Fanfic writers - SHORT POLL QUESTION

[timepiececlock]

I've been reading some interesting stuff about fanfiction today. I read a great deal of stuff about the "Cassie Claire Is A Plaigarist" wank, and had to quit at part VIII of the timeline archive because it was just that long and messy. Right now I'm reading this article and its predecessor, and for the most part I'm finding them fair and enjoyable, if a bit on the shallow side information-wise.

In reading some of the CC wank stuff, which featured quotes about fanfic from various authors (particularly fantasy), I was left wondering if there was a giant list somewhere that maybe showed how a lot of the more famous authors feel about fanfic. I know the obvious ones like Anne Rice and JKR, but if the article I linked above is true and some professional authors are/have been fanfic writers themselves, I'd love to read various opinions present by them with regards to the issue.

The article I linked also says this about fanfic, which I admit applies to me as well:

"I was fifteen years old when I invented the genre of fan fiction, a form of writing where the author takes characters or universes created by someone else and writes stories about them. ... ... ... Fifteen was also the year I attended my first convention, where I learned that fan fiction had thrived for years before me."

Although for me it was more like 14 and I discovered fanfic through a Sailor Moon fan website and not a convention, the experience was basically identical: when I wrote my first fanfic I didn't even realize I was entering myself into a long-standing fandom tradition. I just had this mental image that I *had* to write down. That urge to write the next step after the credits closed. It wasn't until a while later that I stumbled upon internet fanfic and it clicked in my brain. In many ways I've never felt guilt about the "allure" of the internet and fandom because for me, fandom and fanfic was something, first and foremost, my own individual invention. Learning that there were thousands of others out there who made that same leap was, if anything, a massive rush.

So, I have a poll for you guys on my flist who write fanfic. And I'd like to ask you to link this poll to others if you want to, because I'd really love to see what a large sample will respond with. Most of my flist I've known originally from Jossverse fandom or anime fandom, so I'm sure it will be a far from legitimate sample of LJ fic writers. But I'd love to see, anyway.

[Poll #788168]

Comments

[felicie4.livejournal.com]

*cries* I'd completely forgotten about my first ever fanfiction, but now I remember it. "The Only One Allowed to Call Him Tom". (I'd deliberately forgotten Dumbledore for the sake of the fic, which is BAAAD.) You can tell how bad it was by reading the title, can't you? Her name was Ebony/Bonnie and she was so TRAGIC because she was a black girl in the Blitzed 1940s London and her white mum hated her and she lived in the orphanage with Tom Riddle Jr (Boo hoo). She was Tom's true love and they went around Little Hangleton having lots of sex and she was mugged and murdered before his very eyes and he held her body in the rain and raised his head to the sky and swore never to love again DUN DUN DUN!!!!

And then there was my second one, an affront to the name of the Phantom of the Opera, "Gypsy Girl". She was from the Circus too, DUN DUN DUN HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF SHE MUST BE MEANT TO BE ERIK'S TWU WUV!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First she was a spunky, nasty, angry, half-starved dancer kidnapped from her home, then later in the story I changed her into a frail, sweet, naturally skinny girl who just sat in a cage while THE CRUEL OUTSIDE WORLD THREW RUBBISH AT HER FOR THEIR OWN SICK AMUSEMENT OMGAAAAAAAWD.

Why didn't any of my 70-odd reviewers tell me she was a Sue, whyyyyyy?!