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I suppose you could actually think of the Christian Bible as fanfic based on the Hebrew Bible.
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I suppose, in that spirit, you could consider the Hebrew Bible as interesting only as back story to the Gospels.
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Whatever it was, Romeo and Juliet was not a "vague folk story." Brooks' poem is about Romeus, a Montague, falling in love with Juliet, a Capulet, in Verone, with the same plot, which was itself based on other sources. This was not a retelling of Snow White.
Alright, I can accept that. Calling Shakespeare Fanfic however, that is what I think its just dead wrong. Trying to compare yourself to Shakespeare, or justify your work in that light is laughable, as I think you know. But if you want to talk about where the idea for Romeo and Julliete came from, I am not averse to that actually, so long as you don't try to call what he did "fanfic" I don't like that.
And BTW, I don't know much about those poems you mentioned, but I would be surprised if the evidence linking them to Shakespeare's work is anything but tenuous. I find that very often people make the wildest leaps of faith in order to tie in Shakespeare with some other author, or event, or whatever- just look at "Shakespeare in Love" as a good example of what the wishful imagination is capable of.
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: I suppose you could actually think of the Christian Bible as fanfic based on the Hebrew Bible.
Only if you count every other book where the characters are Jewish and read the Bible as fanfic as well.
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Alright, I can accept that. Calling Shakespeare Fanfic however, that is what I think its just dead wrong. Trying to compare yourself to Shakespeare, or justify your work in that light is laughable, as I think you know. But if you want to talk about where the idea for Romeo and Julliete came from, I am not averse to that actually, so long as you don't try to call what he did "fanfic" I don't like that.
Then the question is, what would it be called? And how is fanfic different?
At no point have I compared the quality of my work to Shakespeare's. I'm simply comparing the methods used. I can draw, but that doesn't put me in the same league as Raphael. Rather it means we can both be called artists. He was sublimely good and I poke at paper with a pencil, but calling me an artist does not drag him down or lift me up.
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quote:I suppose you could actually think of the Christian Bible as fanfic based on the Hebrew Bible.
quote:I suppose, in that spirit, you could consider the Hebrew Bible as interesting only as back story to the Gospels.
Or if you believe in neither, you can think of them both as historically, logically, and morally inconsistent collections of myths, legends, and folklore.
quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: At no point have I compared the quality of my work to Shakespeare's. I'm simply comparing the methods used. I can draw, but that doesn't put me in the same league as Raphael. Rather it means we can both be called artists. He was sublimely good and I poke at paper with a pencil, but calling me an artist does not drag him down or lift me up.
You know very well what I think of what you do. That has nothing to do with the quality of your writing, because you write well, and I wish you would write with a different goal in mind. However calling Shakespeare fanfic IS a way of comparing yourself to him favorably. Although of course you did not do this directly, your smart enough to know that I WOULD make that connection.
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Honestly, no, I didn't. I was comparing what I do with what he did, but I made no judgments about the relative quality.
But that leaves the question. What is it called when someone takes an existing story and rewrites it with the same characters but with a different plot, or different emphasis, or different relationships between the characters, or just writes a scene that never appeared in the original but could have?
If you would, please answer either that question or this one: how do you define fanfic?
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I've defined fanfic very carefully in that other benighted thread. I believe I said it was a peice of writing which attempts to live and operate in a universe created by another author. Not only that, but a fanfic attempts to gain credibility and assumes a relationship with its audience based on the work of the original author. Shakespeare doesn't do this latter thing; his work, the most important part of it, is all original.
If you started calling all influences "sources" then you'd soon believe that nothing could ever be original. Even taking a work or a phrase or a whole idea from another work isn't fanfic, it can be inspiration if the new author employs it honestly.
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quote:I've defined fanfic very carefully in that other benighted thread. I believe I said it was a peice of writing which attempts to live and operate in a universe created by another author. Not only that, but a fanfic attempts to gain credibility and assumes a relationship with its audience based on the work of the original author.
I think this is a fair definition, but I think it also supports the idea that much of what Shakespeare wrote can be called fan fiction.
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I am not even going to respond to this. Wikipedia, Chris? Really?
No, he is not high. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with going to wikipedia as a starting point for facts. Ninty-nine percent of the time the facts in wikipedia are correct. They certainly were this time, as Chris showed with source after source. You may not like using it, and that's fine, but that doesn't make it wrong.
quote:Trying to compare yourself to Shakespeare, or justify your work in that light is laughable, as I think you know.
...??
Your tone has been very much know-it-all condecention and it's very much getting on my nerves. Three years of study in a subject does not make you a PhD, and a PhD does not make you an expert (much as those in academia would like you to think otherwise). You do not necesarily know more about this than those here, so quit talking like you do. Many folks here have been through college and are well out of college. They do know quite well what they are talking about and while they are not necesarily experts either the assumption is not "they're wrong, you're right". Please don't talk like it is.
