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

[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)

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

(cont'd) There are things to be said. And there is pleasure to be had. And readers will say wonderful things about Blood Canticle and they already are. There are readers out there and plenty of them who cherish the individuality of each of the chronicles which you so flippantly condemn. They can and do talk circles around you. And I am warmed by their response. Their letters, the papers they write in school, our face to face exchanges on the road -- these things sustain me when I read the utter trash that you post. But I feel I have said enough. If this reaches one reader who is curious about my work and shocked by the ugly reviews here, (Cont'd) I've served my goals. And Yo, you dude, the slang police! Lestat talks like I do. He always has and he always will. You really wouldn't much like being around either one of us. And you don't have to be. If any of you want to say anything about all this by all means Email me at Anneobrienrice@mac.com. And if you want your money back for the book, send it to 1239 First Street, New Orleans, La, 70130. I'm not a coward about my real name or where I live. And yes, the Chronicles are no more! Thank God!

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing all of these wanks...I really appreciate it, particularly since I was unable to find them myself.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

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