Everyone, at some point, has finished reading a story or watching a movie and wondered what happens to those characters next. Or what happened in the scenes we didn't get to see. Or what happened before the story started. Or what would happen if the characters had done something completely different, possibly involving leather restraints.
Welcome to the world of fan fiction.
It's a lot larger than you might think. There are literally thousands of stories available online using people and settings from every fictional universe imaginable, especially ones with multi-layered characters and rich backgrounds that just beg for more tales to be told. Harry Potter is a huge target for re-imagining, of course, and Xena and Buffy and Star Trek, but even "Picket Fences" has its group of dedicated rewriters.
quote: After it was pointed out by writer Lee Goldberg and spread around by a growing network of bloggers it became very obvious that Ms. Jareo's intimate circle of friends, family, and acquaintances was about to include the entire LucasArts legal team.
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By the way, there's an excellent discussion about fanfic -- the moral, ethical, legal, and literary aspects -- going on at Making Light.
A quote from Mercedes Lackey from her several excellent posts there:
quote:That said, I am in favor of not-for-profit fanfic. I just have to protect myself by making it policy that I never, ever, ever read any fanfic based on my work. If it gets sent to me, it's returned unseen my me. But I got my start writing the stuff, and I managed to get a lot of lousy writing out of the way by doing so.
Though I am sure that there are some who would say that last statement is debatable. There are days when I would say so myself (grin).
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Funny stuff, Chris. I think my favorite bit is the description of her book as a 20 pound technical manual dipped in bad dialog.
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I have, by the way, read some of this book (in pdf form, she has none of my money).
[[[shudder]]]
Wow. While I certainly have my share of horribly written prose, I keep mine buried in my file cabinet or in several different points in the natural mulching process of the local city dump. I wouldn't show it around, and I certainly wouldn't publish it. I haven't decided yet whether that kind of self-confidence is blind or admirable. Maybe both...
When I've told other people about this here at work, the attitude has been very much like a classroom when someone no one likes gets called to the principal's office. "Oooooooooooooooh!" Anticipatory glee in someone else's misfortune. Like schadenfreude, but more predatory.
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quote: I haven't decided yet whether that kind of self-confidence is blind or admirable. Maybe both...
It kind of make me think about people taking the casting for American Idol (here it's "La nouvelle star" but it's really the same show) but who sing like a sick frog. I always wondered if they actually think they have a chance or if they want their two minutes of celebrity.
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Hilarious! Thanks once again, Chris, for brightening my Wednesday morning.
Just out of curiosity, did you find out about that novel here and then decide to write a column about it? Because if you're using Hatrack as a source, maybe we should all be looking for funny things for you to write about. Not that you seem to have any problem finding them on your own...
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Are you kidding? It's not good enough to be the Dark Side. He's gone over to the mediocre tedium side.
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Taking the names and situations of an existing story and using them to writing new stories. That isn't fanfic? Why not?
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quote: But even if the lawyer ships come screaming out of Skywalker ranch and fly up her thermal exhaust port, you can still write your stories. You could even write about a clueless fanfic writer who came up behind Darth Vader and gave him a wedgie, and what happened next.
quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: Taking the names and situations of an existing story and using them to writing new stories. That isn't fanfic? Why not?
Shakespeare did his plays to make a living, and to answer his artistic muse.
Was he a "fan" of every story he chose? Or was he picking what he thought the audience, from the groundlings to the upper clases wanted to see?
He was drawing on things they'd be familiar with, not necessarily stuff he was a fan of. Obviously he found inspiration to work with them, but was the inspiration that he loved the source material? Or that he loved what he added to it? I find that an important distinction.
When Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created the Marvel Comics version of Thor, they didn't do it because they were fans of Nordic myth, but because most earlier super-hero comics characters that invoked myths went to Greco-Roman or (more rarely) Egyptian sources. They wanted something that, for super-hero readers of the 60s, would be fairly fresh and new.
*shrug*
One can draw on all sorts of stories for ideas without the result being "fan fiction". Your column gives examples that are alternate takes on existing stories and/or untold tales of characters featured in said stories. Not ideas used as springboards for something different.
