New Story! Love! Adventure! Happy Endings! Also a thing about Fanfiction going mainstream · 12:32am Feb 20th, 2016
I mean, I consider it a happy ending. And it took second-place in the latest Writeoff competition, so I guess some other people enjoyed it too.
The Instruments of Our Surrender
Love can take root in the most unlikely of places.
In Equestria's darkest moment, when Tirek seemed unstoppable, when the princesses lay chained in Tartarus, when the Elements were helpless, two ponies discover that no one is so weak that they cannot fight back. And what matters more than victory is what you discover along the way.
So yeah, the usual. Please read and upvote, because although I am not a changeling like some authors, I do feed on attention. It tastes like strawberry shortcake and it is delicious.
Yes, the desert. What did you think I meant?
On another note, Slate had an interesting story this week about a a fanfiction author who managed to break out of the Harry Potter fandom into the world of real books, and is now rich and famous. She's also embroiled with another author over accusations of plagiarism, but that's secondary to what I thought was most interesting about the article:
I have friends with deep roots in fandom—albeit without much connection to this particular sector of it—who believe that this is the true source of the undying animosity toward Clare: She left fandom “badly,” or, worse yet, she seemed to be repudiating her own origins in that community by changing the spelling of her name. Fan-fiction writers are routinely and viciously ridiculed and shamed for their hobby, which makes their communities especially insular and self-policing. “Back in the day,” Cleolinda Jones, a onetime regular at Fandom Wank, wrote to me, “we used to say, ‘The first rule of fanfic is, do not take money for your fanfic.’
TL;DR: A former Harry Potter fanfic author is taking a lot of flack for going mainstream and turning her beloved hobby into bookoo bucks.
Now, I have a few friends in this fandom who happen to be no-kidding for-realsies published authors, and I don't think any less of them. And I've been told, on more than one occasion, that I should be writing actual literature instead of ponywords. I haven't yet, because A) I think I need to develop my skills more, B) I already have a job that pays well, and C) trying to be a real published author is back-breaking work, not an enjoyable hobby.
But I'm still curious: do people in this fandom have the same antipathy toward former-fanfic-authors-who-go-mainstream? I've never encountered that phenomenon, but I've never asked folks about it either.
What do you think?
p.s. Click! Click and read! Cliiiiiiiiiick! Do it.
p.p.s. Also, reminder, the Writeoff’s original fiction minific round is this weekend! Go here to participate!
Turning your back on a fandom is, I think, something encouraged to avoid any sense of being "amateur" when going for publication.
I don't intend to do it. I mean, it's just rude, for starters, but I also think ideas about fanfiction are changing, and it needn't be a career-destroying skeleton-in-the-closet.
Also, I think your skills are probably top-notch, though I can't disagree with point C. :B I forget if I had a point when I started this comment.
It says he's not a changeling on his user page. Clearly he's trustworthy.
To be fair, I think this is largely a sensible rule for purposes of avoiding aggro from whoever owns the copyright to the original work. While being paid for horsewords would be nice, I don't own the copyright to MLP and profiting off of someone else's work strikes me as the sort of thing that could poison the well in the future.
The Sherlock Holmes and Lovecraft fandoms have it good, seeing as people can actually publish their stuff for money like, legitimately.
No.
Of course, given my own interest in original fiction, maybe I'm not the best person to ask.
I'll say this first, after reading the linked article we sure seem to have a great community here when compared to how the Harry Potter one was portrayed.
I am going to guess how the person leaves a fandom and goes mainstream has a lot to do with it. Ending fandom works and doing what you did before now with original or authorized works probably doesn't bring out the pitchforks. On the other hand if you burn that bridge behind you and take every opportunity to further shovel vitriol on your past fanbase... those who loved them the most will be hurt the worst.
At least in my own understanding, it's not really a begrudgment for making money, for writing non-pony, for going pro, or anything like that. The jimmy-rustling occurs when the author burns bridges with the community they grew up in. I can't think of any Fimfic examples off the top of my head, but back in 2012-2013 when the brony music scene was huge, you saw it happen a lot—musicians who would get horsefamous while honing their craft in this community, would sign a record deal, and then with a "later, fuckers" they'd disappear from the fandom entirely, possibly deleting their old stuff in the process. It feels dishonest and manipulative, like they made MLP content solely to ride the popularity wave, rather than out of love.
Like, okay, there's two sides to every story. But this is already putting a bad taste in my mouth.
