Priveliging the Creation over the Creator

[rowyn]

I've been playing devil's advocate on haikujauar's journal, on the subject of fanfiction. (Poor Micah! If you decide to contribute to the thread, I'd recommend reading the comments so far. She's wound up repeating several clarifications multiple times already.) I've found that I have a surprising amount of passion on the topic, especially for someone who doesn't read or write fanfiction.

As I've been considering the topic, I've been contemplating what it is that I personally dislike about fanfiction. Among the field of problems associated with it (most of it is badly written and/or wish-fulfillment, much of it violates creative intent and/or copyright law, etc.) is one that hasn't been mentioned yet:

It implies that the character is more important than the author.

I've read almost every book that Diana Wynne Jones has ever written. She seldom writes about the same characters twice. I'm very fond of some of those characters. I'd enjoy reading more about Chrestomanci (who does appear in several short stories and a few books), or Rupert Venables of Deep Secret, or finding out what happens next to Thomas Lynn and Polly of Fire and Hemlock.

But I don't go searching for fanfic about those characters (there's probably some out there) or write to Ms. Jones begging her to do another book about Rupert.

And part of that is because I trust Ms. Jones as an author. I trust that what she writes next will be what she's inspired to write, and that it, too, will be good just as her other books have been good. It doesn't have to be about the same characters.

There's something ... suffocating about the human demand for more about this character. Or this universe. Or this team. It leads to a lot of bad writing: writers flogged to make what will sell, rather than what they are driven to make.

This isn't just about fanfiction; it's about professionals writing their own creations, too. Glen Cook has written I-don't-know-how-many Black Company books now. If all his books were equally popular, he'd've stopped writing Black Company by book five (if not sooner). But Black Company is what sells, so he flogs his muse to produce Yet Another Black Company novel, and it makes him ten times what any novel in a new series would. So that's what he does.

But there are novels in his head -- new stories, in new settings, about new characters -- that will die with him, because not enough people are willing to take a chance on them. Because they won't say "Hey, I loved this series by that Cook guy -- maybe this other novel by him will be good, too."

When I was in fifth grade, I read a dozen or more books about Oz. The last one I read was the sixth novel by Frank L. Baum. It ended with the statement that there would be no more visitors to Oz, no more books about Oz. I was shocked. How could this be? I'd read way more than six Oz books. And I finally thought to check the spine: most of those books had been written by other authors. It had simply never occured to me that might be the case.

What is it about us, that we value the creation more than the creator? Why do so many people say, "That was great! Can you do another one just like it?"

Why don't we want to see what else they can do, that might be new, and fresh, and different and maybe -- just maybe -- even better?

Comments

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

A fascinating thought, and I think that the answer is that the author is too successful at maintaining the illusion.

That is, the author has succeeded in maintaining the illusion - on some level, for enough readers - that this is a real person, a real character, in a real setting, in real events. So, the reader doesn't stand back and think, "Man, what a great writer!" No, the reader thinks, "Man, this hero is JUST SO COOL! I want to find out what he does NEXT!"

Of course, the character isn't real. We all know that. And one reason why fan-fic just doesn't "feel right" is that so often it rips out the personality of the character ... because the personality of that character is granted by the work of the author, and that personality is inextricable from his situation many times. So many fan-fics ponder, "What if?" - what if this happened instead, what if so-and-so had a romantic interest with so-and-so, what if so-and-so WENT BAD, what if so-and-so met so-and-so, and so forth. But if it were really in the hands of the author, all those "what ifs" wouldn't happen.

I suppose it's the cost of success. A story that really grips the reader is probably going to have really compelling characters that we care about, that we want to know more about, that we can identify with in some way. (I am tempted to say a great deal about Mariel from Prophecy, but that's best reserved for email, lest I throw spoilers left and right.)

And I've heard plenty of "fans" of various stories talk about these totally fictitious characters and settings is if they were real in some way. I suppose the funniest extent of this would be situations where guys get into arguments about who would win out in a cross-universe showdown - the Empire or the Borg. ;D And, man, can people get worked up about stuff like that! (The irony for me is that so many of the arguments in favor of one side or the other winning are also arguments AGAINST the quality of writing for that given story franchise; i.e., powergaming would win a theoretical fight, but tends to make for bad stories, IMHO.)

Anyway, I agree with you - so often, the fanfic I've seen is about the character, the character, the character, without so much as a mention of the author.

[rowyn]

This was in LJ's "catch-up" batch from last night.

Do you still recall what it was you wanted to say about Mariel? I don't think I ever got that email on it .... :)

I think you're dead-on about the "who would win?" argument -- usually the "winning" side is the one with the worse writers. ;)

[jordangreywolf.livejournal.com]

(re: "worse writers" winning the "who would win?" argument)

That reminds me of an episode of Elf Only Inn.

Goku666: "yah i got mad marital arts skills. i can shoot a laser that can blow up a planet!"

Darth Vader: "And all this time we were building Death Stars...."