Fanfiction

[Ryika]

Fan fiction or fanfiction is fiction about characters or settings from an original work of fiction, created by fans of that work rather than by its creator. It is a popular form of fan labor, particularly since the advent of the Internet.

Fan fiction is rarely commissioned or authorized by the original work's creator or publisher, and is rarely professionally published. It may or may not infringe on the original author's copyright, depending on the jurisdiction and on such questions as whether or not it qualifies as "fair use". Attitudes of authors and copyright owners of original works to fan fiction have ranged from indifference to encouragement to rejection. Copyright owners have occasionally responded with legal action.

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Fan fiction has a pretty terrible reputation in the general public, and if you look around the internet to find some random sample, it becomes pretty obvious why. Most of the things you could find, are terribly written, boring slugfests that don't live up to the source material, or kinky ero-fiction that does not correlate with the characters at all.

However, there are some examples of fanfiction that made it to the big stage. Fifty shades of grey started as Twilight fanfiction, and I'm probably not doing myself or the argument any favor by naming that, but oh well.

Of course, there are also a few arguments to be made for the utility of fanfiction, the major one being that it may be an "entry drug" for soon-to-be writers who have not found their love for the hobby yet. I think JK Rowling pretty much holds that position, while George R.R. Martin is a prominent example of a person who is very much against fanfiction, and even argues that it prevents wannabe-artists from developing important skills, such as world building and character design.

So. Some questions to start the conversation:

- Fanfiction - Yay or Nay?
- Is its bad reputation justified?
- Have you ever read good fanfiction? If so, what was it?
- Rowling or Martin?

 

[Perfection]

I write some excellent wookie fanfic, but I can't post it due to forum rules.

 

[Zkribbler]

Yea but use with caution.

I had writer's block for years. Fan fiction got me writing. George Railroad Martin is perfectly correct: it does prevent wannabe-artists from developing important skills, such as world building and character design. It's a crutch, but there's a lot of folks who are limping. It's not realistic to expect everyone to start off as a marathon runner.

The best example of Fan Fiction ever is "Grandpa Incredible," written by me using a pseudonym. I wrote a lot of Discworld and Pirates of the Caribbean too.

 

[PhroX]

I have no idea how it impacts on a writer's development, not being one, but as a reader, I feel that there's nothing wrong with fanfic in principle - if I like a setting / characters, I'd like to read more stuff about them, even if it's not "official". The problem is of course that the average piece of fanfiction is bloody awful and typically the only connection with the source material is the names of the characters. Sturgeon's Law is an underestimation when it comes to fanfic. But when you do find well written stuff that is consistent with the source material, it's usually a thoroughly enjoyable read, which, in the end, is all I want from a story.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

source

Fan fiction has a pretty terrible reputation in the general public, and if you look around the internet to find some random sample, it becomes pretty obvious why. Most of the things you could find, are terribly written, boring slugfests that don't live up to the source material, or kinky ero-fiction that does not correlate with the characters at all.

However, there are some examples of fanfiction that made it to the big stage. Fifty shades of grey started as Twilight fanfiction, and I'm probably not doing myself or the argument any favor by naming that, but oh well.

Of course, there are also a few arguments to be made for the utility of fanfiction, the major one being that it may be an "entry drug" for soon-to-be writers who have not found their love for the hobby yet. I think JK Rowling pretty much holds that position, while George R.R. Martin is a prominent example of a person who is very much against fanfiction, and even argues that it prevents wannabe-artists from developing important skills, such as world building and character design.

So. Some questions to start the conversation:

- Fanfiction - Yay or Nay?
- Is its bad reputation justified?
- Have you ever read good fanfiction? If so, what was it?
- Rowling or Martin?

