the shadow the original content creator casts

[rthstewart]

So, I was going to post something exploring raykel's discussion earlier about adults playing with toys that are really intended for children. But before we do that, knitress wrote the following:

As someone who just stumbled into this, the whole ur doing it wrong thing seems very parallel to some of the debates in Lewis scholarship/'scholarship'/worship. Joy Gresham, Mrs. Moore, Lewis' lifelong friend Arthur Greeves.
I mean, if you're going to go on at huge length about what the original author would have wanted, shouldn't you, y'know, learn something about his actual life?

lady_songsmith and andi_horton have both said, oh yes, please share your reading list!

And so knitress has said she will post her reading list. This is an interesting exercise in a couple of respects.

• There are a lot of people in the Narnia fandom who assert that adhering to Lewis' intent is very important, so illuminating what Lewis did intend and separating that from what others think he intended is interesting. I know some of you know far more about Lewis' life and art than I do, so do share, if you are so inclined.
• Stepping back a few meters, some folks really like this sort of exercise at the more philosophical level -- who if anyone has the right to interpret something once it is freed into the wilds. Assuming we do understand the author and what he or she intended, what modicum of respect is owed the original creator? Or his or her designee or progeny? Gresham named Ramandu's Daughter Liliandil for the DT film. Rowling asked once that people not include underage sexual content in HP fic? Does any of that mean anything? Should it?
• Last, there is the frustration all authors feel when the reader doesn't get what you intended. Sometimes it's a flaw in the writing; sometimes though it probably doesn't matter how clear you are, right? The reader is going to take what the reader is going to take.

In response to the above, divining authorial intent isn't something I usually worry about. I take a plain language view to borrow from a canon of statutory construction -- if it's there on the page, literally or thematically, it's fair game.  I'm more interested in exploring what I and others think about their work, and the community that develops around that exploration then I am in understanding more of what the author thought about his or her work. People pull more than I intended out of my work all the time and frequently I have no greater intent than "Shiny! let's try that!" and "Gosh I love that line. Let me build 10,000 words to include it." Or, "fandom poke. poke. poke."

Admittedly, TSG Peter and I both share extreme ineptitude in the areas of philosophy, theology, and languages. Being a shallow sort, I do not usually ask the big questions. (Though when I told Clio that, she said that I may assert the absence of a rear view mirror and claim inability to think big thoughts but that's because I pour my philosophical musings into fic.)  I decline to speculate as that would call for introspection.

Comments

[knitress.livejournal.com]

So. This isn't going to go near the authorial intent issues -- but it's hard to argue that Lewis himself would be as "nothing but married heterosexual sex in books please".

There's been lots and lots written about Lewis over the last 40 years. Because I'm a bookish sort, I've read a fair bit. That said, I'm not a historian or a literary scholar, so I'm just summarizing what others have said in print.

Fact One: Lewis' best friend as a kid was Arthur Greeves -- Lewis' memoir Surprised by Joy talks about the importance of their friendship. They remained friends and regular correspondents their entire lives. Greeves was gay.

Fact Two: After serving in WWI, Lewis established a household with Mrs. Janie Moore. She was the mother of his friend Paddy Moore, who was killed in combat. Lewis lived with Mrs. Moore for the rest of her life.

Fact Three: Lewis eventually met and married Joy Davidman Gresham, a divorced woman. They were married in a civil ceremony so Joy (an American) could become a legal British resident. However, they later had a religious ceremony. Divorced people were generally not able to be married in the Anglican church at that time -- Lewis had to hunt to find a priest who was willing to perform the ceremony. Joy's death led him to write A Grief Observed


One biographer -- Walter Hooper, who worked for Lewis as a young man and is his literary executor -- insisted early on that the relationship with Mrs. Moore was entirely platonic, and speculated that the marriage to Joy was never consummated. Other biographers don't agree. For what it's worth, I have to agree that Hooper's opinion is just weird. It's hard to imagine that young Jack Lewis would spend every weekend and some weeknights with Mrs. Moore during his university years out of some sort of idea that he was doing his duty by an adopted mother. Read Grief and you'll see that it was written by a man who'd lost someone he loved deeply and in every possible way.

