HP and other rewrites

[the_bragis]

Several threads here recently have debated/discussed the Harry Potter fanfic stories.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of these for two reasons:

One, I just can't help thinking of the characters as kids, no matter what age the author makes them, and that simply limits my enjoyment.

Two, to me it's a little like one author jumping on the coat tails of another's success. You may agree or disagree with me, and that's fine.

Now that raises several questions. How would an authour here feel about his or her story being re-written by someone else, particualrly by a less talented author? Let's say someone here wrote a gentle, romantic, and top rating "Erotic Couplings' story, and then another author took it and and rewrote a version of it for say the the 'BDSM' category. How would the original author feel? Would it be acceptable?

As always I'm interested to read other people's views.

Alex

 

[TheEarl]

I've not written a Harry Potter story, but I have written a story in the Buffyverse, so I get your point. How would Joss Whedon feel about me stealing his characters?

I'd have to hope he'd like the job I'd done on them, but it wouldn't be the end if he didn't. I think the trick to writing fan-fic is to not take it too seriously. I'd be happy even if I got threatening letters for butchering his characters, because I enjoyed it.

I suspect Mr Whedon would't approve of my story and might be a little offended with what I've done to his characters, but he's got lots of money from them. Parody and imitation are co-stars of fame.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't be pissed if it happened to me, but in the long run, I hope I'd find it funny.

The Earl

 

[Chicklet]

fanfic and slash seem like fun to write, imho. people seem to really enjoy writing their fantasies about certain characters, fictional or non. personally, i don't.

i would be disgusted if someone took me, or characters i'd created, and without my permission did new things to them.

i'm not here judging others for writing those stories, because many well-meaning people write without any intent to harm. it's just not my bag.

Chicklet

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Several threads here recently have debated/discussed the Harry Potter fanfic stories.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of these for two reasons:

One, I just can't help thinking of the characters as kids, no matter what age the author makes them, and that simply limits my enjoyment.

Two, to me it's a little like one author jumping on the coat tails of another's success. You may agree or disagree with me, and that's fine.

Now that raises several questions. How would an authour here feel about his or her story being re-written by someone else, particualrly by a less talented author? Let's say someone here wrote a gentle, romantic, and top rating "Erotic Couplings' story, and then another author took it and and rewrote a version of it for say the the 'BDSM' category. How would the original author feel? Would it be acceptable?

As always I'm interested to read other people's views.

Alex

Well, those who don't have enough imagination to make the mind leap a few years into time, when the now teenage kids will be adults, then that's their problem. No offense, Alex!

As for tailing along... "imitation is the most honest form of flattery".
If someone would to imitate my stories, I would be partly proud that someone found them good enough to fantasies about, and mildly amused, thinking "yeah, yeah, yeah... as if you could ever do it half as good as me!"

(I have an ego-issue, yes...)

 

[the_bragis]

The Earl,

Oh boy, why do I always feel like I'm addressing royalty when I type that?

I don't view fanfic and parody as being the same. I really enjoy erotic fairytales I read here and at other sites. That may seem hypocritical, that may even be hypocrital, but I just see them as being different. Maybe because parody is funny, or because the stories are written for children, but not about them. I'm not quite sure.

Do other people see fanfic and parody as different?

Chicklet,

I have only three things to say about your posting - yes, yes, and I agree.

Svenskaflicka,

I'm just a big kid at heart I love the HP stories, the ones by J.K. that is. Harry and company will never grow old to me.

I agree it's flattering to be copied, but honestly aren't some of these fanfics just plain mutilation rather than imitation?

Oh and just for the record, I have fantasized about a couple of your stories, but I don't have any plans to 'imitate' them.



Alex.

 

[Just-Legal]

*SNIP*
... I just can't help thinking of the characters as kids, no matter what age the author makes them, and that simply limits my enjoyment...
*SNIP*

I like Snape... mmm... Thats why I had him interacting with a 20-y-o OFC (Other Female Character) *grin*

As for imitation... To be perfectly honest I'm not sure how I'd feel if someone did it. The thing is, its not like I can e-mail JK and go "Oh hey, I just had a brilliant idea, can I steal Snape and let him have wild rampant sex with someone?"

 

[TheEarl]

I see what you mean, but I disagree. I think if anyone puts something successful into the public domain, then they should be prepared for imitation. Whether it's good or bad, people have a right to copy, as long as they don't try and profit from it.

To put it another way: Would Leonardo Da Vinci be pissed off at the number of art students who copy the Mona Lisa, some very poorly?

The Earl

 

[Just-Legal]

Exactly Earl.

*is a baaad artist...*

 

[Svenskaflicka]

Oh and just for the record, I have fantasized about a couple of your stories, but I don't have any plans to 'imitate' them.



Alex.

Awwww... *whiping away happy tears*
You liked them? I have a warm, fuzzy feeling inside my chest, now!

 

[the_bragis]

Mmmm... interesting.