But for the artists and authors who made it big, but still poke their head in the community from time to time? Nah, they're cool. Even if they're too busy to write ponyfic, it still feels nice when they acknowledge their roots.
If I ever did go through with making non-pony stories, I don't know if I could burn these bridges. At the same time, I'm not good enough to break into the 'actual' world of published fiction. Not yet, any ways.
I don't know about the fandom in general, but there are any number of authors on this site that I personally would love to see go professional should they so desire.
I'm not sure "don't make money off of fan fiction" is a thing at all here at this point. Every one and their mothers has a patreon. Hell even SSE, the last great hold out, is seriously considering getting one now.
If anything Pone peeps seem positively rapid in their want to pay you.
I had a guy out of the blue ask if I had a patreon so he could toss $50 in the tip jar for Night (which at that point had like 100K left to go) and it was a very weird experience.
There are times when I really wish I was/am more active and outspoken in this fandom and could be more involved than I am in conventions and gatherings and communities and just about everything that makes this fandom great.
And then there are times when I am so, so glad I've remained relatively quiet and unknown to the fandom at large.
Reading articles like that falls in the latter category.
It boggles my mind how fandom drama can be so toxic that friendships are destroyed and hatred fostered in its place because you had differing opinions on a preferred ship or an off-color joke, and I am deeply grateful that I've managed to stay miles away from it.
I'm not running around giving people flak for trying to publish a book. I'm not complaining to them for that, I don't even try to talk them out of it so that they will continue to write MLP: FiM fics only, heck, I want to become a publishing author one day too!
But publishing a book doesn't mean you have to quit writing fanfics completely. As an experienced author, you can write rather quickly anyway, so there should always be time to squeeze out a fic here and there.
The only thing that would me make antipathic against MLP: FiM fanfic authors is if they quit writing fics for it completely just because of becoming a publishing mainstream author.
I would react quite piqued about that and try to convince them to still write a fic here and there.
And what I find admirable is when someone has published mainstream books in the past and then started to write MLP: FiM fanfics anyway.
We have two great authors of that sort with AugieDog and scifipony in the fandom.
Also, since we talk about fics already, a question:
Are you going to continue "Forever Summer" soon, now that you have finished "Salvation"?
I certainly hope not, since that's the path I hope I can take someday.
The phrase "burning bridges" has come up in the comments a couple times here, though, and to be honest I don't know where I stand on that being a universally bad thing. Certainly, there are good ways to go about leaving a community and bad ways (*pointed cough*) to do it, but if you (or someone else I follow here) were to post a blog announcing that you felt it was time to move on from this place and focus your talents on original publication, I wouldn't hold that choice against you. To me, that's effectively no different than you quitting ponyfic because you've lost interest in the show, or because you've shifted your personal time priorities to work/family/medical care/whatever, or (my own anecdote) you've spent over a year and a half focusing on a long-form project that will almost certainly never go up on FIMFic. In a cosmic sense, you're beholden to no one but yourself in terms of what you want to spend your time on and how precisely you'd like to go about spending it.
Where I think people run into problems is when they leave a community for any one of those reasons above without acknowledging the people in that community they're leaving behind, or even worse, overtly disrespecting their time or interests. It's one thing to take down a story here because you're trying to convert it into an original draft and need to minimize prior-publication issues with whoever might be willing to publish it professionally. It's another to take it down because you've decided fan fiction is dumb and we're all dumb for liking it, and you vocalize that whenever you're given the chance. I definitely don't plan on spending the rest of my life writing fanfic without ever taking a swing at real-world success, but if that success should ever come, I don't think I could bring myself to completely renounce this place as if it had nothing to do with me reaching that point. I mean, maybe I'd sugarcoat it a little bit, given the subject matter and all, but I know acting like I was never here and never did this would just be spitting in the face of everyone who was there and did it with me. That, plus everything on the Internet is there forever, so my fate's pretty much sealed at this point.
Ultimately, I think that's what it comes down to, "that" essentially being "don't be a dick". People change and move on from things, but if you firebomb your bridges from orbit rather than just burning them for the sake of a cleaner breakaway, that's where you've kind of brought the problem upon yourself.
Like some many other things I do:
I'm apparently coming at this whole thing completely backward.
But I pretty much lacked the talent or the gumption or the what-have-you to make a go of a professional writing career. I just wanted to tell talking animal stories, but after building up through the 1990s with short story sales to places like Asimov's SF magazine and Marion Zimmer Bradley's fantasy magazine and finally getting my novel published by Tor in 1998, I dunno--I guess I oversaturated the market. By 2005, I was down to writing and selling maybe two stories a year, and that's probably all I'd be doing now if I hadn't run across Ponies.