The Lewis-Greeves correspondence has been published. Lewis knew Greeves was homosexual, and wasn't particularly troubled or concerned by this. He certainly didn't end the friendship over it. Lewis (before Joy) wrote about the distinction between religious and civil marriage for divorced people, and it's hard not to wonder what his opinion would be about same sex (civil) marriage rights today! Certainly his marriage to Joy ended up contradicting statements he'd made before meeting her about how remarriage after divorce wasn't an option for Christians.

Oh, and to add to the complex stuff, it appears from the Lewis-Greeves correspondence that Lewis himself had mildly sadistic fantasies as a young man. What's more, he read Greats at Oxford; Greek and Latin writers were not exactly G rated. I don't see how anyone could argue that Lewis himself would insist that a story is immoral and evil because it includes sex outside of marriage.

I highly recommend the Jacobs biography, The Narnian and also Laura Miller's The Magician's Book: A Skeptic's Guide to Narnia. There's also A.N. Wilson's CS Lewis: A Biography.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Wow. thanks so much. I have just plowed through yet MORE of the "I don't write or read slash/homosexuality/incest." [the three are always equated] followed by "I don't think Lewis would be at all pleased or Lewis would be rolling in his grave" which is then followed by "Lewis was a Christian and these are Christian children's books," etc. The smug certitude of a segment of this fandom is really breathtaking when one considers that Lewis knew of the conduct, knew men who engaged in it, corresponded and wrote on the subject and that his very dearest friend was gay. He was obviously a very complex man.

The fact of his relationship with Greeves is so .. well, very much in keeping with the spirit that I see in the books I almost want to weep. While in some parts, Aslan is Not A Nice Deity, in other places there is such enormous compassion and tolerance. And now google fu leads me to this, Lewis and Homosexuality.

Thanks so much for the contribution!

[raykel.livejournal.com]

I don't get it. You don't read slash/homosexuality/incest, fine. I myself stay away from incest and pedophilia. I'm also not crazy about AUs. That's my choice.

But I don't go seeking out stories with these things so I can write reviews telling them how bad they are. OY! What's the point? If I were reading your story and disagreed with elements of it, I'd either stop reading, or I'd be so captured by the writing that I'd read it despite those reservations.

That might have been my reaction to a certain story of yours back in the day, as a matter of fact. I may have even written a review like that, saying what I liked, saying what I had issues with, but I think even back then, when I was more uptight than I am now, I think/hope I had enough sense to phrase it AS my own issues that don't really say anything whatsoever about YOUR story. Just my own baggage that I bring to it, not the ONLY way it MUST be.

Similar to what you're running across with the Lewis fandom, I write for a cartoon fandom called Danny Phantom. The creator of the show, Butch Hartman, has gone on record as supporting fanfic and fan art, but being opposed to slash. Pretty vehemently opposed, as a matter of fact. Fandom divided into the people who support him on this and those who don't and do what they want.

I find a walk a middle ground here. On first reading of his anti-slash statement, I thought it was over the top (he said something about it shouldn't exist anywhere on the internet), but when I read it again, I could really see where he was coming from. For one thing, he was using "slash" not to just refer to gay pairings themselves, but the really graphic pornographic stuff. And there have been actual police cases of pedophiles using DP porn (art more than fanfic) to lure in kids. What do they call it? Grooming?

So when he says he's against that stuff existing anywhere on the internet and if you're involved in it, you're not welcome on his boards, that's what he's talking about, and I find I can't really fault him for that. He's not actually going after this stuff where it exists, he's just saying how he feels about how his creations are used and that if you disagree, you can, but go play elsewhere, not on his boards. And this is coming direct from him, not fans' interpretations of his intent.

