Sharing a Fanfic Universe
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| Title: | Sharing a Fanfic Universe |
| Creator: | LJC |
| Date(s): | 1998? |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | Gargoyles |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | Sharing a Fanfic Universe |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Sharing a Fanfic Universe is a Gargoyles essay by LJC.
There is, among fan fiction writers -- and by extension, fandom itself -- an unwritten law:You can steal from your betters, but never steal from your peers.
But what's stealing, and what's borrowing? And when is it okay to borrow without asking, and who decides what's 'okay'? And since when are there rules, anyway?
Some Topics Discussed
- shared universes
- plagarism
- why is it okay for fan fiction writers to "steal" from canon, but it's absolutely not okay to do the same with fan stories
- "in Gargoyles fan fiction, we have a multitude of walk-ons of authors' original characters wandering through stories not written by their creators"
- "The Gargoyles Saga" - a shared universe project/Virtual Season that began in 1997, see The Gargoyles Saga; archive link
- "Athena Saga," a shared universe created by Ryan Stout and Scott Mercure
- misunderstandings and hurt feelings
- complicated navigation
From the Essay
Like a television series or a comic book, [planned and organized, "official"] kinds of shared-universes are collaborative efforts. Writers are assigned specific characters over whom they have control. Yet, at the same time, all the writers work together on the themes, plots, and direction of the series. They all work together to tell one story, and hopefully -- though intense planning and careful editing -- rather than a discordant chaos of disparate voices, what you get is one clear clean narrative voice. A piece of fiction -- or pieces of fiction -- that stands on its own two feet. Part of the appeal of shared universes is the opportunity to work with your peers to craft the best story possible. It is especially inviting to authors who have long worked in isolation, and want to experiment with collaboration. Or writers who cannot work alone, but prefer being a part of a team, having the structure and leadership that is involved in a shared world series to guide them as they write -- perhaps giving them the opportunity to put out quality work they might not have had the ability to put out on their own.
Warning: you are now entering a frightening place known as the "Tara does Peter David doing Harlan Ellison rant" section of this essay. Yes, I'm going to tell an anecdote. Yes, it may resemble a long, rambling story that only actually applies to a handful of writers out there. BUT I hope that you'll stick with me through to the end ... I had a nasty experience a while back. It didn't have to be nasty, but in the end it caused no end of heartache, frustration, and tears on both sides, or so I am told. And that's why I decided to take on this topic this month: in an effort to explain the concept of "sharing" a universe to those who may not understand the fine lines in this nebulous world of fan fiction, so like yet unlike every other kind of fiction out there.
Okay, here's the deal. Many years ago, while second season was underway, I wrote a story about Owen Burnett, and created a former lover -- an original character partially based on a Japanese anime vampire, partially based on an Immortal trouble-making thief, with a pinch of Trickster mythology thrown in for good measure -- to harass poor Mr. Burnett. This in itself was -- now cast your minds back to 1995 and remember how little we knew about Owen -- revolutionary. The very notion of Owen as a sexual being was utterly new.
And after writing the third Rowan/Owen story, I got a piece of email one day from an ardent 13 year old fan -- who shall remain nameless -- asking if he could use my characters in his story.
Unfortunately, his request was couched in a request that I change what I had written -- because the story he was writing wouldn't work if I was going to continue in the direction I was heading. He wanted me to change my plot points to facilitate his story.
I reacted badly, to say the least.
I gently explained that he could not use my characters in this plotline, since it would contradict what I was planning in a future story. But thank you for asking -- why don't you create your own original characters instead of using mine?
Thus began a two year long argument that never successfully concluded to either of our satisfactions, I'm sure. The young man had already written his story -- and started work on a sequel--assuming my original copyrighted characters were, because of the walk-on in one of the Athena tales -- fair game. In fact, he had written to ask my permission to use them only as a courtesy, never once expecting that he would get turned down.
Obviously, Ryan and I had differing opinions regarding the matter. And, from what I hear, so did Jewel and Dave. Not to slam Ryan, who obviously is a big fan of his fellow writers and only meant to honour them by these references. But it created one hell of a mess. And of course, this poor kid had assumed -- because he knew no better, and he was going off of the only examples he had so far responded to, other archived online fanfic -- that all fanfic was one big shared world story, and that my plots and characters were there for him to continue, just as we had as fan writers chosen to flesh out and continue the stories told on the show itself.
It's hard to explain the delicate laws of fan fiction that stretch back to the first fanzines back in Fandom History (that's the 1960s to you confused folks in the back where weren't alive to see Star Wars in theatres until the re- release) to a new generation of teens and college students who have never seen a fanzine -- nor are they like to, but discovered fanfic alone, apart from the fannish community, online.
But it can be distilled into a simple axiom:
You can steal from your betters, but never steal from your peers.
Think of it this way: if I had asked Greg Weisman point blank "Hey, can I write this story?" when I had first gotten the idea for "The Butler's Tale" he would have said -- flat out -- "No." or even, just as firmly as I had, "But thank you for asking -- why don't you create your own original characters instead of using mine?"So I didn't ask him.
Here's why he would have said no: Not only did it contradict -- before I re- wrote it, anyway -- a story he told at a later date, the fact of the matter is, authors are protective of their creations. They want control over how they are depicted. Greg's no different from me in this respect.
But Greg loosed his creations upon the world, and thus a second-generation of stories began, spawned from this first generation. Gargoyles fanfic is the direct child of the series itself. Yes, we stole from our betters, and now the characters have lives of their own, through our stories.
But should these children have children of their own? Should there be fanfic based on fanfic?
Fanfic is already one generation away from the series -- the source material remains the same for all of us, but each author takes away something different, constructs a parallel universe inside their own minds with the same histories, the same plots and people, but coloured by how they perceived them.
Sometimes it can be like a fun-house mirror, showing grossly distorted characters bearing just enough resemblance to the people we love and know to recognise them. Other times, it cam be like a perfect silver mirror reflecting back exactly what was presented, maybe a little faded -- a few tarnished spots here and there -- the closer the author's vision of the show is to both the show and their reader's. Oftentimes, that's all that designates one story as "good" or even "great" -- how closely it matches a particular readers personal vision of the characters and show. The best stories are told in the spirit of the series, and blend seamlessly into the series, while telling something new, or fleshing out a character in a way that isn't awkward or forced, but is a logical progression of the character introduced to us through this series.
Sharing a universe means we all have the same source material. We reinterpret it through fanfic, make it our own. It's like a photocopy of a photograph. To have someone else then make a copy of a copy can mean -- unless their skill is great -- an imperfect image. Multiply that -- duplicates of duplicates of duplicates -- and down the line, you have a watered down, grey, blurred image so far removed form the original as to be unrecognisable, were it not for a few familiar names and faces.
"Sharing" means playing nice. And while it is always easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission, don't expect a community to happily welcome a thief into their midst. What makes fandom so desirable a place to be is the fans' tendency to accept everyone. To be more understanding than the mundane world. To be more open to new ideas, more nurturing, more close-knit and even, at times, incestuously so.
But we expect you to understand the rules -- once the unwritten ones are written down and made clear (which eventually, they were -- in the matter of the Ten Fanfic Commandments. Thanks to the incident I described above.). Because we expect better of you -- after all, you're one of us.
The question isn't whose "world", its "which of the worlds."
Sometimes, through a group agreement, those worlds meet and converge. And we get some damn good stories out of them. By mutual consent. You can't storm the borders and expect a warm welcome.
If you're going to play in one of your friends' backyard, you've got to be ready for them to ask you nicely to stop -- or get a big stick and whack you upside the head a few times -- if they don't like what you've been doing back there.