At 02:52 PM 2/18/99 PST, Razorclaw X wrote:

 What premise would that be? I, personally, HATE Sailor Moon, yet that 
didn't stop me from writing a decent fanfic for it that didn't involve 
killing the Senshi (that might only be due to the fact that its a very 
unorthodoxed fic, too). 
 If the premise you speak of is love and justice, mine has neither. One 
of the fun things about bashing a series for a fanfic writer as myself 
is the many subtle ways to tear it apart from the inside.... 

I personally hate EVERYTHING about Sailor Moon.  Absolutely nothing of
value, IMHO, was lost in the DIC rehash.  I feel that the show is
just inherently insipid, playing on schoolgirl uniform fetishes and
cutsy idol images.  Of course, if it sells....

 That works under parody. I assume Blade spoke of writing fics more 
true to the original story. If it is a parody or similar, then you can 
pretty much do whatever you want (that is what the aformentioned article 
is mainly about). If it is something that has the intent of maintaining 
the original flavor, then common courtesy reasons that you try to stick 
to it (but you don't have to; after all, it's only courtesy). You don't 
have to like certain characters, but you should respect them when you 
write them (this isn't a really good time to discuss 'respecting 
characters' you write, I think). 

I fail to understand how something as esoteric as a writer's ethic
can ever fall under the definition of 'common courtesy.'  Respecting
the legal property of the creator is as far as one is REQUIRED to
take their obligations.  I, however, don't give a damn about Takahashi,
Tezuka or Miyazaki.  Beyond their legal rights, I do not
consider them consequential in creating a derivative work.

When working on my Robotech fanfiction, I endeavour to stake out as
much new territory as I possibly can.  I usually stay consistent
to events in the source material, but I have no qualms with rewriting
common perspectives of characters or reinterpreting the deeper
meaning of events as I see fit.  Since it's fanfiction, and I'm
not getting paid for it, I'm going to do what I feel is an improvement.
And, for pretty much the same reason (lack of pay), I'm going to
trump it around as Original Flavor.

I fail to see how you conclude that the use of the physical
and biographical attributes of an existing character (or
real personage), constitutes a lack of ability or 
willingness to produce "truly" original characters.  I
was under the impression that many folks considered
the personality attributes of a character far more 
important than a name or physical description.

 I think the idea was that you can't (shouldn't?) take someone, say, 
Ranma, and turn him into Bill Gates on a whim. That is not an original 
character-- it is changing an existing character to suit a whim. Most 
people don't like it because they expect a certain behavior out of said 
character, only to be given someone else entirely (and thus the myriad 
OOC debates since time eternal). 

As I asked Chris Tendo, where are the numbers?  Who are these "most
people?"  Why are they resistant to whimsical changes in their
beloved characters?  What audience are we trying to reach?  These
are questions I ask folks to qualify their responses with, but instead
I get "most people."

Which, if it is released on the Net, one assumes it is.  If you don't 
care about an audience, don't release it.  There's too much horrible 
fanfic on the net already.

Here's a flash.  The number of GOOD fanfics on the net, mine
included, is ZERO.  Wow, I can make up numbers, too!  So,
who delegated the comittee on judging fanfic quality?

 Okay, people, now we're hitting the subjective area. 
 Incidentally, fanfic quality is rated in much the same way as 
published novels-- people buy it and like it. The more people who buy 
it, the more you can say people like it (even if some of them didn't 
like it-- just look at The Lost World). There's a reason why some books 
boast 'Million copies sold!' junk-- makes it look good (doesn't mean it 
IS good). 
 Typically for fanfiction, it's heaping praise. 

I don't understand.  If a million copies of Hot Sex on the Beach
outsells a measely one thousand of the Abridged Anthology of Anton 
Chekovs "Short" Works, then what makes Chekov so damn good?  Well,
because he's read long after his death--that's the only qualification.
Overall, he's still more well read than Hot Sex on the Beach at
any time during it's short career.  Chekov's work appeals to not
only a general audience, but a general audience that changes generation
after generation.

This is the only criterion for judging the quality of a work that
I can find--the survivability of its audience.