I've written stories in his universe that involve sex between non-married adults (canon characters later when they're grown up) and I've made one of his canon side characters gay. But my stories aren't very graphic and don't involve kids having sex and certainly don't involve adults having sex with kids (the "slash" that seems to get his goat the most is the adult villain with the teenage title character which actually says nothing about consenting adult gay relationships and everything about adult control. In canon, the villain is actually non-sexually obsessed with the teen hero, so going to some sort of mutual love sexual relationship definitely pushes many of my own squick buttons).

Does what I write fit with the author's vision and intent? Probably not. But there is nothing in what I write that contradicts canon, either. And I do try to respect his stated preference that if people play in his universe, they don't write graphic porn, especially involving minors (and honestly, I don't really anyway), because I can see where he's coming from.

Don't know how closely that correlates to your situation where fans are projecting their OWN views onto the creator, who is no longer around to state for himself what he thinks, but the war over what "true fans" will write really sets my teeth on edge, and in my fandom, I can see both sides of it. But I still think in the end it comes down to: stay away from the stuff that isn't your cup of tea rather than trying to recruit people to doing it YOUR way.

[raykel.livejournal.com]

While in some parts, Aslan is Not A Nice Deity, in other places there is such enormous compassion and tolerance.

Interesting that you say this. I actually had an epiphany while watching -- shoot... the Dawn Treader, I think? -- that the reason I've never really gotten, er, focused on the Narnia stories is that I find I really dislike Aslan. He's kind of an arrogant douche. Enormous compassion, yeah, I see that, too, but it doesn't override his douchiness, not for me, anyway.

But again, that's my own baggage and where my view on Christ may (or may not) differ from Lewis' and other Christians', and I don't think that gives me license to tell you how you should write Aslan.

[lady_songsmith]

Thank you for this, many many times over!! It will be some time before I work down my reading list to those books, but they are definitely on it now!

[cofax7]

Seconding the recommendation for Laura Miller's book: I found it really enlightening (if not entirely complimentary) about Lewis' attitudes towards women & sexuality.

ETA: Which brings me back around to my original intended point, which is that regardless of what happened in Lewis' life, I can read the text, and the subtext, and from that I can see what he was saying about women, without having to know or even care what he actually believed. And I can react and respond to those unstated but clear assumptions, and to everything else in the text, and I don't care at all if someone thinks it's a horrible violation of Christian morals to do so.

There is no fanfiction police, and nobody gets to tell us that we're not allowed to go certain places in what is, in the end, a work of fiction. We may dislike what someone does with their story, and so we can ignore it, flame it, or mutter about it behind flock, but we have no authority over the writer and the content of the story.

... I do wish people would remember that.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

I'm curious, did you read Miller's book before the plunge into the fandom or after?

I agree completely, of course. After my first forays into fic, I did get to know, very well, one of the content creators whose work I had been fan ficcing. It was awkward in the sense that I never wanted the author to know that I had written fan fic from that author's original content, and I learned that we had some pretty different ideas about the author's work and characters. Different though we were, it never occurred to me change my fic. I knew there were things I'd done the author would not approve of -- and the author was alive and sitting right next to me. Was that disrespectful of authorial intent? I admit I never even asked the question.

You never know what people will pull from something and there's only so much control one can exert. There's a trend now in consumer protection to recognize that people do not understand disclaimers no matter how plainly presented. "Results not typical. You may not lose this much weight" and people come away thinking, "Bonus. I'm going to loose even MORE weight." When you can't control something so blunt as that, how can there ever be one single interpretation of anything, or an effort to enforce it.

[knitress.livejournal.com]

That was totally my reaction to Miller. I loved the book, even though I disagreed quite a bit with some of it. She made me think -- about writing, about the role Narnia played in my childhood (and continues to play in my worldview), etc.

[andi-horton.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for taking the time to share this, it's very much appreciated. Unless Hooper had powerful evidence that Lewis was wholly asexual, I agree, his arguments don't seem to hold much water.

I hadn't heard of the Jacobs work, and I had only heard Miller's mentioned in passing. I'll definitely see if I can acquire any/all of the titles mentioned via our library here.

Again, thank you!

