What do you think of Fanfiction?

[Azale]

While you might be eager to go to some other forum and be offensive I think you are doing well enough here.

How in god's name is Lucky being offensive? You're just taking his stance on fanfiction too personally.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

How in god's name is Lucky being offensive? You're just taking his stance on fanfiction too personally.

This is someone elses opinion of his presentation:

"automatically assumed his story is crap just because it's fanfic."

It is pretty close to how I interpreted his statements. He has also indicated repeatedly that what he does is inherently better. He has belabored the idea that he is to be taken seriously with clear indication that those who are disagreeing with him are not to be taken seriously.

Should I go on?

I'm not particularly sensitive to criticism, and haven't seen anything I could take personally. Someone saying 'I don't read that so I have no idea if it is good, bad or indifferent' is pretty far from personal. What I am interested in are two things:

1) is the person making these statements 'all hat and no cattle?'

2) why are they so insistent on sharing, and resharing, and resharing, their opinion in a fashion that does not seem to fall into 'persuasion' and falls much closer to bluster and repetition, which isn't likely to make any converts?

 

[Luckymoose]

It is pretty close to how I interpreted his statements. He has also indicated repeatedly that what he does is inherently better. He has belabored the idea that he is to be taken seriously with clear indication that those who are disagreeing with him are not to be taken seriously.

Should I go on?

You should go on. I said writing fanfiction inhibits your growth as a creative writer. I never said you were inferior to me. I read some of your fanfiction, and the writing isn't bad. I believe you're wasting your potential on it, yes. Do I think you could improve? Yes. I also know I can improve. But you're taking my statements in a different direction. I do not like fanfiction for I believe it is a negative influence and lazy form of writing. This has nothing to do with you, personally, as a writer.

Or was I wrong that the prompt of this thread was: "What do you think of fanfiction?"

 

[Timsup2nothin]

You should go on. I said writing fanfiction inhibits your growth as a creative writer. I never said you were inferior to me. I read some of your fanfiction, and the writing isn't bad. I believe you're wasting your potential on it, yes. Do I think you could improve? Yes. I also know I can improve. But you're taking my statements in a different direction. I do not like fanfiction for I believe it is a negative influence and lazy form of writing. This has nothing to do with you, personally, as a writer.

Or was I wrong that the prompt of this thread was: "What do you think of fanfiction?"

You got the topic dead on. And you answered the question in your first post.

Needless to say I am well aware my writing can improve. Truth be told when I moved some old stuff onto its current location it was all I could do not to rewrite it because it frankly makes me cringe. Because of that experience and the fact that the bulk of creative writing I have done has been fan fiction the statement 'fan fiction inhibits growth as a creative writer' strikes me as inaccurate. When I first suggested that, your defense of your opinion did not include any new support, just a more vehement restatement. I'm not offended by that style of argument, I just think it is totally ineffective in almost all cases.

I also think that such sweeping statements as 'lazy form of writing' are indefensible prejudice. I've read mind numbingly boring historical fiction, but would never say 'historical fiction is boring'. I've read stuff by some of my favorite authors that I described as 'well he must have needed some quick cash and whipped that out whilst on the toilet', but not changed my mind and called the author a hack. Sweeping statements about entire catalogs of work, or even wider statements about huge libraries of many people's work, just make no sense to me at all.

As to the 'waste of my potential', there are a fair number of people who read what I write and enjoy it (and much to my chagrin that oldest work that I cringe at still draws new readers years later, who I can only hope read my later stuff and see that I have improved with practice). So how is that a waste? This is just another restatement of 'writing is a climbing game where the goal is to reach the next level'. I tried to suggest that my motives are clearly different from yours before, and will say so again. My motives are different, and they are sufficiently met by writing stuff people read.

I apologize if I came across as an offended person seeking some sort of verbal vengeance. I was just disagreeing with you every time you restated your opinion and trying to do so in different ways so as not to be repetitious.

