The Reading Vent & Rant Thread

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

Fifty Shades originated as fan fiction?

Yes. Fifty Shades of Grey was originally posted as Twilight fanfic under the title Master of the Universe in facfiction.net

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by John F

Fifty Shades originated as fan fiction?

Just type that into search. The first two hits on Duck Duck Go assume it's based on Twilight. Certainly Bella is an abused doormat.

[DNSB]

@John F: As with everything else, your Google fu improves with practice and experimentation.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

How can you not know it's a fanfiction from the start? Do you not compare the titles you buy to the author's bibliography to see if they're genuine before you buy them?

... what do you mean? I know of at least one author who keeps their fanfiction and professional-author identities very separate, to avoid accusations of plagarism and the like. That's if they just don't pull down the fanfiction entirely, which is something Ive also seen happen.

On the other hand, the founder of AO3 openly admits it in her author biography.

[John F]

Originally Posted by DNSB

@John F: As with everything else, your Google fu improves with practice and experimentation.

Actually, I looked it up on wiki before I posted. I thought it was fairly common knowledge, which made Aleron Ives post questionable.

Google isn't the only source on the internet for info.

[Aleron Ives]

Originally Posted by John F

Actually, I looked it up on wiki before I posted. I thought it was fairly common knowledge, which made Aleron Ives post questionable.

Oh, I was responding to the first point, not the point about 50 Shades. I'm well aware that it started out as fanfiction.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

... what do you mean?

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

we were talking about how awkward it is to be reading a novel and then recognize it as a fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off

Fanfiction is unapproved fiction that takes place in a universe created by some other author, yes? When looking at a novel, I would expect you to look at the author and series information to compare it against the original author's bibliography. If the novel isn't included in the list, then it must be fanfiction.

As an example, if you lived under a rock and hadn't heard of Harry Potter before, and then you stumbled across some random book claiming to be part of the Harry Potter universe, it wouldn't take much effort to look up who wrote the original books and see that the book you've found is not one of them. I don't understand how you can be surprised that a book is fanfiction, unless you buy books without doing any research first.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

As an example, if you lived under a rock and hadn't heard of Harry Potter before, and then you stumbled across some random book claiming to be part of the Harry Potter universe, it wouldn't take much effort to look up who wrote the original books and see that the book you've found is not one of them. I don't understand how you can be surprised that a book is fanfiction, unless you buy books without doing any research first.

Have... you never heard the phrase 'with the serial numbers filed off'? Here's Wikitionary for you:

(fandom slang, idiomatic) To remove the copyrighted elements from an existing work of fan fiction so that it may be commercially published as original fiction.

It wouldn't be claiming to be a Harry Potter novel, but when poorly done it's possible to to recognize who a character originally was, or certain other details.

Here's the fanlore article: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Filing_Off_The_Serial_Numbers

[Aleron Ives]

Thanks for the correction.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Have... you never heard the phrase 'with the serial numbers filed off'? Here's Wikitionary for you:

People who don't read fanfiction are not necessarily familiar with the terms used there. I had no idea what your phrase meant, either.

That said, I understood the general gist of your post. And as to the research, ofc I don't do research for every book I buy; that would take (or have taken, earlier) most of my free time, as I used to buy a lot. Buying 50-100 books per month wasn't unusual for me.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

Actually, I looked it up on wiki before I posted. I thought it was fairly common knowledge, which made Aleron Ives post questionable.

Google isn't the only source on the internet for info.

Google fu has become a generic term for skills in using search engines to find useful information on the Internet.

Oddly, while I still capitalize Google, most of the time, I see Google when not referring directly to that divsion of Alphabet, as a generic uncapitalized word so google fu, to google, etc..

And to quote your original post;

Originally Posted by John F

Fifty Shades originated as fan fiction?

Please note the question mark at the end of your post. If you had posted "Fifty Shades originated as fan fiction." <= notice the period making this a statement unlike your question mark which makes your claim to have looked up the information before posting to appear disingenuous.

The difference between 'John F. is alive?' and 'John F. is alive.' for instance.

[John F]

Originally Posted by DNSB

...



Please note the question mark at the end of your post. If you had posted "Fifty Shades originated as fan fiction." <= notice the period making this a statement unlike your question mark which makes your claim to have looked up the information before posting to appear disingenuous.

The difference between 'John F. is alive?' and 'John F. is alive.' for instance.

I can see how you would be confused. I view adding the question mark as being polite. Sort of self deprecating. May make it easier to accept that an error was made, or a post doesn't really make sense, or a posters view isn't the only one, or a poster lacks empathy, ... Yes, all that in a question mark.

I'll be blunt then. Aleron Ives post really didn't make any sense to me.

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

On one of my Discord servers, we were talking about how awkward it is to be reading a novel and then recognize it as a fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off - they never quite read right, taking a story based in an established universe (and usually with established characters) and then just trying to strip every bit of that universe from it.

...

and the reply:

Originally Posted by Aleron Ives

How can you not know it's a fanfiction from the start? Do you not compare the titles you buy to the author's bibliography to see if they're genuine before you buy them?

If you pick up the book, how would you know what universe it came from, if the universe information was scrubbed? FWIW, I didn't know what "filed off" was.

[nabsltd]

Originally Posted by John F

If you pick up the book, how would you know what universe it came from, if the universe information was scrubbed?

Character traits and how characters interact with each other is often the key.

For example, if you read about a group of various alien races fighting in a battle against other alien races, and two of the characters on the protagonist side were aliens of different races but were boasting about their combat skills and had a bit of a "competition" going on, you might think "this is Gimli and Legolas in space". If other characters that fit the rest of the Fellowship are there, then you know you are reading Lord of the Rings fanfic in space.

[John F]

Originally Posted by nabsltd

Character traits and how characters interact with each other is often the key.

For example, if you read about a group of various alien races fighting in a battle against other alien races, and two of the characters on the protagonist side were aliens of different races but were boasting about their combat skills and had a bit of a "competition" going on, you might think "this is Gimli and Legolas in space". If other characters that fit the rest of the Fellowship are there, then you know you are reading Lord of the Rings fanfic in space.

I can see your point, but as for myself, I wouldn't have made the connection (and I've read LOTR a couple of times and watched the movies many times.)

I thought the original post's point was that the simple removal of the universe from fanfic can make for a poorly written novel (so doesn't like when authors do that).

[Renate]

I was reading "From Here to Eternity" from my library.
I read a sentence with the word "ain't". Ok.
Then I read "pain't", "pain'ted", "complain't", "plain'tively", "main'tenace"...
It really started to annoy me.

In any case, it ended up a DNF.
I couldn't take the misogyny, even taking the period into consideration.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Renate

In any case, it ended up a DNF.
I couldn't take the misogyny, even taking the period into consideration.

I think this is one of the select group where the movie is better than the book.