Fanfiction of a literotica story?

[scientision]

I recently finished Diriger's Trainingware series. It impacted me in an odd way and it took me a while to figure out why. But now that I have, I'm interested in attempting to put that into words. I would like to make a short story that basically is an extension to the main story, basically a fanatic of it.

I dont recall ever seeing a story like that here on literotica, nor did I read anything in the rules/guidelines against such a story.

My question is, would that be considered an OK thing to do?
And if so what additional steps should I take (eg. linking, crediting, permissions etc)?

 

[John988]

[This content has been removed due to a copyright violation.]

 

[ElectricBlue]

You should contact the author and get their explicit permission to do this.

This comes up a lot; the consensus is, don't use someone else's characters without permission from the author, and if you can't get permission, park the idea permanently. It boils down to copyright (enforceable or not) and ethics.

Some writers don't care and will say go for it. Other writers do care and will say, don't even think about using my characters. You need to establish where the author stands on this, and if you can't, don't do it.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Noting that this site has a fanfiction category (shared with Celeb) and it gets plenty of fic based on other people's works, usually without the original creator's permission.

Which raises the question - if the site does accept fanfic based on all sorts of other stories, what would the rationale be for banning fic based on Literotica works?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Noting that this site has a fanfiction category (shared with Celeb) and it gets plenty of fic based on other people's works, usually without the original creator's permission.

Which raises the question - if the site does accept fanfic based on all sorts of other stories, what would the rationale be for banning fic based on Literotica works?

Courtesy to the original author, who might not want it.

Big league writers have the luxury of lawyers if they don't want fan fiction, and can and probably do pursue. Little league players like us don't have that privilege.

Fan fiction in my mind is no different to all the folk who wander in saying I want to finish X's story, or I want to put those characters into different situations, or I want I want I want, whatever it is they want. Fine, but ask first. As a writer, I might not want you to do those things, and then again, I might not mind at all.

 

[Hypoxia]

OP wants to do fanfic on material that's been seen and read by maybe a few thousand pervy eyeballs and that none else in the world's billions will recognize. I think that's wasted effort. Suggestion: absorb a story universe, change names and places, and make it your own. Let it guide you, not rule you.

 

[SimonDoom]

Noting that this site has a fanfiction category (shared with Celeb) and it gets plenty of fic based on other people's works, usually without the original creator's permission.

Which raises the question - if the site does accept fanfic based on all sorts of other stories, what would the rationale be for banning fic based on Literotica works?

It's a good question, but as a practical reality there's a very big difference because Literotica, and fanfiction forums generally, exist in a different universe from the universe of well-known books and films.

It's hard to reconcile fanfiction with copyright principles. Unless it qualifies as parody, it probably IS copyright infringement. But many well-known authors have recognized that fan fiction does not in any way hurt their bottom line. It may enhance it, by making their characters more famous and popular. And fanfiction authors don't make any profit, generally speaking. No harm, no foul.

This isn't true within the Literotica universe. Authors here do not write for money but for personal satisfaction, recognition, numbers of views, or favorites, contests, or whatever.

Allowing other Literotica authors willy nilly to take your storylines and characters and write their own stories DOES threaten injury to you. You may effectively have your characters taken away from you. Readers may prefer the other author's stories about your characters to yours. It makes sense to set rules within this universe that govern how you treat your fellow writers on this site.

None of this applies with respect to the relationship between this site and the outside world. There is no threat of this whatsoever in the world of fanfiction relating to famous stories, authors, and characters.

 

[Bramblethorn]

But many well-known authors have recognized that fan fiction does not in any way hurt their bottom line. It may enhance it, by making their characters more famous and popular. And fanfiction authors don't make any profit, generally speaking. No harm, no foul.

I agree with that argument, and yes, so do plenty of well-known authors. But there are quite a few others who don't accept fanfic.

This isn't true within the Literotica universe. Authors here do not write for money but for personal satisfaction, recognition, numbers of views, or favorites, contests, or whatever.

Allowing other Literotica authors willy nilly to take your storylines and characters and write their own stories DOES threaten injury to you. You may effectively have your characters taken away from you. Readers may prefer the other author's stories about your characters to yours. It makes sense to set rules within this universe that govern how you treat your fellow writers on this site.

