Fan-fiction - Why?

[Worldwalker]

Thought for the day: The Aeneid is Illiad fanfic!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Thought for the day: The Aeneid is Illiad fanfic!

The second half of it, anyway. The first half is a rip-off of "The Odyssey".

[Penforhire]

I understand the attraction of fan fiction even if I don't indulge in it myself. Most reasons have already been mentioned but I'll add one more.

Even before a TV series is finished there is sometimes room for a new writer to contribute. I know a woman who pitched Star Trek TNG episodes to the show's producers while the series was still running. Clearly such a a writer is presenting their "fan fiction" and is deeply immersed, regardless of their success.

Firefly is recent example of a TV series that was cancelled before its time. Count me among those who wish to see it ressurected. Fan fiction has a part in that, showing some possibilities.

[DiapDealer]

I really have no relevant thoughts one way or the other. I'm pretty meh about the whole thing.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The second half of it, anyway. The first half is a rip-off of "The Odyssey".

Well, the Illiad and the Odyssey were really just novelizations of the oral performances anyway. Making Homer the classical Alan Dean Foster?

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I really have no relevant thoughts one way or the other. I'm pretty meh about the whole thing.

So, um, you're posting in this thread because ... ?

ardeegee, the Star Trek spin-off books by Timothy Zahn are pretty good. But that's because he's Timothy Zahn; you're all too right about the ones by random people who seem to have been selected on the basis of being willing to do work for hire and to write someone else's stories. I've read much better Star Wars fanfic.

I think if I were doing some kind of continuation to an existing series, I wouldn't go to Hollywood scriptwriters who know how to write a script but, clearly, not a bloody thing about canon. I'd buy stories from the best fanfic writers and hire a scriptwriter to make them filmable. That way, I'd at least know I was getting stories written by people who both love and know the material, rather than people who already have a story they want to see on the screen, and they'll change the names to the ones I want while leaving the story exactly the same. It still might not bring in the crowds, but at least the ones it does bring in won't be screaming in agony and telling everyone that the writer obviously had no clue what he was doing.

[chamekke]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Yes. I found the same in the past when I tried to read some official, published Star Wars-related novels I had bought in a batch from Ebay. In the few I attempted to read, the writing and the stories are so awful I gave up on them and eventually years later tossed the whole box.

I'm not surprised. From what I've seen, most of the officially commissioned novels based on [insert your movie or TV series of choice here] are at best mediocre, at worst utter crap. The best fanfic writers, on the other hand, can not only write circles around these, but often write works that surpass the originals on which their fanfic is based. If the franchises who publish these novels would only seek out those most talented fanfic authors (who are not only subtle and gifted writers, but care passionately about the characters)... well, it would be a whole different ball game.

People shouldn't judge "fanfic" as a whole based on generic fanfic sites such as fanfiction.net (which does have a few buried gems, but you'll often have to do a lot of mining to find them). In my experience the best fanfic is found in monofandom communities on sites like LiveJournal. And of course, much depends on the fandom itself, how popular it is (this can influence its noise-to-signal ratio hugely), and its demographic (the original Star Trek series will have a much different demographic/fan base from something like Twilight).

[Carriebear]

I think one of the problems that "new" readers of fanfic have is that they read a couple of lousy stories and then they give up, thinking that is representative of fanfiction as a whole. It isn't, just as, say, one crappy book in the sci-fi genre is not indicative of the genre in its entirety. As chamekke said, If you base your fanfiction opinion on one really awful fic you find on fanfiction.net (There's a reason it's "affectionately" called The Pit) you're really doing a disservice not to yourself but also to the fabulous fanfiction writers out there. I get why people don't like it, I truly do, because it's not everyone's cup of tea. But I think it's also insulting for writers of fanfiction to be called youngsters, amateurish, etc. Many of us aren't youngsters, and we're far from amateurish. It's just that the truly awful fanfic out there has made us all look bad.

