Shakespeare, Fanfic, and Creativity
by Lucy Gillam

Sigh.  Here I am, caught in one of those blasted double-binds again.  I’m about to give more attention to people I think have already gotten too much attention already.  I’m going to console myself by pointing out that the basic idea of this column was already floating around in that scary place known as Lucy’s Brain.  And by being a little snarky.  You don’t mind, do you?

It was inevitable, I suppose: the Fanfic Hall of Shame has been dead for over a year, so it was probably time for something to rise to fill the gap.  In this case, it’s "Citizens Against Bad Slash."

A laudable cause, you’d think.  I’m pretty opposed to bad fanfic myself.  Yes, I believe that some stories are "bad," that characterization counts, that spellcheckers and beta readers are Our Friends, etc, etc, etc.

OTOH, I also think there’s such a thing as good fanfic, and this seems to be where I depart from "Jane" and "Virginia," the maintainers of the site.

"Jane" and "Virginia" (these are pseudonyms they’ve adopted, which is all fine and dandy – I entered fandom under the name "Lucy Gillam," and stopped using it only because switching the name on my Netscape mail became too much of a pain in the ass) identify themselves as "professional" writers who’ve dabbled in fanfic and gotten the same response everyone gets: "Good Story."  They say that CABS is their retribution.  I’m not entirely clear on what it’s retribution for: on one hand, they argue for better, more critical feedback, so it may be that they’re upset they didn’t get more advice on improving their craft.  However, the overall tone of the piece seems to suggest that what they really wanted was some recognition of their superior writing abilities (if I’m wrong, ladies, please write and let me know).

This, in fact, seems to be the overall cut and thrust of the site: fanfic is an inferior literary pursuit, and a denigration of writing as a craft (art/skill/pick-your-noun).  The reason it is an inferior pursuit is that "stealing" someone else’s characters, putting creative energy into a story that uses characters and settings not of your own making, is laziness on the part of the writer.

To quote Ally McBeal, that’s just dumb.

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of literature knows that "great" writers borrowed, adapted, adopted, and just plain wrote about "other people’s" characters all the time.  Shakespeare, anyone?  Almost every play the man wrote was based on something else, be it a poem, a legend, another play, or even history (albeit loosely).  Homer, anyone?  All "non-original" characters.  Vergil?  Likewise.  For heaven’s sake, ladies, pick up a Norton Anthology, read the notes!

We won’t even get into the fact that CABS have instantly labeled every television and movie writer who works on series and movies not of their own making as less "real."  Comic writers who take up established series?   Script doctors?  You see where I’m going with this?

CABS is also inherently privileging one part of the writing process: character creation.  They recommend Poppy Z. Brite, whom I also like a great deal, but even Poppy wrote a Crow novel.  The characters are quite obviously her own, but the plot, let’s face it, is pretty standard: guy gets killed, comes back from dead, gets revenge.  We’ve seen that in how many Crow incarnations?

The funny thing is that "Jane" and "Virginia" have inadvertently hit on why I only have four stories out there: the part of writing I love is creating characters and backgrounds.  I actually happen to think I’m rather good at it (no, I don’t have any examples to show you: I haven’t written "original" fic in years, and I’ve funneled that part of my creativity into role-playing – wonder if that’s creatively inferior?).  But along with this is a corollary: I suck at plot.  Absolutely stink at it.  And so I have nothing but admiration for writers who can take established characters and setting and create a stunning story.

The problem is that the entire premise is based on a Romantic fallacy that, despite constant battering from literary theorists, just keeps rooting itself deeper and deeper into the cultural consciousness: the myth of the author.

Now don’t jump on me like that!  Gimme a minute to explain.

By "myth of the author," I mean the myth of the solitary figure in the garret who slaves over his (it was always "his") desk creating Something out of Nothing, or more precisely, out of his Imagination, with no input from anyone else.  It might be more accurate to call this the myth of originality, because it disregards, even disdains, the vast impact culture in general, and other people in specific, have on any "original" work.  Show me an author who has not been heavily influenced by literature past and present, by the ideas of those around her/him, by everything from high school English courses to tampon commercials, and I’ll show you someone who was raised by wolves.  And even then, I bet the wolves had a profound influence on her style.

Before this myth of the author rose in conjunction with other Romantic notions, the idea that one could "own" ideas, and thus characters, was simply absurd, and so thus was the notion that working with existing characters was somehow inferior to creating ones own.  People wanted to read/hear about familiar names, probably for much the same reason people write/read fanfic.  The only real difference between the Illiad and Trek novels is that one is held in higher esteem (hint: "wrath of Achilles").

What’s that you say?  There’s a difference in "quality?"  Well, we could get into a nifty argument about "quality" as a constructed, contested notion, but just for the sake of argument, I’ll cop to it.  An unfortunate side-effect of the myth of the author is that if writers can work exclusively in "original" fic, they usually do.  Thus, Trek novels, etc, usually become either starting points for up-and-coming authors or money-makers for writers who can’t quite pay the rent on their "real" work.  Combined with the publisher’s awareness that just about anything with Trek on it will make a profit…you see the result.

But, you know, it doesn’t have to be like that.  We all like reading about familiar characters: the success of never-ending series in every genre from swords-and-sorcery to romance to tech thrillers points to that. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were more Peter Davids out there, talented writers who enjoyed working with "other people’s characters?"  Wouldn’t it be great if something like Neil Gaiman writing an episode of Babylon 5, or Stephen King and William Gibson writing episodes of The X-Files, was commonplace instead of almost unheard of?  Wouldn’t you like to see what King could do with an episode of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer?  What Harry Turtledove could have done with Sliders? Wouldn't you like to read Trek or X-Files Buffy novels by these folks?

Which brings us full circle: there’s nothing wrong with having high standards for fanfic.  But to claim the genre is somehow inherently inferior is strikingly naïve, especially from aspiring "professionals."

Lucy, in case anyone wants to know where she gets off saying this stuff, is a Ph.D. candidate in Rhetoric, and has an M.A. in English with specialties in rhetoric and literary theory.

Update:
Well, whaddya know!  Sometimes feedback really does work.  "Jane" and "Virginia" have majorly revised their site, including taking down most of what I was reacting to here.  Gotta love the Internet!