 

[Zkribbler]

Although the general rule is that fanfiction is the deranged nephew of literature, best kept locked down in the cellar and never spoken of, there are exceptions:

(1) Writer's block. The best (and perhaps only) cure for writer's block is writing. But this poses a conundrum: How to write when you can't? I found that using other writers' characters, settings and sometimes even plot freed me of many of the tasks of writing and let me at least get words down on paper. My first work on fanfiction.com was "The Lady is a Spy," which is Casablanca told through the eyes of Yvette. In the bg of my story, you can see Casablanca unfolding and sometimes even hear the dialogue ["Yvette, I love you, but he pays me"].

(2) Leg Stretching Sometimes someone else's writing is so good, you just want to follow along in his/her footsteps to see if you can mimic it. Terry Prachett's characters of Sam Vimes, Granny Weatherwax, and Tiffany Aching are so incredibly intelligent, I wanted to see if I could write someone as smart as that. It took me a few Discworld stories before I gathered up the courage to dabble in Granny Weatherwax [The Count of Monte Gribeau] and Sam Vimes [The deQuimm Code. I never had the guts to try Tiffany Aching.

(3) Lamborghini Driving. If your neighbor lends you his Lamborghini to drive, you may not own the car, but it's still a lot of fun to drive. Sometimes it's just plain fun to "drive" someone else's work. I love the cartoon movie The Incredibles, and so I took it out for a spin with "Grandpa Incredible," and got tons of great reviews. In the movie Star Wars IV, a lot of people don't know that in the pre-release version there was a scene at the very beginning where Luke Skywalker and his friends are at Toschi Station looking up at a space battle going on. Lucas cut that scene out of the movie. I took that scene, cross-bred it with Lucas's American Graffiti and wrote "After the Two Suns Set," a pretty good [IMHO] prequel to Star Wars IV.

I haven't written any fan fiction in the last couple of years. Instead, I've written one original novel and am about to finish my second.

[My fanfiction is found on Fanfiction.com under the pen name Runt Thunderbelch.]

 

[Timsup2nothin]

[My fanfiction is found on Fanfiction.com under the pen name Runt Thunderbelch.]

Thanks. Given that I agree that (at least) 90% of fan fiction, like everything else, is ahem, unmentionable bio product, it is nice to find a hint of guidance for finding baubles in the drek. I read one of your stories and will no doubt read more.

 

[Perfection]

I write awesome Wookie Fanfic.

 

[Evie]

you know, Luckymoose...

Fanfic writers are bad because they don't learn to fully be creative and make up their own characters, etc, etc. Fine, I get that.

But then you excuse shared universes from that? On the ground that there is "shared input"? Which is to say, as I understand it, that the original creator gets input in your work (and your work might affect theirs).

...how does that involves any more creativity on the part of the shared universe writer versus a fanfiction writer? He's still using characters he didn't create; he still tells his own stories about them. The fact that they get direct input from some editor or original author doesn't require MORE creativity, it requires even less because the OTHER author retains even more control on the original character and can basically tell you how the character should or shouldn't react in a situation (on top of limiting what kind of situations you're allowed to put them in).

The bottom line is, throughout human history, it has been the norm to consider one writer's creations added to the sum total of human culture. At which point other storytellers and writers were free to take up that character and add it to their own stories. Historical, mythological, literary: they were all part of the broader human culture, the collective legacy of mankind. And they were all fair game for other storytellers to use.

There is nothing unique or special about fictional characters from modern fiction that should make the rules any different for them than for anyone else, and there is nothing about those charaters that magically make you less creative for using them compared to a historical or mythological character.

The notion that there could be is some of the daftest logic I've ever seen.

 

[Luckymoose]

you know, Luckymoose...

Fanfic writers are bad because they don't learn to fully be creative and make up their own characters, etc, etc. Fine, I get that.

But then you excuse shared universes from that? On the ground that there is "shared input"? Which is to say, as I understand it, that the original creator gets input in your work (and your work might affect theirs).

...how does that involves any more creativity on the part of the shared universe writer versus a fanfiction writer? He's still using characters he didn't create; he still tells his own stories about them. The fact that they get direct input from some editor or original author doesn't require MORE creativity, it requires even less because the OTHER author retains even more control on the original character and can basically tell you how the character should or shouldn't react in a situation (on top of limiting what kind of situations you're allowed to put them in).

