Thinking exercise: so how about if we published the "good" fic

[unjapanologist]

"I don't mind that these fics with the serial numbers filed off get published commercially. I just wish they'd publish the good fic."

I've seen a lot of people react like that to Fifty Shades of Grey, and it seems to be bubbling up again with the news that a book based on a One Direction fic* called Me, Myself, and One Direction is also getting published. The problem for many people seems to be that these fics aren't very skilfully written. A lot of fans would clearly have preferred for the first fic that caught the public eye** to be something, well, more impressive in a literary sense? Something less embarrassingly representative of what most fic is like?

Personally speaking, I also feel it would have been nice if the first publicly acknowledged fic had been a literary masterpiece. But I like to think of it like this. If it had been *insert my favorite stunningly well-written story here*, then fic would have been noticed by literary critics and a niche audience, and they would have loved and respected us. But instead we got a crowd-pleaser, so now fic has been lovingly read by millions of women (and men) who may never have heard of it otherwise. They may even decide to look for more fic and join fandom.

That really sucks! I wish we'd gotten the respect of literary critics instead of the love of millions of potential new fans.

Er.

Anyway. Big publishing houses are unlikely to start publishing what we (here in this particular corner of Dreamwidth/LiveJournal) might consider "good" fic, because they'll probably go for whatever got the most hits on some large archive and isn't likely to cause controversy. Although you never know. Stranger things have happened, and publishers in some parts of the world already have no problem whatsoever with slash or other "risky" content. Still, most big mainstream publishers are never going to publish what we want. If big mainstream publishers gave us the stuff we want to read, there would be no need to write it ourselves.

I'd like to gently suggest that instead of wondering when the "good" fic will be published, anyone who feels really strongly about introducing a general book-reading audience to "good" fic consider doing it themselves. Now that established publishing houses are openly publishing fic, it suddenly seems a lot less risky for fans to try it themselves. (I am not a lawyer in any country, and this is just a thinking exercise.) Practically speaking, it's entirely doable to set up a system for distributing e-books these days. It shouldn't be that hard to set up A Publishing House of Our Own or Serial Numbers Books or somesuch, and approach some writers of "good" fic who may agree to publish an e-book edition of their fic with the serial numbers filed off.

(But in the name of Tophgod, make sure writers keep the usual free version of their fic online too. Nobody wants a system for commercial fic publishing where there are fics that people can't read unless they pay for them. Aside from the ethical issues involved and the massive wankstorms that would surely follow, it'll never work. Fans who find themselves denied access to a fic will be rightly pissed off and just spread the e-books around for free. And be careful with licenses. And outlets that might restrict sales to one region only. And and and.)

There would be a lot to consider, obviously, but I'd love to see fans take matters into their own hands with regard to commercial fic publishing. If we're smart about it, it could work great and benefit fandom as a whole as much as the individual writers.

(Inspired by a Twitter conversation with sylvaine)



*Qualified because it's not clear how much of the book is new and how much is from the fic
**ETA: In the English-speaking world.

Comments

[lizbee]

The other thing about "proper" fic is that one thing that makes it good in the eyes of fandom is how neatly it slots into its universe -- and that makes it all the harder to file the serial numbers off.

(And, I hear, the girl who was picked up for her 1D fic was actually commissioned to write an original boy band novel, rather than the fic itself being published.)

[unjapanologist]

Fitting beautifully into canon does make a fic 100x better for people who are already fans, but it doesn't mean it will be bad or unreadable with the serial numbers filed off. Not for every fic, at least; there are obviously a lot of stories that won't make a lick of sense if you just change the names. But with some others? What may feel "bad" to fans who know the canon may be perfectly enjoyable for people who don't.

Not overly familiar with the One Direction fic, but yeah, I misworded that - although the description ("based on") doesn't seem too clear on whether the novel is entirely new. What makes the story significant for me is that the fic connection is obvious and obviously meant to be public, and people are reacting to it in the same way as to Fifty Shades.

[liviapenn]

I would say it depends on the fandom. A gorgeous fanfic novel about two cops solving a murder is going to be a lot easier to publish (with the serial numbers filed off) than a gorgeous Stargate SG-1 novel about Jack O'Neill bonding with a Tokra symbiote and brokering a peace between the Tokra and the Jaffa. Even "50 Shades" was an AU of the source, not regular Twilight canon with the names changed.