I don't accept that this creates a distinction between fanfic based on pro writers and fanfic based on Literotica stories.

Nobody goes into writing just for the money, not unless they're terminally naive. Sure pro authors enjoy getting paid but that doesn't stop them from getting just as precious about their characters and settings as any amateur. Quite a few pros do object strenuously to fanfic for exactly the same reasons that you give against fanfic of Literotica stories. For example:

Diana Gabaldon: I think it’s immoral, I _know_ it’s illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.

Anne Rice: It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes.

Ursula LeGuin: It is lovely to ‘share worlds’ if your imagination works that way, but mine doesn’t; to me, it’s not sharing but an invasion, literally — strangers coming in and taking over the country I live in, my heartland.

George R. R. Martin: My characters are my children, I have been heard to say. I don't want people making off with them, thank you. Even people who say they love my children. I'm sure that's true, I don't doubt the sincerity of the affection, but still... No one gets to abuse the people of Westeros but me.

And yet, from a quick search, Literotica hosts at least three Anne Rice fanfic stories and about 20 Game of Thrones fanfics.

I'm honestly not sure whether an author does have the moral right to stop others from writing fanfic - but when we only want to extend that right to fellow Literotica authors and not to other authors who've made it plain that they consider fanfic to be injurious, that seems a bit hypocritical.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I agree with that argument, and yes, so do plenty of well-known authors. But there are quite a few others who don't accept fanfic.



I don't accept that this creates a distinction between fanfic based on pro writers and fanfic based on Literotica stories.

Nobody goes into writing just for the money, not unless they're terminally naive. Sure pro authors enjoy getting paid but that doesn't stop them from getting just as precious about their characters and settings as any amateur. Quite a few pros do object strenuously to fanfic for exactly the same reasons that you give against fanfic of Literotica stories. For example:

Diana Gabaldon: I think it’s immoral, I _know_ it’s illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters.

Anne Rice: It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes.

Ursula LeGuin: It is lovely to ‘share worlds’ if your imagination works that way, but mine doesn’t; to me, it’s not sharing but an invasion, literally — strangers coming in and taking over the country I live in, my heartland.

George R. R. Martin: My characters are my children, I have been heard to say. I don't want people making off with them, thank you. Even people who say they love my children. I'm sure that's true, I don't doubt the sincerity of the affection, but still... No one gets to abuse the people of Westeros but me.

And yet, from a quick search, Literotica hosts at least three Anne Rice fanfic stories and about 20 Game of Thrones fanfics.

I'm honestly not sure whether an author does have the moral right to stop others from writing fanfic - but when we only want to extend that right to fellow Literotica authors and not to other authors who've made it plain that they consider fanfic to be injurious, that seems a bit hypocritical.

I have had readers suggest things to me that I think are completely inappropriate for my characters. I thank them politely for the suggestion but I want to scream sometimes. ("No! Mary will never have a lesbian threesome with Jennifer and Danni!" "Yes, Charlotte idolizes her father, but she's not going to fuck him!")

I really wouldn't be able to handle fan fiction based on my characters.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

I have had readers suggest things to me that I think are completely inappropriate for my characters. I thank them politely for the suggestion but I want to scream sometimes. ("No! Mary will never have a lesbian threesome with Jennifer and Danni!" "Yes, Charlotte idolizes her father, but she's not going to fuck him!")

I really wouldn't be able to handle fan fiction based on my characters.

Says Anonymous (Laurel should really talk to or maybe even ban 'ole Anonymous, he is kinda a jerk) "Oh and put them on a South Pacific Island with 'Gilligan, the skipper too, the professor and Mary Ann all on Gilligan's Island,"I mean put fingers on keyboard and write your own masterpiece where Mary becomes Shelia, Jennifer Bobbi and Danni Lucy. Write don't critique, don't criticise DO.

Check it out, you might be the next Hemmingway.

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm honestly not sure whether an author does have the moral right to stop others from writing fanfic - but when we only want to extend that right to fellow Literotica authors and not to other authors who've made it plain that they consider fanfic to be injurious, that seems a bit hypocritical.

Every time this discussion comes up (which it does, regularly) it usually comes down to the ethical stance of the writer who wishes to write fan-fic or celebrity fic.

