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Harper Kingsley · 07-03-2012, 12:28 AM

Wow, this is really a hot button topic, I guess.

I've freely admitted that I love reading fanfic, and I know tons of other authors that do too. If you google it, you can find an article about Lois McMaster Bujold where she admitted that Shards of Honor originally started as a Star Trek fanfic. Aral was a Klingon and Cordelia was a crashed Federation medic or something. Then somewhere along the journey of writing it, the characters became too big for the original universe and the story expanded outward to become one of my favorite sci-fi series.

It looks nothing like Star Trek anymore.

Back in the day, there were these guys known as the Baker Street Irregulars. They wrote what amounted to Sherlock Holmes fanfic while they expounded on the original works and played all kinds of RPGs. Nearly every single one of them expanded out to become authors of their own work. http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes

Practically every sci-fi and fantasy author from the 70s and 80s indulged in some form of "speculative fiction writing." And maybe some of the worlds they set their stories in were out of copyright, but a lot of them weren't and have only recently become Public Domain.

I personally believe that fanfiction as done purely for fun and not profit is cool. I don't like the idea of someone trying to sell those stories for money, and most people would never even think to try. Some of the newer kids don't understand the rules, but that's something you get everywhere when a group expands into public interest, and honestly, most of them get slapped down pretty fast as fandom is a largely self-regulating society.

I can't wait for the day that someone writes some fanfic of my stories. That will be the day I know that someone really loves something I created so much that they had to find out more about the characters. I would be upset if they tried to profit from those works and I wouldn't read them, but I would kind of feel as though I'd "made" it, that I was a success at making people interested and entertained by something I'd come up with.

07-03-2012, 12:28 AM	#60
Harper Kingsley Clone Trooper Posts: 212 Karma: 4566103 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Washington Device: kindle	Wow, this is really a hot button topic, I guess. I've freely admitted that I love reading fanfic, and I know tons of other authors that do too. If you google it, you can find an article about Lois McMaster Bujold where she admitted that Shards of Honor originally started as a Star Trek fanfic. Aral was a Klingon and Cordelia was a crashed Federation medic or something. Then somewhere along the journey of writing it, the characters became too big for the original universe and the story expanded outward to become one of my favorite sci-fi series. It looks nothing like Star Trek anymore. Back in the day, there were these guys known as the Baker Street Irregulars. They wrote what amounted to Sherlock Holmes fanfic while they expounded on the original works and played all kinds of RPGs. Nearly every single one of them expanded out to become authors of their own work. http://fanlore.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes Practically every sci-fi and fantasy author from the 70s and 80s indulged in some form of "speculative fiction writing." And maybe some of the worlds they set their stories in were out of copyright, but a lot of them weren't and have only recently become Public Domain. I personally believe that fanfiction as done purely for fun and not profit is cool. I don't like the idea of someone trying to sell those stories for money, and most people would never even think to try. Some of the newer kids don't understand the rules, but that's something you get everywhere when a group expands into public interest, and honestly, most of them get slapped down pretty fast as fandom is a largely self-regulating society. I can't wait for the day that someone writes some fanfic of my stories. That will be the day I know that someone really loves something I created so much that they had to find out more about the characters. I would be upset if they tried to profit from those works and I wouldn't read them, but I would kind of feel as though I'd "made" it, that I was a success at making people interested and entertained by something I'd come up with.