So what about dese here...whattaya call 'em...books?

[serai]

This evening, Spike and I were having one of our animated conviviala, as we are wont to do. (That woman is Discussion Gold, by the way - a conversation with her is never wasted time.) And we were commenting on the fact that, were it not for the Tolkien family Old Guard sitting on the canon like a cop defending his donut, there would doubtless be literally scores of books written in Middle-Earth by now. If not before, then certainly after the films had begun to come out; I imagine that the New Line suits are fairly annoyed at not being able to get in on the publishing action, and with such a ready and willing pool of potential providers, who could blame them?



Take a look at the Star Trek publishing industry. How many novels are there now? Probably well over 300, counting all the incarnations. Imagine if all of us fanfic writers actually had a shot at selling our stuff to the legitimate market. There are quite a few substandard Strek novels, but there have been some that I've really enjoyed, clever and absorbing tales peopled with a familiar cast. My goodness, how lovely it would be to have a whole shelf of ME novels written by loving enthusiasts who cut the editorial mustard, right under my set of favorite ST books. Most of the ones on my shelf would be hobbit books, of course, though I don't doubt there'd be a few elf books as well, and a couple of rough-and-ready frontier-type romances about brave and stalwart men. *sigh*

I mention ST in this context notably because it was really the first introduction I had to the idea of fanfiction, i.e., the concept of a reality set created by one person (or group of people), being used by subsequent writers to create other stories not included in the original. In reading these books over the years, I built up a particular set of criteria for what I would now call a good fanfic story - basic technical soundness, believable character reactions, the ability of the writer to dovetail his own style with the constraints of a world already established, etc. Interestingly enough, I was able to perceive the workings of these things more easily in the ST books than I had with original fiction, even though I had been an avid reader since I discovered the magic of books. I think it was the very familiarity with those characters, the fact that I didn't have to expend time on learning who each of them were all over again in every book, that freed a lot of my attention up to absorb other aspects of the stories. And it was a comfort, after all, to go to all these bizarre and grand and frightening places with a set of people I already knew and was fond of.

Still, I wonder if a great deal of the reason that Tolkien's work has such attraction and integrity is the very nature of its uniqueness in that sense, and if the proliferation of books using the framework would somehow dilute the power of the central tale. There is a qualitative difference between reading fanfic and reading an actual book, although I'd be hard-pressed to try and put it into words. I suppose for me it has a lot to do with the sacredness of books as repositories of knowledge; as a writer, I can hardly imagine a more desired outcome than seeing my words enshrined that way.

So please regale me (and each other, and everybody else, too) with your thoughts on this matter. What would the fantasy shelves look like if authorized ME novels were a reality? If you were to write one that got published, what would it be about? Which of the stories that you've already written would you want to see between the covers of an actual book, stocked at Walden's or Borders or Brentano's? What would you like it to look like - the cover, the binding, the pictures (if it had any)? Who would it be intended for? Whose reading and good opinion of it would tickle you the most?

What effect do you think this situation would have had on the fantasy genre? Do you think there's any possibility of the gates being opened in the future? Would you want them to be? If there were books, what about a TV series? (Imagine the possibilities - Aragorn, The Legend Continues!) There was a lot of kvetching from the Canon Camp about Tolkien being "sullied" by the commercial boom that came with the films. If the canon were something that were not inviolable, more available to other writers, how likely is it that the results would be worth having?

These are the things that keep me up nights, you know.



Step right up. The microphones are on.

Comments

[serai1.livejournal.com]

That's really very surprising, seeing as there was a legal kerfuffle a few years back, when a fan sued a canon author for "using one of her ideas". (Quotes because I've no idea if it was a stolen idea, or whether they'd just come up with the concept simultaneously.) But ever since then, a LOT of original creators are leery even of looking at fanfic. It really is odd that they haven't been sued for doing that so blatantly, if it's as recognizable as you say.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Ah. How interesting. I've been part of two fandoms as a writer, as you know, and I've been sideline-glancing at a couple of others. It's fascinating how different they seem to be from each other. There's a touchiness about such things in LOTR fandom, to be honest. Wildly varying levels of thought on what you can do and what you can't, but a kind of general detente about being too crazy with it. After all, we've got the aforementioned Old Guard. They haven't erupted into Mt. Splooge yet, but you never know. They really don't like people claiming any of this stuff.

And in the Keanu fandom, the writing contingent seems to be very small. And short of faking a news story about him being an axe murderer, who's gonna get sued? Like the guy gives a crap that women are writing things about him to jerk off to. Not fucking likely.

So the QAF fandom appears to be a different animal. Sounds like a far more congenial place, certainly more than the Harry Potter fandom, which seems to be rather an Ocean of Crazy. (Or at least it looks that way from the sidelines.) Somehow I do not find the idea surprising. Somehow the whole basis of the show - Cute Boys Fucking - seems to me to be less intrinsically wanky. (You'll pardon the pun.) I could be wrong, of course. :)

[marigold6.livejournal.com]

A very good subject to think on...I too have read many, many of the ST novels [actually that was my first fandom-ST:TOS], and because they were familiar characters, some which I've grown up with, I was also very picky about which ones I devoured. This is definitely something I've wondered about, Serai - and I'll have to sit down and gather my thoughts, then come back. Thanks for the start of what could be a most interesting discussion.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

I will be very eager to hear your thoughts. :)

[oxer12.livejournal.com]

As someone who came to the LOTR fandom pretty late - I didn't read the book until after I had seen the movies - I have to say that I would dearly, dearly love to see some fanfic on the bookstore shelves. I've read stories that are just as good or better than anything out there, even though they're - gasp! - slash. The Sam/Frodo books I'd want would be behind one of those plastic dividers. :D

There's a good quote in Stephen King's book, On Writing. He says about LOTR (and I'm paraphrasing here) that even after 50 years, 1,000 pages of hobbits haven't been enough for readers, and that much of the current fantasy genre was spawned by people wanting to revisit Middle-earth. I think he's right. No one can write anything explicitly set in ME, so they create substitutes.

