What is it with people and fanfiction?

[DementedSheep]

Fan fiction has a reputation of having poorly written; wish fulfillment self inserts who supersede the actual main characters or just slightly modifying what already there. I've not read enough fan fiction to really judge though bad seems more common. The again bad fiction in general seems more common that good. I've read a couple of good ones, laughed at some bad ones and tried to pretend I was interested in ones a friend of mine wrote (they were terrible).

Since people have different interpretations of characters. The writer might think something matches a character perfectly and someone else might see it as horribly out of character.

 

[jackinmydaniels]

Because it's one of the 'cool' things to dislike, ya know, like FPS and Nickleback.

 

[Entitled]

What I end up seeing is that the artist using Minas Tirith takes it further; characters, events and such are just taken from the source material. It creates less work for the artist, takes less effort.

Maybe they can, but that's also a threat with "original fiction" that is still usually relying on it's predecessors in one way or another.

Like how earlier you mentioned how most High Fantasy is clearly Tolkien-based. Maybe for you that already means that none of them are "truly original", but in common view, none of those are cosidered fanfictions, but often praised for the specific quirks of their worldbuilding while accepting their borrowed elements as genre conventions.

While it's true, that once you have explicitly admitted to basing your work on another, you might be more openly reference elements from it, that doesn't mean that you are mindlessly following the path of the original.

Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality takes place in Hogwarts, and has characters called Harry, Hermione, or Dumbledore. It's also a scientific/rationalist criticism and reaction to the original, reinventing poth personalities, magical abilities, worldbuilding, or backstory to make it more "rational", which also entirely changes the plot direction.

It's about as much of an effortless "copy" of the "original", as this post of mine is an effortless copy of yours: Yes, it includes a quote from you, and one could not exist without the other, but at the same time, also the complete opposite of it through it's message, and didn't actually take less time or thought to write than yours.

Even the best fanfic artists can't avoid this, because if they did, it would cease to be fanfiction and would become an original work.

It's easy to avoid having to admit that fanfics can be original, if for any particularly original piece that I could cite that was written using elements existing IP, and that was published on fanfiction.net, you could say that those are "not true fanfiction" because they are too original for that.

In other words, of course you are right about all fanfictions having a mediocre artistic merit, if you first specifically define fanfics as works that can only have mediocre amounts of creativity.

And that may just be an area we have to agree to disagree :|

Never seen the point of that.

I continue to believe that you are wrong, your opinion is based on logical fallacies, unhealthy ideas about "owning" information, and misrepresentations of how the artistic process works.

You go on continuing whatever the opposite is.

 

[The Ubermensch]

But fuck General Sprinkles dude. There's a special place in hell for that guy.

Who the hell is that?

He made a My little Pony fic about...Well, Hannible Lector was more subtle if you get what I'm saying.

Wait, Cupcakes? If your talking about that, I don't know why you'd get mad, it was the funniest thing I've ever read.

Cupcakes got me into Lovecraft

And lets face it, Pinke is twisted as fuck already, if she was in our world she'd be diagnosed with... Bipolar but like... worse

 

[Agayek]

I see what you mean. All I can really say is that it rarely stops there. Look at two stories, one using Minas Tirith, one using New York: both abide by rules of gravity, by the notion that photosynthesis supports plant life, and by the notion that people tend to organize into large communities.

What I end up seeing is that the artist using Minas Tirith takes it further; characters, events and such are just taken from the source material. It creates less work for the artist, takes less effort. Even the best fanfic artists can't avoid this, because if they did, it would cease to be fanfiction and would become an original work.

In short, there are just certain things that you don't take from a setting without lessening, to some degree, the effort you have to put in, beyond that of any person authoring an original work.

Assuming this is all true (and for a good work, it's really kinda not, since the author would have to intimiately understand the characters, settings and events they are using) there's one question to be asked here:

How does "requires less effort" inherently mean "lower quality"?

Your entire argument rests on the assumption that something that took the author less time and effort to compile is an inherently inferior product, with no regard to the actual quality of the work. From an objective, academic understanding of literary principles, there are some few works of fanfiction that actually exceed the original works that inspire them, with far more consistent themes, less deus ex machina, or a variety of other things. Such are very, very rare, and generally take years to write in full, but they certainly exist.

