Fanfic and Original Writing

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Title: Fanfic and Original Writing
Creator: Magpie/sistermagpie
Date(s): March 11, 2004
Medium: Livejournal
Fandom:
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External Links: Fanfic and Original Writing; archived, with expanded comments
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Fanfic and Original Writing is a 2004 essay by Magpie/sistermagpie

Some Topics Discussed in the Essay and Comments

From the Essay

...something can not be both original and slash, because slash depends on subverting an original text. Thus if the text has two gay characters, fanfic is not slash. And slash must be a subset of fanfic. I agreed...though I suspect if I read an original story about two men that seemed to be written for and by women, so that the characters had that feminine quality slash is known for, I might be tempted to say, "This is slash," even if it was original.

I know once in a while on my friendsfriends list I've heard people talking about using their slash for original writing. For instance, someone will be going to a writing class and they'll bring a segment of their WIP, only change the names. Or they'll be writing an original piece that's based on their fanfic. This kind of surprises me because I feel like it shouldn't work somehow, that people should be able to tell. I mean, how far could you go before somebody said, "Wait a minute, this is Harry Potter." (Presumably at a class one would be reading a small segment and could perhaps pick one that would work better than others.) But all fanfic, no matter how AU it is, depends on a shared universe. I don't know how much any of it holds up when you take that away. Which is not to say that fanfic sucks by any means, just the story of course rests on knowing who these characters are in their own context. You assume you're writing for people who know all that. Even someone who has never read the canon, I think, knows that they're reading about a canon that's out there. You're using someone else's world, not creating a world around your own characters. It makes me wonder what it would sound like, listening to a fanfic with the names changed. Would it seem good because of the hints of this fabulously complex original world that it existed in that the author had such a clear grasp of, or would the world just be confusing to someone because the author isn't using the world the same way one would in original fic? Then I also think about a certain kind of common fanfic that's written, as a character study, but not. Like the character will be focused on and their thought processes gone through, but it's not very dynamic because canon is usually assumed to provide that. It's just...well, it is exactly what it is. It's focusing on characters we already want to know everything about.

But then that made me think about how stealing from other peoples' worlds is absolutely a big part of original writing. Holly Lisle is an author whose books I've never read but she has a site with a lot of essays about writing and she did one on stealing ethically that I remember liking, because all authors get their ideas from somewhere, whether it's life or other stories--very often it's other stories because we all read a lot. But how do you steal without plagiarizing? You read a book that you love so much you wish you'd written it. So you will write it. But first you have to seriously think about exactly what in the book grabbed you so much. You have to get it down to the element in the book that's completely universal. Like, Harry Potter is a boy wizard, but there are plenty of other boy wizards in children's lit: Will in The Dark is Rising (who finds out he's a wizard on his eleventh birthday), Christopher and Eric Chant in The Chrestomanci Chronicles (who go to wizard school), Ged in A Wizard of Earthsea, Tim Hunter in Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman (a boy wizard with black hair and glasses). If you're not prepared to build everything up from something so basic it appears in many stories, then you are not ready to write a story.

So, JKR isn't ripping off these other wizards with her own, because the idea of a boy wizard learning to use his magic is too basic. What she did was create *this* boy wizard, and his world, and how the magic works.

[...]

So what am I asking, because I'd love to hear people's views. Hmmm. I guess I'm asking what you all feel like is a difference between the two things? How much of fanfic writing is like original writing? Because I think they're incredibly different, though of course they both can produce good writing. My own experience is in pro-fic, which is like fanfic in that you're writing someone else's character in someone else's world, but perhaps different from fanfic in that you're writing for the creators of the world to be considered part of the canon on some level, and there is the understanding that you're writing for someone who has possibly never read the series. Fanfic writers will rarely write a fanfic that says, "Frodo's gardener, Samwise Gamgee, came in from outside." Because we all know that's who Sam is.

Creating an original world is...just so damn hard. But also I think a difference is that you, the author, inform everything in your own personal universe. The universe essentially exists for your characters to live in, so the characters and the universe have an almost symbiotic relationship. Part of that is style...that's the reason every fanfic author who deals with the wider world of, say, Hogwarts, produces a different Hogwarts. But it's also how the characters interact, what's important to them. The whole world is unified. That's part of what's so hard about it, of course. You have to stretch yourself to find enough to create a complex world--otherwise you might just make everybody the same. Fanfic offers a great opportunity to explore some aspects of world and characterbuilding without the rest. Some writers do more worldbuilding within their known world than others, of course, and they probably get known for that. I'd say that's definitely true in some Tolkien work. Willow's Shire is very detailed, with parts explored we don't see in Tolkien, for instance.

