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Fan fiction
Jun. 30th, 2005 11:59 amRobin Hobb's opinion (briefly: she's against it), and my thoughts in response:
Hobb's entitled to be jealous of her own creations and to say so. She's correct about copyright and free speech.
Fan fiction is not "identity theft"; that's nonsense. It is possible to imagine a writer's reputation being damaged by fanfic - for instance, J.K. Rowling being embarrassed in the media by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
hp_rimming - but I'm not aware of this actually ever having happened, and neither, apparently, is Hobb.
Hobb overstates the importance of imagination. What a would-be writer needs most of all are (a) the ability to construct a narrative and (b) the ability to follow instructions. Fanfic was my training for (a), and how-to-write books were my training for (b).
For the record, as far as I'm legally capable, I give permission for anyone to use any creation of mine in fan fiction (that is, anything not published for profit), as long as it doesn't promote bigotry or sexual violence.
Hobb's entitled to be jealous of her own creations and to say so. She's correct about copyright and free speech.
Fan fiction is not "identity theft"; that's nonsense. It is possible to imagine a writer's reputation being damaged by fanfic - for instance, J.K. Rowling being embarrassed in the media by
hp_rimming - but I'm not aware of this actually ever having happened, and neither, apparently, is Hobb.Hobb overstates the importance of imagination. What a would-be writer needs most of all are (a) the ability to construct a narrative and (b) the ability to follow instructions. Fanfic was my training for (a), and how-to-write books were my training for (b).
For the record, as far as I'm legally capable, I give permission for anyone to use any creation of mine in fan fiction (that is, anything not published for profit), as long as it doesn't promote bigotry or sexual violence.
