Should there be

[james_davis_nicoll]

A best fanfic Hugo?

Comments

[sasha_feather]

No.

[kaffy_r]

Huh. I'd never thought about that. Beyond the obvious legal questions, though, it might be very interesting to see what kinds of stories might get nominated.

[emceeaich]

I don't see any reason not to nominate transformative/fanfic writers for the Best Fan Writer category.

It avoids the issue of nominating a particular work and the copyright issues that may come with that action.

Also, nominating fanwriters will set off the Corflu/Twilltone/Roscoe/TruFann crowd, which will provide thousands of hours of entertaining drama. Sorry, that was my inside voice, wasn't it?

But editing again, because I forgot the pseudonymity issue. Pseudonymity allows that space to exist, and handing out a Hugo to someone would require naming, which, between the current queer-phobic and litigation-eager environments, would not be a good idea.

[foobar137]

I'm a "closeted" fanfic writer, but I'd come out for a Hugo. (I realize not everyone would.)

[tx-cronopio.livejournal.com]

God, no.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Already eligible in the written-fiction category based on length. Nothing says written fiction has to be "professionally published." Heck, one of the nominees this year was self-published.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

+1.

Also note that the dividing line between fan-fic and pro-fic is wafer-thin to non-existent: the only difference seems to me to be that pro-fic in shared universes is authorized by the universe's inventor, whereas fan-fic need not be.

Q: Which of the following award-winning SF/F authors has written fan-fic? (a) Seanan Mcguire, (b) Naomi Novik, (c) Lois McMaster Bujold, (d) Neil Gaiman, (e) Stephen Brust?

A: All of them. (Do you have a problem with that?)

[abigail-n.livejournal.com]

Once you get past the kneejerk reaction, my main objection to this idea is the same as my objection to the best graphic story category (and, for that matter, the idea of a YA hugo): I am not at all convinced that Hugo voters are sufficiently well-read in this category to make interesting, worthwhile nominations.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this. It'd be "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" every year.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

My suggestion for on-going stories:

1. Whatever is nominated must be judged in isolation.
2. You can nominate a whole series or serial even if it's unfinished, but after it wins it's forever disqualified from that category.

A lot of my favorite stories right now are webcomics, but in some cases (like Freefall) I can't see any way to nominate them.

[nathan helfinstine (from livejournal.com)]

There is no way that Rule 1 can be enforced.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

It's an intention more than a rule. Or a reassurance to the voters that everything on the ballot can stand on its own without recourse to any larger context.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

... my objection to "Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality" isn't that it's an on-going story.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

But it is too old to be eligible for any future Hugo.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Has anyone used Noah Ward as a penname?

[timill]

I believe so. Also, Roger Zelazny wrote a story called "No Award" in an effort to sneak onto the ballot.

[bedii.livejournal.com]

I believe it was registered with the Writer's Guild of America by David Gerrold, back when he did a couple of scripts for the Logan's Run TV series that were mangled so badly he didn't want the production company to get *any* boost in viewership from his name. (Interestingly enough, "Alan Smithee" is almost never used by the DGOA since the Alan Smithee titled feature was made. Unfortunately i cannot remember what replaced it.)

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

No.

[(Anonymous)]

Wasn't that what Redshirts won this year?

-- Paul Clarke

[kla10.livejournal.com]

Haven't read it, but:

(IMO)

If, as I suspect, it's Star Trek settings/characters with names changed and serial numbers filed off, then it's a homage or pastiche, and not fanfic.

If it's actual Star Trek product, with a license from Paramount, then it's a media tie-in.

If it's actual Star Trek product, *without* a license from Paramount, then it's fanfic. That "Without a license" bit would probably make a fanfic Hugo problematic.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

These are the definitions I use, but a lot of writers disagree.

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

What would you call fanfic of a public domain work, that doesn't file off the serial numbers? (ie Sherlock Holmes/Dracula crossovers, etc.)

[kla10.livejournal.com]

Fiction?

Are August Derleth's Mythos stories fanfic? Farmer's Holmes/Tarzan crossover? A hypothetical Dracula revival written by, say, Stephen King?

What makes it fanfic for me, I guess, is, you're playing in someone else's sandbox *while it's still their sandbox*.