[snitchnipped.livejournal.com]

OK, I wrote this earlier in an internet black hole, but I can now post it... pardon if I seem to get off topic a bit. I haven't proofed since I wrote it several hours ago:

The last point is something that I'm always fascinated with.

IMO, there is something beautiful about the openness of interpretation in written works. Now, there are some authors out there that write things CHOCK full of details, leaving very little wiggle room on interpretation. But there are others who manage to catch things so simply and beautifully in few words, and I may be in the minority here, but Lewis has ALWAYS read that way to me.

This is somewhat a tangent, since I'm speaking of the theater world rather than just the literary one (OK, so it's an offshoot), but it's what I know and is still relevant, I think. Let's take Shakespeare. Pretty straight-forward stuff, huh? They even have lexicons published so people can get try to understand the exact meeting of the plays word. by. word. But imagine a world where we all see the same Hamlet, over and over again, with the same themes stressed time and time again. Sorry... boring. I've worked on and seen several productions, from period setting and costumes, to pre-war 1930s Denmark, to ultra modern with lucite thrones. And each and every time, I got something new out of it, different themes would be stressed while the more popular ones would fade into the background. But guess what? It's still the same story, each and every time. It's just an infinite way of approaching it. And that's just wonderful.

But Shakespeare is dead. He doesn't have a say anymore in how his work is interpreted. Live writers kinda somewhat do, and it's fascinating to see who is more hands-on and off on the matter.

Back to theater... I work primarily on new works, never have been interpreted before. There are some playwrights (such as the one I'm working with now) who are completely hands off. Though he's readily available if we have a question (or even a change request), he's avoiding any and all rehearsals. He did his party already, and now it's up to someone else to run with it.

And then there's the case where the playwright insisted on being in in the room... and boy he would get so, so, so ANGRY when the director wanted to take it in one direction. "BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!" I remember him near-screaming. But hello... it's what the director got out of it. How could the director (and the other people in the room supporting the director's choices) be the one in the wrong? This writer is NOT going to be present any other time this play would be produced. He cannot be assigning responsibility of interpretation on everyone else... it was his when he wrote it, is it not? If he wanted it done a certain way, then he could pull a Waiting for Godot and make sure that when someone gets the rights from Beckett's estate, then there must be a proscenium stage, there must be a tree, etc. etc. etc. And that's why people only need to see that play once.

And then there was the writer I worked with who knew he had control issues about his written work. It was a struggle to force himself out of rehearsal hall, but he knew it was for the best, and gave all of his trust in what was on the page and the producers. And he reaped a lot of benefits from it, too.... but still. It is out of his hands, especially now that the play is published. People will get out of it what they will, and that's that. As people will from Lewis' work.

Of course, I speak of all of this on the more literary front of things... the same cannot be applied to TV or film by any means. I would argue that the script in such cases are not as much as the source, but more of the tool of storytelling.

OK, I'll stop now.

[elouise82.livejournal.com]

"I would argue that the script in such cases are not as much as the source, but more of the tool of storytelling."

This. Yes. This is, I think, what every storyteller ought to strive for, and why the best stories are so rich. Because we, as storytellers, are mediums, not necessarily creators.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

"BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!" is hilarious and sad. Your observation about Waiting For Godot is so damning really -- you only need to see it once. Of course the Tweet feed has been full of this lately with folks debating just this. Sometimes it is a matter of, well, editing and writing, for lack of a better term. I mean, if it's a boat, and if you meant boat, you'd better write boat, and readers keep thinking you've written about an airplane, maybe the writing needs to be clearer. It is hard to let something loose, free into the wild.

Which leads me to the world of derivative work and the "respect" owed the original creation. In theater, is there ever this debate by the production team or the critics afterward as to whether the play was true to the writer's intent? Does it matter? Do people care?

[knitress.livejournal.com]

For theater: sort of, I think. Plenty of discussion of whether a particular production of Shakespeare is illuminating or distracting/pushes too far. Although I don't know whether that's phrased in terms of authorial intent or in terms of some "faithful to the truth in the play". It's not a blanket "NOOOOOOOO!", of course.