The bottom line is, throughout human history, it has been the norm to consider one writer's creations added to the sum total of human culture. At which point other storytellers and writers were free to take up that character and add it to their own stories. Historical, mythological, literary: they were all part of the broader human culture, the collective legacy of mankind. And they were all fair game for other storytellers to use.

There is nothing unique or special about fictional characters from modern fiction that should make the rules any different for them than for anyone else, and there is nothing about those charaters that magically make you less creative for using them compared to a historical or mythological character.

The notion that there could be is some of the daftest logic I've ever seen.

I don't think you're comprehending a shared universe. Collaborative fiction, such as Wild Cards, has original characters created in original plots by various authors working together on the original content. They aren't given a character by someone else. The works are done in a shared universe, as in all the authors work together on it under a main editor who conforms it all to canon. It is like a band creating music together.

Fanfiction is inherently driven by original content you had no say in, whereas collaborative fiction is a group of writers developing the original content together. Co-authors are collaborative writers. Are their creations fanfiction?

Shared input does not mean the original creator tells you what to write. Shared input means ALL writers working in this collaboration have input. Fanfiction writers have no input on the creations they write about.

I'm not seeing your logic.

EDIT: As for rebranding mythological tropes, that isn't fanfiction. There are a limited amount of tropes to be explored, but you can do them in original ways. I have no interest in writing about Hercules, for example. I would also add that fanfiction is like a cover band. You didn't create or have a say in the original music, but you like it so you give your own spin on it. Usually cover bands are not good, but sometimes they are. But that is different from being an original songwriter.

 

[Evie]

Missing, the point, much?

1)There are a wide numbers of shared universes that absolutely do not work like you describe and where the cast is at least in large part shared between books (not necessarily the same main characters from book to book, but a secondary character from Book A become the main character in book B), starting with an original book written by a SINGLE author to which other authors later add their own contribution (eg, the universe is NOT, repeat NOT, shared from the start).

If your objection is that those writers still create SOME new cast as part of the shared universe: well whoop-dee-doo. If you think fanfiction writers don't do that, you don't know the least thing about fanfiction.

If your objection is that whatever the later writers (eg, the people who didn't write the original stories) write will impact future stories, unlike fanfiction...then what the heck does that have to do with so-called "creativity" (or the lack of thereof). Creativity is about what you put in your own work, not whether others have to follow your own creations.

2. I never said anything about mythological TROPES. I talked about fictions about using mythological and historical *characters*.

But no, of course these don't exist. Novels (or films, or TV shows, or other workes of fiction) about this guy or this guy or this guy or this one (fun fact: the best known fictional version of that guy is a movie adaptation of an author's interpretation of another author's take on the historical character. And none of them were done with the permission of the previous author, so...fanfilm of a fanfiction of a historical fiction of the real person). Nor have there ever been works of fiction based on this dude or these guys or this one. Nope, no novel about any of these guys, ever.

The fact is, many novels, including some of the most acclaimed novels in the history of litterature, have been written about non-original characters. Still more acclaimed novels cover fictional characters created by other writers, but who, in one way or another, became part of the public domain.

The only thing that sets fanfiction apart from these other works is the copyright status of the characters and/or settings they're about. That's it, that's all.

So, is there something magical about copyright that makes it less creative to use a copyrighted character over a public domain one?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Fanfiction is inherently driven by original content you had no say in, whereas collaborative fiction is a group of writers developing the original content together. Co-authors are collaborative writers. Are their creations fanfiction?

Shared input does not mean the original creator tells you what to write. Shared input means ALL writers working in this collaboration have input. Fanfiction writers have no input on the creations they write about.

I'm not seeing your logic.

You aren't seeing the logic because the blinders produced by your simplifications won't let you. Any time you start with 'fanfiction is...' you are riding a simplification that will eventually buck you off, because there is too much diversity in the subject matter.