Those who denigrate fanfiction in general can go fly a kite. There's nothing wrong with it unless you try to publish it professionally (claiming it as your own, without acknowledging the original authors and all copyright holders), and then you get into serious legal trouble. Fanfiction can't legally be sold, so the idea behind the original fanzines was that they were either to be traded in kind, or the only costs involved were to be for postage, paper, ink, and whatever supplies might be used in binding. Of course this went out the window once eBay came along. Some people are still optimistically trying to gouge collectors to the tune of $500 USD for a copy of Spock Enslaved (one of the more notorious fanzines from the 1970s).

There are circumstances in which it can end up professionally published, of course - if it's entered in a legally-sanctioned contest and the prize includes professional publication (which is the case with a series of Star Trek anthologies; some of the stories that didn't make the cut have been posted on fanfiction.net or AO3, and they're very good quality).

To answer your questions:

Yay. Its bad reputation is only justified for the stories that are bad (and yeah, a lot of it is terrible). Fanfiction is not bad in and of itself. I have read excellent fanfiction that was of better quality than quite a few professionally published tie-in stories. I'll list them later. As for Rowling or Martin, I don't read either of them. If you want an example of professionally published Star Trek novels that are absolute crap that's worse than a lot of the so-so fanfic, read anything by Diane Carey. Her stuff falls into the category of "a tragic waste of trees" (my own term for really bad writing).


Fanfic isn't a new thing. It's been around for many decades. Some of Marion Zimmer Bradley's earliest amateur writing (the unpublished stuff; she mentioned this in an autobiographical article in one of her Darkover anthologies) was basically fanfic based on some of the SF/F writers she read in the 1940s. In turn, after she became a successful writer, she encouraged other people to write in her universe. She believed in encouraging young writers; the youngest person to ever sell a story to one of her anthologies was only 14 years old. That was in the '80s, and that young girl is now a successful writer (of original fiction) who also runs her own publishing company. Some of the foremost female fantasy authors got their start in Bradley's Darkover anthologies or Sword & Sorceress anthologies. Mercedes Lackey is probably the most famous of these, as well as Diana Paxson, Jennifer Roberson, and there are others (including a man here and there as well ).

But I suppose the best-known fanfic is Star Trek. The first known Star Trek fanzine was Spockanalia, which ran for 5 issues, starting during the second year of Star Trek's original run (in 1967/68). Gene Roddenberry knew about it, and was impressed by the thoughtful analysis some of the fans put into writing about Spock, his family, Vulcan biology, culture, history, and language. The 'zine also contained poetry and short stories. Roddenberry basically gave his blessing to the early fanfic writers, although in the mid-'70s the Paramount lawyers didn't. They actually raided a convention Dealers' Room, confiscating every fanzine they could find.

Fanfic went underground, being sold and traded via snailmail. Of course nowadays a lot of it is freely available on the internet, including some that used to only be available in print form. I've been collecting fanzines from the '60s-'80s for many years now, and once eBay came along... let's just say that I have a HUGE shelf of fanzines - most of them Star Trek, but there are also some Doctor Who, Robin of Sherwood, Darkover, and Highlander 'zines. There has been some worry recently as to whether there might be another crackdown on Star Trek fanfic (like there was on fan films, due to the illegal dealings of the people involved in the Axanar project), but in this case, it's become so widespread that it would be impossible to stamp out completely.


As for some of the really good fanfic I've read... well, I'm into the old western TV series Bonanza. There are a lot of really good Bonanza stories on fanfiction.net, and many of them are every bit as good as what was on TV. Of course some are a bit... racier... than what was on TV, but that's to make up for the fact that none of the TV Cartwrights were ever able to have a relationship with a happy ending. The woman in question always either died of a terminal illness, left town, went to prison, died from an accident, or was murdered. Oh, and there was the one who was supposed to marry Adam, but had an affair with his cousin Will and chose him instead (Adam came out the winner in that one; what a stupid, shallow, utterly vapid character that woman was).

I'm currently following several fanfic authors and series on fanfiction.net. Most are Star Trek Voyager stories, but there are also several Bonanza stories, Outlander stories, and a couple based on the Borgias TV series (whichever one doesn't matter much).

