When Professionals Writers Engage with Internet Fans Things Go Wonky

[shadowkat]

Inspired by recent rants about professional writers who have engaged in snarkfests with fans, pissing off some of them. I thought I'd give you some of the best and most noteworthy, not to mention blood pressure inducing fan and professional writer fights online. I'll let you choose the worst.

1. David Fury in a 2001 post on Bronze Beta in direct response to fans who were critical of his episode "CRUSH" in S5, Fury wrote the following classic line:


Fury says: (Tue Feb 13 09:48:23 2001 216.186.167.140) "...To those who feel my conviction that Spike can never be redeemed and cannot someday end up with our heroine, shows a lack of imagination of my part, I say you're right. It is beyond my limited imagination to see a strong, independent, female character end up falling for a murderer who would be killling innocent people were he not suffering from chip affliction.

I regret I don't have the creative mind that, say, Thomas Harris has when he saw fit to sell out the character of Clarice Starling by having her become lovers with a cannibalistic psychopath, charming and brilliant as he may be.

That's just one of my many weaknesses as a writer.

For those of you who fault my thinking, I can only say I'll try to be more openminded in the future. In the meanwhile, S/B shippers, you can go back to writing your penpals, Richard Ramirez and the Hillside Strangler, and I hope they finally accept your marriage proposals..."

2. Anne Rice Bites Back at Reviewers on Amazon.com

Amazon.com’s policy of allowing readers to post reviews of books might be a helpful feature for consumers, but for bestselling vampire author Anne Rice, it’s been a pain in the neck. Rice was so outraged over the vitriolic response to her latest book, Blood Canticle—apparently the final installment in her bestselling Vampire Chronicle series—that she posted a 1200-word response that requested that unsatisfied readers mail her back the book for a refund. Baring her own fangs, Rice blasted the readers, saying "your stupid arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander…you have used this site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehoods and lies." While admitting she reads Amazon.com’s reviews for other author’s works, she criticized the site’s "willingness to publish just about anything." Some posters found the book so unlike its predecessors they doubted Rice wrote it, while others carped about her needing an editor. The author countered saying she wrote "every word of it" and has "no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate" her sentences. "I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status," she said, adding "every word is in perfect place." Rice further asserts that the Chronicles, which began in 1976 with Interview with the Vampire, is an "unrivalled series of books." She, however, praised the positive reviews.

3. Elizabeth Moon's controversial post and fight with people on Islam. The end result was - the author was asked not to be the guest at Wiscon next year. She never submitted an apology. And deleted all the comments to her blog and disabled.
But people kept an archive. The fight is still going on.

4. Aaron Sorkin vs. Fans of the West Wing on TWOP - Sorkin was a frequent poster on TWOPY during the West Wing, posted as Benjamin. Around emmy time, he failed to acknowledge a co-worker, fans commented on it - and Sorkin did not take it at all well. He later enacted vengeance by writing it into a West Wing episode.

And of course there are the ones I remember but can't find - Whedon's numerous snarkfests with fans,
Deknight, Petrie and Fury's on BronzeBeta, notably around the airing of Seeing Red. Marti Noxon's fight with fans. One smackdown between Whedon and a fan regarding Marti's writing of a Mad Men episode on Whedonesque (I think it was MAD MEN, it might have been earlier than that). Notably - Damon Lindenoff's rant against fans of LOST, accusing them of not really being "true Lost fans" if they didn't like the finale.

Sigh late and must get to bed. I think fighting with fans of one's work is a post-modernist thing.
We couldn't do it in the dark ages before the internet and twitter and facebook and fan boards.
Is it a good thing - to be able to converse and interact with the readers and watchers of your work?
I don't know. I think it has it's peaks and valleys. While it's great when people love you, there's always that one person who comes along and kicks you where it hurts and for some reason I've never understood that's the person I remember, not all the raves, the one who sticks in the head.

Writers are a wrecked lot. I think. Human and vulnerable. We're also so critical. Everyone of the writers listed above has written critical reviews and ripped things they loved or disliked apart critically. Whedon certainly has. As has Fury, and Sorkin and notably Lindenof on the Harry Potter film.

Comments

[rebcake.livejournal.com]

Awww. I had heard about the David Fury one, but never seen it in all its glory. Wow. I wonder if he asked Joss or Marni if they were writing to John Gacy? It's hilarious in retrospect, but I would have been pretty steamed at the time.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Even though he's sort of "redeemed" himself since then on the subject, I've never been able to get past the opinion I formed of him based on that statement. It was quite a slap in the face to Spike fans at the time and seemed fairly out of proportion to the discussion going on... plus he said it specifically in response to a friend of mine.

