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I wanted to address the Fanfiction Kerfuffle that I just saw on ONTD, but I didn't want to address it on ONTD. I do not believe it has ever crossed my mind to fanfic a book. I suppose it is common enough, but it makes me nervous. Ficcing a book puts the fanfic writer on to a direct field of conflict with the original author. And so I can see why an author would take exception to the practice. It is a presumptive challenge to the author to write stories about their characters while the author is still working on those characters.
This is the difference between a trademark character and a character under copyright, I suppose. Are people who are writing HP fic working from the books or the films? Film and television characters are trademarked, but loaned out to other writers all the time. And so they are not so much children of their original creator, but a collaboration. They are developing in the minds of others and the audience participates in their lives. This is not to say that I don't think original creators have the legal right to all material developed from their creations. We fanfic writers are lazy and are also parasites of a sort, because we feed our needs at the expense of someone else original inspiration. However, we are often just frustrated by the limited imagination of the original creator. In my opinion, fanfic writers simply long for more or greater development from a character. And often the direction of development is one that a creator will not be taking, like many slash pairings will never be served in real fiction. I assumed that I was taking Ten/Rose to a place that RTD could not go with them in most of my writings. Of course, Moff has shown us that RTD lacked balls as well as imagination, since the BBC has allowed River/Eleven sexual references in DVD or Webisode extras.
The JK Rowling idea that she doesn't want her characters to engage in R-rated interactions goes directly to this point of denial on the part of a writer. She might not want R-Rated stuff to happen, might not want to write it or see it, but other people might long for such material. This creates a market for something that the original author will not be offering up in a fandom. This is what opens the door to fanfiction writers, we write what character creators fail to envision or shy away from committing to paper or film. Are the creations of an author like that author's children? Does an author have the right to protect characters once they are introduced to a wider audience? Certainly, if a fanfiction author jeopardizes a creator's profits, I would say so. It is dicey to simply write further adventures for Harry Potter and company, something JK Rowling might write herself, because you are arguably decreasing her sales. It is even worse to claim that you own the story. And fanfiction writers do try to do this, claiming copyright protections they do not possess, for example. If you steal someone's characters and write a story, you can't then claim that a story idea was stolen from you.
But there is another common thing that happens today, AU-Fic authors who steal basic set ups and premises and then recast the characters from their favorite stories into other realms. For example, Buffy and Angel could become Bella and Edward when the story is moved to a wooded rural area and sold as original. Doctor #4 and Romana #2 could be recast as Thomas Pitt and Charlotte and given a murder to solve in Victorian England and voila, it is a new series. Many is the time I've read a book about a witch and clearly seen Willow in the description of the character. Then, Bella and Edward are recast in a smutty story and that sells lots of books and the author makes no excuses about lifting the characters from another source. Inspiration from a story is not quite the same as stealing. I believe Gaiman was inspired by Disheveled to write his tale about Idris. That's flattering, for me, because I flat-out pilfered Ten and Rose and many of the situations they found themselves in for that fic.
This is the difference between a trademark character and a character under copyright, I suppose. Are people who are writing HP fic working from the books or the films? Film and television characters are trademarked, but loaned out to other writers all the time. And so they are not so much children of their original creator, but a collaboration. They are developing in the minds of others and the audience participates in their lives. This is not to say that I don't think original creators have the legal right to all material developed from their creations. We fanfic writers are lazy and are also parasites of a sort, because we feed our needs at the expense of someone else original inspiration. However, we are often just frustrated by the limited imagination of the original creator. In my opinion, fanfic writers simply long for more or greater development from a character. And often the direction of development is one that a creator will not be taking, like many slash pairings will never be served in real fiction. I assumed that I was taking Ten/Rose to a place that RTD could not go with them in most of my writings. Of course, Moff has shown us that RTD lacked balls as well as imagination, since the BBC has allowed River/Eleven sexual references in DVD or Webisode extras.
The JK Rowling idea that she doesn't want her characters to engage in R-rated interactions goes directly to this point of denial on the part of a writer. She might not want R-Rated stuff to happen, might not want to write it or see it, but other people might long for such material. This creates a market for something that the original author will not be offering up in a fandom. This is what opens the door to fanfiction writers, we write what character creators fail to envision or shy away from committing to paper or film. Are the creations of an author like that author's children? Does an author have the right to protect characters once they are introduced to a wider audience? Certainly, if a fanfiction author jeopardizes a creator's profits, I would say so. It is dicey to simply write further adventures for Harry Potter and company, something JK Rowling might write herself, because you are arguably decreasing her sales. It is even worse to claim that you own the story. And fanfiction writers do try to do this, claiming copyright protections they do not possess, for example. If you steal someone's characters and write a story, you can't then claim that a story idea was stolen from you.
But there is another common thing that happens today, AU-Fic authors who steal basic set ups and premises and then recast the characters from their favorite stories into other realms. For example, Buffy and Angel could become Bella and Edward when the story is moved to a wooded rural area and sold as original. Doctor #4 and Romana #2 could be recast as Thomas Pitt and Charlotte and given a murder to solve in Victorian England and voila, it is a new series. Many is the time I've read a book about a witch and clearly seen Willow in the description of the character. Then, Bella and Edward are recast in a smutty story and that sells lots of books and the author makes no excuses about lifting the characters from another source. Inspiration from a story is not quite the same as stealing. I believe Gaiman was inspired by Disheveled to write his tale about Idris. That's flattering, for me, because I flat-out pilfered Ten and Rose and many of the situations they found themselves in for that fic.
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