I feel like one of the defining characteristics of fanfic is that it depends on a knowledge of the source to be *fully* appreciated. Even an AU usually depends on that tension between "reality" and the AU for a lot of its dramatic impact. Without that extra layer of depth it can't help but fall a little flat.

[unjapanologist]

Yeah, some verses are definitely way easier to file the numbers off.

And I absolutely agree that the relationship to canon is essential for us. It's what makes us read, after all - I'm not going to read any random story about a werewolf and some teenager, but call them Derek and Stiles from Teen Wolf and I'll be rushing over.

But I do wonder exactly how "flat" a fic with the names changed would fall for someone who's not familiar with the canon at all and doesn't even know that there is a canon they're supposed to be familiar with. It will depend on (as you mentioned) the nature of the canon and how skilfully the writer patches over any "holes" during the filing off of the numbers, but if you don't expect that there's more you're supposed to know, I suspect it may be a lot easier to enjoy a story than we'd think.

I've read quite a few fics where I didn't know the source at all - I just started reading because I knew the author or somesuch - and enjoyed them a whole lot. Even knowing that there was a whole structure underneath that I was missing completely. (Or maybe because of that rather than in spite of it. It's kind of nice to know there's more to a story than meets the eye.)

[liviapenn]

It will depend on (as you mentioned) the nature of the canon and how skilfully the writer patches over any "holes" during the filing off of the numbers, but if you don't expect that there's more you're supposed to know, I suspect it may be a lot easier to enjoy a story than we'd think.

Well, it depends on how much "patching" there is. I mean, there are a bunch of things that are confusing about Ana's characterization in "50 Shades". She is supposedly a 22-year-old college student who's never owned her own computer or laptop, and has never had her own email address. She's depicted as a attractive young woman with an active social life and lots of cute guys her own age who hit on her, who has no moral objection to casual sex, and yet she's never even kissed anyone. This all suddenly makes a lot more sense if you realize that Ana is "actually" Bella, who is in high school. But if you don't know that... leaving aside the talent of the writer and the quality of the prose, just the bare *facts* of the character make no sense.

And, honestly, a lot of the fics that I think of, that would be on my shortlist of "fics I would recommend to someone who wanted fanfic of Highest Literary Quality," just could never be patched enough to pass for original fic, because they're *so* specifically tied into their canons that you couldn't really translate them into original fic, not without a total rewrite from word one.

I've read quite a few fics where I didn't know the source at all - I just started reading because I knew the author or somesuch - and enjoyed them a whole lot. Even knowing that there was a whole structure underneath that I was missing completely. (Or maybe because of that rather than in spite of it. It's kind of nice to know there's more to a story than meets the eye.)

Well, yeah, that's kind of exactly my point. I think just knowing that it *is* fanfic, you consciously or subconsciously accept things that might jump out as major flaws if you picked up a fiction magazine and read the same story. Like, often in fanfic there is a lack of physical descriptions of characters and settings. Or (this happens a lot in the Teen Wolf fic that I read, not having seen the show at all) super-frustrating references to backstory that is clearly important, but never actually explained. Or minor relationships in the story aren't explained, you're just supposed to know when Scott shows up that he and Stiles are friends-- it isn't really shown. Just the sense that really important things, that are key to understanding the characters, aren't going to be explained. That's fine in fanfic, but would require a *lot* of extra writing to be passable as origfic.

[unjapanologist]

I think just knowing that it *is* fanfic, you consciously or subconsciously accept things that might jump out as major flaws if you picked up a fiction magazine and read the same story. ... Just the sense that really important things, that are key to understanding the characters, aren't going to be explained. That's fine in fanfic, but would require a *lot* of extra writing to be passable as origfic.

*nod* I think the point I was trying to make (and only became aware of just now) is that it's incredibly common and not at all limited to fanfic for people to read a story without knowing the backstory.

The lack of context bothers us mightily when we read something with serial numbers filed off, because we know the context and the "right" way to read a story. But in the rest of our lives, we also constantly enjoy things that we don't have the "proper" context for. How many media don't have some kind of context or backstory that would enhance our enjoyment of it if we knew it?