Clearly, there are some who do not condone it (I'm one who always says, "No, go write your own characters, don't leach off mine,"), and the general advice has always been, in every thread on the subject, "Ask first. And if you don't get an answer, don't do it."

Just because the site allows it, doesn't make it right. In my view, both fan-fic and celeb-fic are unsavoury genres for a whole bunch of reasons - I never read it, I'd never write it. The OP asked the question, and as usual got the usual spectrum of answers (although fewer weighed in this time, probably because the last thread wasn't so long ago); and it should be pretty clear that the answer comes down to the individual and their own ethics.

I believe an author does have the moral right (and copyright, but let's not go there) to say, "Don't pervert my characters" - but I agree, they don't have that right on behalf of the next writer. The OP should decide their own stance on this - they asked a legitimate question, so one assumes they're seeking policy or guidance. Site policy allows it, but nowhere is it explicitly said, "Ask first." Writer guidance, on the other hand, is typically, "Ask first."

 

[gunhilltrain]

Says Anonymous (Laurel should really talk to or maybe even ban 'ole Anonymous, he is kinda a jerk) "Oh and put them on a South Pacific Island with 'Gilligan, the skipper too, the professor and Mary Ann all on Gilligan's Island,"I mean put fingers on keyboard and write your own masterpiece where Mary becomes Shelia, Jennifer Bobbi and Danni Lucy. Write don't critique, don't criticise DO.

Check it out, you might be the next Hemmingway.

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

There actually was a novel based on Gilligan's Island characters:

https://www.amazon.com/Gilligans-Wa...&sprefix=Gilligan**7s+Wake**Caps**C122&sr=8-1

I don't know if the author got permission from CBS or whoever to publish it. It wasn't really a parody as I would define it.

But anyway, lifting Harry Potter or Anne Rice in a "non-profit" setting like Literotica is one thing. I wouldn't mess with the "little guys" - our fellow writers here - without permission.

P.S.: If you can find Gilligan's Wake in a library or a used book outlet: it's uneven but mildly entertaining in spots.

 

[Hypoxia]

See the fascinating Wikipedia articles on fan fiction and unofficial sequels and pastiches. Should all Sherlock and Conan stories not written by Doyle or Howard or authorized by their estates be shredded? How about Lovecraftian pastiches? Cthulhu gonna get their asses? Is my Bride of Kong, set in a universe where King Kong and Jurassic Park were documentaries, a ripoff?

Modern fanfic really kicked off with Star Trek:

Unlike other aspects of fandom, women dominated fan fiction authoring; 83% of Star Trek fan fiction authors were female by 1970, and 90% by 1973. One scholar states that fan fiction "fill the need of a mostly female audience for fictional narratives that expand the boundary of the official source products..."​

Is opposition to fanfic sexist?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Every time this discussion comes up (which it does, regularly) it usually comes down to the ethical stance of the writer who wishes to write fan-fic or celebrity fic.

Clearly, there are some who do not condone it (I'm one who always says, "No, go write your own characters, don't leach off mine,"), and the general advice has always been, in every thread on the subject, "Ask first. And if you don't get an answer, don't do it."

Let me complicate things a bit more: if it's wrong to borrow somebody else's fictional characters, can it be right to borrow real-life people?

My ex is a schoolteacher. One day a classroom visitor came in to do a reptile show, her corn snake decided to crawl inside her top and tangle itself up in her bra strap, and in the end the visitor had to take her top off (not in front of the kids!) so my ex could remove the snake from its cosy hiding place.

My ex told me that story, amused and also aroused by the situation. I thought it was a fun premise for an erotic piece and wrote one which took that incident as a starting point. I filed off the serial numbers and everything after the snake-bra-removal is my own invention - except for a few stories that I lifted from other snake-handling friends - but I expect that class visitor would recognise herself from that incident alone, if she ever happened across that story.

I don't have pat answers to these issues. I'm not sure there is an entirely satisfactory answer. But I'm reluctant to accuse fanfic authors of leeching when the rest of us borrow just as heavily from other sources - be that RL history, or people we met in the street one day. If anything, borrowing RL people seems harder to defend than borrowing fictional people.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Let me complicate things a bit more: if it's wrong to borrow somebody else's fictional characters, can it be right to borrow real-life people?

...

