Thoughts/advice on turning fanfics into original works?

Hi all,

I've been writing a particular fanfiction off-and-on for several years (almost none of which got posted anywhere). About 7 months ago, I realized that I'd gone so far in developing the Original Characters, setting, and plot that it didn't even really have a need (or a place) for the "fan" elements anymore. Since then, I've been working to completely remove the fandom-derived parts and replace them with other parts/ideas, tighten up the story overall, and make it a unique work of fiction instead of fanfiction.

What are your thoughts on someone doing this, turning a fic into an original work? I mean, in general, would you encourage it, discourage it? Any particular reason for one or the other? If anyone else here is doing the same thing, do you have any advice you'd be willing to share?

In terms of genre, I call it historical fantasy.

I am entirely all-too-aware that this is what E.L. James did with {{Literature/50 Shades of Grey}}. I don't consider her foray successful (in terms of money and popularity, it is, but not in terms of quality, IMO). I want to avoid the association, and, as much as possible, differentiate my current work from my former fanfiction.

I'm not that far into the conversion (especially given that I never came close to completing the fanfiction), and I know it will be several years at least before I reach that point. Still, I felt like addressing this now, while I'm still in the early stages, would be helpful for improving the work in the long-run.

Given that I do intend to eventually publish this thing, I'd rather not give explicit details about the fic that it's coming from or what I'm currently writing. However, I am happy to talk about it in general terms (I just don't want right of ownership/copyright to bite me later when I submit to publishers). If anyone's got questions about it, just ask.

Thank you for your time, guys!

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end." ~Ernest Hemingway (American author)

I think every case is a case. Some fanfics can be easily adapted in original work, some can't.

To exemplify with my own experiences: I once had a fanfic about Rahm Kota (quite extensive, too), I considered turning it into original work very briefly once, but it was impossible because the whole story was tied too much into the core concepts of star wars (The Force, Jedi, The Republic, the tech level, Mandalorians, the planets) to be turned into a original work without either completely changing the story or turning it into a complete rip-off.

On the other hand, I once had a fanfic about One Piece that I did manage to turn in a original story because the story could fly on its own without the elements of One Piece, because it wasn't tied to the core concepts in any significant way (No Akuma No Mi, varying levels of tech, a more serious story), and I added a bunch of stuff that wasn't meshing well with one piece universe. So the transition was simple, and it ended up not resembling One Piece at all (The only connection is the nautical element, pretty much).

So I'd say it depends on how your fanfic connects to the original work.

"All you Fascists bound to lose."

This is an issue I have not encountered, but it's food for thought.

My take on it is that there's no problem in turning a fanfic into an original work, especially in your case where you've put quite a bit of effort in developing the original elements.

I get where you're coming from, as an ex-fanfic author aiming to get original work published myself, and from both the legal and, erm, ethical perspective I'd say your best choice is to be very aware and careful about how much you take straight from the fanfic - even if you created it from scratch and put it in the fic - and into your original work, because there's always going to be someone who gets nervous because its been 'published' in a work before, doubly so due to the questionable legality of fanfiction.

Obviously, you can do it - and if you tell your fanfic-fans about the original work that may get you readers - but be careful of what original elements you put out there in the fic (it's in public and someone else may use it) and which go into your original work un-altered.

Of course, if you've created a mostly original content fanfic (where the content in question isn't just sex scenes), that already implies you'll have better quality luck than certain authors you've mentioned. On the other hand, they got money out of it.

edited 27th Feb '14 5:12:16 PM by ThetaTumbleweed

@Gaon: Thanks for sharing those examples. My fanfic connects to the original work in terms of setting, and a few supernatural elements (that are being changed). The general setting is the same: Kamakura/Muromachi-era Japan. It's funny to me as I'm going over all my old material that the original reason I started writing the now-former-fanfiction is because I wanted to explore the original series' setting in depth, and that's what I've ended up doing, but I've gone much deeper than I had ever imagined.

@fillerdude: Thanks! I'm actually still working on the original elements, and have been pretty much continuously for the past five years. I'm constantly researching, and I'm finally hitting on a lot of relevant materials/sources for a more obscure (and obscured) plot element in rapid succession. Now I just have to find the time to sit and read through it all. And still get my college workload done.