Furthermore English especially is a discipline where a great deal of subjectivity is involved, even among experts. Whether or not something is 'fan fiction' is a matter of opinion largely and cannot be decided by anyone. There is no clear 'fact' on the matter. And you don't even have what facts there are right. So please drop the tone, drop the attitude and consider the fact that other people's opinions on the subject may not only be valid, but something you may want to spend some time pondering.
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Orin, even by the definition you just listed here, March qualifies as "fan fiction" and it just won a Pulitzer. I think your objection is to the term more than anything.
Both the term and the questions of copyright are modern inventions. Because we have a mostly literate populace and the internet exists, the field is now open to the masses to publish stories for free. In the past, people gathered around camp fires to tell their new stories about familiar characters.
The process is essentially the same, but the framing is different. Because of the almost universal accessablity of the internet, there is also a huge range of quality.
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quote:Originally posted by Olivet: Orin, even by the definition you just listed here, March qualifies as "fan fiction" and it just won a Pulitzer. I think your objection is to the term more than anything.
That is what I said about Shakespeare, I don't think you can call what he did by the same name.
Alcon- When did I say I was an expert? When did I say I care if you think I'm not one? I'm not.
I guess everything I write just HAS to be literal, since you obviously can't live with a little hyperbole in your life. Do I think anyone is high in this thread? No. Do I think anyone is wrong? Yes, you are.
"So please drop the tone, drop the attitude and consider the fact that other people's opinions on the subject may not only be valid, but something you may want to spend some time pondering."
A suggestion designed to leave me with no possible way to respond: "no I'm not being mean!!! " As If I write without reading what other people have to say and thinking about it. Why would I have had a conversation 8 pages long if I didn't listen at all? Being adament is my prerogative, however you have no right to say I don't listen. I remember every reasonable and intelligent argument CA and Olivet and others make, and there are alot of them to keep track of.
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quote:quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally posted by Olivet:
Orin, even by the definition you just listed here, March qualifies as "fan fiction" and it just won a Pulitzer. I think your objection is to the term more than anything.
That is what I said about Shakespeare, I don't think you can call what he did by the same name.
I wasn't talking about Shakespeare either. I was referring to your personal definition of fan fiction, just pointing out that a work of "fan fiction" (by your definition) had just won a rather high-profile award. So I'm really baffled by why you quoted this and related it to Shakespeare. I don't think I follow your point.
Being adamant is your prerogative, but implying that people who disagree are under the influence of mind-altering substances is hardly the way to demonstrate your mastery of civil discourse. Let's just play nice. Posts: 9293 | Registered: Aug 2000
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Oh, CA said that Shakespeare was "Fanfic" because he used existing stories as templates for his plays. I think that's an unfair comparison; that's what I was talking about.
Its a favorite expression of mine- Thanks for not taking it seriously
Dag, I'm afraid if Alcon want to accuse me of sticking my fingers in my ears and going LALALLA, then he will need to take his fingers out of HIS ears for a moment.
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But does that prove that he DID write fanfiction? Or that the intent was to honor the original story? Isn't that what you think fanfic does, honoring and preserving another story?
What if a story about Julius Ceasar worked more as a soure than an inspiration for Shakespeare, much as any story would about JC today would draw from Shakespeare as a source. The origination of the work, the seed of it doesn't have to come from the story with the same name. Same for Romeo and Juliete, what if he had the idea for the play, then read the poem, then decided to adapt the names in order to give it a popular audience. I guess I just don't want to leap upon the facts and say AHAH! this must have been his intention.
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quote:Dag, I'm afraid if Alcon want to accuse me of sticking my fingers in my ears and going LALALLA, then he will need to take his fingers out of HIS ears for a moment.
You know, I can almost never see the connection between my post and your response to it.
What the heck does that even mean? You told Alcon you weren't claiming expertise. I pointed out your post from which it is reasonable to conclude that you were claiming expertise.
What does this have to do with Alcon not paying attention to you?
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My response doesn't mean anything to you because it doesn't have anything to do with you, just as you have nothing to do with what Alcon thinks of me. I doubt he needs you to defend him for misinterpreting me, nor to I need you to tell me when I am not being clear.
Not everything is about you, not every post is directed at you, and in this case I don't really feel like getting into one of your labarynthine arguments about who said what and meant what and to whom.
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quote:I doubt he needs you to defend him for misinterpreting me, nor to I need you to tell me when I am not being clear.