I don't have pat answers to these issues. I'm not sure there is an entirely satisfactory answer. But I'm reluctant to accuse fanfic authors of leeching when the rest of us borrow just as heavily from other sources - be that RL history, or people we met in the street one day. If anything, borrowing RL people seems harder to defend than borrowing fictional people.

Now that is a ponder worth pondering, since I do it all the time. It's my fundamental inspiration, to take some one I know well, or meet on a fleeting basis, and weave them into a story.

The difference, I think, is that the weaving and fictionalising is my own set of words, my own imagination set down on paper, they become "my" character. Some of my "in the street" or "at the counter" incidents might be recounts of actual events, but where the story goes (and how those characters develop) aren't biographical at all, they're what my subconscious has done with the input. So there's been a transformation, through the conduit of my imagination.

And it's that bit that's "mine" - which is why I always say, "Go create your own characters. I did, so can you."

But that's a challenging thought, Bramblethorn. I don't know if it changes my basic stance - which is to think about the original author's wishes first, ask them if they mind or not.

But that's too bloody metaphysical for a Saturday morning when the sun is shining, and I haven't had my first coffee yet. Let alone seen the pretty girl with the long red hair who sometimes sells me the paper .

 

[SimonDoom]

Let me complicate things a bit more: if it's wrong to borrow somebody else's fictional characters, can it be right to borrow real-life people?

My ex is a schoolteacher. One day a classroom visitor came in to do a reptile show, her corn snake decided to crawl inside her top and tangle itself up in her bra strap, and in the end the visitor had to take her top off (not in front of the kids!) so my ex could remove the snake from its cosy hiding place.

My ex told me that story, amused and also aroused by the situation. I thought it was a fun premise for an erotic piece and wrote one which took that incident as a starting point. I filed off the serial numbers and everything after the snake-bra-removal is my own invention - except for a few stories that I lifted from other snake-handling friends - but I expect that class visitor would recognise herself from that incident alone, if she ever happened across that story.

I don't have pat answers to these issues. I'm not sure there is an entirely satisfactory answer. But I'm reluctant to accuse fanfic authors of leeching when the rest of us borrow just as heavily from other sources - be that RL history, or people we met in the street one day. If anything, borrowing RL people seems harder to defend than borrowing fictional people.

I don't see anything at all wrong or immoral from using a person's real-life experience for a story. The only issue of right or wrong would be if by writing the story you revealed something private or exposed a real person who was not a public figure to embarrassment.

The law of copyright is not based on morality. It's based on economics -- at least in the US it is. Copyright exists to incentivize authors to make creative works -- it says so in the US Constitution, and the Supreme Court has repeated this idea. Strong protection of copyright is a relatively new concept in world history. There's no such thing as a universal, historical recognition of an author's exclusive and proprietary moral right over his or her creative works. So the moral contours of authors' exclusive rights, in my view, are amorphous and tenuous. Copyright recognizes many exceptions to exclusive rights. They're contained in, among other things, the fair use doctrine. Authors and artists, of course, don't see it this way, because it's natural to want to have a proprietary right over something you create. But the law doesn't see it the way authors do.

There's no good policy reason to grant a person exclusive rights in an account of his or her real-life experiences because he or she is not an "author" of such experiences -- they're just things that happen. We have no reason to incentivize a person to have life experiences. The idea is silly. Besides, copyright only protects creative expression that is captured in a tangible medium. Life experiences don't count. They're not protectable even if they are, in some sense, "authored."

If you base a story on a real-life incident, your only concern, IMO, should be whether you may expose a person to embarrassment or ridicule, or possibly defame the person. You shouldn't worry for a second about the person having a proprietary right in those experiences. There's no moral issue involved.

 

[CuteSlaveLisa]

This is JMO, and I was not so bad in a previous life to be condmned to Law School in this one. ;-)

One of my lovers is an ordained Minister, she has people come talk to her about thier crisises, if I knew the particulars, those would be 'off limits' because her parishioners have an EXPECTATION of privacy. If I celebrate the new year by dancing naked in my local public park and 97 pervs take explicit cell-phone pictures of me I have nothing to complain about.

Using my Gilligan's Island analogy, If I wrote a story about Mr and Mrs Powell being stranded on an island with thier two adult sons Martin and Gene (a George Clooney lookalike actor) and three daughters Skip who owned the boat, Gillian a loveable doofus, and the eldest Karen a professor at Cal-tech. I figure that is cool, I am using someone else's construct, but not copying it.