@Theta Tumbleweed: That's a very good point. Thank you. I will be careful of that, and keep it in mind. Fans? I didn't really have any fans aside from a few people, so I'm not sure it would make much difference. Haha, well there are sex-scenes, but they're all plot- and character-relevant, and I'm thinking of cutting some of those, too. (Although given my main character's job, I'm trying to approach them very carefully as it is.)

Thank you, this has been helpful. Anyone else willing to share their thoughts?

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end." ~Ernest Hemingway (American author)

Well, the Temeraire series started out as Aubery-Martin (aka Master and Commander)fanfiction, and is doing reasonably well, as far as I can tell (more than three books means that something's gone right at least). So, I guess the question is how much from the "fanfiction" is still left. In the case of Temeraire, all that remains, as far as I can tell, is a non-original setting (the Napoleonic Wars, and even that has been changed to the Napoleonic Wars WITH DRAGONS), and a main character who shows his origins as a hybrid between two characters of the original work (namely the titular duo). Temeraire also has an advantage in distinguishing itself as it is in a different genre than its "parent" work.

Nihil assumpseris, sed omnia resolvere!

I'm trying to do this as well.

The fanfic in question is one that actually uses almost entirely original material to begin with (It's a yu-gi-oh fanfic making a plot and story surrounding a certain archetype) So while the characters are all based on the cards, that's basically as far as it goes. The setting, the plot, even really the characters personalities which are simply inferred from the card art are essentially my original work on it's own, which essentially means that all I need to do is rename everyone and everything to make it nigh unrecognizable as a fanfic unless you've actually seen both (and I haven't even been posting this on fanfiction.net, but rather a yu-gi-oh specific forum site so only a few people have seen it)

I have a lot of other fanfics for other things as well, a couple of which I had considered turning original simply because that's how fun they were to write, but these ones rely far too heavily on the previous materials background, settings, and character histories to properly translate into an original stand-alone novel.

And like Sharur said, if at least three people have turned their fanfics into published novels, then something's gone right and there's not as much need to worry about trying to do it yourself.

I'm gonna be the minority here, and say it's a bad idea. Maybe use the original characters and the basic plot you worked out, but if you just adapt it to try to seem not to much like the source, it's still gonna come out smelling plagiaristic. Take a look at Eragon to see what happens then.

I'd rather the world betray me, but I won't betray the world.

I did this. My work was originally a fanfic of The Dirty Pair, a semi-obscure anime from the eighties. The only elements I kept were the protagonists names and their general profession. I changed the setting (it's now the present day) and created all-new secondary characters. I even changed genres- from sci-fi to action-thriller. I do include a few shout-outs to the original fic, though.

Advice: Don't. It's a drain on effort and time. Just get some practice starting from scratch.

It's the nature of creative work to be influenced by the creative work that preceded it.

Every standard fantasy author is writing Lord of the Rings fanfiction, and even Tolkien wrote this crossover of Arthuriana and Sturluson's Eddas or something. He made it original by building on it, but nobody is the origin point.

Being a fanfiction snob doesn't magically make you less pulpy, formulaic, or unremarkable. Fanfiction is just more honest and overt about its sources. And, granted, makes you more likely to get sued...unless you've changed enough that even a copyright holder would back away going, "Nothing I did has anything to do with that!"

Even if you start from scratch, or try to, you are subconsciously writing fanfiction of this amalgamation superfandom of everything you've ever read, watched, played, and lived. Anything you tweak of that is yours.

My biggest concern would then be about timing. Great, you're inspired by somebody else's book, and maybe you even have an original twisty tweak to whatever they gave you that's all your own. But isn't the market oversaturated with whatever you aren't changing? If not, then go ahead.

Another thing I wonder is why people completely ignore adaptations of classics when snubbing fanfiction. Is it just that classics have outlived their peak of popularity so that the audience isn't sick of it? Is it just that the copyright is expired, so there's no copyright holder to protect?

What's the difference between "The Return of the Queen" by Honor H and "The Problem of Susan" by Neil Gaiman? Both are fanfiction pieces for The Chronicles of Narnia but (much as I adore Gaiman's stuff) the former is a better short story, even though the latter was professionally published.