Archive Of Our Own (AO3) has some really good fanfic based on C.J. Cherryh's Alliance-Union/Merchanter series. There are a couple of them that are so spot-on perfect that Cherryh could have written them herself. That site has many more categories, of course.

If anyone is into Doctor Who fanfic, there's a site called A Teaspoon and an Open Mind. For anyone into more adult/X-rated Star Trek fanfic (Original Series), Orion Press has all of its print 'zine material archived there. However, there are some extremely explicit stories there, as well as stories containing graphic descriptions of torture and murder. If that sort of thing bothers you, don't read it (or at least not after eating).

And don't forget the crossovers. Sometimes you can find the darnedest things... like a crossover between Stargate and I, Claudius. I really enjoyed that one.


I write fanfic as well. No, none of it's posted online. It will be when it's finished and edited to my satisfaction. Some of the ones I'm currently working on are crossovers: Sliders/Xena: Warrior Princess and Sliders/The Handmaid's Tale. My last several NaNoWriMo projects have been novelizing my favorite Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and writing fanfic based on F.M. Busby's Hulzein Saga novels (he left an awful lot of loose ends when he stopped writing in the '90s). I've got 3 binders' worth of stories and poems based on The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, and just a couple of days ago I found my notes for the Fuzzy Knights story I planned to do for NaNoWriMo some day.


Regarding the notion that fanfic prevents writers from developing their own skills at world-building and character development... well, that may well be true of some fanfic writers. There are some really awful stories around (and yeah, I did my own requisite awful Mary Sue crap for one of my Star Trek stories; however, I'm better now than I was 38 years ago).

But sometimes you get people like Diane Duane, who started out writing Star Trek fanfic in the early 1970s but honed her writing abilities to go on to a professional career. She's one of the best of the Classic TOS novelists (Spock's World is her best one, in my opinion) and has written original material as well.


One of the most hypocritical authors regarding fanfic is Diana Garabaldon. She's the one who wrote the Outlander novels that were adapted to a TV series. She went on a rant about fans who dared to write Outlander fanfic... and the truth came out that this series is based on her own Doctor Who fanfic. One of the main characters, Jamie Fraser, is based on the Doctor Who character Jamie McCrimmon, who was one of the Second Doctor's companions. She sent a copy of her book to the actor who played this companion, and he eventually appeared in one of the episodes.

 

[sophie]

-Pro-fanfiction if only to be introduced to new ways of viewing and interpreting the source text
-There is some REALLY bad fanfiction. But it still makes for some interesting reading.
-I don't know if I've come across fanfiction that I would call *good* in toto. There is a lot of fanfiction that hits on some really interesting ideas though, e.g. HPMOR and another prominent HP fanfic (whose title escapes me) that focused on the political fallout and the PTSD following Voldemort's death, including drawing parallels between post-Voldemort and post-war Germany. As with many fanfictions: the ideas were interesting, but the plotting and characterization were pretty week.
-I'm on neither side? I don't think fanfiction has to serve a utilitarian end to be justified in its existence. The mere fact that people derive meaning from reading and consuming it is enough.

 

[Leonel]

I like Zootopia fanfiction and I've actually written some but I generally keep it low key as an outlet for myself.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

I personally flip-flop on this issue all the time.

On the negative side, fanfiction seems to quickly become the refuge of failed or crack ships. One only has to make a quick peek at the Avatar TLA sites to see it swarming with Zutara themed fics. There's nothing wrong with this in itself, but the problem comes in that their sheer number can quickly bury most other ideas down the page (so to speak) or turn off anyone doing a quick glance at the site.

On the other hand. Writing fanfiction can be a decent way for an aspiring fiction writer to get some experience in writing cohesive plots and events without getting bogged down with creating a massive catalogue of characters or world building. Those like GRRM and Lucas fail to realize that every person who engages with a fictional universe creates their own headcanons during the natural process of reading and understanding the information. You cannot force everyone to understand or like your creation in the way you do.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Some fanfiction is written for the purpose of exploring "what happens next" in a series. Lots of books, TV shows, movies, etc. are either canceled, the series ends on purpose (ie. the DS9 and Voyager series; I don't include TNG because it continued in a series of really bad movies), some plot thread is dropped, a character turns up, appeals to some people, and is just gone again)... and people want to know what happened after the events in the book, program, or movie.

