scans_daily | This thing about fanfic bugs me: is there a better way? Also cute new Sinfest & GWS

OK, I feel kind of like this guy, lumbering out of Hades and asking the wrong person for "story time." But I have this thing on my mind.

(Not the SOPA thing, though yeah, take Danielle's advice and write your Congressmen. Heck, write other people's Congressmen.)

I know one or two pretty good writers on my flist, and there are certainly some good fan artists online.

And I think, why do you tie yourself to fan works? You don't own it; you don't control it; you don't get any royalties, ever--is it just a cheap way to get attention? In fact, you put all these disclaimers on your work, because it's not even public domain--the trademarks belong to someone else. Is it worth it?

I hear bluefall's pretty upset about what DC did to Birds of Prey. But I remember reading some of her Harrierverse stuff and thinking it was pretty cool.

Why not, for example, file off the bits of the Harrierverse that identify it as made of DC trademarks, and publish it as your own thing? You could do it as a webcomic if you found a willing artist.

There are so many concepts that want love, and we know what they are:

That heroic vigilante/detective single father guy, the marksman.
The slightly goofy couple who have fun chasing mysteries (maybe one of them has powers).
The broken bird who sends her agents into dangerous situations while she uses her hacking skills to be as absurdly prepared as possible.
The spooky young woman for whom violence is mother tongue, chasing justice and craving mercy.
et cetera.

Waiting and whining for DC (or whomever) to do these is pretty much useless. They're not bringing back these things, nor things like them, and they don't care.

But if it's yours, you can do what you want, and DC can't pull it out from under you, nor "ruin" it by going in a different direction.

Heck, you could leave the trademarks in the public domain, or copyleft it, if that's your thing.

Think about it.

Current Music: the Beatles, "Come Together"

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From:

lissa_quon

As someone who has committed acts of fanart and currently has a rather large half written fanfic on her hard drive I do have to say, it is "worth it."

Though I do my own work as well so I'm not sure I count as a "fan-artist"

The fanart I DO sell a bit at conventions, (shhh). But the pieces I do I do because I wanted to do them. They were fun, and allowed me to share my love of a franchise with other people without being a creepy rambly nerd. They are also (for me at least) an exercise in playing with other styles or character types I don't normally do. I tend to get in ruts artistically and drawing fanart makes me get out of my comfort zone.

The fanfic - THAT I feel more compelled to do. The idea hit me and won't leave me alone until I worked on it, much like my original ideas have a habit of doing. And I get the same joy out of it that I do when I create anything. I don't expect the source material to resemble it anytime soon nor am I going to complain when my head canon isn't made into canon. I am at this point just considering it an exercise once again, in playing outside my comfort zone.

So...tl;dr - its sometimes fun to play with someone else's toys or in someone else's sandbox for a change.

From:

lilacsigil

Why do you think fan writers *don't* do these things as well?

Fannish creativity is a community, and that community runs on creative and gift exchange - fics, art, comments, meta, fannish analysis - and that's something I enjoy. I'm also in crafting communities that do the same thing, trading art for nothing but more art and for community. The fandom is the object of commonality, not the writing or the art or whatever. Some people like to "whine", some people like to write their own stuff.

People always ask me why I don't manufacture and sell my gift cards and quilts and handbound books. The answer (apart from that I already have a job, and it's hard to make a living on craft) is that it's my hobby. It's fun. I can do as much or as little as I want, and make lots of friends in the process.

From:

arise

For me, fanfic and original writing are fun in different ways, to the point where I feel like they're different creative processes. Fanfic is all about trying to get inside a world and its characters; original writing is making your own unique world and characters. That's not to say you don't employ one method when writing the other, but there is a difference. For example, if it's fic and you don't like writing Character A? Just don't feature 'em. If it's an original story, you've got a problem on your hands.

There's also the matter of readership. I don't write fic much any more, but when I did, it was great getting comments on it, especially constructive criticism. Original fiction is a whole different ball game there. It's not to say you can't get a readership, of course, but you don't have that ready-made audience that fandom provides.

idk, that's just my two cents :) Sorry it got tl;dr so fast!

From:

drakyndra

As several people have pointed out above, people write fanfic for entirely different reasons than original works, and it is almost always for love, not money (anyone who tries to make money of fanfic generally gets turned on by fandom as a whole). It also often as much about community as it is the content, and just because someone writes a story doesn't necessarily mean they want it to be canon.

On your point about "filing of the serial numbers" - it may just be my personal experiences, but from what I've read of published works that actually do this, they tend to come off as much weaker stories than either original works or fanfic of the author.

See, with original works you have to build everything from the ground up, characters and often world (if it is unlike the current day). You can create anything and everything to suit your story. Fanfic, on the other hand, doesn't have that freedom - but on the other hand it has the weight of canon behind it, and the assumption that most readers will know that canon. You don't have to explain what everything means, or create the backstory for characters because people already know these things, but it also means that you can throw in all these references to parts of the canon without having to explain exactly what happened, how it changed the people involved and so.

If the Joker says something about a crowbar to Batman, the audience knows exactly what that means, all the history and emotion tied into that word. If [Renamed Villain] mentions a crowbar to [Renamed Hero], who the hell knows what that means? Explanations become necessary in a way fanfic doesn't need.

I've seen this in both "filled off fanfic" novels that people I know have written, and some reviews of works by other former BNFs: Their original books often have an underdeveloped 2D feel, as if the characters are just being skimmed over. They have neither the weight of an established canon character behind them, or the development of an original one.

Or a comics example: Deadpool was a far better character when he was actually developed as an original character with his own traits, backstory etc., rather than being just a "filled off" version of Deathstroke.

TL;DR The skills that make someone a good fanfic writer don't necessarily translate over to being good at original works. Not everyone who writes fanfic wants to write original work; some just want to explore/play with established characters rather than making their own ideas.

From:

valtyr

Think about it.

You do realise that the fan community does actually discuss this stuff, at length, again and again? You're not presenting new ideas here.

There's dozens of reasons why someone might choose to write fanfic over pro work. But essentially, it doesn't matter. Because it's not any of your business, and for you to decide you know better than they what would bring them pleasure is patronising.