Still, I would love to see authors from here make it big in the paying part of publishing. I've often wished I had useful advice to give on how to do that, but, well, you said it yourself: "trying to be a real published author is back-breaking work, not an enjoyable hobby." I broke my back fairly constantly for about a quarter of a century before I decided it was never gonna pay off for me. So now I'm writing a lot more, selling the same amount, and considerably happier than I've been in quite some time.
Mike
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I won't speak for the other, however the idiom "burning bridges" for me has a strictly negative meaning. If I was going to choose a phrase to encapsulate what I believe you are looking for it would be either "cut ties" or "clean break", not "burning bridges". I know I used it specifically because how the fandom -> paid transition happens was the important part, not the split itself.
As for fanfic writers turned pro, the prime example I always think of is Lois McMaster Bujold, who turned a Star Trek TNG fanfic into the beginning of a long-running (and very successful) space opera series. This was before the massive online interaction between fans, so the lack of drama surrounding her "selling out" may be because of that, or the fact that Lois is a very cool person.
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Which is why The Beekeeper's Apprentice is a "real" book despite being fan fiction. Also Wicked (Wizard of Oz fanfic), and several others.
The "line" is very blurry. Essentially, a staff writer that comes on board for the third season of a TV series is writing fan fiction. Also, there are thousands of unmade scripts for all the popular shows out there that were written on spec and never made... and were never intended to be made. They were created as samples to show that the writer could do fanfic (in script format) of a certain type of show and keep the characters and tone consistent.
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There are countless Sherlock Holmes and Cthulu based works, including numerous video games, and even RPGs.
It is neat, and is one of the reason why the public domain is totally awesome.
Yup! Fanfiction is ultimately just working within someone else's continuity, really.
Wat. But. You're like a writing god or something. Wat
Fair enough
The only person I've heard attack Clare is someone who's a professional editor and takes plagiarism seriously, so I can't say that I buy the explanation that it's about her leaving the fandom.
Antipathy? When ponyfic authors start publishing IRL, we're generally happy for them. Sad too because it means less ponyfic, but absolutely supportive. That's my impression, at least.
Lies! Lies and slander, sir.
As a changeling myself, I feel I am quite uniquely qualified to discern who is and who isn't a member of our proud, worthy-of-your-emotional-support, and awesome race. Trust me, if Horizon were in fact a changeling, I would be in a position to know.
But don't take my word for it. You should walk up to him on the street, and say, "Hey! Horizon, you should totally take this piece of candied saudade," and he will look you in the eye and say, "No! That is a thing changelings would do, and I am not a changeling." Then you should say, "Well, if that's the way you feel about it, I'm just going to give this to 3766132 then," and he will shrug and say "Go ahead, see if I care."
Then, obviously, you should give the candied saudade to me, because you'll want to verify my story too.
Given that I hope to one day get something published under my actual name, I have no beef with those who use fan fiction as a springboard to original work... as long as they're cool about it. Looking down on the derivative masses with whom they once rubbed elbows is just gauche.
I think I would be only is the had honestly bad writing, were a petty person, or didn't work hard for it, something like that. I also think wat I would feel would be disgust rather than envy or antipathy.
Anyone who can make the jump... congratulations on that!
If I happen to think their writing wasn't good, and especially if I thought their published writing was poor? I reserve the right to be miffed about that.
Anyway, I agree especially about points B and C. Even if I thought I was publishable-level good (I am unable to discern this, but I suspect I have a ways to go), it would transform from 'creative outlet' to 'WORK'. If I took the time to write something less publishable (Game Night vs A Watchful Eye, for fanfic comparison), I would be missing out on something bigger than 'more upvotes', and more importantly, it would feel like it. I value having a low-pressure creative outlet more than I value getting a probably-modest fee.
#SlatePitch - Ponies are bad, and you are all a bunch of weirdos.
** Returns to writing Jem and the Holograms fanfiction **
I certainly don't hold it against any author that moves to writing professionally and has some financial success. From a purely selfish standpoint, it is sad when people quit writing ponyfics because i will have less good fics to read. I'm somewhat a neophyte to the fanfiction scene, but the in-fighting described in this article is mildly terrifying. My impression is that the mlp fandom is a lot more inclusive and a lot less insular. I don't know if that is because crazy fandoms have gone more "mainstream" or if it is the general tone and message of the show. I really hope it stays that way.