From the Topics

[cathexys]
...I'll jump in on the gayfic/slash issue. First a link and then my thoughts: I changed my mind on that recently, b/c there are certain things associated with slash writing that are not restricted to fanfic. I also think there is gay fanfic that is not slash (the pop section on nifty, for example). So, to me slash contains a certain set of characteristics and they can be fulfilled with either OC's or borrowed characters.
[sistermagpie]

I think I'm going the same way with feeling like even though slash certainly started out tied to fanfic, there are other things that mark it beyond that. Especially getting into issues like a gay identity -- I notice, for instance, that one person in that discussion was kind of saddened at the idea that someone didn't want people to make the connection between slash characters and "real" gay people, but to me they're just completely different things. A slash character that was like a real gay person would be a perfectly valid slash character, but it's not the main point of slash.

In fact, I wonder if one of the problems is that slash is about gender rather than sexuality? Because a gay person is whatever gender they are -- being gay doesn't make you less of a man or a woman. So their sexuality is the thing they're exploring, whereas slash seems very often to be about women exploring the boundaries of gender and what that means. Not in a general sense, but in looking at characters and separating them from their traditional gender roles as well as everything else.

[cesperanza]

In fact, I wonder if one of the problems is that slash is about gender rather than sexuality?

Oooh, that's very smart. That explains a ton of things, not least of which how it is that gay, straight, and bi women co-exist so happily in fandom.

[isiscolo]
I think most fic writers depend on the shared assumed background to a degree that keeps their fics from standing alone. ... But I don't think that the shorthand of assumptions that fanfic writers use is necessarily a bad thing. I suppose that I feel that a fic that one could change the names in and pass off as original work is almost de facto bad fanfiction; if I'm reading about Snape and Harry I want them to reek of Snape and Harry -- I want the characterization to permeate them and everything they do.
[tiferet]

Hmmm. My original fiction is based on a fanfic I wrote more than 10 years ago.

But that fic had a lot of original characters -- it was set in a part of the universe that wasn't much explored. And it really wasn't very hard to file off the serial numbers because I'd done so much worldbuilding of my own.

I could probably do the same thing with my Potter fics, honestly, because they are about the Death Eaters. The idea of a magickal order that goes bad in a big way because its leader is driven insane by his own flaws: Not New. And not only is Juliana Malfoy all my own character, the only thing that JKR gave to Evan Rosier, Dylan Mulciber, Narcissa Bathory (not Black; that book wasn't out yet then, and the personalities are very different) et al. were their names.

Severus would be harder to pull out but given the fact that I made up most of his history, it wouldn't be any harder than turning James T. Kirk into Justin was...

The problem would be the second generation stories. My version of Harry and my version of Hermione and my version of Draco are quite canonical even though at the same time they are very much mine. Severine, Nicolas, Blaise, they'd be easy. But not those three. (I didn't mention Ron because I have a lot of trouble writing him. Any appearance of Ron in my stuff owes a great deal to one of my betas, who CAN write him decently...I sort of say what I want Ron to do, and bird helps me make it sound like Ron. The only time Ron's ever come in clear for me was the story where Ginny ran away with Tom.)

[...]

I think it's much, much easier to turn fanfic into original fic when the canonical creator veers off in a direction you didn't predict and don't especially care for. At that point many of your own conjectures about the universe become worldbuilding, become the original touches that make the world yours, and the further and further the author goes from what you posited, the more AU you become, and the harder it is for people who are now used to current canon to tell that you are converting a fanfic, once the identifying names have been changed.

[sistermagpie]

Yes, I feel like what you're describing is definitely getting closer to the "stealing with integrity" idea. Your Death Eater example is just what I'm thinking of -- a magickal order gone bad because its leader is driven insane by his own flaws is a completely original story idea in itself. I think one could easily use that as a basis and have no one ever think about HP when they were reading the story.

In a way this is sort of the challenge to any fanfic author who claims to have gotten so frustrated by a canon that they could "write it better." Because as long as you're still writing fanfic you are using canon and are dependent on the original author. Once you decide to make the break and tell your story, you're starting from scratch, even if the idea was originally suggested by characters somewhere else.
[trdsf]
... Which raises the whole area of who you are likely to have chatting away in the back of your head, then tapping their feet impatiently while you type until your fingertips are bruised. You are vastly more likely to have Dracos in your head, because you understand the way he thinks. I am more likely to have Ron, because I understand the way he thinks. Look at some of the original characters we've created: your Juliana and Séverine, my Marc and Eden (who I really need to do more with, and I promise I'm working on it).

We create very different characters ... who almost always get along. Even without trying to, our characters often fill in a 'missing' part in each other's, and those missing parts are usually congruent to the parts you and I have tended to fill in for each other.