I know that I would read 7 more Narnia books, if they existed, as well as tons more LOTR.

As far as cover art goes: I get a kick out of imagining Frodo and Sam in a Harlequin romance-inspired clinch outside of Bag End. Makes me giggle. :-)

[fantasy-fan.livejournal.com]

Here's another take on published fanfic - what's been done in the Star Wars Universe. TPTB have decided to allow it, sanction it, publish it, but they retain control over the plotlines, so that they create a new canon that future writers have to write in. Once a character has gotten into a relationship, or gotten killed, or had his ship blow up a particular planet, all stories set after that in the timeline have to adhere to it. Many authors, each writing more or less successfully in their own voice, but with an imposed coherence that eventually takes those fanon conventions about characterization (Wedge Antilles is a smartass, for example) and solidifies them as canon. The first couple dozen books were all set in a 20-year or so period, without any overriding plot arc, yet all intermeshed. Like I said, sometimes it worked better than other times. The more successful authors were rewarded with little series. The most popular original characters got more written about them. Then the next couple of dozen books all were set within one large story arc, that finished not too long ago.

Wouldn't that be fun to see: LOTR - the next generation?

[slipperieslope.livejournal.com]

As a reader and pre net fan of Star Trek I collected all the early Star Trek novelizations especially that series of like ten paperbacks that the guy who wrote "The Trouble with Tribbles" published - Gerrold? I loved them and in the wake of Star Wars I went crazy in book stores. Almost every science fiction fantasy enterprise was aware of the voracious appetite that would birth internet fanfiction.

I have always been an obsessive completest - I blame my old guard librarian from elementary school for refusing to buy all the books in the Boxcar Children series after getting me addicted in second grade to the first four! As an adult I read everything by every favorite author obsessively - if I loved a film, tv show or play I hunted up the novelizations and read everything I could by or about the author. I was enthralled by "Cosette" the sequel to "Les Miserables" and the backstory to "Phantom of the Opera".

I would love to read a sanctioned novel of the dread winter, of Primula and Drogo's love story, their death, Frodo's years in Buckland, the Gaffer and Belle's story, Rose's story, Sam's story after Frodo left, Radagast, Erresea years, Merry as master of Buckland, Pippin as Thain, the end of the orcs and Uruks, Aragorn and Arwen and their children, Aragorn's passing, diminishing of the elves to what we think of as fairies and elfs today, Faramir and Eowyn and their children, Eomer's life, Gimli and Legolas's adventures and sailing... umm... yep just about anything else you wanna throw at me I be reading ; )

If I love a creative property I need to hold something of it in my hand and learn as much as I can about it. That has been a trait of me from a very early age. Fortunately/unfortunately the internet feeds me. And I am lost...

My professor in college warned that being a librarian that read was a dangerous occupation. He told us if we tried to read everything we wanted we were lost. But then he ended the lecture by adding that a librarian that didn't read wasn't worth finding.

I am way out there on the internet reading, reading, reading and spending a fortune in printing because if it is very good - I need to hold it in my hand and keep it forever. I am very happy...

[slipperieslope.livejournal.com]

Ever wonder how that teenager got "Aragon" past the Tolkien police?

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see the tales of the Rohirrim. I imagine they have many wonderful stories!

And maybe future hobbit tales.

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

This is a fascinating subject! For some reason, all my coworkers have decided to come by my desk during my lunch, or I'd add my typpence. I don't think I have much to say that's different from what others have to say, anyway.

[elderberrywine.livejournal.com]

I knew there was an interesting post that I had missed in the crazy-making that was last week. *g*

It seems to me, sitting way far on the sidelines of fandom, that the majority of fandoms deal with TV shows, and I think for those, published fandom lit makes much more sense. I do have an extremely embarrassing number of the Star Trek OS books, and since the series was always intended to be open-ended, that format works very well. The characters are straight-forward, and the conventions of the ST world are not complicated. So many of the books were better than some of the episodes (I don't think any of the books beat Spock's Brain for mind-boggling badness!) so what's to say what the true ST is? It was one man's inspiration, but never one man's story.

Whereas LOTR deals with a very definite story arc. It's not too hard to play around with the pre-quest LOTR world, but once the quest starts, it starts getting more complicated. Also, surprisingly enough, I think there is so much more variation in the way the characters are written. Someone else's Legolas is not my Legolas, etc. That's because, I think, these characters were not pigeon-holed into stereotypes like ST (cool brainy alien. impetuous charismatic captain. irascible emotional doctor.). It's hard to imagine a lot of character variation in the ST world.

I can absolutely see the Tolkien family being chary about syndicating LOTR, so to speak. And hey, we've got the internets.