(Admittedly, the fact that there are currently two different Sherlock Homles TV shows currently on the air, both generating fanfic, complicates things.)

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

The idea of defining a fictional genre by copyright status has never made a lot of sense to me. By this definition if I (an American) and my friend (from Spain) each sit down and write a "Peter Pan" story, mine is not fanfic, but hers is, at least until 2018. I know an author who's written novel-length fanfiction for the same licensed properties (in this case, a TV show) that they've written official tie-in novels for. Does it really make sense to think of those two novels as being in such different genres that they should be nominated for different Hugos? And this definition also has the odd effect that eventually, all fanfiction will "time out" and not be fanfiction any more. Which technically has already happened to a lot of works-- for instance: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7734966/1/Aeneid *G* But my point is, whether a work is copyrighted or not isn't really useful as a way to define *genre*.

(Also, speaking of Stephen King, he actually wrote a tiny bit of fanfiction for Dorothy Sayers' "Lord Peter Wimsey" series. Sayers herself was an Old Holmesian and wrote Sherlock Holmes fanfic.)

Really, half the stuff on (US) TV these days is fanfic. You already mentioned "Elementary," and there's a new "Sleepy Hollow" on Fox, "Revenge" is a modern Count of Monte Cristo, "Once Upon A Time" is based on Disney movies based on fairy tales, there was that Jekyll & Hyde set in a hospital thing (it flopped, but they tried), there's apparently going to be a modern day Les Mis, not to mention "Agents of SHIELD," and on and on.

[kla10.livejournal.com]

But what would you like to see in a fanfic Hugo?

Redshirts, Cumberbatch/Freeman Sherlock, and/or Star Trek novels?
Or Steve/Tony romance, Dr Who/Morrowind crossovers, and/or Star Wars characters in a 1980s high school AU?

Because, really, the only way I can see to fit the latter works into an award category would be to define fanfic based on copyright status, or to just have a catchall "amateur fiction" or "online fiction" category for works published online and not offered for sale.

Otherwise, you'd just be putting works like Diane Duane's Rihannsu cycle, or Brian Herbert's Dune books out of the running for the regular Hugo categories. (Which some of the "SF is serious business" crowd might approve of...)

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think I *would* like to see a fanfic Hugo. I guess I have the same objection as the people who don't want a YA Hugo because the nominees and winner would just be "whatever Scalzi/Doctorow/Stross/Gaiman types decided to write a YA novel this year" and not reflect the actual YA community or collective body of work. I mean, I liked both "A Study In Emerald" and "The Things"-- but it's kind of pointless to create a Fanfic Hugo category if it's just going to be one more variant of Hugo for already-established SF authors like Gaiman or Watts to sweep every year.

(Although I do think it would be amusing to see someone actually try to work out a precise measurement for how derivative/transformative a work has to be in order to be "original" and not "fanfic.")

An amateur/not-for-profit fiction category might be interesting, actually.

[kgbooklog.livejournal.com]

The idea of defining a fictional genre by copyright status has never made a lot of sense to me.

I agree, which is why no one else is using that word. Every Hugo (with one or two exceptions) are for the speculative fiction genre; the categories indicate different lengths and media.

Does it make sense that adding or removing a word from a story should change its category? Does it make sense to nominate someone as Fan Writer at the same time one of their traditionally published books is also nominated?

[liviapenn.livejournal.com]

Well, that's sort of what I was asking. Does it make sense that "Peter Pan in Space" by an American can be published and nominated for a regular Hugo, but the exact same story written in Spain has to be nominated for the fanfic Hugo? And does it make sense that a story that is clearly fanfiction, and gets most of its aesthetic effect and cultural meaning from *being* fanfiction-- but has a thin fig leaf of "but I changed/never said the main character's name!"-- can then be nominated for the regular Hugo while non-fig-leafed fanfic goes into another category?

Note, this is not a slam on books like "Redshirts" or Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" which are really engaging more with an entire genre than a specific text, but I'm sure we've all read stuff like Greg Egan's "Oracle" and thought "honestly, how much of this comes across if you don't know these characters are Turing and C.S. Lewis?"

