Cassandra Claire
| Name: | Cassandra Claire | |
| Alias(es): | epicyclical, Cassie Claire, Cassandra Clare | |
| Type: | fan writer (retired), professional author | |
| Fandoms: | Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings | |
| Communities: | ||
| Other: | writes profic as Cassandra Clare | |
| URL: | cassandraclare.com cassandraclare at LiveJournal cassandraclare at Tumblr | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | ||
| ||
Cassandra Claire was a fan and fanwriter most active in the Harry Potter fandom. She is often considered to be one of the fandom's first Big Name Fans after gaining popularity (and notoriety) for her epic fanfiction series The Draco Trilogy and its resulting plagiarism controversy. The majority of her fanfiction was written as the fandom was rapidly gaining popularity and played a major role in shaping Draco Malfoy's fandom characterization.
Outside the Harry Potter fandom, Cassandra Claire wrote The Very Secret Diaries, which was wildly popular in The Lord of the Rings fandom.
Cassandra Claire has since retired from fandom and taken her fanfiction offline as she launched her profic career. She is now the author of several bestselling YA novels as "Cassandra Clare".
Notable Fanworks
For a complete list of Claire's fanworks, see Cassandra Claire/Fanworks.
- The Very Secret Diaries (Lord of the Rings) - 2001-2002
- The Draco Trilogy (Harry Potter, Harry/Hermione) - 2000-2006
- Draco Dormiens - c. August 2000
- Draco Sinister - August or September 2000 - July 2001
- Draco Veritas - August 2001 - August 2006
- A Season in Hell (HP, Harry/Draco) - November 2002
- Sequel: After the Flood - December 2002
- Written (HP, Draco/Ginny) - February 2003
- How To Disappear (HP, Harry/Draco) - July 2003
- Caveat Lector (HP, Ginny Weasley/Tom Riddle) - April 2003
- Something Impossible (HP, Harry/Draco) - April 2003
- A Lot to Be Upset About (HP, Draco/Ginny) - July 2003
- Mortal Instruments (HP, Ron/Ginny) - April 2004
Controversies
Over the years various fannish circles noted with distaste the similarities between portions of The Draco Trilogy and various science fiction television and print sources, resulting in flare-ups of plagiarism accusation (and debate, and wank) on a regular basis between 2001 and 2006. Locations of this discussion include the Glass Onion mailing list, Fanfiction.net, and several HP venues.
In 2006, Avocado wrote a lengthy exposé of the plagiarism in Claire's writing for Bad Penny, providing evidence of (and a venue for) many more observed instances of plagiarism than had previously been counted.[1] This effort also chronicled the timeline of obfuscations and rationalizations Claire provided when readers queried her about unsourced and uncredited quoting. (See The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle.)
Claire has also been accused of profiting from fandom (see LaptopGate) and of cyberbullying other fans.[citation needed]
Fannish Retirement
Claire announced that she would be taking her fanfiction offline in an author's note at the end of Draco Veritas, posted in early August 2006:
- "VERY IMPORTANT NOTICE:After this last chapter has been up for a while, all my fanfiction on Fiction Alley and elsewhere will be deleted. If you would like to be able to read the Draco Trilogy again in the future, I recommend that you download it from this web page (each part is available as a separate .pdf file complete with references and illustrations) so that you'll have it after it's removed from the Net:www.heidi8.com/dt/"[2]
Claire's work was removed from fic archives and mailing lists in mid-August.[3] The Draco Trilogy, A Lot to Be Upset About, and Something Impossible were made available for download as PDF files from August 2006 through March 2007.[4] With the announcement, fans scrambled to save and share copies of Claire's other works before (and after) they were deleted.[2]
Profic Career
Claire published her first profic novel, City of Bones, in 2007 under the name "Cassandra Clare".[5] It is part of an urban fantasy series known as The Mortal Instruments, which shares the same name as Claire's 2004 Ron/Ginny fanfic. As of 2013, Claire has published eight books and has several more in the works, and a film adaption of City of Bones is set to be released in August.
Though Moral Instruments and the Draco Trilogy do not share a plot, some fans believe that Clary and Jace are based on fanon versions of Ginny and Draco. Additionally, one passage from Draco Veritas, which tells the story of Draco's pet falcon, appears word-for-word in City of Bones: the only differences are minor punctuation changes and the amendment of "Draco" to "the boy" (now referring to Jace).
Wank about the fan did occur when the published author put out her first novel, which involved both media fandom and science fiction fandom, but in general the allegations of plagiarism and bad behavior against the fan are not well known among people who interact with the published author.[6]
Resources
- The New Queen of Fantasy: Cassandra Clare's Breakout - Wall Street Journal article about CC and her background as a fanfiction writer
- Fandom Wank posts related to CC
References
- ↑ The Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle [1] in Journalfen's bad_penny community, posted 2006-08-04 by avocado. Accessed 9 December 2008. WebCites: Post 1, Post 2, Post 3, Post 4, Post 5, and Post 6.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Looking for Draco Trilogy/Cassandra Claire's Fanfic? at FictionAlley Park. 06 August 2006. (Accessed 08 April 2013.)
- ↑ ParadigmOfUncertainty post #27171: Re: PoU Draco Series, quoting a message from Cassandra Claire made on her Yahoo! group. 17 August 2006. (Accessed 08 April 2013.)
- ↑ www.heidi8.com/dt/. (Archived 22 March 2007 by the Wayback Machine.)
- ↑ Wikipedia page about Cassandra Clare Accessed December 10, 2008
- ↑ 8th August 2006. John Scalzi. Whatever: Crimes of Fanfic. Accessed 10 December 2008.
See the comments by Barry Goldblatt (August 10, 2006 12:23 AM) and Justine Larbalestier (August 12, 2006 04:51 PM).
