Quote from: rgrove0172;922305"THE SURVIVALIST!" oh yeah, I had every one of those. John Rourke, ultimate bad ass! Laugh, made for fun reading in those days.

Yeah that was it. Jerry Ahearn. Whatta tool. I forgot the "Colt Python .357 Magnum revolver Magna-ported and Metalifed, firing Federal Premium jacketed hollowpoint ammunition, with extra speed loaders." :rolleyes:

I think there are some basic differences between a licensed, published book and a fanfic that make equating the two things dubious.  Published books based on a property are formally licensed and formally published with an eye on sales and profits.  They have to go through the publishing process before they are printed and sent out to stores.  That doesn't guarantee they will be good.  However, they will meet some minimal standard for layout and readability.  Fanfic is informal, almost always done without any license or permission and not intended for sale.  As a result, it does not have to meet even a minimal standard for readability.  A large chunk of it is essentially unreadable gibberish.  I mean the kind of lazy, sloppy writers who can't be bothered to type out y-o-u or hit the shift key and the apostrophe key to type I'm.  I could probably make some sense of this crap if I spent enough time going over it but I have other things I would rather do with my time.  All fanfic isn't like this but the stereotype of fanfic being rubbish didn't come from nowhere.  A great deal of it is rubbish and the worst of it is much worse that any professionally published, for pay book will ever be.  Fanfic isn't all bad but its reputation for being bad didn't come from nowhere.

I was an agent's assistant at UCLA and I was a (miserably failed) independent agent afterward. Let me assure you that the quality of fanfic is the quality of work that shows up submitted to agencies.

...which is why the Real Deal Agencies don't take unsolicited submissions.

It's small agencies who dug through shit piles looking for diamonds in the rough. In LA, we got tons of screenplays - and most apparently written by people who never saw a movie or watched TV.

I am not kidding.

Zero kidding.

The quality of amateur writing was so extremely bad. 90% of it was nigh-unreadable...and I was paid to read it. The goal was to find "hey, we can work with this" and we would be lucky if I came across one of those out of dozens of submissions.

So of course 99% of fanfic is going to be shit.

Let's also remember that published work gets the benefit of an editor.

Editors are (mostly) fabulous.

Quote from: CRKrueger;922313Take Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts stuff.  It's obviously not a setting he created, but the Tanith First and Only and many of the other characters and worlds are wholly his inventions authorized by the holders of the IP.  Not fan-fiction by any stretch of the definition.

I am a huge Abnett fan, but what if GW didn't pay him? What if, for whatever reason, Dan was slinging hash during the day and posting Gaunt's Ghost on a 40k fanfic blog at night?

If its the same text, why is one legitimate and the other not?

Quote from: Spinachcat;922376The quality of amateur writing was so extremely bad. 90% of it was nigh-unreadable...and I was paid to read it. The goal was to find "hey, we can work with this" and we would be lucky if I came across one of those out of dozens of submissions.

Now imagine if every thing that got submitted to you was passed on and published with no weeding at all and no editing or revision.  
[video=youtube;MR7uaIFVFiM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR7uaIFVFiM[/youtube]

Quote from: Spinachcat;922376I am a huge Abnett fan, but what if GW didn't pay him? What if, for whatever reason, Dan was slinging hash during the day and posting Gaunt's Ghost on a 40k fanfic blog at night?

If its the same text, why is one legitimate and the other not?

If he were a part-time amateur writer posting material on a blog without the benefit of an editor, would it be the same text?

Quote from: yosemitemike;922382Now imagine if every thing that got submitted to you was passed on and published with no weeding at all and no editing or revision.  

Exactly!!

If the fanfic site does not have gatekeepers (most don't), then the reader takes on the responsibility.

Many fanfic authors - even rank amateurs - have enough respect for their audience to do rewrites because they take pride in their work.

Very few fanfic authors engage even a volunteer editor. Which is understandable. Editing is hard, and not particularly fun.

And without gatekeepers and editors, of course 90% of fanfic will be crap.

But how is that different than wandering through DeviantArt or other art sites? There's lots of bad amateur fan art out there, but that doesn't draw the same ire as fanfic.

Maybe because it only takes a second to skip past bad art?

Quote from: yosemitemike;922382If he were a part-time amateur writer posting material on a blog without the benefit of an editor, would it be the same text?