Please note: I have nothing against fan fiction. I've written a ton of it in years past. I just don't think every use of a pre-existing fictional idea counts as it.
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So the work isn't in question, only the motivation. Then what would be the term for what Shakespeare and Lee and Kirby did? I'm guessing fanfic would fall under it.
Certainly every creator is inspired by previous work. But where I drew the line is between "what if I wrote about a God like Thor," and "what if Thor was cursed to be human?" The first is inspiration. The second, to me, is fanfic. Doesn't mean the person questioning has to be a huge fan of Norse mythology, only that the person knew and appreciated enough of it to want to twist those elements into a different story.
Obviously your mileage may vary. I'm just stating my take on it.
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quote:Originally posted by Chris Bridges: Taking the names and situations of an existing story and using them to writing new stories. That isn't fanfic? Why not?
Shakespeare did his plays to make a living, and to answer his artistic muse.
Was he a "fan" of every story he chose? Or was he picking what he thought the audience, from the groundlings to the upper clases wanted to see?
This is wrong on many levels. For one, a classic folk story is not a proprietary work, it is not owned, it is inhereted, like the bible, like fairy tales, they are fair game for anyone. Second this is such a gross misrepresentation of what Shakespeare does that I wonder if you're actually a fan of his work.
Just because a vague folk story about two lovers from competing families inspires Romeo and Juliette, that does not cast Shakespeare in the roll of "editor." He was a playwrite, and when his stories where not originals, the most important part of the plays was: the dialogue. Shakespeare's stories are not really interesting stuff, they are a dime a dozen as far as witty plotting is concerned, and they have never been what made him great. The surviving value in what Shakespeare did was his ability to turn a phrase, and set a scene, and it didn't matter in those days what scene that was, it was all about hearing a play.
You take for granted that it is somehow important that Shakespeare was "adding" to existing stories. He wasn't, that isn't the way he worked. He wasn't a "fan" of any of these stories, they were ubiquitous folk tales, the ones that he didn't invent himself, and besides the stories in themselves are predictable and folksy. The Shakesperean audience didn't in fact, go to the globe to see a play staged at all. Since the players rehearsed little more than a few hours total for any given play, the visual aspect was less than dazzling. Instead audiences "heard" a play, and enjoyed the recitation more than anything. This paints a completely different picture IMO, because it wasn't about "re-enacting" or reinventing an old idea, but about finding a vehicle of ingenious dialogue which is very much original.
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quote: . Shakespeare's stories are not really interesting stuff, they are a dime a dozen as far as witty plotting is concerned, and they have never been what made him great. The surviving value in what Shakespeare did was his ability to turn a phrase, and set a scene, and it didn't matter in those days what scene that was, it was all about hearing a play
I have to disagree with you there. Sure, Shakespeare's ability to turn a phrase and set a scene well may have been what set him above the rest in terms of initial success among his audiences, but that doesn't account for the I]enduring[/I] nature of his success over the years. That, IMHO, owes a great deal to the way he structured his plot to keep it moving along. His stories have been translated over and over into new languages and mediums, most of which have thrown away his "witty dialogue" yet have still been great successes.
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My favorite fanfic is WaTchers, a virtual spin-off of Buffy. It's the best done in so many ways. They're in the third season now. Every ep gets posted Tuesday nights at 8pm, and consists of a teaser and four acts (except for some finales that have been a bit longer).
The characters really ring true, too. It feels like an actual continuation of the story told in the seven seasons of BtVS.
Buffy fans should check it out. Past eps are posted, so you can read them starting from the beginning. I'd actually been doing an "epguides.com" rip-off for them at first, but haven't updated it for some time.
Buffyverse fans should check it out.
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I was a fan of classical mythology. I even have a fanfic somewhere. I styled myself the goddess of laughing so hard that eventually everyone else stops laughing, looks at you, and inches away.
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quote:So far Ms. Lareo has been asked to pull her book, she has, and it may end there. But even if the lawyer ships come screaming out of Skywalker ranch and fly up her thermal exhaust port, . . .