I also want to make a note that some awful fanfiction, especially AU fanfiction, could actually be passable original fiction if the awfulness isn't in the grammar or writing style but in not staying true to the canon at all.

That's really reductive.

That's ignoring what fandom is. Some people write fiction inspired by terrible events that happened in their real lives, but they're hardly fans of those events.

The claim that all writing is a form of fanfiction doesn't make sense.

edited 4th Jul '15 4:59:37 AM by editerguy

I believe there is a huge difference between being influenced by a creator's work and using someone else's work while just adding a couple of things.

Don't get caught.

Nous restons ici.

Fair enough, not all fiction is influenced by other fiction. Writers should only focus on fictionalizing terrible events that happened in their real lives instead.

What is the difference? I believe there is a difference, too. I'm not arguing that plagiarism isn't a thing.

I'm arguing that ideas can't be plagiarized. Only the exact words can. So if you churn out 50,000 words based on somebody else's idea, and don't use any of their words, then that's your work and not theirs. I'm also arguing against fanfiction automatically being plagiarism, because even the underlying ideas in some fanfiction can get hella weird compared to the canon.

If you keep the names of the characters and lines of dialogue and pass it off as original, then we've got a problem.

Not at all what I was saying. Where'd you get that from?

I don't even have a problem with fanfiction. The fact is, though, plenty of people write stuff inspired by events (traumatic, glorious or otherwise) that are not fictional. Trying to shoehorn that as being the same as fanfiction is nonsensical.

I don't see the difference between plagiarism and fanfiction (of works still in copyright), but as long as it's non-profit and acknowledged as fanfiction, I don't see the point in getting upset about it either. Some of it can be very entertaining.

In the OP's case, though, I wouldn't call an inspired-by-but-no-longer-fanfiction idea, differentiated extensively from the original, plagiaristic or problematic. I'd say go ahead.

edited 4th Jul '15 10:22:18 PM by editerguy

That's why I said "Fair enough, #notallfiction". Fictionalized real life events aren't fiction influenced by fiction. Fictionalized real life events aren't fanfiction. You are completely correct.

But if other people push for start-from-scratch originality then what does that mean? Sticking to fictionalized real life events is scratch. Check.

edited 4th Jul '15 10:28:21 PM by Faemonic

Not just fictionalised real events, but narratives inspired by but vastly different from real experiences, character driven stuff based on acquaintances/historical figures, what ifs (e.g. what if this quantum physics theory were true), etc. There is plenty of room for all sorts of stories not based on other fiction. Adding fictional influences too can make it more interesting, though.

So, avenues for purely original works:

• Autobiographical fiction (The Lovely Bones)
• Biographical fiction (Frozen)
• Historical fiction (Far And Away)
• Speculative (The Time Machine)

edited 4th Jul '15 11:53:07 PM by Faemonic

Eh, there's nothing that is completely original, so it's pointless anyway. Because really, even if we base the work only on what is in our mind, our mind had already been influenced by other people time and time again since the very moment we were born (if not even earlier than that).

Anyway, I think the difference between a fan fiction and an original work is that the latter is self-contained: that is, if someone who had read/seen/whatever the story that it took inspiration from and someone who had not have both seen or read this new work, on average—statistically speaking—they'd both understand it just as well if it's an original work and the one who'd seen the source of inspiration will understand it more if it's a fan fiction.

So really, if the names are different and your work is self-contained, you are fine even if it'd started out as a fanfic.

But Kazeto, real artists have to find ways to prove their superiority and put down other fellow artists! That's the whole point of any art!

Seriously, though, you've got a point about self-containment. Any fanfiction that I write comes with the presumption that the reader knows the canon down to the episode title or events in the chapter number, so I don't bother to introduce a fanfic reader to the world or the characters. That would never fly with original fiction. Can you imagine reading a preface that went, "Do you watch Fullmetal Alchemist? The magic in this story is exactly like that." Heck, I'd feel like I were making an annoying pop culture reference just by saying or writing the phrase "equivalent exchange" anywhere.