(What I will say about "Redshirts", actually, is that if you'd handed me that and "Code Name Verity" and asked me which one was YA and which one was not, I'd have bet you any amount of money "Redshirts" was the YA before remembering that even a complicated, brutal war story about pilots and spies is still going to be shoved into YA, because the pilots and spies are young women. The in-jokey fluff about spaceships with paper-thin characterization is obviously the real grown-up book.)

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

James' comment has nothing to do with any past or present Hugo fiction winner. We all know that.

A Study in Emerald

[jcfiala.livejournal.com]

Far as I can tell, 'A Study in Emerald' won the Hugo in 2004, and that's fanfic, isn't it?

Re: A Study in Emerald

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

And any Cthulhoid story with enough shoggoths in it is fanfic.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Peter Watts's "The Things" was nominated in 2011 and is clear and open fanfic.

[celestialweasel.livejournal.com]

The Crossover Slash Hugo... at every year's Worldcon there is a vote for the precise nature of the pairing in the manner of the site selection ballot (or better still people can vote for characters and the two highest are paired providing they aren't from the same universe (*)) The Hugo is then awarded at the next year's Worldcon based on stories written for that pairing.

(*) Arbitration on what constitutes a universe for this purpose to fall to the WSFS Mark Protection Committee (along with their new role of 'Fannish Truth and Reconciliation Commission)

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Oh what a good idea!

Since it was your suggestion, you have the honor of arbitrating any argument that arises on the topic of where to draw the line between homage and piracy.

Food will be poked to you and the disputants with a stick.

[quotidian-c.livejournal.com]

Are fanfic writers eligible for Best Fan Writer? It doesn't fit with the way that category is used (and I assume intended), but you could interpret fan writings to include fanfic and I can't see anything in the (sparse) award description that would exclude it.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

I can see no reason why not, on the surface. They're fans and they're writing.

[eliezer yudkowsky (from livejournal.com)]

When _Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality_ is finally done, I intend to try to get it nominated for Best Novel; I previously asked that it not be nominated for Best Fan Writer so it could have a fresh run at Best Novel. With that said, maybe I'm anchoring too hard on my favorite Hugo-winners rather than the average Hugo winner - but even though there's some really good fanfic out there, it's hard to see there being a truly worthy competitor _every year_. But maybe I'm being too picky. There's fanfic which rises to the level of _A Study in Emerald_ written every year. Just not, you know, _The Vor Game_ or _Speaker for the Dead_.

[bruce munro (from livejournal.com)]

Too many authors are against the notion of fanfic in the first place, no?

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Oh god no. And I say that as a dedicated fanficcer.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Will MST3Kings be eligible?

[carbonel]

No.

And I say that as someone who reads way too much of the stuff.

[jcfiala.livejournal.com]

If we have a best fanfic hugo, we should also institute a 'best novel not a sequel, prequel, expansion of that short story from last year, movie or other work adaptation'... :) They probably make the same amount of sense.

Other way around

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

Don't add a Best Fanfic, add a Best Pro Writer. That way, as someone suggested in a previous thread, the long-form editor could be included in the credits of the Best Novel (like the producer in the Best Movie Oscar), and the addition of the writer category might help alleviate the suspicion in the Best Novel category that people are voting for (for instance) Scalzi rather than Redshirts. And writers could be rewarded for having a good year with no one standout story.

Or it might foreground the alleged popularity-contest nature of the awards, which could be illuminating.

ETA: I realize this doesn't address the question, but I think the answer to the question is probably just no. A formal recognition of a folk-art genre is just weird.

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

I just want to see the Hugo voters' reactions to blatant open slash of characters they know and wuv. It would come up nearly immediately, because the year after HP&tMoR won, or possibly the year before if it's not finished yet, scifigrl47's Toasterverse would walk off with the award, and that's Tony Stark/Steve Rogers and Clint Barton/Phil Coulson in among the hilarity.

(Or else a massive wave of Teen Wolf fanfic would drown the voting process, leading almost everyone else to say "Where did THAT come from?".)

--Dave

PS: ... okay, LJ, I'm logged in up top, WHY did my comment default to Anonymous? At least it has an option to add username/password right there instead of going through the three pages forward/two pages back dance...