Anyway, relative to sistermagpie's query above ... it all depends on what you're trying to do in someone else's universe. Some are big enough that they invite extensive fanfickery (ooo, I think I like that word!). Some are so small that they invite it because the original seems unnecessarily limited. Some have inbuilt plotbunnies so vicious as to put the Killer Rabbit of Monty Python and the Holy Grail to flight. And sometimes the fan writer just wants to see if they can manage the style of the original--I've done that myself with Asimov's "Foundation" (the ultimate result I judged to be "almost, but not quite" ... but it was a lot of fun to try).

I'm not sure that I agree that worldbuilding is hard, because I've had whole worlds drop into my head, languages and all--although that might be peculiar to the way I write, which is very much in the moment, almost taking dictation from somewhere else on which my brain has a window. They've changed a little since first "revealing" themselves, but are still essentially the same. I do find writing in my own worlds a lot more satisfying.

But when you have a pre-existing world that has a lot of wide-open spaces to play in (say... the Potterverse), writing AU fanfic becomes a lot like writing original fic because you are adding all the details that can only be guessed at. So while we know that Quodpot exists and some rudiments about it, I ended up making up more rules and some details about style of play in my head and writing a story about a game of it. This is stuff that we can be reasonably sure will not be covered in Books 6 or 7 ... to that extent, I have done original work, and without putting a dent in canon, but really, I can't say it's mine.

And that is the difference, I think: no matter how much creativity you put into fanfic, you can never really look at it and say "It's all mine." I do what I think is some pretty good work in other people's worlds ... I wish I had as easy a time writing in my own.

[sistermagpie]

I do find writing in my own worlds a lot more satisfying.

I guess ultimately that's always going to be the case because, as you said, you can look at them and say they are all yours. Fanfic, I think, just fills a slightly different need for a writer. It almost combines reading and writing. Both types of writing are valuable, they're just different things.

[trdsf]
I love Draco but I suspect if I were writing a character like him he would still probably be slightly different because he would reflect where I was coming from.

I have a lot of problems with the way JKR writes Draco. I don't think she's fully fleshed him out, I think he's very two-dimensional, very un-subtle, and I prefer ataniell93's version to Rowling's. Were I to create him, he would be unquestionably and competently evil, not just a smirk wrapped in blond hair and a robe. I'm not sure that I would leave room for potential redemption...but on the other hand, just because you're on the side of angels doesn't mean your wings have feathers.

[sistermagpie]
Were I to create him, he would be unquestionably and competently evil, not just a smirk wrapped in blond hair and a robe. I'm not sure that I would leave room for potential redemption

Heh. My problems with how JKR writes Draco are practically my whole basis in HP fandom! But what's interesting is that I'd probably go the opposite and make him more obviously redeemable or maybe just less seemingly in need of redemption. Something like that.

[...]

I don't think the shorthand [in fanfic] is necessarily a bad thing either -- it depends on what the author is trying to explore. I think people do read fanfic for the characters they know, and maybe some bad fic writers get away with things because the audience is so willing to work with them. If an author slips up the reader will be able to fill things in from their own imagination, using what they know from canon.

[...]

... of course different people read fanfic for different things, and write it for different reasons. While one person might be reading it to see someone make full use of the conventions and characters in canon, someone else might prefer AUs or wilder characterizations. That's partly why I find it so interesting that fanon conventions exist. Why does canon Ron have this evil, homophobic counterpart that people agree on in some sense, or else he wouldn't be so common? What exactly does fanon Draco have to do with the canon one? Because I don't think one could say fanon Draco is an original character no matter how different he is from the original one.

But I agree with both of you that although there's certainly things that cross over a bit between original fic and fanfic, and that some fanfic depends includes more elements not in canon than others, they are distinctly different forms. Once you make the break, you're starting over again, I think, even if you got your idea for your original story by thinking about fanfic.

[fiera_316]
How much of fanfic writing is like original writing? Because I think they're incredibly different, though of course they both can produce good writing.

Wow, I find it really hard to say. The thing is, when you're reading fanfiction, even if it is AU -- you read the name "Hermione" or "Draco" on the page/screen, and if you're a reader of HP (even if a one-time reader) your mind immediately pops back to the character you read on the page of the original book, even if on a subconscious level. You think of that person and you connect them instantly with the character you're reading about on the screen, and it's almost/maybe like reading about them in a different situation -- even if they are acting a bit differently (OOC), then in a way, you know what to expect, what to fall back on when it comes to...I dunno, characterization, I suppose? I've found this to happen sometimes when I'm browsing around the fandoms of other novels I've read. With novels, you read about the person on the screen and it's like reading about them in the pages of the book, whether they are IC or not. You read something on the page like "Lavender said so and so", and you've read these same words in the HP novels, so it's like you know the background already, or the basic history; this at least makes it different from TV/Movie fandoms, where the writing can't be fallen back on (because you've never really READ about Buffy slaying a vampire straight from the actual story/show itself -- unless it's the script). Even if you've never picked up an HP book in your life, you expect to open a fanfic and gather something about the characters' personalities, even something general. So maybe it comes down to characterization, and the way the characters interact with the world they are in.

