Fanfiction

[Narkalui]

@.matthew. The what if questions, breaking the plot. I do this too, and I also very much enjoy reading other people's ideas in this regard. Done well it makes for very good reading

 

[TomMazanec]

My introduction to the World Wide Web in the late Nineties was Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction. I went to the library because my home computer was an old Apple ][+. We were only allowed an hour at a time that we had to reserve, so I spent my time printing out stories about Sonic and Tails and the gang, on wide paper. I printed out so much that I had to pay for it. It filled up my bedroom closet at home.
Even today mention of StH fanon gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Has anyone actually written fanfiction?

I took part in the HB fanfiction project and it was great fun.

I did it, not for prestige, writing experience or to sell, but to make HB smile on his birthday! His firestealers univese is wonderful worldbuilding and I've really enjoyed his writing so it was an honour to break it, twist it around and mix it up with <cough> other franchiases, tropes and other ideas that wouldn't be seen dead in the real books. Oh. And also put in explicit content, 'cause why not.

That would really be the only reason I'd write fan fiction. I've got my own unverses to write about, and they're much better than everyone elses , so why would I spend time re-hashing another persons creatvity as a main project?

 

[Sansmerci]

Hey fellows,

Very interesting discussion here, eh?

The topics presented here reminded me about two things:

"Though Dreamers Die" by Lester Del Rey is a fanfiction about "Robot's Return" by Robert Moore. An 'authorized' fanfiction maybe... but it is a fanfiction for sure... and to be honest, I can't imagine one story without the other... they're amazing together!

So yes, I love fanfictions because I think it's fascinating to see what a story can sparkle in the minds of others...

The second thing I remembered was this article about the 'gaps' that fanfictions are filling nowadays. 'Why Fanfiction Does Romance Better Than Hollywood'. It brings some interesting points about it.

I'm not a professional/published writer, but I believe that wouldn't change my feeling about fanfictions.

 

[Timebender]

I would be thrilled if anybody wrote fanfiction of my work. It would be so flattering that someone loved my characters and worlds enough to do their own things with it! I agree with @HareBrain that it would give the characters a feel of life and independence. So long as nobody did any obviously problematic things like try to pass off my ideas as their own or make money off of them. And really, I'm not blanketly opposed to people making money off of fanfiction from my stuff even... if I judged it to be sufficiently original, and have a lot of stuff innovated by the author alongside the ideas they got from me, I might not mind permitting them to publish it, who knows.

I don't think fanfiction is necessarily a lack of creativity or originality. Everybody gets ideas from somewhere else, for the most part. Shakespeare certainly got plenty of plots and characters from other places, and many of my favorite writers have written stories with universes and characters they they didn't create. As with any other kind of fiction, I think we should judge any given work on its own merits, not on its genre or sources. Tbh, @Margaret Note Spelling says most of my views on the subject better than I ever could.

I should point out that I both read and write fanfiction somewhat extensively, so keep that in mind.

 

[Randy M.]

In essence, don't most beginning writers write fan fic? Some are copying Poe, some Hemingway, some Shirley Jackson or Le Guin or Lovecraft or Conan Doyle or Austen or ...

Part of how you find your own voice comes from imitating the voices you admire. In some cases that includes plucking a plot or snatching a story-line as well. The big difference now from when I was young, the Internet means any number of people can see it. As Toby indicates, that could make some writers deeply uncomfortable if not outright angry.

 

[.matthew.]

Ahh, Shakespeare. Now that was a man who's seen his work 'reinterpreted' more times than is healthy.

I'd definitely argue that his name has taken a beating from all the 'edgy' highschool plays

One of my favourite scenes in TV was the Blackadder special where he punches Shakespeare in the face for the children everywhere...

In essence, don't most beginning writers write fan fic? Some are copying Poe, some Hemingway, some Shirley Jackson or Le Guin or Lovecraft or Conan Doyle or Austen or ...

Copying the writing style is one thing, and is a completely natural thing to do until a unique voice can be found. It's more when they copy the world the author has built, and not for writing practice, but for attention and praise. That is what irks me - write for yourself whatever stories you like, but don't put them out into cyberspace

Take Austen. There was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and while the characters were partly based on the original, it was pretty much just a PR stunt to grab attention rather than being in any way a cloned world with a new story - it just wasn't made from the source DNA. For a living author, I'd imagine that would still be annoying, but still a lot better than blatant world-jacking

 

[psikeyhackr]

I have read a bunch of fan-fiction, especially from the Vorkosigan and Honorverse universes.

Scott Washburn is quite good.

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/7648212/1/Rediscovery

That is about the rediscovery of Barrayar and Miles' grandfather, Piotr, is a young boy.