Amazon selling fan fiction--what the what now?

[deilaitha]

So, I found this article. I think we may have discussed this here on MS, but I don't remember for sure.

˜Kindle Worlds™" Lets Authors Publish "Fan Fiction” At Dubious Cost | Underwire | WIRED

I am pretty much floored. I enjoy writing a little fan-fic here and there as an exercise for getting back into the writing groove, but to sell it? That seems really, really crass. What do you all think?

 

[Chessie]

I had the same reaction as you. I also enjoy writing a little fanfic to warm up my creative juices. But considering these stories aren't original pieces of work, it kind of does bug me that people are going to be allowed to publish (even if they do have the go ahead blessing from the creators).

 

[deilaitha]

Yeah, I'm actually working on a post for my blog about this issue. I'm likening fan fiction to a coloring book page. You just--don't--sell coloring book pages, even if they're super awesomely filled in. It's crass and an insult to me as a consumer.

It's different, I think with commissioned writing (though that kind of bugs me too). I'm thinking of a line from the show Burn Notice, where a character says, "Please. A spy is just a criminal with a government paycheck."

 

[Steerpike]

If the rights holders don't have a problem with it, then I don't.

Also, it's a lot more like a commissioned work than someone just posting fanfic on the internet. The work has to be accepted by the editors overseeing the program in order to be published, and the author signs over rights to the owners of the intellectual property. So, other than the fact that the rights holders don't reach out to a particular author with an offer of commission, how does it differ in any significant way?

 

[Feo Takahari]

I don't see a meaningful difference between, say, a TV show that updates Sherlock Holmes and Watson to the present day and a fanfic that does the same. Particularly since there's a decent chance the latter will have better writing. In the same vein, if you're writing a My Little Pony fanfic where Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle do things that are NSFW (Not Safe for Woona), I don't see that as fundamentally different from how scriptwriters who grew up on the first generation of the show create new interpretations and portrayals when writing episodes of the fourth generation. But fanfic currently occupies a rather huge gray area where it usually avoids legal action against it. If the creation of "legal" fanfic results in more of a crackdown against "illegal" fanfic, that's a huge danger for people who want to reinterpret and challenge the original story in ways that the original author wouldn't stamp off on lest they hurt the original's brand and market value.

 

[Steerpike]

I don't think a lot of fanfic is really in a 'grey' area, it's just that many don't generally care enough to enforce IP rights against fanfic writers. Whether it is actually a violation of IP rights isn't in question except perhaps in a few close cases.

 

[ThinkerX]

And here I've been worried because I recently discovered Robert E Howard had created the nation of 'Cimmar' many a decade ago - a name one of my own fictional countries shares. Didn't realize this until a year ago...I was just aiming for something simple with a vaguely Russian sound to it.

 

[Jabrosky]

And here I've been worried because I recently discovered Robert E Howard had created the nation of 'Cimmar' many a decade ago - a name one of my own fictional countries shares. Didn't realize this until a year ago...I was just aiming for something simple with a vaguely Russian sound to it.

I believe "Cimmeria" is the country name you're referring to. It's also the name of a real Indo-European people who lived north of the Caucasus Mountains. Just say you're basing your Cimmar off the latter and not Howard's creation.

 

[stephenspower]

I would love to write something in the Vonnegut universe because it really is a universe. Slaughterhouse and Breakfast of Champions were, for a time, one book, so there are crossovers, plus lots of things reappear in his books, such as Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut himself and Tralfamadore, although the latter changes in the telling each time. You can't do crossovers, otherwise I'd have Elric try to reach Tanalorn and end up on Tralfamadore. I suppose one could do a book on a post-Ice 9 Earth.

 

[Reaver]

I don't know about anyone else, but if I were a well-known author with several books out there, I'd be flattered that people enjoy the worlds and characters I create enough to want to expand upon it.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I agree Reaver. The exception would be people profiting from unlicensed fan-fiction.

 

[Jabrosky]

I have mixed feelings about fan-fiction. I understand why these writers want to use established characters or settings, since that provides more scaffolding for their own stories. On the other hand you have more creative freedom with original universes and characters.

The few times I have set out to write fan-fiction myself, I always ended up modifying the characters or setting to fit my own tastes. One time I tried writing a Batman fan-fic which had Bruce Wayne dating a paleontologist (or was it museum curator?), and reviewers complained that maintaining any kind of steady relationship would be out of character for Batman. In retrospect I could have rebutted that superheroes like Batman undergo revision and evolution all the time, much like mythological heroes, but there are only so many changes you can make to an established universe before it loses any resemblance to the original.