Fanfiction - for or against?

karaokeman · 16-08-2011 9:35am #1

I can't see why some people have problems with fanfiction.

Sure for some writers its a way of avoiding creativity but it helps them develop an enthusiasm for writing that they will later use in their original stories.

RedXIV · 16-08-2011 9:39am

I like FanFiction, I've found some are actually more preferable to the original story lines, but that's perhaps my own tastes.

Kinski · 16-08-2011 11:49am

Stealing other writers' characters and settings? I can see why people would have a problem with that.

The Mad Hatter · 16-08-2011 9:02pm

Kinski wrote: »

Stealing other writers' characters and settings? I can see why people would have a problem with that.

Why? As long as you do something original with them, then what's the harm? And do you object to other writers doing this, like for example Mark Twain's Sherlock Holmes satire A Double-Barrelled Detective Story?

It's not like it's done out of a desire for profit, so I don't really know whether it can be called stealing - I don't know of any fanfiction that's not free; in point of fact, it's almost always done out of love for the original fiction and a desire to explore it further, often when the original author has moved on to something else. And it's not like reading fanfiction would be a substitute for reading the original author's work (or watching it, or whatever).

I've never read any fanfiction, but I'm sure there's some good stuff out there.

Kinski · 16-08-2011 9:44pm

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Why? As long as you do something original with them, then what's the harm? And do you object to other writers doing this, like for example Mark Twain's Sherlock Holmes satire A Double-Barrelled Detective Story?

It's not like it's done out of a desire for profit, so I don't really know whether it can be called stealing - I don't know of any fanfiction that's not free; in point of fact, it's almost always done out of love for the original fiction and a desire to explore it further, often when the original author has moved on to something else. And it's not like reading fanfiction would be a substitute for reading the original author's work (or watching it, or whatever).

I've never read any fanfiction, but I'm sure there's some good stuff out there.

It's not so much a question of "the harm." While calling it "stealing" might be a tad hyperbolic, creating fanfic based heavily on someone else's intellectual property violates copyright law in countries like the US, Britain and Ireland (at least I'm pretty certain it does!) If the author in question is okay with it (and plenty are) fine, but if not, then fans should respect that and refrain from creating fictions derived from that author's work.

Works such as the Sherlock Holmes parody you mention are a different story. Parodies are more of a commentary on the original, which is a bit different from using characters from another's work to create your own story just for the sake of it. So I have no problem with the Twain you mention, or with Henry Fielding's Shamela, a savage (and accurate!) send-up of Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or with episodes of The Simpsons which lampoon movies like Cape Fear and The Shining. The same goes for Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, since it opens up the unexplored colonial undercurrents of Jane Eyre. As such, it is an original, interesting and artistically valid response to Bronte's novel.

Fanfic, on the other hand, appears, to me at least, to be pointless and self-indulgent. It all just seems a bit sad to me.

To turn the question around, do you think it's okay for people to create, for example, slashfic based around Harry Potter?

x_Ellie_x · 17-08-2011 5:46pm

I write and read fan fiction and I have an account on FanFiction.net. I don't see the harm in it. I think its just a bit of fun. The writers aren't making any money off it. And its free promotion for the tv shows and books they write about. I've actually started watching tv shows & brought books after read fan fic that got me interested in them.

nigelradion2 · 17-07-2014 4:15pm

exactly the point I was going to make. If its just for yourself in your own private time, then its probably okay. But if its otherwise, absolutely forget it because there ARE copywrite issues and from what I've seen, these are taken extremely serious so you really need to be careful.

Duckee · 17-07-2014 8:39pm

I can't say that I ever read fanfiction but If it's just for the craic of it I can't really see the harm. I'm assuming writers aren't trying to pretend they are JK Rowling writing Harry Potter - All Grown Up or whatever.

Where does this leave books that are written by different authors? For example does William Boyd writing a James Bond novel or Anthony Horowitz writing a Sherlock Holmes story (although Holmes is probably out of copyright??) qualify as fanfiction, a unique work of art or something in between?

I guess that fanfiction is unsolicited writing and these other novels have gone through the appropriate legal channels so maybe there's a difference there.

Overall though, I don't see the harm.

Das Kitty · 17-07-2014 8:46pm

I recently discovered that UK politician fanfic is a thing that exists.

Anonymagician · 17-07-2014 8:47pm

I don't see the harm. Books are for the people who read them, I actually think it's pretty cool that those people care so passionately about characters/settings that they want to continue the story themselves or put another slant on it.

I think copyright issues only come into play here if someone tried to gain profit, something that fanfiction writers don't set out to do. The point of it is to share thoughts and theories with people who enjoyed the same story but feel like there's more to be told. Plus, writing any sort of story improves creativity (even if it's with pre-made characters) and in my opinion fanfiction is like a stepping stone towards creating your own unique worlds someday.

Francis O Blibhionn · 20-07-2014 8:07pm

I think people write fan fiction with a different intention than wholly original work. They want to interact creatively with a the world established in the source body of work, and I personally think that's one of the highest compliments anyone could pay it.

If we wanted to stretch credulity for a moment, we could say that Dante's Inferno is fan fiction about Virgil, the bible, the Greek philosophers and so on, all set in the same universe, in which the author inserts himself as the main character, and makes a girl he kind of fancied in real life an agent of heaven.

Returning to reality, I'm not forwarding Dante as a fan fiction writer, or trying to elevate fan fiction to the level of high literature, merely to point out by analogy that it can be an expression of a common creative impulse.

If you want to hang writers for stealing, you should start with the ones who have the nerve to steal from life itself.

Francis O Blibhionn · 20-07-2014 8:20pm

Das Kitty wrote: »

I recently discovered that UK politician fanfic is a thing that exists.

Milliband closed his eyes as Cameron edged ever closer, trying not to imagine what the likely voter reaction would be to what would happen next.
He'd been spending a lot of time trying not to imagine things, as he stole nervous glaces at the majestic forehead that loomed across the parliament room like a sexual mountain.

"You're the Falklands tonight, Ed." breathed Cameron.
"And I'm Thatcher."

riffmongous · 20-07-2014 8:24pm

Francis O Blibhionn wrote: »

Milliband closed his eyes as Cameron edged ever closer, trying not to imagine what the likely voter reaction would be to what would happen next.
He'd been spending a lot of time trying not to imagine things, as he stole nervous glaces at the majestic forehead that loomed across the parliament room like a sexual mountain.

"You're the Falklands tonight, Ed." breathed Cameron.
"And I'm Thatcher."

What has been read cannot be unread :mad::p

Hotfail.com · 21-07-2014 12:18am

Found this a few weeks ago, maybe it's worth a read if you're interested.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/151914.html

Fanfiction - for or against?

Comments