[elisi]

And then there's the RTD approach (this was post-Children of Earth when the Torchwood fandom *imploded* after their favourite character was killed off):

Question: What do you make of the fan backlash?
DAVIES: It’s not particularly a backlash. What’s actually happening is, well, nothing really to be honest. It’s a few people posting online and getting fans upset. Which is marvelous. It just goes to prove how much they love the character and the actor. People often say, ‘Fans have got their knives out!’ They haven’t got any knives. I haven’t been stabbed. Nothing’s happened. It’s simply a few people typing. I’m glad they’re typing because they’re that involved. But if you can’t handle drama you shouldn’t watch it. Find something else. Go look at poetry. Poetry’s wonderful.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thanks for this one. I looked for it last night, but alas, could not find it. I remember several fans got really really upset with him regarding it. The poetry fans were pissed that he was dissing poetry, and the regular fans were pissed that he was telling them that they were overreacting. Someone actually called him a homophobe or homophobic, which was hilarious considering RTD is homosexual and the fans who called him a homophobe? Really not. Whedon fans could get away with that regarding the Tara death - but RTD fans not so much.

[shapinglight]

I still can't get over Fury's spectacular rudeness, and so undeserved, considering who he said it to.

I think he wins, though Anne Rice get a special award for Most Petulant.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I don't know, the Elizabeth Moon post and fight was pretty bad.
But it wasn't legitmately about her work or writing, as it was about her political beliefs - which is a bit different.

Anne Rice...had lost me as a reader ages ago. But her comment more or less sealed it for me. Particulary the bit about not needing an editor since her work was clearly perfect without one. (LOL!)

Fury...who admittedly does seem to be the worse on paper - I oddly felt a bit sorry for, because like Sorkin, he just made a complete ass of himself. And repeatedly. (see the thread above) I think he finally learned to stay off fanboards. You don't see him on them at all after Angel S5, or even after Buffy S6, really. Interviews sure, but not fanboards. And when he wrote for 24 and Lost, he avoided them. Sorkin likewise has avoided fan boards since The West Wing debacle.

[fenderlove.livejournal.com]

At this point as long as no one is calling me a "serial killer lover," I couldn't give a flying flip what a writer posts about in the world wide weird. Oh, what strange times fandom was and will always be. XD

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Hee. Agreed. He certainly fit his name "Fury".

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Joss defending Marti (http://whedonesque.com/comments/12711#166136) at Whedonesque, but it was apropos her BTVS writing/producing, not because of Mad Men:

How sick am I of Noxon-bashing? Enough to break my rule of silence, certainly. I've had so many people rag on her for aspects of the show I developed, or praise me for things she came up with. She's been a vital part of everything people love about Buffy since she overhauled the halloween script in season two. She's as good a story-breaker as I've ever worked with. And she's a leader.

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, Vmars. You are uninformed and rude. That's mine.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you for this! I couldn't find it last night. Possibly because I googled Joss vs. fans.

I can't remember the context though...I think, may be wrong, that Vmars posted a diatribe about Marti ruining Grey's Anatomy or Mad Men in the same way that she ruined Buffy, in particular the Seeing Red episode and every single show she's done, or something like that.

Have to say, it's one of the few times I actually applauded a writer for stepping in and slamning a fan on a fanboard. The other one was when Tim Minear famously swooped onto Angel's Soul Board in 2003 and kicked a fan who was whinging about Spike joining Angel and thereby turning it into the Spike show and forever ruining it. Hilarious results ensued. I mean what do fans do when their idol (Angel's Soul loved Minear about as much as Whedonesque loves Whedon) pops up and tells them they are wrong!In the case of Whedonesque, Vmars got herself banned and booted from the board (which was predicatable, because hello, it is called Whedonesque.) I think Angel's Soul just rolled with the punch, with a lot of apologizing and flailing by the fans who pissed him off.

[enisy.livejournal.com]

I think Anne Rice's tantrum rubs me the worst, but only because I can't stand such arrogance and self-importance in writers. David Fury's comment is also scandalizing, but he's redeemed himself for it since then.

[angearia.livejournal.com]

*nods*

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed - the only one that put me off of the writer forever was Anne Rice's diatribe - although, a lot of writers have gotten into similar fights with Amazon reviewers - but they are usually D, C or B list writers who we haven't heard of or sell most of their stuff via Amazon no where else, not best-sellers like Rice.