I recently read a story. The main character was a student at the Arcane University in the Imperial City of Cyrodiil. Clearly this is Elder Scrolls fan fiction. No character in the story appears in any Elder Scrolls game. The plot of the story in no way intersected with the plot of any Elder Scrolls game. Many settings in the story were familiar to players of Elder Scrolls games, but others were locations not seen in the games. So when you say this writer 'had no input on the creations they write about' you are just clearly wrong.

Since we're on a Civ site I'll give a Civ example. I have a story that's a short story set on a battlefield. A Civ player will (possibly) recognize that what's happening is a warrior unit and a chariot unit on a hill are being sent to eliminate a barbarian spearman unit on a plains square. A Civ player will also tell you that despite their presence in the story there are no 'characters' in a Civ game, with the possible exception of these caricature faction leaders who are really just a couple of traits and an XML file. So where did the characters on that battlefield come from? They were created, whole cloth, by a fan fiction writer.

Most fan fiction might fit exactly with the generalizations you make. Just like it fits with 90% of anything is...er...junk. But these sweeping generalizations you make do not fit the way you are trying to fit them, because they just are not the universal truths you spout them as.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Missing, the point, much?

1)There are a wide numbers of shared universes that absolutely do not work like you describe and where the cast is at least in large part shared between books (not necessarily the same main characters from book to book, but a secondary character from Book A become the main character in book B), starting with an original book written by a SINGLE author to which other authors later add their own contribution (eg, the universe is NOT, repeat NOT, shared from the start).

If your objection is that those writers still create SOME new cast as part of the shared universe: well whoop-dee-doo. If you think fanfiction writers don't do that, you don't know the least thing about fanfiction.

If your objection is that whatever the later writers (eg, the people who didn't write the original stories) write will impact future stories, unlike fanfiction...then what the heck does that have to do with so-called "creativity" (or the lack of thereof). Creativity is about what you put in your own work, not whether others have to follow your own creations.

2. I never said anything about mythological TROPES. I talked about fictions about using mythological and historical *characters*.

But no, of course these don't exist. Novels (or films, or TV shows, or other workes of fiction) about this guy or this guy or this guy or this one (fun fact: the best known fictional version of that guy is a movie adaptation of an author's interpretation of another author's take on the historical character. And none of them were done with the permission of the previous author, so...fanfilm of a fanfiction of a historical fiction of the real person). Nor have there ever been works of fiction based on this dude or these guys or this one. Nope, no novel about any of these guys, ever.

The fact is, many novels, including some of the most acclaimed novels in the history of litterature, have been written about non-original characters. Still more acclaimed novels cover fictional characters created by other writers, but who, in one way or another, became part of the public domain.

The only thing that sets fanfiction apart from these other works is the copyright status of the characters and/or settings they're about. That's it, that's all.

So, is there something magical about copyright that makes it less creative to use a copyrighted character over a public domain one?

Excellent post, Oda Nobunaga. You've easily described the Merovingen Nights shared universe, and how the shared universe portion of the Darkover series works.

I did some hunting around for the old Prisoners of Gravity show (Canadian show hosted by Rick Green, and includes interviews with SF/F authors, comic writers, editors, screenwriters, etc.). C.J. Cherryh explains how and why Merovingen Nights came to exist, and James Morrow explains his participation in a shared universe project (basically for the money, not because he thought the concept a good one).

Here's part 1:


Link to video.

 

[Luckymoose]

Missing, the point, much?

1)There are a wide numbers of shared universes that absolutely do not work like you describe and where the cast is at least in large part shared between books (not necessarily the same main characters from book to book, but a secondary character from Book A become the main character in book B), starting with an original book written by a SINGLE author to which other authors later add their own contribution (eg, the universe is NOT, repeat NOT, shared from the start).

If your objection is that those writers still create SOME new cast as part of the shared universe: well whoop-dee-doo. If you think fanfiction writers don't do that, you don't know the least thing about fanfiction.

If your objection is that whatever the later writers (eg, the people who didn't write the original stories) write will impact future stories, unlike fanfiction...then what the heck does that have to do with so-called "creativity" (or the lack of thereof). Creativity is about what you put in your own work, not whether others have to follow your own creations.