The point I'm struggling to get to is that fanfiction in and of itself has no inherent quality, or lack thereof. Just like original fiction, some of it is good and some of it is bad. Fanfiction just has a very low barrier to entry, which makes the bad vastly outnumber the good.

 

[Kitsune Hunter]

I have no problem with fan fiction, actually I kind of like and just think that it's just fans wanting to express themselves and add on to the story. Although I don't read fanfic that much, but when I do the ones I read are pretty good, I can understand why some people don't like it as a majority of fanfic isn't that good, plus the fact that 50 Shades of Grey came from fan fiction doesn't help it's reputation either, although it still rubs me the wrong way when some people like to look down on fanfic writers and start to act smug and condescending, believing that all fanfic writers are talentless and unoriginal

 

[rob_simple]

I just think fanfiction is kind of a lazy way to write; I'd much rather come up with my own characters and stories instead of vamping over someone else's.

Would you say that Joss Whedon's Avengers had lazier writing than James Cameron's Avatar?

That Disney's Beauty and the Beast was lazier than The Lion King?

That Alan Moore's League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen was more lazily written than V for Vendetta?

By the common definition of fanfiction, the only reason why these formers would not count, is because they were using someone else's characters in a legal way, which is not a direct description of artistic merit or moral appropriateness.

It seems to me from looking at the history of art and media, that this kind of "vamping" on someone else's characters and stories has always been a part of the creative process, and a very weak indicator of whether a story is actually inspired, entertaining, or even original, in any meaningful way.

No, they don't count because, in Whedon and Moore's case, they both had a previously existing and highly respected body of their own original work. They earned the right to give their own take on established characters; it's sort of similar to how Johnny Cash covering 'Hurt' was iconic because he had the integrity (and the life) to justify it, whereas William Shatner covering Pulp's 'Common People' was just insulting and in complete opposition to the entire point of the song because he's famous and rich as fuck.

I don't know what point you were making with Disney though, given that neither of those films were original works, and that Disney are more famous for their animation than their writing abilities.

Anyway, by all means writing fanfiction is a good way to practice writing --I personally used to novelise games like Soul Reaver just for fun-- but it's nowhere near as creative as starting from scratch, and storytelling is all about creativity. That's how I call it.

 

[Angelblaze]

From an objective, academic understanding of literary principles, there are some few works of fanfiction that actually exceed the original works that inspire them, with far more consistent themes, less deus ex machina, or a variety of other things.

This is the last post I'm making in this thread, because people are consistently misunderstanding me, or just disagree, in which case nothing more is to be said.

First, no. There is no objective understanding of literary principles that determine whether a work is good. It's all arbitrary. All of it.

Second, if a work of fanfiction is superior to an original work because the original work lacked consistency or relied overmuch on Deus Ex Machina, then the blame lies with the original work for having excessive faults, as far as I'm concerned.

Two works of equal quality, one fanfic and one original in nature, are not equal in my eyes, because the presence of originality in the one elevates it. You don't have to agree. Frankly, I don't give a shit. This is about the fifth time I've explained myself, and I'm getting tired of it.

I'm done. Any more posts addressed to me in this thread will be met with silence. I was asked my opinion. I gave it. I owe no explanation beyond the numerous ones offered already in this thread.

In our world not much is really original - billions of people have lived here: if you have an idea or a story premise, more then likely someone has already thought it up. Maybe not released it to the public, but they've thought it out within some way shape or form.

Presence of 'originality' is dependent on what you've already seen/read or heard of.

Oh and uh, nice rage quit.

 

[FFHAuthor]

Ah, I always love the Fanfiction debates that crop up every two or three months. I'll toss in my own two cents I suppose.

I write Fanfics off and on, have done for the past few years. It's a fun outlet for the most part. But I've always viewed Fanfiction as being simultaneously the easiest thing to write and the most difficult. Easiest because most of the groundwork is already done depending on what you're doing. You don't need to worry about characters, or setting, or premace depending on what you want to write, and sometimes you can just say 'I wanna write a story in X universe' and just take a general concept or setting, or you can say that 'I wish characters Y and Z had this adventure.' Can be lazy and easy, but I always feel that Fanfics are incredibly hard to write well.