D. would know way more than I do about this.

[snitchnipped.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sure they have the debate, mainly for the older material. It helps when you can bring a dramaturg on board, too! But I have seen many a stopped rehearsal as intent is debated/argued... especially between actor and director. ESPECIALLY then.

And, of course, critics LOVE jumping on the authorial intent train. Some of the big ones in my city ask for a copy of the script prior to seeing the show, so they can judge interpretation from there. And a lot of critics have their own agenda in the theater world, so of course they'll be nitpicking whatever they can...

But really? It all boils down to an individual's particular taste and what they want to get out of a production. Some like to leave the audience confused, others want everyone to walk out the theater of the same mind. Personally, I like the confusing ones... I worked on a Titus last year that had a ton of walk-outs mixed in with standing ovations on the same nights. It was pretty awesome.

[knitress.livejournal.com]

I should add that Alan Jacobs (a Lewis biographer) is a professor at Wheaton College (the Illinois one). Which means that his evangelical bona fides are solid; the faculty there have to sign a statement of belief. It's not Bob Jones U, but it's still a conservative place.

As for the rest of the discussion about authorial intent, well, my creative outlets are visual/tactile, and so I'm not in the same space as you all. In my world, the discussions about copyright and authorial posession are different because they're about xeroxing patterns and keeping creators from earning a reasonable financial payment for their work. It's not about using someone's work as a springboard for your own creativity.

[linneasr.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is all so interesting!

I'm doing a Phd in History right now, and we're being explicitly taught that while history won't change, it's the historian's job to find something new to say about it. That is, to develop a new approach to events of the past in order to develop new insights about that event, and new meanings for what may come. This is a crude synthesis of it all, but I think it might be the nugget.

Moreover, historians now talk quite unabashedly about 'the historical narrative,' and recognize that to make one's history readable (ie: of value to other people, both scholars and the general public) we have to create a story of some kind. I suspect that historical details may be occasionally omitted in the interests of a good narrative, but that's my private suspicion.

So, if historians are doing this with RL, what's the biggie about doing it with fiction? I understand that there is an author, and an authorial intent, but their intent stops where my authorship starts. If I write a piece, even if it's derivative of your piece, you don't get to correct me, sorry. You may not like it, or even hate it, but you don't get to tell me that I'm wrong. That's the difference between fiction and non-fiction.

Regarding all that certainty about Lewis' intent? Remember, these are people with a zealous, excessive, overwhelming dependence on a text for their cosmology. There are many, many, many things available now to 'disprove' the literal veracity of the Bible, and they've mostly chosen to deny them (except for when it comes to health care). I think this same kind of blinker vision is being applied to Lewis, and anything else they come across. That thought leads me to other, much more uncharitable thoughts, so I'll stop now.

[(Anonymous)]

I find several parts of this disquieting.

I have a PhD in Global Affairs (Political Science) and just finished proofing the historical narrative that I'm sending to the publisher on Friday. In general, there's a huge difference between RL and fiction, that being ownership of the narrative. The historian has no claim to the actual events taking place, only your own unique description of the narrative. The writer has copyright on both. If the piece is recognizably a part of another story, then copyright applies. You can't pick up the story of HP, change names, dates, and places then resell it.

From one academic to another, deliberately leaving out historical fact because it disagrees with your viewpoint is still academic dishonesty. Admittedly, it's not as obvious as outright plagiarism, but it is what it is. Either admit that the facts doesn't fit or change your theory, but don't alter the facts.

My sandbox, and it is just as much mine, as the folks who write, is big enough for everyone to play in. I can leave space for people who want a culture of death without jeopardizing the culture of life that I want to live in. Further, I can do so without hurting anybody else.

Just because writers put something out there in fanfiction, doesn't mean that I as a reader am obligated to read/review or like/dislike. Comments to me are a reward for a job exceptionally well done. If I don't like it, I don't comment on it. If I don't have anything nice to say, I don't comment on it.

