Fan Fiction: Good or Evil

[White]

a very small percentage of fanfiction is actually very good and offers additional insight and perspective on characters and give fans of a series a bit more of their favourite characters especially if a series feels a bit cut short.

the fact that most people write poorly is more a statistic than justification for saying the making of fanfiction is inherently evil. In my experience the best fanfiction is done by mature minded individuals who create stories to the best of their own ability while still having a great degree of respect for the owners and creators and the characters themselves. These type of authors who do write some brilliantly insightful takes on stories and characters tend to do so mostly to express potential depths to characters, relationships or whatever which would never have been able to slot into the series often.

The type of nice, mature fanfic writers I'm taling about while extraodinarily rare would be far more likely to beg and plead for the type of stuff they were writing to be included in the series.

Frankly though, anyone who would actually try and sue the author just horrifies me to no end. My take on things is unless people would be heartfeltingly (is that a word?) willing to give their stories as suggestions to the author than they just shouldn't write it or post it in the first place.

Actually, most fanfic writers just shouldn't post their work in public forum, but that's purely because most fanfics tend to be exceedinly poorly written by gushing thirteenyear olds who have no ability to be able to analyse their own work.

But fanfiction isn't evil, just plagued by some stupid people like every other thing in the world - it's one of those population bell-curve things.    -_^

[Bryant]

I'm not exactly sure how I feel about fanfiction. On one hand, the overwhelming majority of it is terrible. Poorly written, poorly thought out, completely unreadable junk.

On the other hand, every now and then, a good story gets written.


But the existence of fanfiction tells me something: Either the people reading/writing it absolutely love the world and characters, and can't part with them, so they read/write more adventures, or that the author didn't do his or her job and bring real closure to the series. If people feel like the ending of a story "left them hanging", I think it's natural that they should seek satisfying closure.

So I think I can understand the why, but most of the times the result is quite poor. In concept, I can support the idea. In actual practice... I would think, more often than not, it is a poor idea.

[Shi]

I don't really care for fan fiction, so I don't read it. So I don't understand why people get so hot and bothered about it. Their not being forced to read it, either.

But I see what some people are talking about from a writers aspect. It's a good start, just like how copying another artist's work is good when you're just getting started, but at some point if they want to write more seriously, their going to have to break away from that. If they never drop the crutches they're never going to be able to walk right. But If they don't want to write seriously that's totally up to them.

[Vetta]

I think that most of it is junk but harmless.      I have written some but I never let anyone else read it.      I have friends that are always asking me to read theirs.     I usually give in but  rarely find it interesting.     That is partly because they choose books and subjects that I am not really interested in.       There have been a few rare exceptions though that I told the writer that what the person wrote was actually interesting and I recommended that they send it to the author to give him ideas.

I think that it is silly for these ff writers to sue the original authors though.      They should be happy that they might have given the author an idea that he was able to use.

[Peter Ahlstrom]

Uhmm, fanfiction writers should never send their ideas to the actual writers. Wise writers will never use ideas that their fans send them (unless those fans are alpha readers the writer has selected to give feedback on his or her stuff before it gets published).

[Xekim]

In my opinion it really depends.  There's a stark contrast between a good continuation and a Fan Fiction.  Sometimes others authors can expand the universe of a story in meaningful and interesting ways.  Though if you guys are referring to the strict abuse of already existing literature and the changing of already existing story elements in order to write out what you think would have been cool happening, then I would say it does more harm than good. 

Uhmm, fanfiction writers should never send their ideas to the actual writers. Wise writers will never use ideas that their fans send them (unless those fans are alpha readers the writer has selected to give feedback on his or her stuff before it gets published).

I don't know about that.  I see nothing wrong with getting inspired by the idea of another.  Not to the point of plagiarism or anything, but to like and idea and considering it is not always a bad move, though I do agree that it can be under certain circumstances...

[Shaggy]

Evil. Definitely. It's amazing how some people can completely screw up a good story with such ease. I'm envious.

And reading that crap that they spawn out is just painful. 

[CthulhuKefka]

Well speaking as someone who actually writes fan-fiction, I can say I'm certainly getting a kick out of reading all these replies. 

Usually the bulk of fan-fiction I do is for projects that either didn't get enough story in (i.e. the show got canceled after a short time, i.e. 1 season) or simply a desire on my part to explore different facets of the story. I love secondary characters almost as much as main characters, so I often focus a lot of fan-fiction around these less popular characters. And yes, it is all just for my own amusement.

That's my problem, I have no real illusions of being an actual published writer. Fan fictions, that only I read for my own amusement and love for the body of work, are the only outlet I have into acting on my love of literature.

[Shaggy]

Nothin' wrong with writing fanfiction. Just, if you're gonna put in the time…at least make it good. (Which I'm sure yours is, so no offense.)

[CSmythe]

I have read myself some fanfiction. Particularly the stuff based on Disney's Gargoyles where the fan community (with input from the actual creative team) wrote further seasons of the show and wrote a few spinoff series as well. All of which were originally planned by the creators before the series got canceled. I have also read some of the transformers Beast Wars fan fiction. I was a huge fan of that series when it was on and it was nice to see some fans making an effort to write more stories to bring some of the toys into the canon.

I like fanfiction as a way to extend a series, particularly when it is done well. My big problem is that just like with books you have no way of knowing which authors are good without reading them first and whereas in RL the less talented authors don't get published, or at least not for long, fan fics just keep getting written by anyone with a keyboard.

The thing you need to be careful of with fan fiction is when it gets into the erotica area, which to my mind tends to be creepy. I don't really understand what would drive someone to write that stuff but as long as it is clearly labeled so I can avoid it more power to them.

[Shaggy]

What's erotica?

[Loud_G]

What's erotica?

You don't want to know....

I wish I didn't know...

[Peter Ahlstrom]

It's stories whose central focus is sex.

[Reaves]

You don't want to know....

I wish I didn't know...

lol that kind of statement just encourages him to go out and Google it...not exactly a great idea 

[Shaggy]

You know, Loud_G, Reaves's got a point. Good thing I wasn't home much before checking this  . Thanks for saving my childhood, Ookla .

Oh. That stuff.