Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Something to consider

Thanks to a friend's post on facebook, I found an interesting article on fanfiction.

As you may have guessed, I am no stranger to fanfic. I'm more often a reader than a writer, but fanfic gets a really bad rap a lot of the time, and I think that this article treats it very fairly. It was interesting to see that some authors are so vehemently against fanfic. On some level I do understand their position. If I wrote a novel with original scenarios/characters, everything about it is my brainchild. It might seem like a complete invasion for people to take them in completely different directions. However flattering it might be to see that people love your characters so much that they want to use them in their own stories, I can see how it could also make authors uncomfortable.

So. What are your experiences with fanfic? Would you feel comfortable with people writing fanfic using characters from your original work?

4 comments:

  1. If I were a published author, I'd actively encourage fanfic (and possibly even talk about my favourite non-canon pairings) BUT I would never, ever read it and have a policy of ensuring my fans knew I didn't read it. Otherwise it all gets into issues of idea stealing and so forth :/

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  2. That seems like a good idea. I feel like the temptation to read it would be huge, but yeah, intellectual property is a huge deal and so many of those lines could get crossed so quickly.

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  3. I'm a a huge, HUGE fanfiction reader. And I'll be honest, I only read fanfiction based on one series because I wasn't satisfied with the author's work AT ALL. I feel like the concept was good, but it went downhill from the first chapter, I still read the whole series though.

    I'm a writer, although not a published one, and I would be ok with fanfiction since its a way to see how the fans see and perceive characters. Some fanfics are just... unbelievable, atrocious and should've never been thought of but others have honestly brought me to tears, full with raw emotion, intricate plots, drama and action. There are also people who discover a passion for writing through fanfiction.

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  4. I only tend to read fanfiction if I really like a series and want to continue with the characters. If the series didn't interest me that much, the fanfiction doesn't tend to hold my interest either.

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