Fanfiction and the forth wall

If you haven't heard by now, at a preview screening of  Sherlock, Caitlain Moran went out of her way to trick the actors into reading a saucy slash-fiction aloud, making them, the producers and the audience uncomfortable.

This was done without the writers consent and she is not happy about it.

 To Caitlin? Thank you for spoiling something I found joy in. Thank you for humiliating me, taking my writing out of context without permission, belittling it and using it to embarrass actors who I deeply admire. Thank you for tainting the one thing sometimes that gets me through the day when I have two screaming kids, someone’s drawn on the walls in their own poo, and I have to drive through peak hour traffic yet again because my husband’s forgotten his glasses for work. Thanks for that support, Caitlin.

As you know, while I am a professional writer, I am also still a fanfic writer, although my time for that is limited these days. I support it as a creative outlet, it's hepful on so many levels, from helping the author (and readers) work through personal issues, to just helping people become a part of a community, which can be lifesaving for some people. When I'm at my lowest, it's fanfic I read, not novels.

We all know there's a lot of bad fic out there but so what? Those writers don't deserve to be belittled or humiliated, any more than overhearing someone in the coffee shop humming a really bad version of  the Killers needs humiliating. This is a fun creating outlet for people and where is the harm? Good or bad, fluff or NC17, characters or RPF, let it be.

A saving grace, in this is perhaps, that Steven Moffat (and possibly Mark Gatiss too) used to write Dr Who fanfiction, long before the series was brought back and they got jobs on New Who. so hopefully they are well aware that this is just a hobby, that no disrespect was meant, and that they too would probably have been mortified to have their own amateur stories read aloud by their Who heroes.

I used to be mostly on Caitlin's side, she had her flaws but was basically a good and amusing person to follow on twitter. I'm un-following her now. Intentionally humiliating anyone is not cool and she seems to have gone out of her way to humiliate fans, actors and producers.

See, I do have a sense of humour. What CM did wasn't funny.You know when your weird Aunt Sally gives you that awful Christmas jumper every year, which you wear once on the day, and then consign to the bottom drawer for the rest of eternity? If you don't like fanfic, or you don't like some aspects of fanfic, consign it to your bottom drawer and forget about it because, like your Aunt Sally, those writers worked hard on that work and even if you hate it, there's a real person who could be very hurt by unasked for and (frankly) uninformed* opinions.

*And if you do happen to have a degree in creating writing, work as a professional reviewer, or are a professional writer yourself and therefore are qualified to comment, rememberer these are amateurs, not professionals. 

This is a hobby. Would you expect Len Goodman to walk around a disco critiquing the dancers? No. There is a time and place for criticism but fanfic, and any amateur creative endeavours in general, is neither.