Author's right to restrict comments
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| Title: | Author's right to restrict comments |
| Creator: | Flamingo |
| Date(s): | July 9, 2000 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Starsky & Hutch |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Author's right to restrict comments is a 2000 essay by Flamingo.
It was posted as a reply to another fan's argument that fans should not critically discuss fanworks without the author's permission or participation. The fanwork that initially sparked this discussion is Cost of Love, a very early Starsky & Hutch slash novel.
The essay was posted to VenicePlace, a private mailing Starsky & Hutch list, and is quoted here with Flamingo's permission. Her responses are to a fan who is not named here.
Introduction
[name dedacted]: didn't you and I stay up until 4:30 one morning in a con hotel discussing this topic? I remember you had me going back and forth on this, agreeing one minute and disagreeing the next! Of course, I think I agreed with you every time you kept waving that shiny gold locket in front of my eyes, you know, the one with the picture of Starsky's butt on it! Your arguments always seemed so logical when you were waving that around...
Some Topics Discussed
- concrit and feedback
- availability of some fic and the author's desire to be read
- differing opinions about embarrassment, feelings, and other social norms
- some history regarding feedback and concrit protocols
Excerpts from the Essay
>> But I do not think it fair that a writer's work should be disassembled on on line lists where that writer has not posted her stories and may not even have access to the commentary. If someone has comments to make on a story, they should be sent to the writer first. If readers are too lazy or too busy to do that, then they really shouldn't be discussing that story elsewhere.
Sorry, [name redacted], but I'll never be able to agree with this, not as a writer or as a reader. This is like telling people they can't have opinions over what they've read. And by the way, discussing a story isn't "disassembling" it. It's discussing it. Which we have every right to do. Most email discussions by their nature aren't even that in depth! Dissambling the story would take considerable time. I call that editing, a line-by-line examination of the successes and failures of a story.
For the record: Alexis Rogers' work is some of the most publically available work there is. She was the first author to put anything on the Starsky & Hutch archive, in fact she founded it. In the extensive email I wrote about the story I put the url in it so people could go find it and read it, and I hope some new fans will discover this amazingly complex work they otherwise would not. Alexis also has her *own* page, so if you miss the stories on the Archive, there is another public forum for it. In addition, the Cost of Love in particular is still available in ]]Code 7]] #3 from Mysti Frank, and before it went on the archive she published her collected works in her own zine. Alexis has done everything she can to make sure her stories have been available to the fandom. It would be highly impractical for her to post those stories on this list due to their length and complexity, and since they have always been available on line, why should she? In addition, she's been a member of this list from the beginning, only recently unsubbing from it due to lack of time. She has friends on the list, as do most of the SH authors we discuss, and I can't think of a single time when we discussed a story from an author who is no longer in the fandom that someone didn't make the comments known to the author. In addition, Alexis came up in the fandom at a time when it was ASSUMED that all fiction was game for review. (This is, after all, the way the real world works. Why should fandom be exempt?) If you wrote it, you expected people to comment on it, as that is the very nature of fiction. Alexis wrote reviews in letterzines and zines that were devoted just to reviewing fanfic, and people wrote reviews about her work. This should be nothing new to her.
However, even if Alexis believed her work should not be commented on, even if no one told her about it, that doesn't give her or any other writer the right to restrict anyone from discussing it. And no reader is OBLIGED to send comments to a writer before they discuss their opinions on a story with others. Discussing a story with other people who have differing opinions can actually change a reader's view of a story, and give them a whole different insight onto it. It can make them appreciate a story they didn't like, or understand a story they thought confusing, or compel them to read a story they thought they couldn't finish. It can broaden their whole experience of it. I would much rather discuss a story with other fans if I didn't care for it or understand it, in the hopes they might enlighten me about my misreading or confusion on it, and *then* deal with the author, presuming I care to deal with the author at all. Most people are simply not that comfortable discussing the short-comings of a story, or their confusion about it, or even sometimes the things they liked the best with it, with the person who created it. Most fans are under the misconception that their favorite authors are deluged with gushing emails and indepth analysis of their works by other fans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. If more people discussed fiction in a safe forum like VP, they might then feel they could better articulate their feelings to the writer, and might be more inclined to write LOCs. I've gotten LOCs from fans who decided to write to me after spirited discussions among themselves in chat rooms or other places. And most of the LOCs I read have more apology in them than anything, as fans apologize for their inability to express themselves well in LOCs when in fact, most LOCs are beautifully written.
Also, fandom is not the only writing forum where people are not paid for their work, and yet their work is reviewed publicly. More writing is *not* paid for than is. There are tons of small press literary magazines that are published just like zines, where writers are paid in a single contributor's copy, and those stories are discussed, analyzed, and reviewed in public. So the fact that fans don't get paid per se is irrelevant. You write to be read. People are gonna talk.
Veniceplace is like a huge party. It is not a PUBLIC party, but a private one. Not just anyone can get in. And not just anyone can stay. If you were at a party where the accoustics were incredible and you could clearly hear everything everyone was saying, and you knew that most of the fandom had access to this party and writers, zine editors, and others could be wandering in and out, you might couch your comments carefully. You might not be snide or rude. But if no one discussed fiction, it would be a very boring party indeed.
I can't stand people eviscerating a story cruelly just to show how clever *they* are, and I've written reams about that. However, a reasonable discussion about a piece of fiction whether you like it or not is a perfectly acceptable thing to do, and no writer has the right to curtail that kind of discussion. No writer even has the right to know what people are saying about their fiction. If they find out, great. But that's not in the contract. You write the story, you put it out there, and you hope it hits its mark. Anything else is gravy, not a given.
>> I do not think it fair to publicly embarrass someone who hasn't posted their stories to the lists in question with the idea of having them discussed or has not given her permission for the discussion of her stories on line, especially if the commentors have not had the courtesy of informing the writer of their views beforehand.
First off, [name redacted], it's impossible to know what might embarrass someone. I know people who are embarrassed to death over compliments! And there aren't any rules of "fairness" in writing. When you write something and put it out in any public forum, whether it is on a list, on an archive, on a web page, or in a zine, you are asking people to read it. You are asking them to use up their incredibly spare valuable time because you think you have something to say that is so important others must see it. It is one of the largest acts of ego there can be, that anyone would think that something *they've* said is so important others must read it. If you are asking me to use up *my* time (which has a significant monetary and personal value to me) you can't then tell me I have to right to express an opinion about it anywhere I chose. You had the right to post your story in a public forum in an attempt to get me to read it. That's a pretty ballsy act by any measurement (especially when you consider the billions of people who would never dare show anything they've written to anyone else). You can't ask for that invest of my time and put restrictions on how I want to express my feelings on the experience. Once you've published it, it's out of your control.
You can't dictate how, when, and where people care to discuss things. Discussions *happen*. Trying to rein them in just eliminates them. Which is what has happened to a great deal of critical discussion of fanfic, because some writers think they have a right to control what people say about their stuff. I wish. (Not really.)