2. I never said anything about mythological TROPES. I talked about fictions about using mythological and historical *characters*.

But no, of course these don't exist. Novels (or films, or TV shows, or other workes of fiction) about this guy or this guy or this guy or this one (fun fact: the best known fictional version of that guy is a movie adaptation of an author's interpretation of another author's take on the historical character. And none of them were done with the permission of the previous author, so...fanfilm of a fanfiction of a historical fiction of the real person). Nor have there ever been works of fiction based on this dude or these guys or this one. Nope, no novel about any of these guys, ever.

The fact is, many novels, including some of the most acclaimed novels in the history of litterature, have been written about non-original characters. Still more acclaimed novels cover fictional characters created by other writers, but who, in one way or another, became part of the public domain.

The only thing that sets fanfiction apart from these other works is the copyright status of the characters and/or settings they're about. That's it, that's all.

So, is there something magical about copyright that makes it less creative to use a copyrighted character over a public domain one?

You can cry about mythological characters being used again and again, and I do that too. I view it as laziness. I specifically said I'd never use a mythological character in my own writing as a serious contribution. I don't agree with it. Mythological tropes, however, are fine. Tropes themselves are almost impossible to escape, but using Robin Hood for the millionth time is pure laziness. Make your own version, just don't slap his lazy ass in Sherwood Forest.

I do view writings done in a universe without the original author and the new author collaborating as being a terrible excuse for literature, and pulpy. There is no reason to continue Cthulhu or Cimmerian stories besides being hacks for a quick buck.

Fanfiction IS inherently lazy because it misses two of the three parts of development in a story. You have character, setting, and plot. If character and setting are already defined by someone else, you may become great at plot but you're missing 66% of the work. My argument isn't that fanfiction writers are inherently bad, but that they are lazy. They are only doing--and I must say this doesn't always apply--a measly third of the developmental work. My concern for those writers is they'll never be able to develop the skills they need to be self-sufficient writers.

I did not say fanfiction is awful, as I'm sure some of it is damn readable. As a writer myself, I prefer to dig in to the core of character, setting, and plot. If I have no say in the original content, I won't work on it. This thread is about our views on fanfiction, so I expressed mine.

You're free to write Harry Potter meets James Bond, I won't stop you. But why not write that same idea without the limitations of the original material? Make your own version, with your own characters and ideas. Jim Butcher wrote Codex Alera as a challenge to cross Lost Roman Legion with Pokemon, but you don't see pikachu in a toga now do you? The tropes exist to be used, not the content itself.

You aren't seeing the logic because the blinders produced by your simplifications won't let you. Any time you start with 'fanfiction is...' you are riding a simplification that will eventually buck you off, because there is too much diversity in the subject matter.

I recently read a story. The main character was a student at the Arcane University in the Imperial City of Cyrodiil. Clearly this is Elder Scrolls fan fiction. No character in the story appears in any Elder Scrolls game. The plot of the story in no way intersected with the plot of any Elder Scrolls game. Many settings in the story were familiar to players of Elder Scrolls games, but others were locations not seen in the games. So when you say this writer 'had no input on the creations they write about' you are just clearly wrong.

Since we're on a Civ site I'll give a Civ example. I have a story that's a short story set on a battlefield. A Civ player will (possibly) recognize that what's happening is a warrior unit and a chariot unit on a hill are being sent to eliminate a barbarian spearman unit on a plains square. A Civ player will also tell you that despite their presence in the story there are no 'characters' in a Civ game, with the possible exception of these caricature faction leaders who are really just a couple of traits and an XML file. So where did the characters on that battlefield come from? They were created, whole cloth, by a fan fiction writer.

Most fan fiction might fit exactly with the generalizations you make. Just like it fits with 90% of anything is...er...junk. But these sweeping generalizations you make do not fit the way you are trying to fit them, because they just are not the universal truths you spout them as.