Only Dan and his editors can tell us how much his final draft was affected by editors.

But you make a valid point.

For argument's sake, let's say that Gaunt's Ghost:the 40k fanfic was 75% as good as the published novel, thus making it equal or better than most published 40k novels. Would it still be illegitimate?

Maybe its because I like up-and-coming bands. I really respect young bands doing the club circuit and trying to get on the B stage at the festival, because that's how the future champions will rise. It's amazing when you see photos of [insert a hundred successful bands] when they were in the first years. People may like to say "I always knew they would make it", but night after night, they were just another band trying to make rent.

That's how I view fanfic.

Out of the sea of terrible noise, some real talent will rise.

Quote from: Spinachcat;922393Maybe because it only takes a second to skip past bad art?

Bingo!

Fanfic doesn't mean bad, any more than a traditionally published novel means good.  But saying if anyone except Rick Priestly writes a 40k novel it's a fanfic, is stretching the definition too far IMO.

What Ream said above is a pretty good rule of thumb as to what you'll find fits the definition of a majority of fanfiction - an unauthorized use of other's settings and characters that typically interacts with a MarySue character reflecting the author, or focuses on the author's fanservice with those characters rather than a good story.  Hell, some fanfics these days aren't even short stories, they're just sex scenes.

When 90% of everything is crap, 95% of unedited writing is crap and 99.999% of fanfic are crap, those are statistically significant and poor quality becomes part of the definition.

But...in these days where agents aren't even going to look at an author unless they submit a very narrow corporate-accepted type of text, tick enough "new voices" boxes (author possesses the proper Identity) or belong the proper G+ groups or have the right friends on Facebook, then what choice does a new author have?  They try to go it alone, self-publish, buy ads themselves, and hope to bottle lightning.  Some don't even care about publishing, they just write.  I respect all of that.

However, when something gets a bad reputation, it usually doesn't just fall out of the sky.  Fanfiction has more than earned it's bad name.  The culture intersects with social media, IP fanatics, and the worst of stereotypical geekdom to produce not just ream upon ream of total shit, but entitled, self-indulgent shit, ignorant of all criticism, and dismissive of anything resembling the concept of quality.  

Still, there are good writers out there using the medium to hone their craft, and potentially through social media and things like Patreon, maybe even get noticed.

Like everything else it touches, to writing, the Internet brings both Salvation and the Sword.

Quote from: CRKrueger;922413Fanfiction has more than earned it's bad name.

Very true.

I was very excited to see if Amazon's Kindle Worlds would be a success, but it seems to be very hit and miss.
https://kindleworlds.amazon.com/worlds

Quote from: CRKrueger;922413The culture intersects with social media, IP fanatics, and the worst of stereotypical geekdom to produce not just ream upon ream of total shit, but entitled, self-indulgent shit, ignorant of all criticism, and dismissive of anything resembling the concept of quality.  

Ugh, doubly true.

I do separate "fanfic" (aka, the actual work) from "fanfic culture" (which can be a freaking cesspool).

Does anyone know whether the fan fic world has a culture  of criticism? In writers workshops, you'll have fellow travellers critique your work and they can be quite candid...even brutal. Feedback is useful, though,

Quote from: yosemitemike;922382

Quote from: Spinachcat;922376The quality of amateur writing was so extremely bad. 90% of it was nigh-unreadable...and I was paid to read it. The goal was to find "hey, we can work with this" and we would be lucky if I came across one of those out of dozens of submissions.

Now imagine if every thing that got submitted to you was passed on and published with no weeding at all and no editing or revision.  
[video=youtube;MR7uaIFVFiM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR7uaIFVFiM[/youtube]

It is 7:56AM and this video has caused me to start drinking. Heavily.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;922429Does anyone know whether the fan fic world has a culture  of criticism?

This has not been my experience, likely due to GSF#1.

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;922429Does anyone know whether the fan fic world has a culture  of criticism? In writers workshops, you'll have fellow travellers critique your work and they can be quite candid...even brutal. Feedback is useful, though,

Generally speaking, no.  Watch the first 12 seconds or so of that video I posted.  That's exaggerated but not by much.  AMV creators are even worse.

Certainly can't say that I care for any fanfiction.  Though sometimes it's at least a bit less pretentious than in-game fiction in published books.