If you had a fandom....

Any original work or fanfic is bound to have some fans but what would you do if ever had a fandom? If you have people who really enjoy your work enough to analyze the characters, plot, themes and even create fantfiction of based on your stories, would you be flattered or surprised? To be honest, I am not sure if I could handle it as most creators ignore their fans and very few actually listen to their fans. I never had nay fans but if I had a fandom, I would try to make an effort to listen to them at least. What would do if you ever had a fandom?

I would listen, but I would be a silent listener. I would also sit back and enjoy the flame warring...

I'd be very flattered and probably participate actively in the fandom.

By that I mean I'd talk with the community and answer questions and such, but I wouldn't write fanfiction or stuff like that. I'm already too busy with the real work!

edited 1st Oct '11 10:35:26 AM by annebeeche

I would probably be kind of flabbergasted. Would probably answer questions and correspond with them, but otherwise remain slightly aloof. Beyond a certain size of fandom, there's almost certain to be people flaming me for how I've done things, which would be...amusing, anyway.

Actually reading fanfiction of one's own work tends to be a bad idea for legal reasons (e.g. if you're writing a series and your next installment is suspiciously similar to someone's fanfic in some regards, the fan author can then sue you, as infamously happened to one famous fantasy author — I think it was Marion Zimmer Bradley). That said, if I had a fandom, I'd be incredibly flattered and would definitely want to interact with the fans to the extent that I could.

I think I might have a (teensy-tiny) fandom—I've got people commenting positively on my work and requesting more of it, and one of them has commented positively on more than one of my stories. It's great for my ego, although it feels a little weird when I get positive comments on something I don't think I did that well at writing. (Granted, I'm not getting fanfic made of my stories . . .)

edited 1st Oct '11 12:07:06 PM by feotakahari

I'd be flattered if I had a fanbase, even if it's a tiny one.

bluepenguin: The best way to go with that is the Terry Pratchett route: Request that anyone making fanworks based on your series surrender all creative rights back to you. Which is to say, go ahead and read Fan Fiction of your work as long as it has a "all this stuff belongs to [you]" clause somewhere in it.

That can't be true. In the first place, technically all fanfiction based on non-public domain work is in violation of the author's copyrights already. In the second place, since there's no way to prove that you didn't read a publicly posted fanfiction, the fan could sue you anyway.

I'd read fanfics/look at fan comics since I spend half my day on dA anyway [/nerd.] I wouldn't catch myself making canon decisions based on the posts above though (I had no idea you could get in legal trouble over fanfic even if it's derived from your work o.O)

I'd also be very flattered that someone likes my work enough to put up fan-works of it. I wouldn't be a stiff that does a Fanwork Ban when I started out with fanfic (and in my earlier years, fanart and even my own OC's who I didn't even know were "OC's" until learning about this and other fandom terms later on.)

And of course I'd laugh at all the Crack Pairing that goes on.

edited 1st Oct '11 1:44:21 PM by Misuki

It is true, which is why I will never read any fanfiction if I get published and want to do a sequel for that work...

Yeah...for me making a fuss about fan work would be remarkably hypocritical. I'm quite skeptical of the idea that reading fanfic of my work could lead to legal problems; if I was worried about it, I'd just make it policy that in exchange for me not suing you, I own the fanwork and you can't sue me. Anyway, there would probably be at least some fanfic, if any significant fandom develops, that's better than my original (certainly there's something Better Than Canon in every fandom I've read), and that would just be incredibly cool.

In that case, it's more of a moral reason not to steal from fan-fics.

I would relish in answering questions in interview...or not.

edited 1st Oct '11 1:59:40 PM by chihuahua0

I wholly follow the idea of death of the author.

If I had a fandom, my work would no longer be mine alone. Alas the horrors of fame.

This is why I write for myself. The only way its only My work. :P

That will be my policy, but I refuse to read it anyhow because I want to have my own ideas.

Heh, interviews will be fun. I'll be purposely off-the-wall just to make the fans have to wank their way towards answers, while I make fun of their shit theories...

EDIT: Deleted my post as further research revealed my opinions were not quite accurate.

edited 1st Oct '11 2:06:35 PM by LoganLocksley

EDIT: One more:

Okay, that was more of a Trolling Creator.

I think to further troll the fandom, for a series, for when I shoot down a Ship, I'll create an animation of a literal ship going down—but with the ship's name blurred out.

edited 1st Oct '11 2:06:37 PM by chihuahua0

I would go undercover and write the trashiest slash possible.

I actually thought about doing that at one point. But instead of slash, I'll show a Noodle Incident and watch for reactions for the "Original Voice".

I would write "terrible" crossover fiction that's actually true, but only I know that.

With my plans to use a wiki to tell a story (going to lock pages with parts of the story I wrote), I'll already have an interesting way to interact with any fans that I attract. As for how I'll answer their questions...

I have a tiny little fandom.

It's cozy, so I answer questions, wonder how people draw the conclusions they do (I despair of how shallowly people read things, both here and elsewhere: all words and phraseology is considered for a specific effect and implication, dammit), generally respond to people with things to say.

I'd observe and take interest. If anyone posed questions to me, I'd answer bluntly, but politely. I know how it feels to love a piece of work a lot, and I'd be flattered if someone loved my work.

It's perfectly logical!

I'm thinking of forming a mini-fandom at school once I'm done with the 3rd draft, mostly beta readers. I'll still have to find some serious ones though.