Though as you say, it can depend a lot on how skilfully the writer patches things up. I massively enjoyed the Akira anime because of the thrilling animation and music and general spectacularness, but the story didn't make much sense to me until I read the manga too. Many fics will make no sense at all if you just change the names and a few details, and there are some that will never ever make a lick of sense outside their fannish context no matter how hard you try to color in the blanks. But there are at least as many for which it would be perfectly possible to rewrite things so that they're understandable enough for someone without the context. This goes for all existing stories that someone may want to rework for a new audience. How many were convinced that The Lord of the Rings was a completely unfilmable novel, until somebody managed to make a movie that actually was incredibly enjoyable even to people who've never read a word of Tolkien?

I suspect that the people who are the most knowledgeable about and invested in the context are quite possibly the worst judges of whether or not a story can be adapted for an audience that doesn't know the "proper" backstory. Many creators who work with things that have a backstory know how to patch things up so that someone who doesn't know the backstory can still enjoy it on its own merits. That may seem annoying to people who do know the backstory - "They don't get what it really means!". When I go to see a movie set in ancient Rome or Greece, I try really hard to tune out all the others in the audience who are not antiquity geeks, because they're missing all the mythological background and history stuff and enjoying it for the wrong reasons from my point of view. Their reading of those stories feels shallow to me. But that's just my point of view, and it has zero effect on others' ability to enjoy said stories.

(This even counts for stories that don't have an "official" backstory in the form of more canon attached, but that just take place in a setting that some readers will know oodles about but others not. When I read an original novel set in the US or China or Italy, depending on the story, there will be a few to a huge number of things that will fly right over my head because I've never lived in those countries. Someone who does know the context for the story set in China will probably find my reading of it shallow or mistaken on various counts. And sure, I probably would find it even more interesting if I was actually aware of all the things I missed, but I'll enjoy the story either way.)

In short, I think we really shouldn't be surprised when people find something with the serial numbers filed off perfectly good and enjoyable. I suspect we as fans are very very bad judges of whether or not a "good" adaptation can be made of any given fic. /tl;dr

[abrae]

For me, the frustration about (arguably) bad fic being picked up for publication isn't that good fic is going unrecognized, per se, than that the mass media discourses surrounding the publication use it to make gross generalizations about the overall quality of fan fiction and, by association, the character/intellectual capabilities of the (mostly women) who read it. In other words, for me, it's frustrating less because publishers miss that one story that was amazing (and often is because the author isn't just literate, but also speaks eloquently to the affective appeal of the characters/pairing), than that the published story then becomes just one more example of how [fill in derogatory term] fan fiction and fan fiction readers/writers really are. And since we readers/writers are overwhelmingly female, the further implication is, as always, that women's culture is somehow intellectually inferior, which is the most galling of all.

FYI, @memories_child is doing some preliminary research on 50 Shades - I don't know what kind of take she's doing on it (although I think it at least touches on what you've written above), but just in case this is something you're interested in...

[anatsuno]

Agree, this is to me the main issue too.

[unjapanologist]

than that the mass media discourses surrounding the publication use it to make gross generalizations about the overall quality of fan fiction

Yeah, that's incredibly annoying. But they wouldn't even have begun to talk about fic if that successful book hadn't been there first, and well, the mass media are going to be dumb about absolutely every new topic. If it's a gender-related topic, they'll be dumb in an offensive way. They would have found a way to be dumb about fic even if it had been an eloquent masterpiece with no hints of salaciousness whatsoever. I often whine about how the media is stupid about this or that topic, but in the end, "the media will be stupid about this" is no reason to avoid doing something. Would it have been better if E.L. James had not put that book out there, because she could have guessed that the media might misinterpret her work in ten different ways? If we're going to wait to do things until we're sure the media will take it in the way we intended, nothing will ever happen ;)

*eternal optimist mode* Now that they're finally paying attention, we can actually start pointing out that there is all sorts of cool stuff. At least online, there now seem to be at least as many or more nuanced and calm articles than articles that go "fic is trash because Fifty Shades". We've come to the point where we can admit fic exists! Now we can start talking about it and clearing up the misconceptions. I'm hopeful that will work at least to some degree.