Nothing is 100"/" original, Gulliver came before Gilligan and another 100 stories of castaways as well.

"What is will be again, what has been done will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1.9 (written by King David 3029 or so years ago)

Of course the billionaire owners of tech and pharma companies who take decades of publically funded research and add one or three percent and suddenly "own" the product would disagree.

Love and Kisses

Lisa Ann

 

[Bramblethorn]

Is opposition to fanfic sexist?

I do think there's a lot of sexism involved in what is and isn't dismissed as "fanfic". Some illustrative quotes from Wiki:

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is a novel published in 1995, written by Gregory Maguire and illustrated by Douglas Smith. It is a revisionist exploration of the characters and land of Oz from the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, its sequels, and the 1939 film adaption The Wizard of Oz... The novel presents events, characters and situations from Baum's books and the film in new ways, making numerous alterations.

The Flashman Papers is a series of novels and short stories written by George MacDonald Fraser, the first of which was published in 1969. The books centre on the exploits of the fictional protagonist Harry Flashman. He is a cowardly British soldier, rake and cad who is placed in a series of real historical incidents between 1839 and 1894. While the incidents and much of the detail in the novels have a factual background, Flashman's actions in the stories are either fictional, or Fraser uses the actions of unidentified individuals and assigns them to Flashman. Flashman is a character in the 1857 novel by Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown's School Days; Hughes' version of the character is a bully at Rugby School who is expelled for drunkenness. The character was then developed by Fraser, and appeared in the 1969 novel Flashman. Fraser went on to write a total of eleven novels and one collection of short stories featuring the character.

Gaiman thought he "could write something a lot like The Jungle Book and set it in a graveyard."...

Some chapters have analogues to Rudyard Kipling's 1894 work; for example, the chapter "The Hounds of God" parallels the story "Kaa's Hunting"... [It's not just individual chapters. The structure as a whole parallels TJB, and several of the characters have direct analogues to TJB characters.]

The New York Times's Monica Edinger was very positive about the book, concluding, "In this novel of wonder, Neil Gaiman follows in the footsteps of long-ago storytellers, weaving a tale of unforgettable enchantment". Kirkus Reviews awarded it a starred review, claiming that, "this needs to be read by anyone who is or has ever been a child". Author Patrick Ness wrote, "what's lost in forward momentum is more than made up for by the outrageous riches of Gaiman's imagination" and praised the villains. The Independent praised the novel's different tones. Richard Bleiler described the novel as a piece of neo-Gothic fiction echoing back to Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto. In 2013, a blogger [in The Independent] recommended The Graveyard Book for children, describing the premise as "staggeringly original"...

And a recent article from the Guardian:

Francis Spufford pens unauthorised Narnia novel - The Stone Table hailed as a ‘seamless recreation’ of CS Lewis’s style, but this addition to the acclaimed series of children’s books may never be published

Francis Spufford has taken a break from writing award-winning adult literature to fill in the details of what exactly went on in Narnia before The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. But he isn’t expecting his novel, set in CS Lewis’s magical world, to be published any time soon...

According to the writer Adam Roberts, the novel is “superb”, a rare match of literary ability and authorial sensibility.

‘It really is a seamless recreation of Lewis’s writing-style at its best,” Roberts said, “and a brilliant read in its own right. It enriches Lewis’s heritage.”

The writer Frank Cottrell Boyce agreed.

“Francis has caught Lewis’ voice to a point where its uncanny,” he said. “It really does feel like him writing,” Cottrell Boyce said. “Also he has found a subject – the creation of the Stone Table – that you think Lewis might well have got round to thinking about.” ...

For Roberts, Spufford’s novel shows that UK laws of copyright, which give authors the exclusive rights to their work for 70 years after their death, are no longer fit for purpose.

“I think it was inevitable that a book like this, a sensitive and brilliant addition to the Narnia corpus by a major contemporary writer, would start to leak out into the public domain.

I am not criticising any of those works! I've read and enjoyed the first three, they are all highly creative in their own way. But note that when a Prestigious Male Author writes stories of this kind, it's not "fanfic".