You can go into a Barnes and Noble or whatever bookstore you chose and you can look at thousands of books, and many of them will be well done, you might not like them, but they'll be well done. But as many have brought up in this little discussion, you have to look long and hard to find decent Fanfiction stories. Why?

Simple, the only people who read Fanfiction are fans. Fans who have watched every show, read every book watched every movie, the fans who know the universe, know the characters, know everything that they could possible know, and they have every mannerism every foible every little aspect of that work committed to if not memory, then at least Netflix. IF you're going to write a Fanfiction, you've got to know everything that those fans know, know everything about that universe, and you also have to have that spark of originality and interest to make your own creation worthwhile. You've got to be able to take that familiar setting and make it different, and make it FIT. You can simply say something's happening, you can have characters recite lines, put them in situations, but if they're not believable, if the reader looks at it and it just doesn't fit with what they KNOW the characters would do, then the story falls apart and you've just added to that heap of wasted time.

So yeah, Fanfiction is easy to write, but it's pretty damn hard to write well.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

One of the most remarkable science fiction short stories I've ever read is a very old retelling of "The Thing" from the perspective of the alien creature - arguably fanfiction, but also a wholly original perspective that complements the original story, rather than merely aping its success.

Happen to remember the name of that story? It sounds interesting.

Also, this thread has given me a writing itch once more. So, thanks for that, folks.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

I mainly do it for fun, although I also want to improve my writing skills.

There are plenty of good fanfics out there (am I allowed to recommend a few?), the problem is wading though all the crap to get there...

 

[Angelblaze]

Funny story: Just came up with an idea for a story that has probably already been done, but really want to write it anyway.

Best part; its basically a fanfiction of slasher films in general.

 

[Demongeneral109]

People who write fanfiction do so because they aren't creative enough to come up with their own characters and universe, so they have to piggy back on someone else's work. That's why I don't want to read fanfiction, because if those writers actually had any talent they would be able to come up with their own shit, and possibly attempt to actually publish it.

You really underestimate what it takes to get published.

I've been writing original stories for several years now and continually submitting them to local literary magazines while I work on my History B.A.

Fanfiction is just a hobby that came out of the fact that when I was big into Supernatural, I stopped trusting the writers of the show to actual develop the characters into something that was likable. Truth is, that happens and then fandom decides that they could do a better job and often times, they do. There's a huge fan-generated season seven for Supernatural that blows the actual season seven out of the water by far. It's about 600,000+ words long and it's just gorgeous.

But yeah, getting published isn't as easy as you would think. It's a lot of perseverance that some people just don't have.

If you want a terrifying fanfic sequal fanbase, look up the fic In-Flight, a Date/Stay Night Sekirei crossover that somehow managed to get its own fanfic spinoffs that got their own spinoffs and formed a whole new continuity of anime in general called the Emiya clan, Literally dozens of authors have contributed to it and its totally insane how much research went into some of these things.
There's also fan created sequels. RoTG has a massive following for the fic I posted earlier in the thread to the point of literally having its own active TUMBLR tag - not the entire section of that specific movies fanfiction, but by actual name. It's filled with fanart, ocs, the whole nine yards. For non gay romance fanfiction...check out Youtube and look up the Blazblue soundtrack. For a couple videos you'll find the fans already thinking up content for a future BlazbluexGuiltyGear crossover.





God I hope that happens.

 

[Seydaman]

People who write fanfiction do so because they aren't creative enough to come up with their own characters and universe, so they have to piggy back on someone else's work. That's why I don't want to read fanfiction, because if those writers actually had any talent they would be able to come up with their own shit, and possibly attempt to actually publish it.

You fool! Nothing is original! Good artists borrow, great artists steal.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

But then, is the same thing said for anyone who writes historical fiction and modern...everything?

 

[Angelblaze]

In our world not much is really original - billions of people have lived here: if you have an idea or a story premise, more then likely someone has already thought it up. Maybe not released it to the public, but they've thought it out within some way shape or form.

No shit? I guess fanfiction is a useless term, since everything is fanfiction then?

Or you could stop being so obtuse and speak to me on a level that gives me some indication you care more about the ideas I'm expressing than the words.

I doubt this will be the case.

Quick question; didn't you rage quit like a couple posts back and say that anything anyone asked you would be met with silence?

Just askin'.