Most of the Bonanza fanfiction I read, for example, is Adam-centric. Pernell Roberts left the show after the 6th season, and there are a lot of people who wonder whatever happened to the character, since the original show never said anything. There was a "next generation" spinoff in which we learn that Adam eventually ended up in Australia, married, and his son returns to the Ponderosa as a young adult... but since that was never part of the main series and it was a really short series, most people never even heard of it, let alone saw it or should be expected to take it for canon.

So there are numerous websites with all sorts of Bonanza fanfic, much of which explores what happened to Adam after he leaves the Ponderosa. Of course in these stories the writers are free to have him get married, father children, and return to the Ponderosa (or do those things in some other order). The other Cartwrights aren't neglected in the romance department, either; they end up getting married in some stories, and Ben gets the grandchildren he wished for. For that matter, I found an excellent story in which Ben's second wife, Inger (in canon she was shot and killed by Indians), turns up alive.

And as mentioned, there are the crossovers. An obvious one is Bonanza/Little House on the Prairie, since Michael Landon played both Little Joe Cartwright and Charles Ingalls. Another one that appeals more to SF fans is Bonanza/Battlestar Galactica, since Lorne Greene played both Ben Cartwright and Commander Adama.


There is plenty of fanfiction that explores "what happened instead". If you don't like the direction a series went, write your own version of it in which something else happened instead. This is why there are so many Voyager stories focusing on the Chakotay/Seven of Nine relationship. The show itself rushed it, leaving fans to have a "WTH?" reaction. There are some fanfic writers who decided to explore this in a different way, using several openings provided in the show where these two characters could have gotten together in a more natural way.

Or they could just completely do an alt-universe story to explore such things. There's one I've been following for several years in which Chakotay has been de-aged and he meets Seven when the Borg Cube she was on crashlands on his home planet before he joins Starfleet. She's the only survivor, and is rescued and rehabilitated by Chakotay's people. When the Cardassians destroy Dorvan V, both of them join the Maquis, end up in the Badlands, and the series continues with the alteration that Seven and Chakotay are a couple, and Seven was always there from "Caretaker" on. That story has 113 chapters so far, and I'm impatient for the next one... (the person who does this story is prolific in her C/7 stories; she's very creative in finding ways to put these two together and make it work, and she doesn't like Janeway - which is nice, because I never did, either).


I notice that nobody has brought up slashfic yet. That's what a lot of people who don't read fanfic think of when they hear the term fan fiction. Well, there is a lot of it (it means same-sex relationships, in case anyone is unfamiliar with the term), and most of it is not well-written. Some is; there's a series of stories that made Sulu bisexual decades before the general public knew the truth about George Takei. For the most part, these are well-written stories that expand on the Enterprise characters and give them plausible reasons for the decisions and actions they take. Yes, it's very soapish in places... but that's one of the guilty pleasures of fanfiction. I have referred to the Valjiir stories as "my Star Trek soap opera" and always looked forward to a new edition of the fanzine (and a few years ago I found out there were dozens of other stories written that were only published online).

 

[Synobun]

Those who denigrate fanfiction in general can go fly a kite.

Do I have to?

I dislike fanfiction. Most of what I come across is drivel that utterly demolishes all of the concepts in the actual source material and is seemingly just personal wish fulfillment or something totally unrelated with vague connections to characters they like. Browsing fanfic sites and places like Wattpad are just exercises in misery.

- Fanfiction - Yay or Nay?

Nay.

- Is its bad reputation justified?

Yes.

- Have you ever read good fanfiction? If so, what was it?

I have never read good fanfiction despite years of trying. The closest I have come are books from the Star Wars EU, except they aren't actually fanfiction and are officially licensed by Lucasfilm.