It's "revisionist exploration", "following in the footsteps of long-ago storytellers" (sic*), "seamless recreation", "a sensitive and brilliant addition to the corpus", or even "staggeringly original" - not to mention an indictment of copyright laws. I know a lot of fanfic authors were infuriated by the way that Guardian article celebrated Spufford's Narnia book as a Serious Literary Work while so much fanfic is dismissed sight-unseen on the grounds that it can't possibly be any good if it reuses somebody else's setting.

*I'm pretty sure we have writers on this board who were alive in Kipling's time!

 

[Hypoxia]

...note that when a Prestigious Male Author writes stories of this kind, it's not "fanfic".

It's "revisionist exploration", "following in the footsteps of long-ago storytellers" (sic*), "seamless recreation", "a sensitive and brilliant addition to the corpus", or even "staggeringly original"...

Man who fucks around --> stud
Woman who fucks around --> slut

Man who writes pastiche --> artist
Woman who writes pastiche --> fraud

Solution: disguises and anonymity. Can we *really* know the genders of creators of Tijuana Bibles, those early erotic fanfic gems?

PS: Don't forget Stairway to Gilligan's Island. Mashup those fanfics!

 

[Bramblethorn]

Now that is a ponder worth pondering, since I do it all the time. It's my fundamental inspiration, to take some one I know well, or meet on a fleeting basis, and weave them into a story.

The difference, I think, is that the weaving and fictionalising is my own set of words, my own imagination set down on paper, they become "my" character. Some of my "in the street" or "at the counter" incidents might be recounts of actual events, but where the story goes (and how those characters develop) aren't biographical at all, they're what my subconscious has done with the input. So there's been a transformation, through the conduit of my imagination.

What if I said that this same kind of imagination/transformation/extemporisation happens just as much in fanfic as in other kinds of writing?

I don't have much involvement in fanfic myself - mostly it's not my thing - but my partner writes a lot of it and I edit her work, so I'm reasonably familiar with some of the fandoms. From what I can see, modulo the usual allowances for Sturgeon's Law, extemporising and transforming the source material is just as big in fanfic as in other kinds of writing.

Some common patterns:

- Author makes brief mention of a minor character, readers think "that has potential", and decide to make up their own stories about that character, much as you might make up a story about the enigmatic woman you saw in the street. (How did the Wicked Witch get that way?)
- Story leaves questions unanswered, and readers attempt to answer them. (What was it that drew Vernon and Petunia together? How does it feel for Susan, who's grown to adulthood in Narnia, to suddenly be back in the body of a child forever separated from past friends and lovers?)
- Readers have an It's Complicated relationship with the work, and use fanfic to explore that in one way or another. (What if Lovecraft but without the racism? Why in God's name did Hermione marry Ron?)

And, yeah, there's also a lot of:

- What if just like the original, but more fucking?

but I don't think we're in a position to shame anybody for that.

I don't see anything at all wrong or immoral from using a person's real-life experience for a story. The only issue of right or wrong would be if by writing the story you revealed something private or exposed a real person who was not a public figure to embarrassment.

The law of copyright is not based on morality.

On that we agree. But much of the argument against fanfic is based on moral, non-economic considerations. Most authors here aren't expecting to make a cent from their works, they have no financial incentive to write here, they don't lose financially if another author copies their works, and they haven't registered a copyright so for all practical purposes copyright is irrelevant... but plenty of folk still argue that this copying is wrong. At that point it's a moral argument, not a legal or economic one, based on the idea that writing about somebody else's character is in some way an injury to the author.

There's no good policy reason to grant a person exclusive rights in an account of his or her real-life experiences because he or she is not an "author" of such experiences -- they're just things that happen. We have no reason to incentivize a person to have life experiences.

I'm not referring to financial incentives. I'm talking about the argument that using other people's characters without their permission is hurtful to those authors.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Man who fucks around --> stud
Woman who fucks around --> slut

Man who writes pastiche --> artist
Woman who writes pastiche --> fraud

Solution: disguises and anonymity. Can we *really* know the genders of creators of Tijuana Bibles, those early erotic fanfic gems?

Reminds me of this unintentionally hilarious intro note from a 1974 SF anthology:

"Last year Joanna Russ won a Nebula Award for a feminist story called When It Changed; this year James Tiptree, Jr., offers a male viewpoint on the same subject. As you might expect... there's very little similarity between the two stories."