The Moon battle made me cringe the most...but that's due to the subject matter.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

You know that first one... was largely addressed to me (of course not knowing all that much about the Bronze at the time, I thought he was a troll impersonating a show writer because I honestly couldn't imagine a professional acting so unprofessionally. That and he completely misunderstood what I was saying because I wasn't arguing for Buffy to turn around and swoon over Spike (I wasn't even a Spuffy at that time. Just a burgeoning redemptionista). I was trying to say that there was a rather ridiculous double standard in saying that Angel could be redeemed but that Spike categorically and emphatically could not -- ever. The writers invented the 'soul' thing as a fictional shorthand way of giving a reason that Angel was redeemable and that there was no reason why another -- equally fictional and entirely deus ex machina -- reason couldn't be cooked up for Spike... if the writers wanted to do it. "Soul" was nothing but a writerly gadget. And if they could do that for one character there was no reason they couldln't come up with another writerly gadget to employ with Spike if they wanted to. It was only a matter of imagination.

Aparently a fan recognizing that a show about vampires is a work of fiction was something Fury couldn't quite wrap his head around.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Oh thanks so much for providing the context! (I knew the response but never what instigated or who it was directed to. You've been in the fandom longer than I have...I first saw the quote a year later in 2002 - it was quoted quite a bit in fights between Redemptionistas and Fundies. )

So many of these battles are due to misreading or misunderstanding what someone else is saying. The Bronze Beta and Whedonesque are notorious for that...because you scan read the things, and the communication is so fast. Fury and other writers used to jump on it right after an episode aired to interact with fans and see how people reacted to it. And I think he was a bit overly sensitive. Because I saw other, similar fights with fans in latter seasons. Many of which einsy relates above.

What I find hilarious is Whedon proved you right. But Fury could never quite wrap his head around it. (Nor could quite a few fans...who agreed with Fury and still do). I think Fury is too rigid a writer in some respects...working for Whedon loosened him up a bit. Because Whedon tends to like to experiment and take big risks.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Heh! Anne Rice loonieness! And they're missing some of the best bits with her declaring "you're offending my Dickensian principles." And the ever classic "you're interrogating the text from the wrong perspective..."


And the Neil Gaiman reaction win:
I think Anne Rice going on Amazon and lambasting her critics was undoubtedly a very brave and satisfying thing for her to do, every bit as sensible as kicking a tar baby, and, if ever I do something like that, please shoot me.

[enisy.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA OH NEIL.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Didn't know Neil's reaction. I do remember everyone else's.
That's hilarious!

The ones I kept hunting for and could not find was Ursula Le Guin's fight with fanfic authors and Anne McCaffrey's fight with fans.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I couldn't find the whole link, that was the only one I could find. So thanks for providing some of the better bits!

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Had tagged the Rice Wank when it happened. Found it! http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/515245.html

Anne Rice: From the Author to the Some of the Negative Voices Here, September 6, 2004
Seldom do I really answer those who criticize my work. In fact, the entire development of my career has been fueled by my ability to ignore denigrating and trivializing criticism as I realize my dreams and my goals. However there is something compelling about Amazon's willingness to publish just about anything, and the sheer outrageous stupidity of many things you've said here that actually touches my proletarian and Democratic soul. Also I use and enjoy Amazon and I do read the reviews of other people's books in many fields. In sum, I believe in what happens here. And so, I speak. First off, let me say that this is addressed only to some of you, who have posted outrageously negative comments here, and not to all. You are interrogating this text from the wrong perspective. Indeed, you aren't even reading it. You are projecting your own limitations on it. And you are giving a whole new meaning to the words "wide readership." And you have strained my Dickensean principles to the max. I'm justifiably proud of being read by intellectual giants and waitresses in trailer parks,in fact, I love it, but who in the world are you? Now to the book. Allow me to point out: nowhere in this text are you told that this is the last of the chronicles, nowhere are you promised curtain calls or a finale, nowhere are you told there will be a wrap-up of all the earlier material. The text tells you exactly what to expect. And it warns you specifically that if you did not enjoy Memnoch the Devil, you may not enjoy this book. This book is by and about a hero whom many of you have already rejected. And he tells you that you are likely to reject him again. And this book is most certainly written -- every word of it -- by me. If and when I can't write a book on my own, you'll know about it. And no, I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself. I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status. For me, novel writing is a virtuoso performance. It is not a collaborative art... (partI)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