Hello The Earl and anyone else reading this,

Yes, well I agree and disagree with you also.

I'm not convinced that we have a 'right' to copy characters and themes. I feel it's more like something we simply get away with. I mean it's perfectly acceptable to copy someone's style isn't it? In fact it's very flattering for the original author I'm sure. Word for word however is something quite different. Fanfic seems to be something kind of nebulous caught in the middle.

I read a posting in here a while back (it was from Gauchecritic I think) complaining, and rightly so - he had send a story idea and scripts off to a TV production company, only to have it rejected, and then see it pop up a few months later under different guise.

So, looking at the flip side, if you read a story on line that was poorly written but you thought had great potential, would it be acceptable to uses those characters and ideas? Would you feel any obligation to contact the original author? Even more to the point, what would you do if it turned into something really brilliant and you got paid big bucks for it? Is it the story and characters, or the way it's written that makes a story a success? Or is it a 50/50 deal?

To be honest, I'm not 100% sure about any of it, but it's interesting to read how different people view things.

**

Svenkaflicka

Again just the record, I got a warm fuzzy feeling inside too, just not in my chest..

**

Alex

 

[Madame Manga]

Fanficcer waves hand...

According to Henry Jenkins, who has done academic studies of fan fiction, the whole phenomenon is not about imitation or riding coattails. It's about the fact that popular media (he studies Star Trek in particular) are the new mythologies and shared references for Western culture.

I'm no academic, but here's how I see it. If a modern author writes original works based on an understanding of what used to be the philosophical foundations of Western culture (the Greek and Roman classics, the Bible) she will not find a mass audience any more. A hundred years ago, it was mandatory for any educated person to know those works. But even the college-degreed these days are unlikely to have read Aristotle, Virgil, Tacitus, the Bible, St. Augustine, Plutarch or St. Thomas Aquinas, much less Marlowe, Racine, Goethe, Thomas Hardy, Henry James. Dead White Men: that's what they are called. It's rare to have a required Western Civ course in even the best universities, and if there is one, by freshman year it's inevitably an afterthought.

So how are today's readers educated in their fundamentals from earliest childhood? By television, movies, music, video games, and very occasionally, by popular literature like Harry Potter. Nothing but mass media can be assumed to be a shared cultural experience any more. If you have never seen Star Wars, if you have never watched an episode of Friends or Star Trek, if you skipped Survivor and wouldn't know the Stones if they rolled over you, you can now consider yourself culturally illiterate. "A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..." "Beam me up, Scotty!" "Voted off the island." "I can't get no satisfaction." Of course you've heard those phrases. If you've never cracked Homer and couldn't muster a quote at gunpoint? About two people you have ever met will even know the difference.

Good or bad? I'm not trying to pass judgment here or tell anyone to go stuff their heads with ideas centuries out of sync with the modern world. This isn't the past. There is a lot of sexist, totalitarian crap in Aristotle. ;-) IMO, it helps to know what the sources of those ideas are and that they are nothing new if you want to deal with them in 2003. I think it would be great if everyone had a decent grounding in the classics. But they don't. That's reality. I can't be Shakespeare and rip off my plots from Roman history and have a big paying audience who already knows all about Julius Caesar and his buddy Brutus and is rooting to see a good assassination on stage and kibitz my blank verse. That world doesn't exist any more.

If I want to write something based on Star Trek and post it on the Internet, I can instantly connect with millions of other Star Trek fans who can recite chapter and verse--that's a term that used to be used for a good knowledge of the Bible, of course. The same goes for any popular TV show. People like to have something in common with other people, and they like to discuss it with them and ring all possible changes on it. If I write fanfiction, a lot of people will instantly know what I'm talking about without further explanation, and some of them will know its details better than they know their own mothers. They will enter into debates of fact, philosophy, characterization and motivation with me. I can find clubs and forums and conventions devoted to television shows in all their incarnations. In other words, this is living culture to which I can add my--yes, original--contribution. It has been absorbed into modern life and become part of the near-universal background. A lot of the names I mentioned above have lost their resonance anywhere but in Ph.D. seminars.

What's a writer to do? Quit fanfiction and try to make a buck ripping off the lost classics instead? ;-)

MM

 

[Svenskaflicka]

What's a writer to do? Quit fanfiction and try to make a buck ripping off the lost classics instead? ;-)

MM

"Ooooh, give it to me, Silas Marner!"

 

[TheEarl]

Alex: I'm moving slightly over to your POV now. I'm determined that it's morally right to write fan-fic (mainly because I have in the past), but I kinda agree that permission should be sought. Then again, have you tried getting permission from Joss Whedon or J.K. Rowling? I think in cases like that, where fame is involved, then the owner has set his/her characters right out into the public domain, where they can be used/abused by anyone, so long as they don't profit from it.

I have actually used someone else's characters in an erotic story. I got his permission first, but xxxecil created such an interesting scene in his Faeophobia series that I really needed to use it myself. Is that alright IYO? Not being snotty, just curious.

