Quote:
Originally Posted by issybird
It's not, of course. I spoke badly. I should have said something along the lines of, "non-commercial." However,
<SNIP>
Well, now you've lost me.  I personally find fan-fiction to be a dismissive term and use it as such myself (most recently for Margaret Atwood's The Testaments. I think my phrase was "YA fan-fiction" at that.) My own perspective is that if people want to write fan-fiction, that's fine, but I certainly don't want to read it. So in the context of a serious recommendation of a book that's been widely lauded, I take it as "fightin' words," or at least the opening lob in what is likely to be a contentious discussion. Nothing wrong with that. |
As someone who was introduced to the concept of fan-fiction with Star Trek and has spent a fair amount of time on fanfic sites (and has read some very, very good fan fiction), I don't read the term as inherently dismissive but rather as a statement of fact. Calling something Fan Fiction is in essence stating that 'this derivative work was written by a fan of the original work'.
If I called a commercial work such as
West Side Story a fanfic I would simply mean 'This is clearly a derivative work and you can perceive the author's appreciation of the original work.' not intending to be dismissive.