In the end, the reason why I write fanfic? I enjoy it. I love the show I write for, I love the characters I concentrate on, and I love to write. Do I plan on writing something "original," with original characters? Yes. But I don't see why I have to "give up" fanfic in order to do that, especially since it brings me a lot of joy to write.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

So, um, you're posting in this thread because ... ?

Because I always like to balance the abundance of love/hate that this topic tends to generate. And to remind others that there need be no general consensus on it.

[Lemurion]

My answer to the "why" of fanfic is "why not?"

As for quality, yes some of it's terrible - but that's no different than what you get with indie books. It's like any unmoderated outlet - the quality is widely variable, ranging from the incredibly good to the incredibly bad with everything in between.

Read or write it if you want to, don't if you don't. I prefer not to, but then again a huge amount of what's out there currently is based on things I'm not particularly interested in. There's no appeal to reading more about characters I never cared about in the first place.

[crossi]

What about Heron Crane's "Miss Seeton" series. After he died Hamilton Crane wrote some Miss Seeton novels as did another author. How is this different from fan fiction?

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Well, the Illiad and the Odyssey were really just novelizations of the oral performances anyway. Making Homer the classical Alan Dean Foster?

So what you're telling me is that the Illiad and the Odyssey were effectively fan-fiction of the TV series of the time.

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Because I always like to balance the abundance of love/hate that this topic tends to generate. And to remind others that there need be no general consensus on it.

I did a search first but didn't find old threads that answered what I was looking for, my apologies if you feel this thread is too much of a repeat of what has gone before.

General consensus is not what I was looking for here. I was curious about what it was that people that enjoy fan-fiction were looking for, and have been pleased that some of the responses have included a few examples that I might like to try and ways to discover the better examples. So far I've always just said, "nah, that's not for me," but since I've never actually tried it that seems a fairly narrow view. I think it probably demonstrates how little I knew about the subject to have been so surprised about the volume of fan-fiction targeting TV series.

Originally Posted by crossi

What about Heron Crane's "Miss Seeton" series. After he died Hamilton Crane wrote some Miss Seeton novels as did another author. How is this different from fan fiction?

There are a number of authors whose efforts pass on to a new generation of writers: Frank Herbert's Dune series comes to mind here, also the new Tolkien Middle Earth books. There are a number of authors who try to boost their output, support new authors, and perhaps provide a longer term future for the series and ideas, by co-writing: Clive Cussler comes to mind here as do Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov among others.

What makes these different to fan-fiction? I don't know the history with the "Miss Seeton" books, but in my other examples here the new works are published with at least the permission, and often the blessing, of the original author or his estate. In theory this gives the reader some comfort in the idea that the book is consistent with what the original author intended - and if the original author is still about, that this new book is not going to conflict with anything further that they decide to write.

The result can be quite a mixed bag anyway. I tried one of the newer Dune books but didn't like it (but then I was getting tired of it by the time Frank had stopped anyway). I tried a few co-written Clive Cussler stories but found them much less enjoyable - one written with his son wasn't bad. A few Clarke and Asimov co-written books worked okay I thought, but some just put me off ever trying that second author on his own. (A reaction that I suppose helps to explain why I had not been tempted by fan-fiction to date.)

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by gmw

There are a number of authors whose efforts pass on to a new generation of writers: Frank Herbert's Dune series comes to mind here, also the new Tolkien Middle Earth books.

A few days ago I attempted reading the sequel to The Mote in God's Eye/The Gripping Hand written by Jerry Pournelle's daughter. I found it unreadable, and gave up a fraction of the way in.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by gmw

I did a search first but didn't find old threads that answered what I was looking for, my apologies if you feel this thread is too much of a repeat of what has gone before.

I certainly don't need an apology. Everything is proceeding as it was intended.

[stormcloude]

Naomi Novik writes slash fanfiction under a penname. And some of the M/M romance books are slash stories that have had the serial numbers filed off and been published.

Although if you're expecting high literature from fanfic, I think you'll mostly be disappointed.