I am allowed to make these generalizations as much as you are allowed to insult my generalizations. Writing in The Elder Scrolls universe is not original content, even if they pretend it is. Writing in the Civilization universe is a weird apple, though. You can just consider it historical fiction at that point, if you did it well enough. Unless you said the immortal George Washington led the spearmen himself, or something. I don't care too much either way.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I do view writings done in a universe without the original author and the new author collaborating as being a terrible excuse for literature, and pulpy. There is no reason to continue Cthulhu or Cimmerian stories besides being hacks for a quick buck.

Well, there goes every bit of bible-related literature since the original authors died several thousand years ago!

Fanfiction IS inherently lazy because it misses two of the three parts of development in a story. You have character, setting, and plot. If character and setting are already defined by someone else, you may become great at plot but you're missing 66% of the work. My argument isn't that fanfiction writers are inherently bad, but that they are lazy. They are only doing--and I must say this doesn't always apply--a measly third of the developmental work. My concern for those writers is they'll never be able to develop the skills they need to be self-sufficient writers.

You are deliberately ignoring the FACT that a lot of fanfic writers started out in fanfic and later went on to be professionally published authors of their own original work - and no, I do NOT mean online vanity publishing.

BTW, a lot of fanfic uses the setting of the original work, but not the established characters. Any time you see the abbreviation "OC" on fanfiction.net, it means the author has created his/her own non-canon character.

I did not say fanfiction is awful, as I'm sure some of it is damn readable. As a writer myself, I prefer to dig in to the core of character, setting, and plot. If I have no say in the original content, I won't work on it. This thread is about our views on fanfiction, so I expressed mine.

How much have you actually read?

 

[Evie]

Fanfiction IS inherently lazy because it misses two of the three parts of development in a story. You have character, setting, and plot. If character and setting are already defined by someone else, you may become great at plot but you're missing 66% of the work. My argument isn't that fanfiction writers are inherently bad, but that they are lazy. They are only doing--and I must say this doesn't always apply--a measly third of the developmental work. My concern for those writers is they'll never be able to develop the skills they need to be self-sufficient writers.

Quite frankly, this paragraph speaks to me of lack of understanding of what developing characters and settings really entails.

A fundamental part of writing good fanfiction is fleshing out the pre-existing characters; creating your own interpretation of them, reinterpreting them. Sure, sometime that interpretation will be a stupid caricature of the original, or a cardboard cutout. Sometime that interpretation will be a Mary Sue. But nonetheless, a good fanfiction writer (Sturgeon,s other 10%) will be doing a lot of work on character as well.

So...yes, bad writers of fanfiction aren't showing creativity in setting or character. That'S because they're bad writers, not because they write fanfiction. If they weren,t writing fanfiction, they'd just be taking stale archetypes, throwing a name on them, and calling it a character. That,s a level of creatiity somewhere between "fruitbat" and "chihuahua", ie nonexistent.

Likewise, good writers are good writers regardless of whether they write fanfiction, historical fiction, or any other kind of fiction. They,re going to be doing character deveopment regardless of whether they're starting from an archetype or an existing character, because a good writer, even if he starts from a pre-existing character, take the character and make it their own. Alexandre Dumas didn,t write about the historical D'Artagnan (or the original novel's D'Artagnan); he wrote about Alexandre Dumas' D'Artagnan. Shakespeare didn't write about the historical King Richard III; he wrote about Shakespare's Richard III. His own character, going through his own take on the events of that character's life.

And THAT - making the character (whether an archetype or an actual specific historical/fictional figure) your own - is where the real character development work happens. Why do we remember Richard III as an evil scheming murderous hunchback? Because whatever the original was, Shakespeare took the character and made him his own.

The same goes for setting. Just as a good fanfiction writer need to make the characters their own by reinterpreting them and revealing elements of their personality or backstory that the original writer never touched on, a good fanfiction writer appropriate the setting and show it to its readers in new ways, reveal sides of that setting that are barely hinted at or just not mentioned at all in the original. Or he takes the real world and throws his own spin on it.

That remains true regardless of whether you start from a pre-existing character (historical, fictional, mythological), an archetype, someone else's setting, a generic setting idea, or the real world.

 

[Luckymoose]

Quite frankly, this paragraph speaks to me of lack of understanding of what developing characters and settings really entails.