Bull.  I consider them guidelines for reaching a specific
audience.  Once again, I make a notable exception the
concept of mechanics.

 Subjective. We don't need arguments on something subjective-- they 
could go on forever and never be resolved. 

Yet the proponents of the 'standard' system argue that their
system is an objective treatment of fanfic ethic.  The
fact that I can make a subjective interpretation of the
impact of these guidelines means that any other interpretation
is wholly subjective--the validity of any interpretation
can only be physically measured by the numerical breadth
of one's audience in a certain period of time.  I
refer you again to the Anton Chekov analogy I proposed 
earlier.

about to say it's an abnormal stance.  I hardly see the
correlation between this arbitrary standard of
quality I keep hearing about an author's ability to
sell books (or write prolifically and maintain a
sufficiently broad readership).

 Mostly luck. A bizzare creature, man is. 

I don't believe in luck; of course, that's my
prerogative.  Nevertheless, I'd take a look at the
New York bestseller list and tell me why repeated
giants such as Tom Clancy, Stephen King, John
Grisham, etc. are not included in your high school
English curriculum.

Screw crossovers then.  Might as well throw out that Grave of the
Fire Flies / Pokemon script I was working on. =)  What's stopping
someone from developing the characters from Sanctuary in a Takahashi
fashion?  If somebody reads it, likes it, and if the author
gives a damn, then what's the big deal?  

 So what's your problem? 

The idea that one has a moral obligation, outside of parody, to 
maintain some sort of consistency with the spirit or the
sequential nature of the source material.  I think it's all
hogwash. If I wanted to throw Pikachus into a Grave of the
Fire Flies fanfic, are you saying that it is impossible to
write such a work without it automatically being a parody?
Can anyone write a serious GOFF/Pokemon fanfic that combines
the comedic elements of one with the dark setting of the
other?

Once again, if you have some sort of quantifiably to qualify your
arguments, I stand ready to receive them.  Otherwise, I must dismiss
this all as the opinions of a single reader (or fellow author).

 Reasonably good use of language: if the reader can't read it, he/she 
won't read it. It's that simple. 

I'm sorry, but this wasn't one of the axioms we were taught in
Logic Class.  Second of all, we're talking about written
material here.  In that case, I'd rephrase your assumption
as follows.

"If the reader cannot read it with sufficient ease, he/she will
not read it."

Aside from the obvious unproven jump from one assertation to
the next (in fact, you've just constructed a truth statement
that has neither universal nor statistical evidence to
back it up), the hanging variable (sufficient ease) remains
blatantly obvious.  It's not that simple--it's far from
that simple.  What makes Hawthorne or Melville popular
today?  What about Shakespeare or Dante?  Their works are 
a deegree more difficult to read than the material produced
today, because they were written in different historical
styles of their authors' native languages.

 Respecting the original characters: just look at any OOC debate.

Indeed, I have.  I also note that the participants agree that
the creator's original work must be respected.  Once you introduce
an element that deviates from that, you throw the whole system into
subjectivity.

 Continuity: there's a reason this word exists, and it is to make sure 
that Joe Schmoe doesn't know such-and-such before he should. In 
television and other pictoral stories, you can't have a character throw 
off his eye patch in one scene, only to have it back on in the next (or 
the eye patch being on the OTHER eye)-- I was actually really good at 
pointing these out in my last video production class. If you don't have 
continuity, you're bound to screw up your audience (unless you want to 
do it on PURPOSE-- remember King John's mole in Robin Hood: Men in 
Tights? "Sire, wasn't your mole on the... other side?"). 

Once again, I must argue that level of internal consistency needed 
depends wholly on the readers ability to tolerate it.  I'd also
argue that there is a definite liberalization of the relationship
when it comes to issues of continuity between original sources 
and derivative works.  I'd argue the same thing for sensible
plotlines as well.  If there is sufficient intriguing qualities
about your work to maintain a readership other than profiency in 
these areas, then I can conclude that mechanics, character
development, and plot line are not upper echelon characteristics
of quality fanfiction.

-The Reverend Prez

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+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
|    Presley H.   | Political Science / Computer Science |
|    Cannady II   | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
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