[abrae]

I agree that there have been some very good articles online about fan fiction recently, and it's exciting in some ways that it's all starting to go a bit mainstream (although then you run into the inevitable problems of gate-keeping and subcultural capital from within, but that's a different issue entirely).

I don't think I'm advocating for the media to get it right before we do anything, however; simply that my own desire for the 'good' fic to get out there is motivated less by concerns about what gets picked up by a publisher (especially since that privileges one standard of 'success' over another, the implicit suggestion being that fanfic writers must want to be "real" writers, thus implicitly discounting the very real writing that goes on within fan communities), than that non-fans somehow see that there's more to fan fiction than the small handful of stories that go wide, so to speak. That is, I don't really care what gets picked up, except insofar as it's used as shorthand to dismiss an entire subculture; the problem (for me) isn't in 50 Shades per se, but in the fact that it's representative. But, as you say, if nothing else, it's a means to broadening the discussion about fanfic overall, and in that sense it has its worth.

[unjapanologist]

That is, I don't really care what gets picked up, except insofar as it's used as shorthand to dismiss an entire subculture; the problem (for me) isn't in 50 Shades per se, but in the fact that it's representative.

*nod* Yeah, I hear you. I do wish they wouldn't do that. But I try to comfort myself with the knowledge that taking one expression of something and turning it into shorthand for the whole thing is something the media do with every vaguely new or unknown thing.

50 Shades doesn't and can't represent every fic out there, to be sure, and that's where the media goes off the rails. I do feel that considering fic as a whole phenomenon, 50 Shades is actually about as representative as you can get ;) We have a loooot of mediocre porn around here. It's a central tenet of our whole fannish enterprise that everybody should be allowed to write any porn they like, no shaming allowed. It's unfortunate that that sort of concept is pretty hard to get across in mass media who still act surprised when women are proven to like sexy things.

We have a long way to go, but we must persevere. For the porn. (I really need to go to bed. My reasons for wanting to champion fandom go steadily deeper into the gutter the more tired I get. Answering the mail tomorrow ;)

[abrae]

LOL - that's true. There is some seriously bad porn out there in ficland, and we do hold it as a self-evident truth that to each her own, when it comes to the down and dirty. I will never, ever be a fan of watersports (however tastefully depicted), but far be it from me to keep that from someone who is. That nexus of women's sexuality and women's (popular) culture is interesting, in that sense - there are (at least) two levels of discourse at work, neither of which necessarily intersects neatly with the other (or, at least, not from a certain outsider perspective) - but this is what I love about fan studies. It's a place to parse out the intricacies of what's going on there, all the better to grasp...I dunno. Something.

(I wish I had the excuse of it being nearly midnight here. I think my brain is simply fried; I blame the children).

[ljwrites]

Of all my concerns about fanfic being published, quality fanfic being overlooked was not something I thought about at all. This is because, to be frank, most fanfiction isn't that good. I say this as someone who loves reading fanfiction and was genuinely moved by a lot of quality fanfic. Yes, there's a lot of excellent stuff out there, but the bulk of fanfiction is highly forgettable lowbrow to middlebrow stuff. Even if we disregard the mountain of slush that would not hold more than three seconds of any publishing gatekeeper's attention before being chucked--and that's ignoring a LOT of fanfic--even the remaining works that have some glimmer of publishable quality does not compare favorably to original published fiction.

Then there's the issue of length. Money's in the novels, so disregard the vignettes, one-shots, and incomplete longfics to focus exclusively on completed, somewhat novel-length stories. From a quick FFN filter for complete stories with 60K+ words (a generous count, because even 75K words make for a fairly short book), that's 1% of archived stories for both Harry Potter and Avatar: The Last Airbender. (1.4% for HP, 1% for ATLA. If anything this is an overcount, since more than a few of these could be drabble collections not suited for publication.) The quality gets a lot better within this 1% due to author skill and discipline, but even here the quality of the writing is just so-so for the majority of works. Obviously it's not possible to get the exact number of brilliant versus ho-hum works since the metric is too subjective, but I'll just go by Sturgeon's law and say 10% of this 1% is really good.