If there's a bad summary, or lots of misspelled words or you're obviously promoting underage sex/incest/slash/uber-vulgarity, etc. I won't read it. If there are fifteen reviews that all say "Ooh, I luv u. Right more." I won't read it.

If you tell me you're 13 and this is the first story you've ever written, I might read it. Maybe. If I'm up very later or am very obviously procrastinating on a book I would really, really like to throw in the trash.

What really intrigues me about this fandom, is that people who aren't philosophers, nevertheless subscribe to specific philosophic beliefs. At once, Peter embodies Scotus, but can't understand the words on the page. And may come much, much closer to being Narnian then they think.

- doctor dolly

[lady_songsmith]

I'm not sure what you find disquieting - can you elaborate? Because you seem to embody exactly the sort of readership we have been discussing as the ideal: the sort who can acknowledge another person's right to place their own 'stamp' or interpretation on a shared canon without necessarily agreeing with that vision. There's an unsettling element in this fandom that seems to feel any contradiction to their own interpretation is a personal affront to them and an insult to Lewis as the author.

[snitchnipped.livejournal.com]

Sorry, just want to throw one extra bit in here...

As I've stated probably way more times than necessary, I'm rather new to this whole writing thing. There are some things I very, very particularly want to get across so there's no room for misinterpretation.

That being said, though, there are a couple of elements, plot points, references, etc. that I'm feeling very loose about. On my NBB, I plan on dropping a few things in that if a reader to ask, "Wait, what's THAT about?", I want to answer with, "I don't quite know. What do YOU think?" Some I may eventually write about, others not so much. Who knows?

It just seems like a very, very fun thing to do! And I wonder how often authors do that intentionally.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

I'm always intrigued people people who argue that writers' personal beliefs must be reflected in their writing--mine certainly aren't always! (Especially, say, in my Narnia fic, where I tend to give Aslan a lot of slack, even though a) atheist! and b) if I did believe in an omnipotent omniscient deity I would have to hate it.) Sometimes your personal credo doesn't work for the story you're telling, or the world, or the audience. Especially fantasy children's stories--you might have to change your theology around a bit.

I'm also intrigued by the idea that writers have one set of personal beliefs, even though (as in Lewis's case) those beliefs were forged over a lifetime, and we seriously don't have access to a lot of them (like the sexuality issue, for instance. Lewis was close friends with a gay man and seemed to have some S&M leanings himself, so...). Even if we could say with 100% certainty that Lewis was writing his direct beliefs into each book, what do we do if his understanding of Christ changed between LWW and LB? Which is the "true" Aslan?

Mainly, though, I don't think it's relevant. (I mean, I think it's interesting, to be sure--sometimes I am fascinated by what writers think. And I *do* think context is frequently important. A writer writing about two men sharing a bed, frex, is going to mean different things in a novel set during the civil war than a novel set right now. Which is why the Achilles/Patrocles ship war is ultimately futile, but I digress.) And that's for two reasons: first, because I don't think writers should be able to insist on their readers carrying around three biographies, a manifesto, and a commentary to understand the story. That's sloppy writing. I might have meant that, say, Will is an elderly basset hound, but if you have to read through my journal to the bit where I talk about how I've always believed in writing about dogs as those left behind by soldiers, and then read through a comment somewhere else about how I love basset hounds, and then read through another comment about how Will is the perfect name for a dog...if that's the way my story was meant to be read I am a sloppy writer. You know?

And second, like, whatever, author. The author is dead! I don't believe in the idea that there is one thing put into the story, and that's what the author meant, and that's the end. Readers get different things out (I mean, hell, what are Homer's thoughts on war, right?), and writers don't get to dictate that, even within the confines of the story. If I write a story that I think is totally about stalking, is it invalid if readers think it's about sainthood? (uuuuum actually I think I am going to go with yes here. NEVER HEALTHY, READERS. :/ Maybe the better example is: I interpreted--and wrote--that final section as Lucy finally getting some power back in that relationship, but other people have definitely seen it as the nail in the coffin of Aslan being an abusive boyfriend, so to speak. I don't think that's invalid at all--I think it's totally a valid conclusion from the text that I wrote. And my text speaks for itself, and I can't wander about telling people what to think, because the story is a story all by itself.)

