Naomi Novik Musings

Just finished listening to Naomi Novik's interview at The Agony Column and I didn't know she was one of the programmers for Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide (and in fact it was her experience writing for the game that helped her write her Temeraire novels). Unfortunately, I haven't read her novels (although Vin really likes it) nor have I played the game expansion.

Anyway, there was an interesting comment about fan fiction in the interview (Novik herself is pro-fan fic and is a fan fic writer herself), at how parties interested in acquiring rights are wary of obtaining titles due to fan fiction. Now I'm not saying that that perception is right or wrong (in fact it might be a good idea to grab the rights of a certain title because if a work has a fan fic following, then it must be decently popular) but the fact of the matter is, there is that perception. (Which is to say it can conceivably hurt the author, irregardless of whether you're earning money or not from the fan fic.) Another point in my anti-fan fiction stance. Of course it's not clarified in the interview whether Novik published (in the sense that it's out there in some form, such as the Internet) her fan fiction or not (which is what I'm arguing against fan fiction rather than the act of writing fiction).