Why Is Fan Fiction King?

[Bramblethorn]

Over on Amazon, I write shrink fiction. I assure you my ideas are original. Now if you are going to claim that there are only so many plots in existence. I think that is an established fact. In the cases where I have written fanfiction here at L.com; I've used characters in the public domain. I don't ride on anyone else's coattails or use their characters in my own work. I'm not stealing from Stephanie Meyer or J.K Rolling or "reimaging" their work through my own lens. If you think that "Harry Potter" was simply another of "Every conceivable idea has already been written down by someone. What makes a story original is not whether or not an idea has been done before but the order in which they are arranged and what ideas they are combined with" you are clearly delusional. Rolling did not invent witchcraft or British boarding schools BUT she did NOT base Harry Potter on a previous work by someone else. Stephanie Meyer did not invent either vampires or werewolves, nor did she base her versions on the writings of someone else. We can debate the merits of her writing all day but her creation was original and HERS. She did not steal the plot. She did not steal the characters, she did not rewrite someone else's work!
Those two examples certainly qualify as "Wholly original works" and NEITHER is "incomprehensible."

Yes, yes, Harry Potter is 100% original if we define "original" in a way that excludes all the things she borrowed from previous fiction and myth, and the places and people she borrowed from real life. I'm just not convinced that this is a very useful or commonly accepted definition of "original".

I'm sorry if you lack imagination and read others, not for inspiration but to rob them blind.

I'm sorry if you feel the need to trash other posters here, and an entire genre that you evidently know very little about, merely because you found a couple of bad stories that sold well.

There are quite a few professional authors out there who publish original storylines, characters, etc. etc. and also write fanfic, because they find it a good way to exercise the creative muscles. Hard to see how that can be explained away as "lack of imagination".

 

[Bramblethorn]

This is the weird thing about the Twilight - Fifty Shades of Grey relationship - to even get published, you need to remove practically all traces of the original work. So, while FSOG started as fanfiction - by the time it gets published its something completely different. I suppose if you go into it knowing that they are supposed to be Belle and Edward, you might intepret the book in a different way, but for most people, it's just an interesting footnote.

I suspect if one loosened the authors' tongues, we'd find quite a few other successful books with a similar "start as fanfic, then file off the name and serial numbers" kind of history.

 

[Bramblethorn]

When it comes down to it all work is derivative and fanfiction is late stage capitalism's last living remnant of the oral tradition. With nothing going into public domain in decades thanks to America’s backwards copyright law, I think it’s fair to use fanfiction as a medium to deconstruct and challenge established narratives.

FWIW, that situation has changed somewhat lately. The last extension to copyright duration was in 1998, and in 2019 works started entering the US public domain once more. One could certainly argue that the 95-year term is too long (I'd agree) but we seem to be past the era where the term got extended by another twenty years every two decades. Even Steamboat Willie is going to hit public domain in 2024 unless something unforeseen happens.

The big rights owners (RIAA, Disney, etc.) don't seem to be angling for further extensions. Part of that may be that they don't think they could get away with yet another extension, but also, extensions are a double-edged sword for them. A lot of Disney's movies are adaptations of old stories that have fallen into the public domain, and if there's nothing new entering the public domain, that may require them to pay royalties.

Plus, as TheRedChamber alluded, there are other ways to hang on to a property by continuing to develop it - people might be able to copy the old version but not the new one.

 

[TheRedChamber]

I suspect if one loosened the authors' tongues, we'd find quite a few other successful books with a similar "start as fanfic, then file off the name and serial numbers" kind of history.

Sure, it's just it seems like the Twilight community is much more brazen about, for some reason. Most other authors would be more like, "Yeah sure, I have lazer swords and campy androids and a villian with a big black mask, but Star Wars didn't invent those things, we're just drawing on similiar tradions." whereas the Twilight stuff seems fine with just going, "Roll up, get more Twilight here."

 

[Kumquatqueen]

. A lot of Disney's movies are adaptations of old stories that have fallen into the public domain, and if there's nothing new entering the public domain, that may require them to pay royalties.

- people might be able to copy the old version but not the new one.

Hence Disney producing all those live-action movie versions of their classics.

Though having seen what works are now public domain and on Project Gutenberg, I'm now somewhat in fear of Disney butchering Jeeves & Wooster, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie or stories of John W. Campbell. Winnie-the-Pooh is also now public domain, but Disney already made a travesty of that.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Hence Disney producing all those live-action movie versions of their classics.

Though having seen what works are now public domain and on Project Gutenberg, I'm now somewhat in fear of Disney butchering Jeeves & Wooster, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie or stories of John W. Campbell. Winnie-the-Pooh is also now public domain, but Disney already made a travesty of that.

Jane Marple: Disney Princess

 

[Wifetheif]

Yes, yes, Harry Potter is 100% original if we define "original" in a way that excludes all the things she borrowed from previous fiction and myth, and the places and people she borrowed from real life. I'm just not convinced that this is a very useful or commonly accepted definition of "original".



I'm sorry if you feel the need to trash other posters here, and an entire genre that you evidently know very little about, merely because you found a couple of bad stories that sold well.

