no litigation consequences) are involved.

And it’s this particular kind of “official” fan fiction that I’ve been musing about. I find myself wondering what other writers have done when they find themselves in the position of being able to officially write for a world or character that is not their own and how they handle it. How, for example, did Ron Moore take to Star Trek: The Next Generation when he came onboard the series years after the series had already been established by others before him? Particularly when there was an expectation that a strict adherence to continuity be maintained since the show was still in production, as opposed to the major revision he did when he took Battlestar Galactica by the reins. What do you do when you know that you can’t simply walk into an established “house” and start tearing out wallpaper, trashing furniture and changing it from its previous shiny art deco look to a more spare zen minimalist scheme that is more to your liking?

In the corporate world, there’s pretty much an unspoken rule that when new management comes in s/he will, like a new alpha male in the pack, start trying to obliterate all traces of the previous management’s influence in an effort to stamp their personal sense of individuality on the office. This, obviously, is completely unacceptable for someone coming into a franchise, although many have failed to see this fact. That’s why you get bizarre anomalies such as the almost complete disregard for the spirit of the original Highlander movie in its sequel, or the abrupt and random new setting and agenda for the Buck Rogers TV series in its second season.

I grant that it is inevitable for a new creator to be unable to completely emulate the tone, manner and style of an original creator when the time comes to tackle an existing series/charac
ter. In some cases, the fresh perspective is even extremely welcome, such as the paradigm-altering take of Batman that Frank Miller tackled in The Dark Knight Returns.

So I guess in my meandering sort of way, the conclusion that I am slowly trying to come to is that if you ever find yourself in the position where someone offers you a chance to work on a character or world that is not yours, and this is a property that you have a genuine affection for, the only things you can really do are these:

1) Respect the material.

2) Try to understand what it is about the original that made you a fan in the first place.

3) Understand that your own personal voice, sensibilities and peculiarities will arise when you create the work and that this, like puberty, is completey natural, with nothing to be ashamed of, and perhaps some good may come of this fresh infusion.

4) Stay true to the spirit of the work if not the exact style.

5) Inhale the material. If it’s a large body of work, take in everything. If there are appendices, supplementary materials, and other works, take the time to read and understand them. The more you know about this world you are about to step into, the better.

6) Remember that this is not yours. Remember not to try to make it yours by trying to possessively or antagonistically “clean house” so you can urinate all over the walls and claim it as your territory.

7) Conversely, do not be afraid to tread new ground. If you are religiously sticking to only what has come before, and you are contributing nothing new, you are likely not even telling a new story and are merely repeating the same stories that drew you in to begin with. While you can make an argument for people wanting only the same “feeling” with a world/character over and over again, that doesn’t necessarily mean slavishly repeating the same story with a few changes in locale and names.

You are not (insert name of original creator here). Don’t try to be. You may think you are as good as the original creator. You might even be right. But you are still NOT that person, and if you try to advertise yourself as The Second Coming of said creator, you’ll just be pissing off everyone, including the fans and the creator if s/he is still alive.

9) Have fun with it. Because if it feels like work writing it, it will feel like work reading it, and that’s not a winning formula to suck the audience in.

10) Pray you don’t screw up.

Some day, this post is going to come back and bite me in the ass. I know it.