- Rowling or Martin?

Neither. Both are bad. Rowling is least bad.

 

[Akka]

So. Some questions to start the conversation:

- Fanfiction - Yay or Nay?
- Is its bad reputation justified?
- Have you ever read good fanfiction? If so, what was it?
- Rowling or Martin?

1) Nay.
2) Oh god yes.
3) No.
4) Haven't read enough of Martin to make a comparison, though from the worldbuilding I'd heavily go Martin.

I don't doubt there is some fanfiction which is well-written, but Poe's Law is in full force by default, and on top of that fanfiction is a genre that leans especially heavily toward the "terrible" part of the spectrum. The very concept is already on shaky grounds (writing about characters and worlds which aren't your own, hence a high chance of not being faithful to what they are), and most gifted writers would tend to write their own stories instead of those of another, making a good product even more of a rarity.

"fanfiction" is so often bad as to have become a byword to means something that has become "out of character", "inconsistent" and with bad storytelling. I don't think it's a coincidence.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

I've thought occasionally about writing fan fiction, except I wouldn't be any good at it since I'm terrible at writing. It's the idea of trying to write actual established characters and keep them authentic to the source material.

I think fan fiction is similar to actual works based on something that already exists. Things like remakes of older stories or writing for characters that have existed for years. I don't know how to properly explain it, one example I can think of is there are still stories created about Batman, new comics and films for a character that was created back in 1939.

 

[EgonSpengler]

I was thinking about cover songs and movie remakes/sequels as parallels, both of which are well accepted parts of their art-form. Not so much with novels. The idea that a 'proper' author must develop all of his or her own material is much more prevalent in fiction writing than in music or film. There are some "professional" fan fictions available, though. I can think of two, right off the top of my head.

Spoiler :

I think fan fiction is similar to actual works based on something that already exists. Things like remakes of older stories or writing for characters that have existed for years. I don't know how to properly explain it, one example I can think of is there are still stories created about Batman, new comics and films for a character that was created back in 1939.

Yeah, right, comic books are an art form where taking existing characters into new stories isn't just a part of the form, it's so much the norm that it's actually challenging to introduce new characters at all.

 

[Synobun]

I was thinking about cover songs and movie remakes/sequels as parallels, both of which are well accepted parts of their art-form. Not so much with novels. The idea that a 'proper' author must develop all of his or her own material is much more prevalent in fiction writing than in music or film. There are some "professional" fan fictions available, though. I can think of two, right off the top of my head.

Spoiler :

View attachment 477027

If Wicked is classified as "fan fiction", then I guess I do like fan fiction since it's one of my favourite books.

Looking into it, it does seem like it'd be classified as fan fiction due to the original author being dead for over 60 years and the copyright no longer being held. Other famous examples include Dracula, Frankenstein, and Pride & Prejudice.

I'm not sure if I would classify any of those franchises as fan fiction but I suppose that's a different conversation for a different thread.

 

[Gori the Grey]

Paradise Lost is pretty good. Ulysses, too. In other words, there are some instances of fan fiction that are masterpieces in their own right.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Do I have to?

I dislike fanfiction. Most of what I come across is drivel that utterly demolishes all of the concepts in the actual source material and is seemingly just personal wish fulfillment or something totally unrelated with vague connections to characters they like. Browsing fanfic sites and places like Wattpad are just exercises in misery.

- Fanfiction - Yay or Nay?

Nay.

- Is its bad reputation justified?

Yes.

- Have you ever read good fanfiction? If so, what was it?

I have never read good fanfiction despite years of trying. The closest I have come are books from the Star Wars EU, except they aren't actually fanfiction and are officially licensed by Lucasfilm.

- Rowling or Martin?

Neither. Both are bad. Rowling is least bad.

Wow. Since you don't actually list some of the best-known sites, I have to assume you've never even tried to find anything good.