KM: Where do I fit in? I have an encyclopedic knowledge of film and televison scripts, but I can also quote Shakespeare. <sigh> I guess that's what you get for having a 156 point IQ and too much time on your hands.

The Earl

 

[deliciously_naughty]

Having written fanfic, I would merely uphold the same lawsuit that literotica cites. However, there is a line between writing fanfic and trying to make money off someone's ideas or characters.

If I write Star Trek fic (and I do) and post it here for free and do not benefit off it (except to bask in my occasional feedback email) then I don't really see that I'm doing anything wrong. However, if I were a published author and someone tried to publish a short story involving people or scenes from my published work, that would be another story.

I've actually had someone ask me if they could use one of my characters (from among the stacks) and write an encounter with my protagonist from the other pov (the one doing her as opposed to her vp). I said ok, but I'm not sure if they ever wrote it. I was a little nervous. However, if the person had just done it, I would have been ok with it, but again a little nervous about how "my" characters would be treated.

just my 2 cents

 

[the_bragis]

The Earl,

I have actually used someone else's characters in an erotic story. I got his permission first, but xxxecil created such an interesting scene in his Faeophobia series that I really needed to use it myself. Is that alright IYO? Not being snotty, just curious.

Sure, if they're happy and your happy then everyone, including me, is going to be happy. I'm curious to read it now.

Wow, an IQ of 156! Never mind the commas god, I'm bowing to you Sir! I'm not sure what my reading is, but put it this way, I'm not expecting the people from Mensa to come knocking on my door any time soon.

Have a great day now,

Alex.

 

[jfinn]

Though fan/fic is not really a love of mine, I have no problem with it per se. After all we are talking about fictional characters here and if they were mine and someone wanted to use them I guess it wouldn't bother me too much unless they didn't credit me.

However, as to Harry Potter and JK Rawlings, it's my understanding that it's not that the woman is so concerned about fan fic that shows her characters in adventures she hasn't written, it's that she objects to putting them in sexual situations.

The reason for this is because these were primarily created for underaged and often very young children to read and enjoy. Children who know more about surfing the net than you or I will ever learn. The real concern is that these kids will do a Google and stumble onto something about Harry and Ron and the rest of the group that they have no business reading at their age. And lets face it, parental controls only go so far.

From what I've heard, Rawlings and her attorneys have served no cease and desist orders on G Rated sites that serve up her characters in age appropriate behavior. At least not yet, maybe later she'll turn into another Disney, who knows. But for now, she's only trying to shut down the stories that might cause children problems and her some big legal ramifications if something should happen to a child for reading this stuff (god knows what, but you know how sue happy some people are) and it's found that she has never attempted to stop this kind of fiction.

In that context, I can understand her point perfectly and would no doubt do the same if I were in her shoes (don't I wish).

Jayne

 

[Svenskaflicka]

I understand what you're saying, jfinn. I don't agree, but I understand.

Now, say that I write a HP-slash story, with the characters in their mid 20'ies, post it her at Lit. or at some similar sex story-site. Perhaps a HP-related sex site like Restrictedsection.org.
And then this kid do a search on Harry Potter, and stumble on my story.

Who is to blame for the kid reading this story, which he/she is too young to read?

Me, for writing and posting the story on the internet?
The kid, for not hitting the back-button as he/she come to a site where he/she sees pics of naked people, and a story titled something like "Harry Potters Sexual Adventures"?
Or the kid's parents, for not installing a family filter, that blocks out all sites containing sex, on their home computer?

I'll be my brother's keeper, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna be his kid's babysitter as well!

 

[Just-Legal]

Most of the sites receving C&D orders have taken steps to prevent children reading the fics; Adult meta tags, passwording ect, and no further action has been taken.

*goes back to Snape-shipping*

 

[Svenskaflicka]

My terribly indecent Snape-fic (The Squibs - have you read it yet, J-Le?) is located at my personal webpage. It's not public access, unless you know the secret address, so the chances of anyone accidently finding it should be as slim as I'd like my waistline to be.

On that same webpage, I'm putting up a page with pics of PSP-dolls (like my AV). Some of these contain mild nudity - naked breasts, bodies covered in sheer veils, that sort of thing - nothing too obscene, but perhaps not what you want your 7-year-old to look at. I have linked that page so, that when you click on the link to get it, you come to a page advising you to leave if you're too young or if you're very much against nudity. If you're old enough, and you think nudity is A-OK, you may click on the link below.

That's all I can do. Atleast until I learn how to put up a password thingie.

(Well, it worked for restrictedsection! *mutter, grumble* )

 

[Just-Legal]

Yup yup, read the first time for pleasure and overall "feel" of the peice.

Now I'm gonna nitpick *grin*

Oh, and SK, you can if you google you know

 

[Svenskaflicka]

You can find my squib-story by Google? WHAT did you type in, then???