Fan Fiction

[skimom]

I couldn't see that another thread about this has already been started, so forgive me if I'm being repetitive.

Up until six months ago, I had never heard of fan fiction-taking someone else's characters and writing new stories for them, for anyone who was as clueless as I was. I never would have considered that! However, I have since found that there is a HUGE reading/writing underground for it.

That's where I started out a few months ago-reading it... then writing it... now having the pleasure of having published writers and publishers looking at my stuff, and wanting to publish it (taking all reference to the other author's characters out, of course-just the names were used, as my story does not draw on the other author's story at all). This is just fascinating to me, and I wondered what ya'll thought about it-not me specifically , but fan fic in general?

[mstay]

Hi skimom! It's good to see you around.

What I know about fan fiction is that my daughter wrote some for a creative writing assignment in high school and she got accused of plagiarism. We tried to explain it to her but she didn't want to hear it. Needless to say we transferred my daughter out of her class! My daughter really likes fan fiction though.

[aptpupil]

Autumn

Don't worry about being repetitive.

Don't worry about being repetitive.

Don't worry about being repetitive.

[JohnDalglish]

Hi,

I'd always kinda looked down on it as a genre (or sub-genre) but after the last time I finished Dark Tower, and partly inspired by a conversation I had with Robin Furth last year, I felt compelled to write (just for myself) which I called, purely for fun, 'The Story of Oy'.

So now I agree, although I wouldn't have a year ago.

Long days and pleasant nights

[skimom]

Hi skimom! It's good to see you around.

What I know about fan fiction is that my daughter wrote some for a creative writing assignment in high school and she got accused of plagiarism. We tried to explain it to her but she didn't want to hear it. Needless to say we transferred my daughter out of her class! My daughter really likes fan fiction though.

Was it your daughter or the teacher who didn't want to hear it? I can see the teacher having a problem with it if she didn't 'get' fanfic (I sure didn't, at first), but it's a shame if she rejected it when it was explained. I've read some truly terrific stuff lately, and the original creator is always acknowledged and thanked.

[mstay]

It was the teacher who didn't get it. My daughter totally understood what plagiarism meant and she thought it was unfair that she was accused of it. The teacher still rejected it.

[Todash]

I think fanfic is simply a medium and can be either good or bad. I'm not a fan of slash, though.

[skimom]

I think fanfic is simply a medium and can be either good or bad. I'm not a fan of slash, though.

That's something else I hadn't even heard of until a few months ago. I am pretty much a technodork, so all of the 'net stuff flew right by me, I guess. Spending too much time in pokey old libraries with actual, paper books...

[Deavlynn]

It was the teacher who didn't get it. My daughter totally understood what plagiarism meant and she thought it was unfair that she was accused of it. The teacher still rejected it.

Some teachers stink. I know there are some good ones out there, but in my personal experience they were few and far between. How can you teach young people today and not know what fan-fiction is? Shouldn't the teachers be at least one step ahead of the students? I can understand not accepting fan-fiction as completely origional work, but accusing her of plagiarism is grossly unfair. The teacher should have known about the whole genre and specified ahead of time if it wasn't acceptable for the project.

This is what bugs me about our current system of education, it takes forever for the academic world to catch up with the rest of us. They should, by all rights, be leading. It's completely backwards.

[Bryan James]

I argued with a teacher up to the point of detention in the fifth grade. I was a broke, drunk-ass shrimper's son in a Southern elitist private day school on an unspoken scholarship, and I knew I didn't have much leeway or leverage for arguing. I was there only because I brought up the small school's test scores.

I'd used the word "Sith" in a short story. That teacher happened to be the mother of the only real love of my life, then and still (and I have not seen her in over 10 years), but I argued anyway.

It was a WORD that meant something, and it wasn't an incorrect spelling about feces. (Thank you, George Lucas).

I eventually caved in and said that I would rewrite that part.

Screw you, Mrs. O. Or better yet, Sith you!

BJS