A fundamental part of writing good fanfiction is fleshing out the pre-existing characters; creating your own interpretation of them, reinterpreting them. Sure, sometime that interpretation will be a stupid caricature of the original, or a cardboard cutout. Sometime that interpretation will be a Mary Sue. But nonetheless, a good fanfiction writer (Sturgeon,s other 10%) will be doing a lot of work on character as well.

So...yes, bad writers of fanfiction aren't showing creativity in setting or character. That'S because they're bad writers, not because they write fanfiction. If they weren,t writing fanfiction, they'd just be taking stale archetypes, throwing a name on them, and calling it a character. That,s a level of creatiity somewhere between "fruitbat" and "chihuahua", ie nonexistent.

Likewise, good writers are good writers regardless of whether they write fanfiction, historical fiction, or any other kind of fiction. They,re going to be doing character deveopment regardless of whether they're starting from an archetype or an existing character, because a good writer, even if he starts from a pre-existing character, take the character and make it their own. Alexandre Dumas didn,t write about the historical D'Artagnan (or the original novel's D'Artagnan); he wrote about Alexandre Dumas' D'Artagnan. Shakespeare didn't write about the historical King Richard III; he wrote about Shakespare's Richard III. His own character, going through his own take on the events of that character's life.

And THAT - making the character (whether an archetype or an actual specific historical/fictional figure) your own - is where the real character development work happens. Why do we remember Richard III as an evil scheming murderous hunchback? Because whatever the original was, Shakespeare took the character and made him his own.

The same goes for setting. Just as a good fanfiction writer need to make the characters their own by reinterpreting them and revealing elements of their personality or backstory that the original writer never touched on, a good fanfiction writer appropriate the setting and show it to its readers in new ways, reveal sides of that setting that are barely hinted at or just not mentioned at all in the original. Or he takes the real world and throws his own spin on it.

That remains true regardless of whether you start from a pre-existing character (historical, fictional, mythological), an archetype, someone else's setting, a generic setting idea, or the real world.

I understand character and setting development well enough. I never said I had a problem with what these people do, only the idea of it. I view it as a crutch, simple. My point is not wrong.

What I want to know is why you are so adamantly defending fanfiction? What do you gain from it that cannot gained through original fiction? Why would you support someone doing fanfiction over their own fiction? It seems counterproductive to me, anyway. Maybe this stems from my education? I'm not sure. I don't see the value fanfiction presents to the writer. I understand people want to write My Little Pony fanfiction because they love the characters, and yes I believe that makes them weird. But what I don't understand is antagonism towards my interpretation.

Why does my view hold any less weight than yours? Why am I the only writer presenting a negative view of fanfiction as a writing development tool? Is it because you all write fanfiction and thus must defend it? I'm not crapping on your parade. Riddle me that.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What I want to know is why you are so adamantly defending fanfiction? What do you gain from it that cannot gained through original fiction? Why would you support someone doing fanfiction over their own fiction? It seems counterproductive to me, anyway. Maybe this stems from my education? I'm not sure. I don't see the value fanfiction presents to the writer. I understand people want to write My Little Pony fanfiction because they love the characters, and yes I believe that makes them weird. But what I don't understand is antagonism towards my interpretation.

What we gain is more stories about our favorite characters, settings, storylines, etc. We gain the opportunity to explore the facets of the original work that went unexplored the first time around. Nobody has said fanfic writers should not do their own fiction. Since I know I'm not on your ignore list, you have seen my posts about writers who started in fanfiction but went on to their own professional careers with their own original creations.

And what's so special about your education that makes you think fanfiction is counterproductive? Are you secretly Harlan Ellison, slumming here?

I don't know about the others, but my antagonism toward your view comes from your intolerance, rudeness, and refusal to address the points and questions I've put to you.

I'm not crapping on your parade.

Yeah, you are. Please be honest enough to admit that.

 

[Luckymoose]

What we gain is more stories about our favorite characters, settings, storylines, etc. We gain the opportunity to explore the facets of the original work that went unexplored the first time around. Nobody has said fanfic writers should not do their own fiction. Since I know I'm not on your ignore list, you have seen my posts about writers who started in fanfiction but went on to their own professional careers with their own original creations.