However, this doesn't fit with AU fics, especially if the characters are EXTREMELY OOC, that you may as well be reading about entirely different characters...there is this one fic on FF.Net which is an HP AU, and the characterization is done wonderfully, as is the construction of the world the characters live in, but neither the characterization nor the world have very much in common with the HPverse. I suspect that if different names were put into place of the HP characters, the story could stand as fairly original, except there ALWAYS seems to be remnants from the world you are basing a fic on in a fanfic, even if it's very AU. There is always a bit of something in the characters which came from the original story (in this particular fic it was the characterization of Vernon Dursley).

[sistermagpie]
Wow, I find it really hard to say. The thing is, whe you're reading fanfiction, even if it is AU -- you read the name "Hermione" or "Draco" on the page/screen, and if you're a reader of HP (even if a one-time reader) your mind immediately pops back to the character you read on the page of the original book, even if on a subconscious level.

I tend to do this a lot for some reason with the hobbit characters in LOTR. I'm forever setting them into different situations in my head. I think I like the pattern of the four male friends, which is pretty common -- LOTR, South Park, Malcolm in the Middle (which I wrote some for, so I started noticing the four pattern). Then there's also the female version on something like Sex and the City. Anyway, I often find myself matching them up to different types -- if the hobbits were in this story which hobbit would correspond to which character? It's like playing at reincarnation with them. But no matter how AU it is I know I'm using the hobbits as the base. Even OOC things are, imo, based on canon. Hermione can be OOC by being a crybaby or sluttish, but I think people are still going to start with her basic characteristics as an archetype: she's the smart girl friends with the two boys. They might have different priorities when it comes to what her core characteristics are, but they're still starting with canon.

So I feel like even if it's AU and OOC it's still fanfic -- maybe the author is just better at hiding what it is about the character that they're using as the basis, though. I think it's just very hard to get away from the archetypal patterns set up in a lot of canons, particularly in a fantasy series like HP. Ron will usually still be the sidekick. Even if he's the villain, the point is that you've taken the sidekick and made him the villain. Even if he's the hero the point is you're taking the sidekick and making him the hero. It always seems to depend on the canon to me. It adds a dimension to it that it's not complete without, even if the story is enjoyable on its own, I feel like.

[spare_change]
Well, you've already heard my rant on original fic vs. fanfic. I think they are two different genres entirely, and they train very different writerly muscles. Fanfic is about extrapolation or exploring the interstices of another person's universe, and it's about improvising while staying true to the rules that someone else has established. But it doesn't teach you how to come up with engaging characters, or how to establish character in a story (which is *crucial*). And let's face it: Story is character. Right???

(Plus, the idea that someone is better prepared for writing original fic just 'cos they wrote very OOC fanfic does not work for me. At all!)

There is not a lot of crossover between my original fic and my fanfic. (Although currently I can't write either one of them: so there you go, that's the similarity.) Maybe it would be different if it were fantasy, but I write "literary fiction." (Ugh.) I think one of mine has a teenaged boy and one has a gay couple, but ... I work according to muses and so I basically just have to write down the stories and the characters as they're giving to me.

The one thing I think fanfic is good for is just random inspiration. The other day I was feeling blue 'cos I realized I always have plenty of ideas for fanfic, but none for original fic. So I thought, well, pick one little element of the HP universe that appeals to you, and figure out how you could work that into an original fic. And so I picked something, and within five minutes a whole story spiralled out from that. (Which I'll never finish, 'cos I never do ...) But the story itself -- the characters, the situation, the physical and emotional universe of the story -- has nothing to do with HP whatsoever. It was just the catalyst.

But uh ... *rambles* ... I think original fic and fanfic require different skills and different creative processes. Which is not to say that one can't be good at both, obviously, but that it takes a lot of work to move between them, I think.

[sistermagpie]

But it doesn't teach you how to come up with engaging characters, or how to establish character in a story (which is *crucial*). And let's face it: Story is character. Right???

I think that's how I see it, including the idea of writing OOC being preparation for original fic. Getting used to coming up with your own details for characters and situations we don't see much in canon is probably more helpful than just using the familiar things, but fanfic, for me, is always a comment on the text first and foremost. An OOC character, as I said above, is still based on the character in canon, I think. Like I read a story about Sam in LOTR once that could on some levels be said to have an OC as Sam because he was so changed in fundamental ways, but really what the (young) author was doing was just giving Sam his own good qualities while taking away his flaws, and then giving him all the good qualities of fanon Frodo as well. It wasn't an OC, it was a Mary Sue-ized Sam.