Oh dear . . . how to explain the enormous wet spot on the pants . . .
quote: . Shakespeare's stories are not really interesting stuff, they are a dime a dozen as far as witty plotting is concerned, and they have never been what made him great. The surviving value in what Shakespeare did was his ability to turn a phrase, and set a scene, and it didn't matter in those days what scene that was, it was all about hearing a play
I have to disagree with you there. Sure, Shakespeare's ability to turn a phrase and set a scene well may have been what set him above the rest in terms of initial success among his audiences, but that doesn't account for the I]enduring[/I] nature of his success over the years. That, IMHO, owes a great deal to the way he structured his plot to keep it moving along. His stories have been translated over and over into new languages and mediums, most of which have thrown away his "witty dialogue" yet have still been great successes.
They don't throw away his witty dialogue, that's a silly thing to say, and if you really mean that I am suprised you would believe it. They TRANSALATE it, they don't reinterpret the meanings and write a new play, this is why his work survives translation, his ideas are more than his exact wording. If you want to get into that, then yes I agree with you, but it isn't the OVERALL plotting that is important, its the character interactions, the morals or irony or whatever you want, that works in any language. The stories could be exactly the same, rendered by another author, and be completely uninteresting. OSC has shown us this in his own "translation" of R&J. Take away shakespeare's voice, and you've got nothing.
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Shakespeare's plays were not based on generic legends or ancient tales, but on well-known stories. From Wikipedia:
Rome and Juliet was "a dramatisation of Arthur Brooke's narrative poem The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet (1562). Shakespeare followed Brooke's poem fairly closely but enriched its texture by adding extra detail to both major and minor characters, in particular the Nurse and Mercutio.
"Brooke's poem was not original either, being a translation and adaptation of Giuletta e Romeo, by Matteo Bandello, included in his Novelle of 1554. This was in turn an adaptation of Luigi da Porto's Giulietta e Romeo, included in his Istoria novellamente ritrovata di due Nobili Amanti (c. 1530). This was the version that gave the story much of its modern form, including the names of the lovers, naming the rival families to the Montecchi and the Cappelletti, and shifting the action to Verona.
"The earliest known version of the tale is the 1476 story of Mariotto and Gianozza of Siena by Masuccio Salernitano, in Il Novelino' (Novella XXXIII).
"Bandello's story was the most famous one, being translated into French (and English, by Brooke). It was also adapted by Italian theatrical troupes, some of whom performed in London at the time that Shakespeare was writing his plays. This may have been an alternate or additional inspiration to Shakespeare in his version of Romeo and Juliet."
I am not even going to respond to this. Wikipedia, Chris? Really?
This from one who has studied Shakespeare in London, in classes with a published and well known biographer. Your wrong.
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Actually that would be "Wikipedia's wrong," which is always possible. And I, not having a well-known biographer handy, could be wrong as well. But then so is every other source I could find -- Folger Shakespeare Library, Shakespeare Online,, about a dozen others before I stopped clicking -- which all state that Shakespeare's primary source for Romeo and Juliet was a poem by Arthur Brooke called The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Iuliet, written in 1562 and republished seven years before the first performance of Romeo and Juliet. He also could have known the popular tale of Romeo and Juliet from a collection by William Painter, entitled The Palace of Pleasure, which was written sometime before 1580.
My point is not to get into arguments over Shakespeare's sources or styles, and it's certainly not to suggest that because he used someone else's universe Shakespeare was an inferior writer. I'm responding to your statement "Just because a vague folk story about two lovers from competing families inspires Romeo and Juliette..."
Whatever it was, Romeo and Juliet was not a "vague folk story." Brooks' poem is about Romeus, a Montague, falling in love with Juliet, a Capulet, in Verone, with the same plot, which was itself based on other sources. This was not a retelling of Snow White.
Now, it can be argued that this was an adaptation, like making a movie from a book, since Shakespeare's play has new (and wonderful) dialogue and adds emphasis to different characters, but then I have to wonder how that's different from fan fiction. As Teresa Hayden Neilsen pointed out, fan fiction is "a modern definition. In a purely literary sense, fanfic doesn’t exist. There is only fiction. Fanfic is a legal category created by the modern system of trademarks and copyrights. Putting that label on a work of fiction says nothing about its quality, its creativity, or the intent of the writer who created it."
[ April 28, 2006, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: Chris Bridges ]
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