And what's so special about your education that makes you think fanfiction is counterproductive? Are you secretly Harlan Ellison, slumming here?

I don't know about the others, but my antagonism toward your view comes from your intolerance, rudeness, and refusal to address the points and questions I've put to you.


Yeah, you are. Please be honest enough to admit that.

I did not ignore your post.

E L James wrote an erotic fanfiction of Twilight, changed names, and made millions of dollars. That disgusts me. It should disgust you.

My education developed a focus on original research and not claiming someone else's hard work as your own. That's my point.

I am not being rude, you're misinterpreting my view. I did not say you are inferior to me, or that your work is lesser in any way. I said I view fanfiction as a form of writing that inhibits the growth of creative minds and developmental skills in those writers. I'm being extraordinarily nice about my view. I could get mean, but I won't. I do not look down on other writers, but I am allowed my own views on what they do just as you are allowed them on what I do. Please don't put words in my mouth.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I did not ignore your post.

I don't see any reply from you concerning the Prisoners of Gravity video I posted (I'll be posting the other 2 parts of the show later). What do you think of the views expressed by the various authors?

My education developed a focus on original research and not claiming someone else's hard work as your own. That's my point.

You did original research before writing in the NES forum here?

BTW, it's one thing to say you think fanfic writers are lazy. It's entirely another to accuse us of plagiarism. The rules on sites such as fanfiction.net are strict about that - every story must include a disclaimer stating that the author does not own the original book, movie, TV show, etc., has no intention of profiting from them, and that the stories/poems/scripts are written purely for recreation. Stories not complying with this rule are removed by the site owners. The fanfic authors are allowed to claim ownership of original characters.

I am not being rude, you're misinterpreting my view. I did not say you are inferior to me, or that your work is lesser in any way. I said I view fanfiction as a form of writing that inhibits the growth of creative minds and developmental skills in those writers. I'm being extraordinarily nice about my view. I could get mean, but I won't. I do not look down on other writers, but I am allowed my own views on what they do just as you are allowed them on what I do. Please don't put words in my mouth.

You're not explaining your views very well, if both Oda Nobunaga and I get the same basic meaning from them (he and I don't tend to agree on much).

What part of "some authors start out writing fanfiction and go on to professional writing careers using their own originally-created worlds and characters" do you not understand?

 

[Evie]

You're not explaining your views very well, if both Oda Nobunaga and I get the same basic meaning from them (he and I don't tend to agree on much).

That's not true. We tend to agree on almost everything that doesn't involve Quebec politics or swearing

My education developed a focus on original research and not claiming someone else's hard work as your own. That's my point.

I can't say I'm surprised by this line, except perhaps at the numbers of post it took for it to come up.

That is, indeed, the sore sticking-out point of fanfiction. As much care as writers take to add disclaimers, etc, etc...at the end of the day, you are still appropriating something that our current society recognize as someone else's (their characters, settings, etc) and making it your own.

It bothers me a bit, too. I've minored in history (and majored in Asian Studies), both fields where encouragement to avoid plagiarizing are VERY strong. Then I stappled a law degree to that (including copyright law studies). So I've got a bit of the same angle you do in that regard.

I've also studied enough history to understand how stories used to develop. Storytellers borrowing each other's characters and making up new stories involving them, multiple stories about the same characters from different sources being brought together to form a newer story...that is how human mythology and folklore formed and grew. It's a fundamental phenomenon of human culture. I see copyright and this notion that a writer "own" their characters as inhibiting human culture, not helping it grow further (unlike what it's supposed to do). Instead of getting an immense legendarium of stories about beloved and memorable characters, we get millions of one-shot characters forgotten who never achieves their potential because only one writer is allowed to use them, and they have no interest in doing so.

In my mind, fanfiction is a stopgap to that. It's the legendarium, the whole array of stories about those other characters that we would be getting, if not for questionable legal notions of copyright and intelectual property (and downright abuse of copyright law notion by Disney with their constantly getting copyright extended to protect the mouse).

That's what fanfiction brings, to me.