But the story itself -- the characters, the situation, the physical and emotional universe of the story -- has nothing to do with HP whatsoever. It was just the catalyst.

Yes yes! I think that *is* what Original Writing is about. Like the thing I am trying to take the first baby steps towards deals with some of the same things I obsess about on lj. If I finished it someone who read it who knew me only from lj might very well see connections to HP -- particularly in that there are two spoiled children in it, and wealthy parents. But, like, my agent would probably just recognize the themes I've written about before and connect those spoiled children to the other spoiled children I've written about. It's not that HP gave me this idea, it's that I was naturally drawn to these characters in HP because I was already interested in these things. I could also explore them as fanfic, of course, but I don't think that's what I ultimately wanted to do.

So I did just as you did. I thought about what dynamic or situation I was interested in, and pretty soon I naturally left HP behind because I can't write JKR's characters or her story. It wasn't about fixing anything in that canon, it was a completely different situation that better suited by purposes. Other characters popped up. This just is now making me think, in fact, about another character in the story who, in a broad sense, would have to be the "Harry" if there was one. I can suddenly see parallels between them, but I've never thought of them as being similar before. I think they're similar because it's more of an archetypal thing. The patterns are similar because they often are, especially in kids' books. Wishbone had three friends, Joe, David and Sam(antha) and the bully was Damont. It's just a natural pattern even if the characters themselves were completely different. (In Wishbone Joe was the jock, David was the brain and Sam was the sporty good buddy.)

But uh ... *rambles* ... I think original fic and fanfic require different skills and different creative processes. Which is not to say that one can't be good at both, obviously, but that it takes a lot of work to move between them, I think.

Yeah -- and I wonder how people do it who do it well. So often it seems like in fandom it's assumed that the good writers of fanfic make good original writers. On one level this is a logical idea -- good writing is good writing, and the ability to construct a scene, give description and structure a story translates from one to the other. But at other times I think it's not so easy, and maybe that's why some fanfic writers get defensive (as some seemed to do on Neil Gaiman's journal that time ). There's nothing wrong with being a great fanfic writer, but to be a good fanfic writer who really *wants* to be a good original writer instead is very different.

p.s. I think figuring out just what that little spark is that speaks to you is probably a huge part of discovering your voice as a writer anyway, really. Many great writers deal with the same theme or group of themes over and over, and they might not immediately know what those are. Sometimes it takes someone else to even point it out to you. But it can be distracting if you're connecting to a bigger story, thinking that you just love all of canon and just avoiding the work of creating a real world for your own story. It keeps you from reading finding the core of what you want to say.

[franzeska]

Doesn't it depend a bit on the type of fanfic though? I often play with other people's universes, but what I'm really drawn to is the emotional situations rather than the characters or universes. My very first fanfic was inspired by my utter fury at another fanfic writer who set up this great situation with the potential for a fantastic confrontation (and fantastic porn... uh... I mean character development) and then let it fizzle. I tried to create the same feeling in my story, though the plot was sort of different. (Both stories involve each of the characters thinking the other is dead at some point, but one of them fakes his death in the source material, so...)

I guess I've just described how one goes about writing original fic, but it's also how I write fanfic.

[spare_change]

... I'm talking about establishing character. This is something that fanfics never do, because the character is already established. But if you read that fanfic not knowing the source material, nine times out of ten it would read as really flat and lifeless, because the fanfic writer isn't doing any of the work of characterization, because both writer and reader already have a pretty good idea of who Draco or Lucius or Harry is supposed to be.

Which is fine, 'cos fanfic is a different genre, and a different challenge. Fanfic inflects character... it doesn't create it.

But when it comes to original fiction ... there is nothing more important than character. Character is story. And you have to learn how to come up with your own, and how to make them come alive for the reader.

Fanfic doesn't teach anyone how to do that. Neither in the creative sense -- of coming up with real, vivid characters -- nor in the technical sense of how to establish them within a story without a huge hunk of exposition, etc.

That's why most of the original fic I've read by fanficcers has been surprisingly bland, I think.

[winters_end]

I do think that there is a difference between fanfiction and original fiction, and while AU can sort of walk that fuzzy edge, I think the deciding factor between the two, besides borrowed names, is that in an AU the characters' back history changes, but the basic rules of the world they live in does not. And AU characters may lead vastly different lives than their cannon counterparts, but a good AU author will try very hard to keep each character "in character" and recognizeable as a close approximation of their originating character.

