Adopting Fanworks
| Related terms: | Recursive Fanfiction, Work In Progress |
| See also: | Orphaning Fanworks, Unauthorized Sequel |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Adopting Fanworks is a practice of a second author continuing another author's published and unfinished work, with the permission of the first author.
Adoption can happen to abandoned works in progress and to complete or nearly complete works (in which case it would be more like making sequels).
In some sense, adopting an unfinished fanfiction can be easier than adopting an unfinished original fiction, because writers and readers in the same fandom readily share characters and world-building from canon (although interpretations may well differ).
Whether an orphaned work is/should be available for adoption is debatable.[1][2]
Putting Fanworks For Adoption
Some authors explicitly designate a fanwork to be "up for adoption" - this means that the author has stopped working on the story and has given or is willing to give permission for others to continue it.
Some people only allow the adoption of their stories selectively (if they do at all):
Personally, I would only be interested in having someone do this with one of my fics if they were a close friend of mine.Chikita11 on reddit [3]
while others put no restriction:
I have however put a blanket statement on both of my "active" profiles on ff.de and Wattpad saying that anyone who wants to take anything from my works can do that (while credit would be nice), so anyone can do whatever they want with anything I write (credit would be nice tho) so there's that.plutoduchess on reddit [4]
Some fans may post prompts and plot bunnies and immediately put them up for adoption in the hope that someone else might be inclined to flesh them out into a proper story.
Resources
Adopted Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
References
- ^ https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/ehy2c1/orphaning/
- ^ https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/sc3wk5/ao3_needs_an_adoption_center_for_orphaned_fics/
- ^ https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/ph3esz/comment/hbg2dzg/
- ^ https://www.reddit.com/r/FanFiction/comments/9sjcdx/comment/e8qpuvb/
Links
- Adopt a Fic Forum - FanFiction.Net
- The Fanfiction Adoption Agency - LiveJournal (effectively inactive since 2005)