Vampire’s Dilemma. Penny Ash

Vampire’s Dilemma

Published by Wildside Press LLC.

www.wildsidebooks.com

Dedication

To fan fiction writers, readers, and publishers everywhere, but especially to the independent film makers and those aspiring to become film makers using YouTube to learn to please an audience.

—Jacqueline Lichtenberg

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In addition to Karen MacLeod, who slaved over the copyediting of this anthology and made it possible to finish this project, I must acknowledge all the many people who have contributed to my determination to bring this anthology to market. Most of them have no idea what they did.

Chris Jacobs, a fan fiction writer at that time, and I apparently had the idea for this anthology (new original universe vampire stories by fanfic writers) simultaneously. I can’t remember who mentioned it first. But she gave me the idea before she told me she had it.

She ran a convention in 2004 in Las Vegas called Writercon, specifically for writers of Buffy and Angel fan fiction who wanted to improve their writing, even if not intending to go professional.

I had just written articles for two books at the invitation of the editor Glenn Yeffeth, Seven Seasons of Buffy and Five Seasons of Angel. So I had a strong critical focus on the two TV shows that drew together the majority of these fan writers (some of them professional writers in various fields). I taught a section at Writercon, and spent a lot of time walking around listening to the fan writers discussing their stories.

I noticed something. If I closed my eyes and listened to the tones of the voices, it was as if I were surrounded by a group of Star Trek fanfic writers from the 1970s.

So I acknowledge all those who made Writercon a peak experience for me.

As the primary author of the 1975 Bantam paperback, Star Trek Lives! I had planned a center section for that book composed of Star Trek fan fiction from the fanzines. That fan fiction was as well written as any professional fiction. Unfortunately, the book’s interviews with Gene Roddenberry, Leonard Nimoy and other Star Trek creators, ran so long that Bantam decided there was no space for fan fiction.

My co-author, Sondra Marshak did eventually sell Bantam a book of fan fiction called Star Trek: The New Voyages

The other co-author on Star Trek Lives!, Joan Winston, went on to write several non-fiction books about Star Trek. She was an inspiration.

Meanwhile, a number of Star Trek novels were professionally published that had been written by fans for fans—even if the writers were already established professional science fiction writers. Fan writing went pro and opened the door for fans making a first sale. Someone finally understood that it matters whether the author loves the material.

One Star Trek novel was a first-sale which I agented, after I demanded that the ending be changed to conform to Paramount’s specifications. I sold Yesterday’s Son (Star Trek #11) by A. C. Crispin to Pocket and it went to the New York Times bestseller list. Crispin then founded a career doing novelizations, collaborations with Andre Norton, and original novels. Crispin has made this book possible.

Also meanwhile, Jean Lorrah, a professional writer who had written some Star Trek fan fiction, started writing fan fiction in my Sime~Gen Universe. At a Star Trek convention, she showed me the beginnings of a Sime~Gen fan story. I said do 3 chapters and an outline and we’ll sell it to Doubleday for hardcover. We did. It was her first novel, and she thinks she may have been the first woman to get a Full Professorship based on a co-byline of a science fiction novel. She and I may have been the first female-female collaborating team in sf. She went on to sell Pocket some Star Trek novels based on her Star Trek fan writing, and they hit the best seller lists. We still write Sime~Gen together. And now she’s co-editing this anthology, a big honor considering her vampire novel, Blood Will Tell, won two awards.

INTRODUCTION, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

They used to laugh at me for taking fan fiction writing seriously. Today, I get scoffed at on Twitter if I don’t.

I sold my first Sime~Gen story, “Operation High Time,” to Fred Pohl at If Magazine of Science Fiction in 1968 before I began contributing my Kraith Universe stories to Star Trek fanzines. Professional writers told me to stop writing fan fiction entirely or I’d never have a professional writing career.

Today there are fans writing fan fiction based on my Sime~Gen universe which are all once again available, this time not only in paper but ebook and audiobook. Fans of my professional writing have been inspired by it to become professional writers or have had their writing influenced by my style of Intimate Adventure, which is what I call the genre I write in.1

Most prominent among them appears to be Ronald D. Moore, the Star Trek producer who now has created a runaway success with his new Battlestar Galactica. When Star Trek: Enterprise was cancelled, Moore mentioned me in his blog. I emailed him and asked if Battlestar Galactica had become Intimate Adventure under his hand. After looking at the definition posted online, he responded thusly:

The intimate adventure genre is an interesting theory and I see no reason not to include Galactica within it.

As you probably picked up from my piece, I was a fan of your work for many years and I’m delighted to finally be able to thank you for it directly. Your work really spoke to me when I was growing up and definitely influenced my own writing ambitions and desires, so thank you, thank you, thank you!

And then he asked where he could get a copy of Kraith. I sent him a set.

So I conclude my persistent fan writing in Star Trek fanzines did not in any way vitiate my professional writing.

However, there is a certain validity to the underlying concept behind that advice I rejected. There is a way to use fan fiction writing as a stepping stone to professional writing as I did, but there is also a way to use it to barricade a tender inner life from the harsh realities of the world.

Both ways and both purposes are valid and admirable. As long as the writer chooses a method that furthers that personally chosen purpose, not a single moment is wasted by reading and writing pastiche derived from TV, radio, comics, novels, or films.

Regardless of the chosen purpose, the fanfic writer has to learn the same craft as the professional writer. The writer must hone that craft even in today’s online marketplace where readers don’t have to pay printing and postage. But readers still expect value for their time even if they don’t pay for the stories.

As a result, writing fan fiction is the ideal way to master the craft of writing for those people who have been struck through the heart or had their soul awakened by some TV show.

Readers of fan fiction respond first and foremost to the payload the author is delivering—to the sharing of the vision, experience and emotions of that personalized fictional universe. Even a badly crafted piece can deliver that payload.

A new writer can use fan fiction to master one writing technique

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