Well, let's see. You have, on numerous occassions, responded to what other people have posted in response to posts not by you. Do you really have a problem understanding the concept that you are posting in public, in a forum where it is expected that others will reply to you?
quote:Not everything is about you, not every post is directed at you, and in this case I don't really feel like getting into one of your labarynthine arguments about who said what and meant what and to whom.
Look, if you don't want to address me, don't address me. I didn't say this was about me, I simply responded to your post that was directed at me.
I'd be interested to see what the hell is "labarynthine" about my post. Or yours, for that matter.
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quote:But does that prove that he DID write fanfiction? Or that the intent was to honor the original story? Isn't that what you think fanfic does, honoring and preserving another story?
What if a story about Julius Ceasar worked more as a soure than an inspiration for Shakespeare, much as any story would about JC today would draw from Shakespeare as a source.
Would it matter, provided it was a good story? As you've just observed, being derivative -- even lifting characters and plot wholesale, or just retelling the original -- isn't enough to prevent something from becoming great literature.
It's mostly in the execution.
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Definetly in the execution, but also in the intent. Isn't great work most often work that doesn't try to be great? If you think something is already great and you want to add to it, is that aspiring to greatness?
Though Shakespeare is by nature a very self-conscious writer, I think there are qualities to his work which make them "pure" or transcendent because he is not really conscious of their import. Its strange, but while he is very much aware of himself, and though its known that he was a social climber and a bit of a petty tyrant, it still feels to me as if he was able to write, as it were, into blank space. He wrote with perfect poise and incredible clarity, which is so natural I can hardly imagine him ever trying to impress people. He would have been one of those people who are so naturally bouyant and perceptive, that he might never have noticed it himself.
Somehow I think this all makes me suspicious of a claim that he really admired or tried to mimick anyone else. I just don't think he could have achieved the clarity of vision and verse that he did if he were constantly checking himself against another's standard. I think he had no standard to work from, and that makes his words fly.
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Somehow I think this all makes me suspicious of a claim that he really admired or tried to mimick anyone else.
Which would probably be why that claim has not been made. The story of Romeo and Juliet, from every source I can find, was well known at the time he wrote the play. He added depth, sparkling dialogue, and the magic genius he brought to most everything he wrote, but he added it to an existing and detailed tale. He didn't mimic the style, and I have no idea if he admired Brooks or just thought it would be a popular story to use. Besides the point.
All I was trying to illustrate was that using existing stories, characters, and plots and making changes to make them your own has been done since people have been telling stories. Apparently if the result is really good, it can't be fanfic by your definition. That's why I asked what your definition of fanfic was.
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I'd say if it transcends the original work, then by my definition it isn't fanfic. I've always thought fanfic by its nature aims at a "lower" target (for lack of a better word).
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Fanfic in this time kinda has to aim lower, since publication is out of the question under current copyright laws.
I understand why fanfic, even excellent fanfic, may never attain the status of Art. What I don't understan, in this or the previous thread, is why it rates such scorn. It can't be because they're stealing someone else's ideas, we've established that happens. It's because they're not stealing someone's ideas well enough?
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If you do it well enough, it isn't stealing.
Good artists borrow, great artists steal. That means not that the great artist takes the work directly from the other artist; he doesn't pull the painting off the wall, but he does take the style or the inspiration in a direction that makes it his own, like "stealing the show."
How can you write anything that's good, if your intent isn't to make it your own... and given that, how can you say that fanfic isn't about doing that. Its that quality for me, that disengenuous quality I percieve in fanfic that rates scorn with me. It just galls me that people do it, I don't like it. I suppose if I came across some fanfic that I felt didn't do that, I would feel differently. I could be convinced not to hate that particular work... but then if I did like the work, it would be because it doesn't have "fanfic" qualities. So I'm saying that for me there is something naturally inferior in anything that is "fanfic."
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In that regard, I can't see how fanfic is any different than pro-writers doing Star Trek books or Buffy books or whatever books, or writers working in anthologies like Thieves World, where the whole point is to add to a shared universe (although, to be fair, you did say earlier you weren't impressed with those either, if I recall correctly).
So my goal now is not to stop writing fanfic, but to write it so incredibly well that it transcends the original work Posts: 7790 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote: How can you write anything that's good, if your intent isn't to make it your own... and given that, how can you say that fanfic isn't about doing that.
So you're saying that copyright laws are keeping fanfic down?
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If it's fanfic, it can't possibly be good. If it's good, it can't possibly be fanfic.
Which makes it an extremely subjective definition and therefore nearly worthless in arguing the value or justification of fanfic as a concept. But at least we know where we stand now...
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Curmudgeonly? Well, I prefer to do what OSC does so well and call all my curmudgeonly mumblings: Revolutionary tyrades against the oppression of The Man!
The Man in this case being PocketBooks and Chris Bridges. Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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