Fan Fiction: What Not to Do

When it comes to fan fiction, I've got mixed emotions. So much of the works you find on the net are horrid. Not only do the writers do things to and with the characters that are outside of the original ideas, but across the board, fanfic has nothing to do with homage. In my mind, fanfic ought to be something the writer does because he loves the world and the characters, not just because it'd be great to write about two characters having sex who ought not to have sex. Ever. I've written fanfic myself, but in each case, it was because the characters I was watching (these were anime based) got into my head so much that they began to tell stories there. So I think it's an okay thing to do, even when done poorly. It's a great way to exerice writing skills, and it's far more difficult to write someone else's characters than your own. However, the sheer volume of bad stuff and just plain wrong stuff makes me cringe a bit. Either way, it's always stuff to be taken with a grain of salt.

This is not to mention the legal issues involved. When you write fanfic, you are working with ideas, settings and characters that are not, legally, yours. By law, this means you cannot in anyway profit from the work you create. Copyright can be tricky, sure, and these days, it's getting even trickier. It's kinda hard to prove ownership of intellectual property. You've got titles for cars, receipts for DVDs and so on. But how do you prove that you own a fictional character? For the most part, you put a little circled c on the stuff, and it's all good. Because everyone knows what the little circled c means, right? Right, everyone? Well, apparently, there's a growing legion of fanfic writers who don't get it.

Very recently, a woman decided to sell her Star Wars fanfic on Amazon and B&N. (some strong language in the comments to that link, if you are easily offended by foul language) Okay, no one's going to argue that she wrote the book. But on the other hand, I don't think anyone's going to argue that Lucasfilms doesn't hold the copyright on all things Star Wars. She says it's only for friends and family. Well, why on Tatooine is it for sale to the whole world on the internet? Apparently, once Lucasfilms heard about this, they swooped down on this lady real hard. It gets worse. Read the comments. It seems that she's rewriting the very first Star Wars flick and not very well. One helpful commenter posts a paragraph from the book. Many comments follow about the wretchedness of the story. I wasn't brave enough at this late hour after a few drinks to follow any of the links to the .pdf file. That kind of courage comes only from a keg consumed with no outside assistance.

This kind of shit bothers me. Many people, readers, editors, publishers and writers alike, already have a low opinion of fanfic. This kind of stupidity makes it worse. People also have low opinions of POD companies, but this makes it worse also. I understand all sides, but here's the letter of the law. You cannot profit from someone else's stuff. It's that simple. By selling your fanfic in any form, you are profiting and therefore breaking the law. If you want to put it on your website for free, that shouldn't be a problem. However, if said owner comes across it and asks for its removal, you ought to comply. Because it's their stuff.

I think a lovely example of how this should work is a short Haibane Renmei inspired piece by Mega Tokyo writer and artist Fred Gallegher. He used his own characters, but the setting was unmistakably from the anime series. While the publisher, DC Comics, didn't think this was really a problem, Fred took it upon himself to rework the story into something totally his own out of respect for the creator of the series. A reworked version will be published in the upcoming fourth volume of Mega Tokyo, and I, for one, can't wait to see it. I enjoyed the story in its initial format. A more fleshed out version should be awesome. This is how a real writer handles that kind of situation.

The moral of the story is this. Don't be afraid to write your fanfic, even if it's horrible, slash, Mary Sue fanfic. Look at it as exercise for your own original worlds and characters. Put it on a website. DO NOT charge people for a copy of it. Once you cross the line from sharing to selling, you're infringing on someone's copyright. If you're interested, say, in writing Star Wars fiction, go take a look at some of the books that are being published. Find out who the publisher is. Find out what you need to do to submit something to them and do that. I don't want to see fanfic get such a bad name that the mere mention of having done a fan work will warrent blacklisting. Same thing with POD. Although any POD worth its salt has policies against publishing fanfic (Lulu does), I'm not sure how they police it. Both these things are like the Force. There's a good side and a dark side. It's sad that we don't hear about these things when they are used for good. It's also sad that the addage of any publicity is good publicity. One commenter mentioned the fact that the book in question was outselling a lot of original work. Train wreck mentality, I know. People, train wrecks are bad fpr you.