(no subject)

[seekingferret]

Last year, Philcon's single fanfiction panel was the charmingly titled "Fan Fiction: Stepping Stone or Cul de Sac?".

I sent a bit of a rant to programming this summer, and am cautiously optimistic that the panel will be an improvement. Except not a big enough improvement, because let me show you my rant and then let me show you the panel topic.

My Rant/Panel Suggestion

3] I want a panel (or more than one panel) about writing techniques for fanfiction, because I'm tired of the only fanfic panel at Philcon being the one that has to spend the entire hour justifying the existence of fanfiction. I want a panel that assumes fanfiction has a reason for existing, and actually talks about the ways in which it does exist. For example a discussion of writing techniques that can be used in fanfiction but can't be used in original fiction, or a discussion of common fanfiction themes that rarely appear in original fiction. Or a panel solely about the use of tentacles in fanfiction. Or a panel about making the transition from being a reader of fanfiction to a writer of fanfiction. Or a panel on how fanfiction can engage with canons that don't feature much diversity and open up their worlds. I don't really have strong opinions about the specific subject matter, I just want the panel to not have to spend any time on justifying the existence of fanfiction.

Philcon's 2014 Panel on Fanfiction

The Value of Transformative Works
A transformative work is one that takes an existing intellectual property (a character, story, or setting), and changes it in some way to provide a new purpose, sensitivity, or expression to the work. Examples can include everything from fan fiction or fan films, up to and including professionally licensed works like Gregory Maguire's "Wicked". What value do works like this have, both for us as fans, and for the original work itself?


<==Getting it
Philcon ===================================================================>


GRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH


(I KEEP TELLING MYSELF, AT LEAST IT'S BETTER THAN "STEPPING STONE OR CUL DE SAC". [Also, I keep telling myself, Philcon will still be awesome this weekend anyway. My posse this year is big enough that we had to get two hotel rooms.])

Comments

[ambyr]

My Rant/Panel Suggestion

YES ALL OF THIS.

I may have tl;dred in person at the Co-Chair of the DC2017 bid about how much I wanted this at WorldCon. Which reminds me I should get off my ass and e-mail about volunteering to help with the bid.

[seekingferret]

Obviously Philcon is a general purpose SF Con, so it would be unreasonable to expect it to go into the same depth that a fanfic oriented convention would. Still, every year starting from square one with a panel explaining that fanfiction has value seems like a waste of everyone's time. I hope that your rant to the DC bid co-chair had an impact.

[morbane]

Oh. Oh dear.

[seekingferret]

Yup.

[sanguinity]

That's... not right.

They should really get their "do the things that Ferret says to do" module looked at.

[seekingferret]

I have found that there are way too many organizations running a buggy version of this module.

[starlady]

Well, kudos to you for fighting the good fight.

[seekingferret]

Ha... just realized another terrible part of that panel blurb: At least some of the Oz books are public domain... Wicked is profic, but it's not "professionally licensed," because it doesn't need to be. More proof that the people who wrote the blurb don't spend any time at all thinking about these issues.