(cont'd) Back to the novel itself: the character who tells the tale is my Lestat. I was with him more closely than I have ever been in this novel; his voice was as powerful for me as I've ever heard it. I experienced break through after break through as I walked with him, moved with him, saw through his eyes. What I ask of Lestat, Lestat unfailingly gives. For me, three hunting scenes, two which take place in hotels -- the lone woman waiting for the hit man, the slaughter at the pimp's party -- and the late night foray into the slums --stand with any similar scenes in all of the chronicles. They can be read aloud without a single hitch. Every word is in perfect place. The short chapter in which Lestat describes his love for Rowan Mayfair was for me a totally realized poem. There are other such scenes in this book. You don't get all this? Fine. But I experienced an intimacy with the character in those scenes that shattered all prior restraints, and when one is writing one does have to continuously and courageously fight a destructive tendency to inhibition and restraint. Getting really close to the subject matter is the achievement of only great art. Now, if it doesn't appeal to you, fine. You don't enjoy it? Read somebody else. But your stupid arrogant assumptions about me and what I am doing are slander. And you have used this site as if it were a public urinal to publish falsehood and lies. I'll never challenge your democratic freedom to do so, and yes, I'm answering you, but for what it's worth, be assured of the utter contempt I feel for you, especially those of you who post anonymously (and perhaps repeatedly?) and how glad I am that this book is the last one in a series that has invited your hateful and ugly responses. Now, to return to the narrative in question: Lestat's wanting to be a saint is a vision larded through and through with his characteristic vanity. It connects perfectly with his earlier ambitions to be an actor in Paris, a rock star in the modern age. If you can't see that, you aren't reading my work. In his conversation with the Pope he makes observations on the times which are in continuity with his observations on the late twentieth century in The Vampire Lestat, and in continuity with Marius' observations in that book and later in Queen of the Damned. The state of the world has always been an important theme in the chronicles. Lestat's comments matter. Every word he speaks is part of the achievement of this book. That Lestat renounced this saintly ambition within a matter of pages is plain enough for you to see. That he reverts to his old self is obvious, and that he intends to complete the tale of Blackwood Farm is also quite clear. There are many other themes and patterns in this work that I might mention -- the interplay between St.Juan Diago and Lestat, the invisible creature who doesn't "exist" in the eyes of the world is a case in point. There is also the theme of the snare of Blackwood Farm, the place where a human existence becomes so beguiling that Lestat relinquishes his power as if to a spell. The entire relationship between Lestat and Uncle Julien is carefully worked out. But I leave it to readers to discover how this complex and intricate novel establishes itself within a unique, if not unrivalled series of book. (Shit she's long winded. It's going to take a third post)

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting that! I couldn't find it last night!

[angearia.livejournal.com]

This was already an interesting post (thanks for collecting those main instances!) and now with the added commentary, it's really becoming eye-opening in a larger sense.

The interaction between professionals and fans--it's a minefield.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

You're welcome and thank you.

It is a minefield, isn't it? And I didn't even give you some of the one's on lj, which were truly insane. There was a huge kerfuffle a few years back that started with a fan critiquing a writer on how she was depicting minority characters in her works - it ended with a professional sci-fi writer revealing the real name of a lj poster, who had worked hard to maintain her online privacy. The kerfuffle exposed issues of privacy, free speech, and how we handle criticism. It lasted four weeks. Everyone piled on and it split the sci-fantasy community in factions.

The reason or justification the professional writer gave for outting the poor poster who had carefully worked to keep her online persona separate from her real life one, was it was not fair that she could critique people who were using their real names, while she stayed unknown and unexposed. That people like himself were left vulnerable, their careers vulnerable, while she hid behind a fake name - unknown. I knew the poster and felt for her. The Sci-Fantasy community is a relatively small one and she was well known in it. It caused her to change her posting name slightly and leave for a bit. It was horrible. Yet, it does make you think...the professional writer is so exposed when he enters a fan forum, he is unprotected. Whedon is actually more protected on whedonesque, because it bares his name, but he also has to be very careful - which explains why he rarely posts.
They can't admit to reading our meta or fic - because if they took a story or something crucial from it - they fear they will be sued (and have been actually). Back in 2003, a fan sued Mutant Enemy - insisting that they stole his fanfic teleplay for one of the episodes - can't remember which - except how insane it was.

Definite minefield. I hear professional writers on my flist rant about their interactions with reviewers and fans on fanboards and elsewhere all the time. Yet, like me, they are equally critical of others works. It's humbling, I think for a lot of writers...the interaction, and somewhat frightening.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I think it is hard. The best approach is to stay away from it if you can't deal with it. But that is incredibly hard as well - because writing is such a solitary sport. We crave the interaction. It's why I'm here on lj - I crave to write. But I also want to interact. But I'm far too cowardly to share or write creatively online. Let alone read reviews of my creative work. I don't know how they do it. I seriously doubt many do - I don't think Whedon does.