It weirded me out when there was a fanfiction competition on a writing site, and I wondered what the point of that was because (so I complained) only the popular fandoms would have people reading the entries and voting for that entry. Another member replied that fanfiction should be accessible to readers outside the fandom if that fanfic were any good, which I thought was weirder. Fans read fanfiction. It's the job of the source material to draw fans in, not the job of the material that the fans generate. The job of fan-generated material is to scare away other people who would have been fans of the canon.

But the weirdest thing happened when an offline friend of mine told me that she only started watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer because there was a crossover fanfic with one of her own fandoms, and the writer got Spike's voice and personality down just right. She reads crossover fanfiction for the purpose of finding official media to consume. I think that's very strange! But apparently that can be a thing.

edited 5th Jul '15 10:44:29 AM by Faemonic

Fan-fiction consists of creating a work that includes copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created work. That's why the're called derivative. A transformative work uses the same ideas of another work, but by adding a twist on how these ideas are executed or how they interact with each other, creates something that transcends the original work or places it in a new light.

To go back to the The Lord of the Rings thing, most fantasy works that follow its same structure and use some (all?) of the same tropes are NOT fan-fiction/derivative works (no matter how much it benefits a fan-fiction writer's argument that "nothing is original"). Those works are transformative.

So, if someone writes a book with a Hobbit called Alice who lives in Rivendell and has adventures with Legolas, they're really writing a derivative work of The Lord of the Rings.

If that someone writes a book with a half-ling who interacts with elves and slays dragons or whatever, they're writing a transformative work inspired by the Lord of the Rings because they're using the tropes found in the original work and giving them a twist that puts the original work on a new light.

That's why The Inheritance Trilogy is not considered fan-fiction of Star Wars, or why 50 Shades of Grey is not fan-fiction of the Twilight Saga despite starting off as one.

Both examples, regardless of quality, have transcended the original work and became something else.

Now, as Kazeto put it, ideas are finite. Once in a while we see something that truly hasn't been done before, but those instances are far and few in between. Think of ideas as the Tropes, if you wish: The Chosen One, The Virus, Rebellious Princess, The Quest, etc.

No one holds a monopoly or copyright on any of these ideas because they are abstract concepts that can mean various things and can be used in a million different ways, depending on how each trope/idea interacts with what's in the rest of the work.

With that in mind and by the logic of "everything is fanfiction", would you say that having a male character as The Protagonist is fanfiction of Don Quixote or any other story that came before?

The answer is obvious, I hope.

Thank you for refining my vocabulary. I meant to say that all fiction is either derivative or transformative. I thought Leradny's advice to "just get some practice starting from scratch" was uninsightful if there wasn't a definition for scratch as opposed to derivative and transformative.

Does it?

edited 5th Jul '15 11:58:12 AM by Faemonic

It benefits that argument as much as saying that "fan-fiction kills originality" supports the argument of creators who are against fan-fiction.

It's, in my opinion, a stupid argument used to dismiss the other side and paint it as inferior and not worthy of being called an "artist". A more eloquent form of saying NO U!', if you will.

Yes and no. It does bolster the argument itself until it is expanded, but when expanded it can go two ways:

It can prove that the one using their argument knows what they are talking about ("Because nothing truly is original, taking inspiration is fine for as long as one actually does the job of writing on their own, fan fiction is not intrinsically inferior due to being fan fiction, and when the writer does not care about profit there's nothing wrong with using an already-established setting to deliver a story for the readers without having to delve into the details.") and thus actually be quite a good argument in favour of why fan fiction isn't the ultimate evil in writing just because some people are annoying.

Or it can prove that the one using the argument is an idiot ("Nothing is original so there's no such thing as «plagiarism» and copy-pasting parts of another story into my own story makes it my story and my writing and that's good and they're only saying it's theft because they want my money, my money!") and should have their minds healed via application of questionable old-timey medicine (lobotomy, repeated enemas, and other such "miracle treatments" for the ills of the mind) or alternatively be repeatedly hit with sticks until they stop being stupid.

Or it could not be expanded with the one using the argument instead telling the other side that they don't get it and should get lost. This proves that they have problems with arrogance and self-entitlement, and the treatment is identical as in the case one paragraph above.

edited 5th Jul '15 12:13:19 PM by Kazeto