1) Nay.
2) Oh god yes.
3) No.
4) Haven't read enough of Martin to make a comparison, though from the worldbuilding I'd heavily go Martin.

I don't doubt there is some fanfiction which is well-written, but Poe's Law is in full force by default, and on top of that fanfiction is a genre that leans especially heavily toward the "terrible" part of the spectrum. The very concept is already on shaky grounds (writing about characters and worlds which aren't your own, hence a high chance of not being faithful to what they are), and most gifted writers would tend to write their own stories instead of those of another, making a good product even more of a rarity.

"fanfiction" is so often bad as to have become a byword to means something that has become "out of character", "inconsistent" and with bad storytelling. I don't think it's a coincidence.

Ever read the nuDune books by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert? They're crap. They are the reason I coined the phrase "tragic waste of trees." They can't write any of Frank Herbert's characters IN character to save their lives, they disregarded some pretty fundamental tenets of Herbert's Duniverse, and KJA's writing style is SO abominably awful.

Ever read anything by Diane Carey? She was so bad at writing the pro Star Trek tie-in novels that Pocket Books fired her after she made it clear within the material of one of the Voyager books she was assigned, just how little respect she had for the show, the characters, and royally bit the hands that fed her. Her Dreadnought! and Battlestations novels are the very epitome of the "Lieutenant Mary Sue" subgenre of fanfiction (in which the author inserts herself into the story, thinly disguised as a character who is just so damn super-expert at EVERYTHING, and beloved of one or more of the main characters.

Unless you've made a real effort to search out fanfic from a wide variety of sources, I would say that you're basing your opinion on vastly insufficient data.


I've already mentioned some examples of professional authors who started writing fanfic in someone else's universe, honed their writing skills, and went on to develop their own original universes as professionals. There's no shame in starting out as a fanfic writer.

I've thought occasionally about writing fan fiction, except I wouldn't be any good at it since I'm terrible at writing. It's the idea of trying to write actual established characters and keep them authentic to the source material.

Spock raised his eyebrow. "Have you ever tried to write this... fan fiction? It is illogical to assume you cannot, if you have never made the attempt."

See? That's a really, really short example of fanfic, with you as one character and Spock as the other. It's not as hard as it may seem, if you learn and practice the various different aspects of it. Dialogue is something some people find difficult. My advice, for people writing dialogue for TV or movie characters, is to listen to the characters speak, and keep your eyes closed while you do it. Listen to the tone of voice, listen to the vocabulary, listen to the rhythm and pacing of the words. Try to imagine each facial expression and gesture the character would be making as he or she speaks.

That's how I was able to write dialogue for the Crow: Stairway to Heaven characters. I had to learn to write dialogue for characters who speak in contractions, incomplete sentences, and who drop the final "g" in "-ing" words.

I think fan fiction is similar to actual works based on something that already exists. Things like remakes of older stories or writing for characters that have existed for years. I don't know how to properly explain it, one example I can think of is there are still stories created about Batman, new comics and films for a character that was created back in 1939.

That's how I feel about Enterprise and the Abramsverse movies (aka nuTrek): It's bad fanfiction that got promoted to professional status even though it's garbage.

But if you're not comfortable trying to write established characters, what about writing an original character in an established setting?

 

[Synobun]

Wow. Since you don't actually list some of the best-known sites, I have to assume you've never even tried to find anything good.

Thank you for your assumption.

I have never read good fanfiction despite years of trying.

 

[sophie]

The very concept is already on shaky grounds (writing about characters and worlds which aren't your own, hence a high chance of not being faithful to what they are)

That isn't how you art.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I've never read any fan fiction that I'm aware of, but anything that encourages people to put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard to generate complete sentences and long paragraphs, is a good thing. The physical process of writing at length improves thinking skills and will clarify one thoughts.

 

[Akka]

That isn't how you art.

If you're going to write about characters and a world, yeah you should be faithful to them.
(unless the whole point of what's you're writing is to take a different spin about them, but I'd say it starts leaving the realm of fanfiction by then)