I guess for me what makes a fic original is not so much the ideas themselves, but how they're treated. Holly Lisle refers to leaving the crown but stealing the jewel, and I think that's an apt metaphor. My teacher used to talk of arches and spandrels (think of two arches side by side supporting a ceiling - the wallspace in between the arches, wider at top and narrower at bottom, resembling a curved triangle pointing downward, is the "spandrel" or the connecting fiber..... If the arches are the meat of the story, the "basic" ideas, the 36 dramatic situations or the core premise of "wizard boy" or "dark-haired hero," then the spandrels - or the in-between filler, often ornately decorated and aritistically painted, that makes the story come to life - is what makes a story or a world unique and original. Am I making any sense?

Like, one example that doesn't involve fanfic: if you've seen the movie Ever After with Drew Barrymore, you know the "arch" is the Cinderella tale that it's heavily and unabashedly based on. But there are a lot of original aspects too - the presence of Leonardo Da Vinci, the way they almost meet in the market, the conflicted relationship between the Baroness and Danielle's father - that are original inventions that, while not entirely essential to the plot, make the story flow while fleshing out the world. Those are the spandrels that make it an original story.

My point is, I think what separates fanfiction from original fiction is that fanfiction keeps those spandrels - Sam's devotion to Frodo, Harry's sloppy hair and glasses, Hermione's bookishness and Ginny's experience in CoS, or Draco's speculated history - fully intact. The spandrels may get slightly distorted by the arches of a new/original plot, and the art may get altered slightly for AU fics, but even in AU stuff readers complain if a story gets out of character" or "magic doesn't work that way in HP." So yeah. That's my perspective on it, anyways.

[sistermagpie]

And AU characters may lead vastly different lives than their cannon counterparts, but a good AU author will try very hard to keep each character "in character" and recognizeable as a close approximation of their originating character.

Yeah, that's how I see it. In a way AU can make the characters stand out far more sharply, because what you're basically saying is, "If Ron was a muggle, what kind of a kid would he be?" or as I said I do a lot above, "If Frodo lived in our time, what would he do for a living?" It's really not creating an original character with their own backstory, it's describing the same character through a different universe's language. It's like if you decided all the HP characters were X-men and were giving them their powers. Surely you wouldn't make Harry Cerebro or Mystique, because that isn't the right language for him. If you did do that I think you'd be starting to make him be more than one character at once. He'd get, imo, fuzzy.

Thanks so much also for the picture of the spandrel--I could see myself puzzling over the metaphor without it but now I get it! It is very much like the jewel in the crown description--which I naturally love because I have a thing for thieves.:-) You steal it for yourself, but it's also still there in someone else's story. Ever After is definitely a good example. In fact, my writing partner and I are constantly using other plots for our pro-fic and being very obvious about it: the Jeckyll and Hyde situation, the Freaky Friday situation. I've used fairy tales a lot as the basis for things. I guess I just feel like those stories are so primal and true they make a natural structure for an original story. And you can't really say you're stealing the character, because the character is by definition a type. Danielle is Cinderella, but then so is Harry Potter!

[shusu]

Really cool and excellent points, all the way down, on the line between O'Fic and Fanfic. I separate them in a slightly different way: the original fic are my inheritors, and the fanfic are my bastards. Sort of like King Charles I-forget-the-number of England. I believe Princess Diana was of royal blood through him, so to extend the metaphor... it wouldn't be unheard of for a fanfic of mine to change names and fly under its own power. It wouldn't be fanfic anymore, no, nor would it be slash. The intent to subvert text would be gone. But it would be slashy, because the intent to subvert monosexual stereotypes would still be there. I argue that *that* part is still a prevalent component of slash, and probably the most socially relevant, given its escapist nature.

But all fanfic, no matter how AU it is, depends on a shared universe. I don't know how much any of it holds up when you take that away. Which is not to say that fanfic sucks by any means, just the story of course rests on knowing who these characters are in their own context. You assume you're writing for people who know all that.

I disagree. Maybe for the majority, but not me. More below...

Even someone who has never read the canon, I think, knows that they're reading about a canon that's out there. You're using someone else's world, not creating a world around your own characters. It makes me wonder what it would sound like, listening to a fanfic with the names changed.

You answered your own question there. *grin* You don't know my Troopers universe, but you were still reading and enjoying my crossover fic, right? (Which I *am* working on. Honest.) That is how I present nearly all my fic: no canon needed. Canon ignorance is not an obstacle to reading the majority of my fiction. In fact a lot of people discover shows and books from the fanfiction out. It enriches the story, definitely, in the sense that I am pleasing my Trooper-fan friends with a shared story and in-jokes and subtle references. But I don't think, in a certain kind of story anyway, that it's much different than starting a series with a middle book, or coming in expecting the characters are originals.

