Brief bit on the poll posted below b/c unfortunately no time to respond to comments

[shadowkat]

I'm offline for the next two-three days for the Thanksgiving Holiday. When I get back will hopefully do a meta on poll results and respond to comments. Sorry about delay.

Thank you for answering my poll. If you friended me and are a fan of Buffy? And haven't seen or answered the poll? Please take the time to answer at least the first three questions of the poll. I really would like to see how many Buffy fans actually have read the comics, and how many gave up on them. I know it can't possibly be an accurate or scientific sampling (as I myself stated recently to someone else doing polls - such a thing may well be impossible)...but I'd like to get a snapshot, see the degree to which the mileage differs. Thanks!!

Regarding the canon question?

"I think how you answer that question has a great deal to do with whether you consider Joss Whedon the sole creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, or a co-creator/part of a larger collaborative effort. Think of it this way - you've written part of book, say one chapter, and there's a guy, JW, who hired you to write that chapter, he may have even edited portions, and given you notes , and he does the same with other people, including writing a few chapters himself, and he puts his name on the book - edited/created by J.W. Your name is listed in the table of contents, you are credited as a writer for hire. J.W does a sequel, he hires different writers, you either decline to contribute or aren't invited. He chooses to take the characters or information in the chapter that you wrote and write a sequel based on it, and states that his sequel is canon. It is a continuation of what you wrote - even though you haven't been consulted in any way. Since he or the publisher own the copyright, and you are a mere "work-for-hire" writer, you can't claim copyright infringement. He can do whatever he wants. Would you consider what he does with your characters, story, and/or ideas/information that you have concieved and written a true continuation of the work (ie. canon), if you are no longer part of the collaboration purely because he combined the original combination of stories, edited and put them together and is the one credited with coming up with the title and main concept?

Happy Thanksgiving for those in US who celebrate, elsewhere, have a great weekend!

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Well, I know you'll be more interested in responses by actual writers AND I did say that I wasn't willing to argue canon with anyone ever at any time....
But I did think I would respond to your scenario as I understand it:
Joss as exec producer hires writers, he outlines where the story is going and then he may (or may not) allow those writers to create new characters and new story-lines which work within the frame work of his show. Ultimately though he does (IMO) get to decide what is canon and what isn't: if he wasn't happy with a writer's work then he would fire them...
if he liked the writer but didn't like their take on a character he would edit them...
so as far as I can see it is still his story that is being told no matter now collaborative it becomes.

Joss has changed costume choices made by the those hired to dress the actors, and he has redesigned sets in spite of having highly paid set designers. Of course he has also allowed some actors to ad lib, and some writers to go off in weird/new directions, but he still had the last word. He as admitted to being a control freak control enthusiast, so I don't think the collaboration is ever an equal partnership....

Of course I haven't been there, and I can't know.... I'm just saying that for me what Joss says is canon is canon.

Long Comment (this always happens with canon)

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I think the above scenario walks a fine line between a writer somehow knowing Buffy and the characters better than Joss. With Angel, I'd say that Greenwalt or Minear understand him better than Joss. But Joss is Buffy. Every writer who came on board BtVS learned Buffyspeak by learning Joss-speak. Joss and Buffy are inseparable in this way. Who has more authority over the characters, world, language and themes of Buffy more than Joss? You could argue Espenson or Noxon - but they frankly fall flat at times. Witness Espenson's inability to write Faith well recently (she's never written Faith before and man, it shows). Witness Petrie and Fury's narrow views of the potential in Spike and compare it to the re-writes Joss did on the church scene in Beneath You. Espensons tells a story of turning in a script to Joss and having it sent back to her because he could tell she'd switched a few lines between characters - he read a line being said by Willow (f.ex.) and said 'you wrote this for Xander, didn't you?' There's a respect and integrity for characters unparalleled there. And the Buffyverse is about characters. Compare the voice of Giles as written by Joss in Long Way Home versus Giles (exposition man!) as written by Jim Krueger.

Which is all a long way to say I don't think there's a scenario where any other writer knows the characters (at large, as a whole) better than Joss because every character is partially based on him to a degree even down to the way he speaks. But Buffy most of all and she is the center of this world. Buffy is "[his] voice, [his] avatar, [his] girl." And you can see this in how he explores the negative effects of leadership that both he and Buffy have shared and how it sets you apart.



An interesting point was raised that the author doesn't get to dictate how the text is received. I agree to a point. The author doesn't get to dictate how the text is perceived. But the author does get to define the parameters of the series he or she creates. When I write a story or drabble and say "this is set in the same timeline as 'Thought You Should Know' or 'Sad Song in His Heart'" or if Barb says "set in the Barbverse" - that's the author's right to determine the boundaries of their world. The author gets to determine the basics - title of the piece, setting, characters living and dying by their hand. And the author gets to say 'this story is a continuation of my previous story.'

I'd be offended if someone posted me feedback for, let's say, a spinoff story that I'd written to comply with the 'canon' of "Thought You Should Know" and a reader said 'you're wrong, this isn't a continuation of that story.' Frankly, my head would be thrown back. And I'm talking about fanfic here where I don't have any rights to the characters, yet I still feel a sense of authorial ownership.