(See also George Sand, George Eliot, etc. etc.)

 

[SimonDoom]

I'm not referring to financial incentives. I'm talking about the argument that using other people's characters without their permission is hurtful to those authors.

The fact that no money changes hands doesn't mean it's not an economic argument. One can be injured in ways other than loss of money. In the Literotica universe the ONLY currency is non-monetary.

You are right that people think of it in moral, not economic terms. And it's true that many authors do find fanfiction offensive and immoral. It's hard in principle to say one set of rules should apply here and another there. But I think the practical reality of the differences in the two worlds are sufficiently stark that one can make at least a pretty good argument why writing a story based on, say, JRR Tolkien is different from writing a story based on another Literotica author's work. I think as a practical matter they present very different cases.

That said, I'm torn on this one. I have done some work on an erotic story based in Mordor but am not sure if I'm going to publish it or not. Procrastination and distraction probably will resolve the issue in favor of "not," so I may not have to confront the moral question head-on.

 

[ElectricBlue]

- Author makes brief mention of a minor character, readers think "that has potential", and decide to make up their own stories about that character, much as you might make up a story about the enigmatic woman you saw in the street. (How did the Wicked Witch get that way?)
- Story leaves questions unanswered, and readers attempt to answer them. (What was it that drew Vernon and Petunia together? How does it feel for Susan, who's grown to adulthood in Narnia, to suddenly be back in the body of a child forever separated from past friends and lovers?)
- Readers have an It's Complicated relationship with the work, and use fanfic to explore that in one way or another. (What if Lovecraft but without the racism? Why in God's name did Hermione marry Ron?).

Thinking about it some more (coffee enriched and the weekend paper behind me), perhaps there is a difference between "true fan fic" such as the very good examples you give (the Susan one being one of the first intelligent fan-fic pieces I read), and the previous entry points in some of the discussions here.

Previous discussions have been more along the lines of, "I want to take this writer's characters and write them "better," "finish the story," "make them do my favourite kink," all of which sounds to me like a pastiche, lazy writing, unoriginal; and triggers two responses: 1. ask first, and 2. be original.

But if writers do embark on well-written, thoughtful, intelligent stories, then maybe my mind's a changing. I think the fear writers express (and I suppose it's behind my earlier stance) is that the fan-fic will be dumb it down, deliver pabulum (to use one of KeithD's favourite expressions), be sub-standard (remembering of course that any other rendition of a writer's character would be compared to the writer's own view of their own ability).

The problem we have is: how do we know what another writer will do, until they've done it? It might indeed be brilliant, but using the 80/20 rule as I always do, odds are it will be junk (by my own self-referential standards).

Which is why I'd continue to urge, "Ask first," and if you don't get an explicit affirmative answer, change it all up sufficiently that it can be presented as an original piece.

It's interesting that this discussion has arisen now, because I recently responded to someone who wants to run with something inspired by a single sentence from a semi-collaborative story (JC's Valentines for Adam). This person had the courtesy to ask first - I've yet to see the result.

 

[Hypoxia]

- Author makes brief mention of a minor character, readers think "that has potential", and decide to make up their own stories about that character...

Cf. Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern.

- Story leaves questions unanswered, and readers attempt to answer them.

Unscrewing the inscrutable is fun. I leave stories open and invite readers to finish them, but no takers so far. Darn.

- What if just like the original, but more fucking?

That works. But keep Annie Oakley's relationship with her horse clean.

I'm not referring to financial incentives. I'm talking about the argument that using other people's characters without their permission is hurtful to those authors.

I doubt JK Rowling is much damaged by Perry Hotter spins. But I'll argue that once a literary creation is in the wild, it won't stay penned. Yes, greed may drive copying -- see all those lousy Star Zzzz clones -- but so does audience frenzy. Anything popular is a target for extrapolation. Just gargle for Flintstones fuck Jetsons.

 

[oggbashan]

Years ago, I had a polite PMed request to translate some of my stories into German and Czech.

I agreed as long as I was credited as the original author. That gave me a plot bunny that became the 2004 story 'Where Did I Put The Sex'.

If I search for my stories in other languages, German comes first, Japanese second, and Czech third.