So yes, it is easy for me to imagine a fanfic with the names changed. Because that would be the ultimate test of it: does the story hold up by itself? That is, how much does it rely on canon to operate? The difference would be, as you say, the lack of a shared world and the text-subversion. Your comments to my fic were extremely helpful, because I'm writing to please three audiences: those who know DiR, those who know YST, and those who know neither. The last category would necessarily approach the fanfic as an original story. Pure PWPs and well-written epics ironically hold up in the same way -- PWPs because the point is the lust and characters are literally being used for their bodies, and epics because so much detail is needed that while the text provides a blueprint, you are essentially doing 90% of the world-building. Drabbles are least likely to be converted, which I think is why so many fans are addicted to them -- literally distilled fanfic.

Pro-fic is better categorized versus private-fic, instead of versus fanfic. (Replace subverting text with escaping editor's slush pile.)

Last but not least:
Thus if the text has two gay characters, fanfic is not slash.

The entire fandoms of Queer as Folk and The L Word and heck, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy are turning over in their... beds. *g* No, actually I did see those murmurings on my flist when QaF first hit -- are we really slashing these guys if they're actually - doing it-. The thing is, the fiction produced is identical to slash. Semantics, semantics. Not everyone writes slash to enjoy that taste of the forbidden, the thrill of subversion. (Here I am again with yaoi vs. slash. oops.) Sure it doesn't fit perfectly into the neat box labeled "slash". It talks and walks and has sex like it, though.

[sistermagpie]

You answered your own question there. *grin* You don't know my Troopers universe, but you were still reading and enjoying my crossover fic, right? (Which I *am* working on. Honest.) That is how I present nearly all my fic: no canon needed. Canon ignorance is not an obstacle to reading the majority of my fiction.

Yes, that's a good point! I think I was really wrong to say it assumes a knowledge of the universe...it's more that it openly acknowledges that the universe is out there, and that seems significant. Like, I don't know the Troopers universe, but if I were to stumble across it and say, "Hey, these are the guys from that fic!" you would of course say yes. You knew those things were out there and were using them just as you were using TDiR. My own enjoyment of the fic just didn't depend on knowing about them.

I guess where it gets really blurry is that nowadays almost everything borrows openly -- it's all part of that post-modern world! It's like you said, there's the in-jokes that are known to the people who already know the world. So in a way it definitely still exists as connected to the original canon, even if it can be read without it. That's how I also feel about, say, people coming to HP through fanfic before reading the books.

Ha! It's very interesting that shows like QaF etc. are causing people to rethink the slash thing, because I think it makes perfect sense that it's evolved beyond a strict subversion of the text.

[go_back_chief]

But then that made me think about how stealing from other peoples' worlds is absolutely a big part of original writing. Holly Lisle is an author whose books I've never read but she has a site with a lot of essays about writing and she did one on stealing ethically that I remember liking, because all authors get their ideas from somewhere, whether it's life or other stories--very often it's other stories because we all read a lot. But how do you steal without plagiarizing?

I wouldn't call getting inspiration from somewhere, whether from life or other stories, for "stealing". So what's the difference? I guess I'd say the difference is when you write something, that's so similar to something already written, that it's almost impossible not to trace it directly there. On the other hand, that's not always stealing either, if you write a parody on a known play or whatever, I doubt anyone would call that stealing, but it would have to be traceable to the original source, or it wouldn't be as funny as it's meant to be.

I meant to send you some links to articles I've read about how fan fiction is the new "folklore" and such, but unfortunately they were too old. But as I remember, they had interesting theories about how fan fiction was modern age's way of the past tradition of "oral" (is there a better word?) telling of fairytales. The intellectual properties of stories is a fairly recent thing, after all, and sometimes it can seem silly, the way authors guard their ideas, like they're so unique, no other person could possibly have thought up the same thing (like when JKR got charged for having plagiarised the "Larry Potter books", for instance).

Considering Shakespeare's originality has been questioned more then once (I wonder if there aren't even evidence that he "stole" some stories and rewrote them), you can also pose the question if some of the most magnificent literature in history wouldn't have been written, if the laws of intellectual property was the same at the time? For instance, would we only have a mediocre "Romeo and Juliet" that would have been forgotten after a couple of years?

I guess I'm asking what you all feel like is a difference between the two things? How much of fanfic writing is like original writing?

Very interesting question, but I think it's hard to answer. Like you said, fan fiction depends on a common universe, that the implied reader is supposed to know about, and therefore no exposition is required, but as one of the persons answering before me pointed out, original writing can also many times benefit on being more sparse with the exposition. Some fanfics I've read, seem to me like they could very easily be transformed to original writing, while others would be almost impossible. And it's the same thing with transforming original writing to fan fiction, which is really the only thing I, so far, have any experience in. I think I'll view fan fiction as just another "medium" or "genre" of storytelling, just as I'd consider movies, literature, theatre plays as different media, and novels, short stories, poetry different genres... In everyone of these genre/medium, you need to take into consideration the media-/genre-specific aspects, in order of the one(s) you've chosen for your story to get across. In other words, I don't think that it's impossible to tell the same story in a movie script, original novel, piece of poetry, fan fiction or children's book, at all, (in fact, I usually try my stories in different genres/media, because I want to experiment, and make sure I really pick the best one) but you usually have to make dramatic changes for the same story to work. And THAT'S great fun, IMO!

