[stylist] fan fiction was What are you Reading Right Now?

Fri Oct 14 09:48:16 UTC 2016

Actually, I'm a big proponent of fan fiction, and many authors approve it.
the reputable sites that publish it don't allow stories if the authors don't
approve it. There's a lot of bad fan fiction out there, but there's also a
lot of incredibly well written fan fiction. There's fan fiction in every
possible genre, books, TV and movies. Some people write it because they
loved the original source material so much that they just want to tell
stories in that world. Some people write it to explore other directions the
stories could have gone, to write alternate universe stories and change
things they didn't like in the original material. 

I discovered fan fiction back during the time the Harry Potter books were
being written. There was a three-year gap between books four and five, and
I, desperate for Harry Potter something, found fan fiction, and I've been
hooked on it forever. But fan fiction goes back much farther. You know how
there are so many star trek novels? Those are a type of fan fiction, but
with the permission of Roddenberry and then Paramount, they became
published. People wrote stories about Sherlock Homes during Conan Doyle's
lifetime, more fan fiction, and by all accounts he loved it.

Sometimes, people write fan fiction to sharpen their writing skills and to
get an idea of how people, total strangers from all over the world, might
receive their words. Some authors I've followed, fic authors that is, have
gone on to publish their own original work, not fan fiction, but writing
fics gave them the confidence to try to get published. Some authors' their
writing skills have improved so much from the first poorly written, bad
grammar and spelling fic, till the new material, or their original work are
unrecognizable because they've improved so much. Some people just want to
write stories but don't want to be published. And yes, most definitely,
there are some books that were originally fan fiction, and some of those
should never have been published, or should, at least, have had the benefit
of a good editor. Not all fan fiction is great, but much of it is.

Genres I've read in fan fiction range from Harry Potter, to Star trek, to
Lord of the rings, Twilight, Song of Ice and Fire, West wing and others. I
read HP fics where Sirius Black doesn't die; I read SOIF where Ned isn't
murdered; I read West wing because I think it was the most intelligent thing
ever written for television, and I'm always wishing it hadn't ended, as I
didn't discover it till well after the show was off the air. Grin. 

So, to me, as long as the author of  the original material does not
disapprove, I think fan fiction is an excellent way for people to hone their
skills as a writer, an excellent source for people to find stories based on
something they loved that has ended, or just a way to write or read some
great stories. There's a book on bookshare that discusses the fanfiction
phenomenon. I believe it's called Fic. Check it out.

On a personal note, I think I wrote fan fiction when I was a kid. I remember
writing a Partridge Family story, back on my Perkins Brailer, maybe about
100 pages long in Braille. Grin. And I have written a few fics in the last
five years. But generally, I don't want to write it, because I have my own
work to focus on. But posting fan fiction gave me a chance to explore and
develop my own writing, and to get opinions from total strangers, people who
don't know and love me, so always praise anything I write. Grin.

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Vejas via
stylist
Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2016 9:57 PM
To: Writers' Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Vejas <alpineimagination at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [stylist] fan fiction was What are you Reading Right Now?

Hi Tessa,
I remember my  freshman English teacher saying that Salinger was a recluse
and, if I remember correctly, refused to have a movie made for the book.
Others might have been amused. 
I think fan fiction is something that lacks originality and is fine to do
for yourself but not publish. I could see why a person would want to do it,
for example a Harry Potter obsessive, but why not just create your own
characters?
Even if you are not writing fan fiction, though, and you use your own
characters, you end up using characters experiences but not in a bad way. As
an example, in my story about 2 friends attending a training center who are
totally opposites, one was not allowed to take wood shop because her rehab
refused to pay for it which, unbelievably, happened to a friend when I was
there. He could only be there for 3 months, and his counselor felt that
kitchen and wood shop were a huge waste of time.
Vejas 

> On Oct 13, 2016, at 18:27, Tessa via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> There was a story a couple months back that someone had written a sequel
to 
> Catcher, apparently the guy had no clue about copyright. J D Salenger was 
> not impressed, not that I blame him.
> Which raises the issue of fan fiction, there's an awful lot of it out
there, 
> some people figure it's okay because at least it has people thinking and 
> writing. I don't know, I like to think that my characters are mine, and
yet 
> a lot of times I get a lot of ideas and character traits from other books.
> Tessa
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jacobson, Shawn D via stylist" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> To: "Writers' Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> Cc: "Jacobson, Shawn D" <Shawn.D.Jacobson at hud.gov>
> Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2016 3:32 PM
> Subject: Re: [stylist] What are you Reading Right Now?
> 
> 
> :I read that book five times, once for the dirty words (when I was a kid),

> once later on, and for three English classes.  I enjoyed the book, what an

> adventure.  I really wanted to know how the main character ended up.
> :
> : Not many books I've read more often.
> :
> : Shawn
> :
> : -----Original Message-----
> : From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Erica 
> Turner via stylist
> : Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2016 12:08 PM
> : To: Writers' Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
> : Cc: Erica Turner <ericaturner203012 at gmail.com>
> : Subject: Re: [stylist] What are you Reading Right Now?
> :
> : Hello everyone!
> :
> : I hope that this finds everyone doing well.
> :
> : I am reading "Catcher in the Rye"!
> :
> :
> : "I never cut class. I love getting A's. I like being smart. I like being

> on time. I think that being smart is cooler than anything in the 
> world."--Michelle Obama
> :
> : Erica J. Turner
> : Sent from my iPhone
> :
> :
> : > On Oct 13, 2016, at 10:56 AM, Vejas via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org> 
> wrote:
> : >
> : > Hi,
> : > We used to talk about books all the time, but not anymore. I thought I

> would start this thread.
> : > The book I'm reading is called Smack by Melvin Burgess. It's about 2 
> English teenagers in the 1980's, boyfriend and girlfriend, who run away
from 
> their messed up families, then have their lives changed because of a new 
> drug.
> : > How about everyone else?
> : > Vejas
> : > _______________________________________________
> : > Writers Division web site
> : > http://writers.nfb.org/
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> : > stylist at nfbnet.org
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