So that's the rough speculative number of fanfic that is a) a publishable length and b) very high quality: 0.1%. Plus, as lizbee has pointed out, this 0.1% is unlikely to be publishable without a thorough rewrite because really good stories also tend to be really specific and wedded to the setting.

Also, like you said there's the basic fact that commercial publishing isn't looking for quality books but saleable books.

In conclusion I find myself unable to care that the publishing industry, in the extremely rare cases where they pick up fanfic for publication, do not go out of their way to represent the 0.1% of very good fanfic which are a) unlikely to be published without grueling work and b) might be good but is dicey in terms of marketability. A fan effort to get really quality fanfic into the mass market would be interesting, but I'm not holding my breath about the commercial viability.

[aquila_black]

I don't object to Fifty Shades, per se, but I think there isn't necessarily an either/or, between critics liking fanfic and the general public appreciating it. Most of the fanfic that people consider really excellent is also accessible. It's fun and engaging and has unexpected twists. Even the highbrow stories that make allusions to literature, history, and mythology can be read without background knowledge of those subjects, because the central plot speaks for itself. While people will forgive the author for not rehashing canon, overall I'd say Don't Be A Snob is one of fandom's core values. You don't need an advanced degree to enjoy fanfic, because it's not the literary equivalent of modern art, and that's a deliberate, artistic choice on the part of the author and the community they belong to. A lot of the people I've met who write fanfic have nothing to prove, academically. They're graduate students who know enough about research to realize that there's always more, out there, to know. For the same reason, they don't act like any educated person should get their specialized in-jokes, when they're writing for the internet at large. Not least because the humanities major wants to understand the fan who's passionate abut Mandarin. And vice versa! It's true of pretty much any fandom that we're a smaller community than we'd like to be, and un-pickily appreciative of good fic. So a clearly communicated, emotionally powerful story is valued more highly and shared more widely. Not to mention, it's more likely to inspire remixes, sequels, and a broader interest in the source material. Also, fen tend to be a liberal crowd, who understand that having the time and money to get a degree is a sign of privilege. We're not trying to write in a way that excludes fellow fen. And I think by now that most of us have had the experience of being thoroughly awed and humbled by the writing of someone who, as it turns out, waits tables or bags groceries. Or is homeless/disabled/mentally ill/different and stigmatized by society at large. Part of what I find so amazing, about fandom, is how it slowly and surely eats away at people's ignorance and unfounded prejudice. But that's a bit of a tangent.

I have really mixed feelings about the media and corporations "discovering" fanfic, and trying to cherry-pick and commercialize the fraction of it that most closely resembles conventional stories. I regret that the things that make fanfic distinctive and unique are unlikely to be showcased in the conservative sliver that's being published. You really hit the nail on the head when you said that a large part of why fanfic exists is because publishers aren't putting out the stories we want -- so I bristle a little at the fact that they claim to be publishing fanfic, and are still failing to interface with its originality. They're still shunning all the sharp edges and splashing around in heteronormative, easily-mocked drivel. (Which, conveniently, doesn't threaten the rest of what they publish. Fifty Shades and ilk is unlikely to make anyone consider switching from traditional books to fanfics.)

I'm pretty unaware of how licensing and the legal side of publishing work, but your idea sounds promising. I'd be in favor of trying to make a separate category for fanworks, so that the serial numbers didn't have to be filed off. As in, a canon-derivative work that's been on an internet archive for one year, and continues to be available for free online, can also be bought in a paper copy. Or something like that. If we're going to have published fanfic, it should be published on its own terms: as fanfic. Not as fanfic kinda-sorta masquerading as original fiction.

As another person commented, fanfic is often shorter than a novel. But instead of looking at that as a liability, maybe it should be published in anthologies. I mean, it's different because it's coming from a different place. (No one's getting an advance on their fanfic.) And it's different, not inferior. You have a patchwork of authors contributing more stories to canon, and taken separately, good ones are little gems. When you put a lot of them together, what I notice is that they have a lot less lag than a book would - fewer in-between scenes and wasted words. And each one captures a complete moment, with the sort of power and poignancy that goes with writing only this, and still trying to say it all.