Home again, home again.

[alex_beecroft]

Jiggety jig.

We are safely returned from Cornwall, bringing home with us patchy tans, several pounds of extra weight due to ice-creams and cream-teas, soaked and salty wetsuits, and a sheaf of photos that need sorting through before I post any on here.

(Not one of our photos of the Minack Theatre. Ours include the stage hands setting up backdrops for The Book of Mirrors, a steampunk musical. But as I say, they’re still in the camera.)

I just about managed to keep up with my more urgent emails while I was there, but it’s hard typing a cogent message on a mobile phone, so I’m catching up with my blog posts now I’m home.

Speaking of which, here I am guesting on Elin Gregory’s blog, being put through the ordeal of the Comfy Chair:

http://elingregory.wordpress.com/2012/08/11/today-in-the-comfy-chair-alex-beecroft/

where I’m talking about the problem I have with villains. (They will keep blocking the chimney when they try to break into the place. Why can’t they just come to the front door like the salesmen?)

Mrs Giggles reviews Bomber’s Moon and gives it a mark of 83 (out of 100.) I don’t think I really do it for her, but many thanks to her for reviewing it

Clare London sent me an interesting link to a Guardian article on fan fiction

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/13/fan-fiction-fifty-shades-grey

in which, apparently, the mainstreaming of fanfiction spells the end of literature as we know it. IMO, this doesn’t sound like a bad thing. My only real interest in 50 Shades of Grey comes from noting that it at least proves definitively that there’s nothing illegal about filing the serial numbers off your fanfic and publishing it. If this isn’t a legal precedent, I don’t know what is.

Mirrored from Alex Beecroft - Author of Gay Historical and Fantasy Fiction.

Comments

[alex_beecroft]

Well, it's the fact that EL James didn't change very much and hasn't added 'literary value' or mindblowing ideas (such as Napoleonic dragons) and has fanficced a work still under copyright which makes this such a great test case for the legal issues. Simply in terms of litmus test for whether or not repurposed fanfic is legal or not, it could not be a more perfect test.

That doesn't mean I'm saying that 50 Shades is a good book - I don't know, I haven't read it. I haven't read Twilight either. I'm quite prepared to believe that it's as bad as you say. It's probably not a great ambassador for the creativity, literary and social value of fanfic, and it's unlikely to make literary snobs grudgingly admit that some fanfiction can be excellent.

But literary snobs are never going to admit that there's any value in a form of writing done for free by women, usually based on genre entertainment and including sex. Literary snobs base their entire self-image on being better than the people who actually enjoy genre fiction. We've never needed their respect before, so 50 Shades not making them give it to us now makes no real difference.