[sistermagpie]

I wouldn't call getting inspiration from somewhere, whether from life or other stories, for "stealing".

I think she uses the term, in a way, because it's exciting.:-) I think Shakespeare is definitely known to have taken ideas--plots probably weren't really his main concern. I think R&J, for instance, may have been a fairly well-known story even then, though I don't know if the names were the same.

In other words, I don't think that it's impossible to tell the same story in a movie script, original novel, piece of poetry, fan fiction or children's book, at all, (in fact, I usually try my stories in different genres/media, because I want to experiment, and make sure I really pick the best one) but you usually have to make dramatic changes for the same story to work. And THAT'S great fun, IMO

True, though it still seems like of all the things mentioned fanfic stands out if you're talking about an original story. Like if you're wanting to tell the story of Romeo and Juliet you could do it as a movie script, novel, poetry or children's book, or you could write a D/Hr fic that followed it. But if you're talking about an original novel, I don't see how you could tell that story through fanfic and have it be the same thing--or wait, I guess maybe you do it that way, using the fanfic characters as a type of riff on your own theme. But I think if you wrote a fanfic and wanted to turn it into an original novel you would have to start all over again, whittling it down to its most basic idea. Perhaps there's a crossover when you're talking about novels that deal with classic characters, like The Mysts of Avalon, but the thing about those oral traditions, maybe, is that they aren't tied to one person. By contrast, when Harpercollins was talking about getting other authors to write "more" Narnia books it seemed ridiculous because Narnia is CS Lewis. Other series have had other people takeover, but I don't know how the later books are viewed -- didn't someone write more Oz books, for instance? But in a different style?

[mistful]

I'm not going to comment on the slash, because I don't really think slash can be defined. I mean, for me it is just a word, meaning 'fanfic involving gay relationship' utilised because homophobic people apparently require warnings. Of course, like almost all concepts, it means different things to different people.

But the question of how different the fic and the originals are, and how one might influence the other... interesting. Because a fanfic *is* very different. I found it absolutely excruciatingly hard to write because it was so different at first, because you have to learn about the characters instead of working with them at an organic level. It sort of feels like adopting a kid of fifteen, rather than dealing with the one you gave birth to and brought up. You've been spared a lot of difficult stuff, and yucky nappy changing, but then there's this whole issue of emotional commitment and trying to treat the kid in the way the kid needs to be treated, which may not be at all how you operate.

(and the prize for overextending her metaphors goes to...)

On the other hand, I think every piece of writing one does influences one's later originals. Like, I was never really able to write short stories before HP, and I'm still not really into them, but writing oneshots has let me get more into the idea of 'one chapter, encapsulate one scenario, inform us about the characters, tie up the loose ends' rather than it *all* being overarching plot.

Also writing slash made me think about *boys*, and their relationships without women, and become interested enough about boy-boy friendships that I started writing a quartet of manly platonic love. On the other hand, now I fight a constant watchful battle against stepping over slash barriers, so, like, damn you, insidious slash fics.

What *is* my point? I agree with you? This is how I work? Everything's interconnected, but there are lines?

Something like that.

[sistermagpie]

[...] I wonder if most people start out original and then go to fanfic or vice versa. I mean, most people probably start out doing original stuff just in the sense of any kind of writing you have to do in school is going to be your own. But I wonder if there's a difference if the first really "serious" thing (whatever level of serious it is) you sit down to write is fanfic or if you get used to working on original stuff first.

If there's one thing we can thank HP fandom for it's getting you to write one-shots! I mean, some of your one-shots are just brilliant and now I'm thinking they were that in ways you probably wouldn't have been able to do without the practice if you always wrote longer stuff. So go you! Errr..I mean, you know, because I can't believe that some of those truly frightening H/D fics you did didn't teach you something about tone you could use in an original short story since they both took a single idea and just ran with it. (Or more like pounded at it until you wanted to scream, "Nooooo!")

On the other hand, now I fight a constant watchful battle against stepping over slash barriers, so, like, damn you, insidious slash fics.

Yes! This is kind of difficult when it's in your mind. Slash is such a genre in itself in some ways it would be jarring for someone to read a regular male character who acted like our boys much of the time. Well, Tolkien seemed to do it sometimes but he didn't realize it.:-D

References

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