McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Fanfiction - Good or Evil?

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Valkyrina:
I began writing after spending afternoons at college reading Buffy the Vampire Slayer fanfiction.

I'd read so much of it, that my imagination reached critical mass and I had to write things down or my brain would explode.

 :o

A few years later I'm finally beginning to write my own stuff (sort of) based on vague concepts rather than pre-constructed worlds.

Fanfiction is the McDonalds of writing: it's already to go, there isn't much you can do with it except eat it.

You can maybe add a little of your originality by using your fries to eat your McFlurry (I know someone who does that) but for the most part it's just all done for you.

Writing at author level is killing your own cow, harvesting your own wheat, milling your own flour and baking you own bread, growing your own vegetables, making you own sauce and creating your own packaging (Though you can get an artist in to do that for you if you want to).

Once you're at the gym and eating healthily after realising how bad McFanfiction is for you, you don't tell people how you were raised on it.

I was a smart McFanfictioner as a kid - I wrote stuff for the fun of it - then never showed a soul.

Velkyn_Faer:

--- Quote from: Chaos985 on January 25, 2007, 06:16:01 AM ---

--- Quote from: Velkyn_Faer on January 25, 2007, 12:29:21 AM ---I have tried some fanfiction, and I find it very constricting, due to the fact you must follow someone else's laws and rules, as it is their world.

--- End quote ---

the greatest problem comes down to some people believeing that if its too hard to work within the rules, ignore the rules.

--- End quote ---

Then what's the point of writing in their world? If... I mean... when I get my story published, (gotta stay positive) I do not want to see someone doing a fanfiction of my world and not following my rules. That just is not right. The world I write in is my world. When I create it, I become the god of it. (I do not mean that in a dictator-like way, or as anything against anyone's God/gods. I'm merely making a point.) If I say that dwarves are confined to their tunnels for all eternity, I don't want to see someone saying "well, meh dwarve is special!1!eleven. hE can do nething." Uh-uh. As Trboturtle said, that is the gravest sin a fanfiction writer can commit.

When someone write fanfiction and follows the rules, delivers something unique, and does not mess with anything the author has stated in his/her books, then it has potential to be something good and fun to read.

Also, I believe it is more fun to make your own world and to mold it to your/the story's needs than to work in someone else's world.

Velkyn

(as I re-read this, I realize I sound rather pompus, and I would like to agree with Darrington on the point that it would be incredibly flattering for anyone to do a fanfic on my stories. However, it would be even better to see it written as the world allows, with no random stuff thrown in for the sake of 'being cool'.) 

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
There are places where the lines blur interestingly, though.  When does a story stop being someone's fiction and start being common property ?  I don't think anyone would claim that all Arthur stuff is Thomas Mallory fanfic frex.  But are Sherlock Holmes stories written these days fanfic or not ? [ OK, that in particular is a bad example, because the Conan Doyle estate have done very non-standard things to prevent Holmes becoming public domain in a situation where any other fiction in Britain of that age would ] Are stories about the Three Musketeers ?  Are stories about the Phantom of the Opera ? [ The originals, in each case, rather than fanfic of specific later interpretations of them. ]

My personal take is that it should be acceptable when the author is a) dead or has b) given specific permission, as Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett have to some people wrt Good Omens, or for a shared creative universe - like most TV series, though Babylon 5 would stirke me as edgy -and not otherwise.  And I would get really angry indeed were anyone to fanfic anything I wrote.

Nyeshet:
There is a lot of terrible fan fiction out there, but there are also a large number of real gems - at least in my experience. Granted, most of my experience with fanfiction has been with anime (mostly Ranma) and Harry Potter fanfiction. Perhaps one out of 30-40 stories was worth reading, but you can usually tell after a page or two whether or not it is worth continuing reading. Also, it helps to frequent websites that require one or more betas (from the site's pool of such) before any chapter is posted. The overall quality - in writing and sometimes even in plot - is usually better at such sites. Finding such sites, however, is not always easy, as they are often highly focused in the types of stories they accept (certain pairings, certain styles, etc).

So, I suppose I have mixed views on fanfiction. Some, I really wish I had not read even a single page, while others I consider myself lucky indeed to have stumbled upon. The author's skill and whether betas are used can really make a difference, I think.

While I myself am not an author, I can see how fanfiction could be used as a means of practicing one's writing, finding one's style, etc. In fact, one of the best fanfic authors I have ever read is also an aspiring author, so I suppose writing fanfiction has likely aided him, at least, in finding and improving his style of writing.

maieo:
I like reading fanfiction when there's nothing else for me to read, or when I'm stuck on the computer with nothing else to do. Although some of it is incredibly disturbing and the plot isn't much more than a basis for ship (or worse), some of it is well thought out. I usually write my own stories in my own fashion, and reading someone else's work (if it is well done) gives me some inspiration.

Mary Sues in general are rather tiring and are rarely interesting, made to carry out disturbing fantasies. One of my favorite sites, Smartania, has something they call "Suckfic Massacre" where they rip apart awful fanfiction painfully into little pieces line by line. Quite a few of the stories are Mary Sues which makes them hilarious.

I was also a beta for a fanfiction writer at one point. It was rather painful at one point when she stopped listening to my comments.

So, I like well-written fanfictions, but the rest can just go away. Real life fanfictions, too. I just don't get those.

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