There are quite a few professional authors out there who publish original storylines, characters, etc. etc. and also write fanfic, because they find it a good way to exercise the creative muscles. Hard to see how that can be explained away as "lack of imagination".

I've written a few fanfictions myself. Specifically, I've written Ki-Gor and Sheena fanfiction. BOTH characters are in the public domain and therefore free to plunder. I understand the appeal of things like Harry Potter or Star Trek fanfiction but those are universes I would never choose to work in even though I'm a huge Star Trek fan. The POINT of my post was not necessarily to demean fanfiction but to puzzle out why it is so popular that it appears it is easier to get a mainstream publishing deal with mediocre at best fanfiction while original works go begging for publishers and readers. It clearly is NOT the writing quality as the iterations I mentioned originally were all subsequently worse than the original. Isn't the idea to build a BETTER mousetrap than one less effective than the original? WHY are publishers investing in carbon copies of carbon copies when original works can be had just as easily?

 

[Bramblethorn]

I've written a few fanfictions myself. Specifically, I've written Ki-Gor and Sheena fanfiction. BOTH characters are in the public domain and therefore free to plunder. I understand the appeal of things like Harry Potter or Star Trek fanfiction but those are universes I would never choose to work in even though I'm a huge Star Trek fan. The POINT of my post was not necessarily to demean fanfiction but to puzzle out why it is so popular that it appears it is easier to get a mainstream publishing deal with mediocre at best fanfiction while original works go begging for publishers and readers. It clearly is NOT the writing quality as the iterations I mentioned originally were all subsequently worse than the original. Isn't the idea to build a BETTER mousetrap than one less effective than the original? WHY are publishers investing in carbon copies of carbon copies when original works can be had just as easily?

I understand your frustration there, but your earlier posts definitely did come across as slamming fanfic in general, and that's not the appropriate response.

To answer your question: Life isn't fair and quality isn't the only thing that feeds into success. Originality, in particular, is great from an artistic perspective but not necessarily for selling books.

If I'm a publisher and I see my rivals are selling a bazillion copies of Twilight, I'm probably going to be keen to find something similar so I can get into that market. I want to be there on the "Readers who bought Twilight also enjoyed ..." Amazon suggestions. Doesn't have to be fanfic, but when Twilight is doing well, "this book is a lot like Twilight" is a good marketing point.

"This book isn't like anything you've ever read before" is a great achievement as an author, but how do you market that? Where do you advertise it? Who do you ask for a cover blurb? Which categories does it go into on Amazon (or even Literotica) to find the readers who'll appreciate it?

Those questions are answerable, but they take a lot more work and thought than selling "the next Twilight".

(Also, you're only seeing the successes. For every Meyer/Rowling/James/Martin, there are tens of thousands of authors writing all kinds of stuff who never get a deal. Writing fanfic or generic tropey stuff might make marketing easier but it's certainly not a free ride to success.)

 

[Maxiine]

Is Tom Stoppard's 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead ' fan fiction? It certainly is not "lazy." It is everything that I aspire my fan fiction to be.

 

[lovecraft68]

When there's any bestseller, there's always thinly-disguised derivative fiction riding on its coattails, as publishers try to quickly cash in on a trend.

So yes, there's a dozen imitators of 50 Shades out there - many of which like Black Lace novels were out there previously. Sexy vampires were always out there from Dracula onwards but in the wake of Buffy and Twilight became a huge genre, spinning off into sexy werewolves and all sorts.

Derivative genre fiction sells. Hence loads of detective novels with yet another hardboiled cop and sassy sidekick, quest novels where halflings (Hobbits being copyrighted) and humans seek the noun of the day, yet more abusive childhood novels ideally with some sexy incest, and loads of romance fiction where woman eventually gets a satisfying male against all odds of him being a stalker/abusive/undead/a poor third son.

At least with fanfic there's either good characterisation to draw on, or the fic is creating depth for a character who didn't have any in the original.

I think there's a difference between fan fic and imitation so to speak. Fan fic is directly tied to source material, same setting, characters and just putting them in stories the fan of the original would like to see. Wouldn't it be cool to see Buffy team up with Sam and Dean from Supernatural? (actually...that would be cool.) but copy catting something as in "Wow, that novel about the teen vamp blew up, okay, guys find me one of those"

Fifty Shades started as Twilight fanfic, but what it morphed into was nothing new. Tons of billionaire dominant porn out there before, and of course more after. I don't recall seeing the mainstream blow up with Shades rip offs, maybe because after its hour of fame reality set in and the content was bashed more and more, especially after the first movie. That and it was somehow published as a romance. So, whenever I hear someone talk about how 'hardcore' it was I remind them they were selling it at Stop and Shop.

I will always hold to the idea the average 'soccer mom' who read it and thought it was hot, would run screaming from the average BDSM story posted here. That or realize how vanilla Shades was compared to full blown erotica. My wife gave one of her friends a copy of my novel Driven by Demons and after reading it, she said parts of it had her blushing, parts made her nervous and other parts had her saying "oh my god" in both a good and bad way depending on the scene. In the end she agreed that in comparison Shades was tame, and there's people who write rougher than I do.