I think also...like, sometimes writers mean for the hero to be perfect, and they say he's perfect, and they write it into the text, and they tell you in interviews, and he's still Edward Cullen. So authors can be wrong. Even Lewis. And I think Narnia fandom sometimes has a problem with that, because there's a weird contingent of fandom that wants to take Lewis as, like, a fifth gospel.

[min023.livejournal.com]

Right, so not much a philosopher, but I think you're onto something here. From where I'm sitting, belief isn't a fixed, unchanging constant. It evolves over a lifetime, changing as different life lessons educate us - growth of wisdom, and all that?

While I may have the same core tenets that I did at twenty, there's an awful lot of things have changed, to a greater or lesser extent, over the course of twenty more years. I think lady songsmith is certainly onto something when she notes age, mindset and mental maturity. From personal experience, I can attest that it's far easier to sit in some smug certainty about the rightness of your beliefs when're younger and have less exposure to life

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

I think that's so true! And it took Lewis a long time to write the Chronicles, so...

I think you probably also have a point about the fandom--Narnia fans tend to skew young, and it's probably a lot easier to be smug about what Lewis would have wanted when you're still a teenager.

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Will was elderly basset hound? Oh gawd. I've always wanted a follow on fic, you know that, don't you? Ed and Nora meeting in a bookstore after the war? I WANT THIS FIC.

[edenfalling]

I am of two minds about authorial intent. On the one hand, I do like to respect the... integrity of canon, I guess? In other words, I want what I write to seem like a reasonable and organic growth from the books we already have. On the other hand, I do not think that canon is the be-all and end-all of the world. Sometimes I think Lewis's theology is abhorrent. Sometimes I think what he says just doesn't make any logical sense. (This is mostly stuff related to Calormen, btw. And also Rilian's age vs. Caspian's age.)

Also, I don't think my approach to writing fanfiction -- the whole "slip it in as if it could be canon" notion -- is the only way to interact with a text or film or what have you. There are people who want to fix a text. There are people who want to do something completely bizarre. There are people who just read a text very differently in the first place, so their view of what will slide right in is not going to agree with mine. And that's fine. They're all valid. I may find some of the end products completely aggravating, but this is not a zero sum game. All our stories can coexist without invalidating each other.

So I tend to find claims that "you're doing it wrong" short-sighted at best and mostly just very, very sad.

(YOU are NOT doing it wrong, btw. You are doing something very, very RIGHT. *hugs*)

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

(YOU are NOT doing it wrong, btw. You are doing something very, very RIGHT. *hugs*)

thank you. I try very hard to tell myself that, especially when I see the discussion above which I don't have time to respond to at the moment. It is so lovely and the folks who come here and exchange ideas are extraordinary.

I vented on Twitter a little bit last night and then talked to someone in a PM. I got stung again, badly, recently, and so though I'm sure it seems I whinge an awful lot about this, the fact is, I am targeted. There are layers to the criticism. With some, God has told them not to read so they avoid it altogether and that I should be ashamed of myself for being so counter to Lewis and to Christianity when I purport to be a Christian myself. With others, they really wish I'd just take myself to another fandom (Twilight and Harry Potter have both been mentioned in the past) and to please stop trashing their beloved childhood. With others, they are fine with the per-marital conduct, but have fled with any hint of same sex conduct as too immoral to stomach. There's something else that has been operating too - people who read my work and might fav the "moral" stories or they use elements of my work in their own writing, but don't review though they review other work. I've concluded that I'm a dirty secret, like pornography in the brown wrapper for some. I'm good enough to read on the sly, and even good enough to borrow from, but too immoral to acknowledge.

I'm at the point where I really feel like they are winning. I shouldn't let the negative overwhelm the much larger positive, which I most gratefully recognize, but it's hard to not get incredibly discouraged over it when this is supposed to be a fun hobby.