I understand a little bit of Cassandra Clare distancing herself from her previous fanfiction stories. There has to be a sense that she could be sued any day for her original work if there is a back catalog of fanfiction that violates a bunch of trade marks. Sorta not cool on her part, but generally, you have to expect and accept a certain bit of problematic behavior when it comes to someone's livelihood. If her publisher is telling her that she could make it by living her dream and writing, but hey, you need to back away from the fanfiction to avoid a lawsuit, then i really understand what she is doing.
The article was a bit strange. Clearly, the author is completely bewildered by the existence of fanfiction. I'm sure all of you have had people look at you like a crazy person when you talk about ponyfics. Even my friends who are hardcore, non-mainstream nerds who play stigmatized games like Magic the Gathering and D&D thought i had Gone a Step Too Far with the whole mlp fandom and ponyfics. The author of the article seems to be in the same boat: trying to be supportive and understanding of an insular group of nerdom but be unable to avoid giving the whole mess some serious side-eye.
Gardez (Can i call you Gardez? I'm going to call you Gardez.): i think your quality of writing is certainly more than sufficient to be a professional writer. I cannot comment on if you are fast enough without knowing how much time you spend writing. It seems to me, that one would need to be able to have really pump out of the work to make it pro, particularly if you need to work a full time job to do the whole food and shelter thing.
I completely understand point C. Two times in my life I've taken a hobby to the next level and had it become miserable. I used to play WoW classic in a guild that was world class. We raided six times a week for at least four hours. After about nine months or a year of doing this with abusive guild leadership, i realized that i really hated those guys. It certainly ruined the game for me, even as i got to do and play parts of the game that would have been closed to me otherwise. The other example was moving from a high school marching band to a BigTen college marching band. Same situation, where I poured everything into it, only to realize that nearly everyone in it was an a-hole. At least with the marching band, i made a few lifelong friends. They were in my wedding; i was in theirs. I was even in one of their weddings TWICE!
Darn, I’m a bit late to this. But here goes:
In the specific case of Cassandra Clare, I think at least some of the ill will towards her comes from the simple fact that, well… she’s just not a particularly good writer. And I honestly loathe myself for saying that since, as you say, writing professionally is just such an absurdly tough job. Putting down other authors, no matter what your personal opinions on their work might be, somehow feels wrong on a very basic level.
Though on the other hand, for me personally, there’s no getting around the fact that I positively struggled to make it through the first Mortal Instruments book. And this was ten years ago, mind, when I wouldn’t have recognized good writing even if it slapped me in the face! Even then, something felt off about it.
More importantly for your question however, I unfortunately don’t have any doubt that Cassandra Clare also plagiarized a lot of her work, or at least used to back in her fandom days. I can remember there was a series of Livejournal posts back from several years ago (not the one linked in the article) that went into exhaustive detail of precisely what works she had stolen. The extent to which she plagiarized truly is staggering – whole entire sections of prose simply copied word for word, but with the character’s names changed! It’s no wonder that she’s such a controversial figure.
… I guess my long rambling point is, Cassandra Clare’s history with fandom is so singularly messy and horrible that using her as an example of ‘fanfic-author-turned-pro’ becomes problematic in some ways. “Do people in this fandom have the same antipathy toward former-fanfic-authors-who-go-mainstream?” I would imagine not, and the comments here seem to bear this out. But if an author on this website was also revealed to be a huge plagiarist – and if that author then went on to achieve huge commercial success – then I’d also imagine the reaction to that would be pretty similar to the Slate article.
For what it’s worth, I think you're already working on a level that surpasses a lot of published authors I’ve read. Like, for real.
There are people in the fandom who think putting up a Patreon is a dick move. SS&E might feel that way, based on his Patreon troll. I think that saying there's something icky about having a Patreon is more of a dick move.
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The both of you. Actually that isn't much of a bar to clear, but I think you're both above the average published author.
We have a big advantage over published authors, though, in not having to write for a genre. We have that advantage even over other fandoms. It's hard to write a Harry Potter that isn't either fantasy or slash; it's hard to write Star Trek that isn't either science fiction or slash. MLP is unique in that it has a magical fantasy setting, yet there are many episodes with no magic in them. And the characters being ponies mean you can write nearly anything if you make your characters ponies--turning them into ponies satisfies most of the fandom requirements.