Things you're tired of telling non-fanfiction-writers

Furthermore, there is nothing that they can legally do to prevent you from accepting gifts for your work. That's why 'donations' exist in so many places that would be slapped with a cease & desist the moment they started charging for their stuff.

Mustn't make monetary gain off of someone else's intellectual property.

True, but still.... eh, call it Honor Before Reason if you want to.

edited 9th Jun '15 2:58:33 PM by EvaUnit01

People are asking for donations for just about anything these days, either with Patreon or other 'donation' based services. Its almost sickening in a way. I agree that some of these donations for deserving authors/artists/creators is warranted and should be encouraged, because some of what they do is amazing but for the average joe schmoe who just wants a bit of extra cash for bad quality work? No. I've had fans of my works throwing their money at me saying I deserve to be paid for my creations, but I've turned them all down. I don't care if my stuff is free, I'm just passionate about what I do and I want others to enjoy what I've done. That is all. But that's off topic and beside the point. As for what I'm tired of telling non-fanfiction writers? About fanfiction actually. They are usually either all in for fanfiction or they are not. If they have no interest in fanfiction, there really is no point talking to them about it. It'd just be wasted breath and words. They, more often than not, have already made up their mind about the whole thing and its hard to convince them otherwise that there is some legitimate good fanfiction out there.

edited 11th Jun '15 6:51:34 AM by Darkflamewolf

I'm tired of serious writers saying/implying that fanfiction is just "practice," and eventually people will "grow out" of it. It's so condescending.

There's a lot of reasons to write fanfiction. In fact, most reasons are the same as the ones for writing "real" stories. You write fanfiction in response to something in canon that hit deep (good or bad). You write it when you want to explore something that canon didn't flesh out. You write it because "What if X Meets Y?" And last of all, you write fanfiction because you goddamn feel like it.

Maybe you're practicing, maybe it's just a phase, maybe you're letting off steam, maybe you just want a break from your original works for a while.

If I knew there was fanfiction about my works, I'd be fucking flattered and I'd NEVER tell my fandom that "it's just a phase, but write your own stuff soon, lol."

Here's a fun thing:

A great deal of stories start as fanfiction, and wind up becoming something original in some way.

This, so much.

What is every comic book movie ever but fanfiction? What is every adaptation ever but fanfiction with a budget?

"Well, Harry Potter had JK Rowling's input." Yes, that's called Approval of God, but it is still fanfiction.

I'm tired of telling non-fanfic people that. Almost everything nowadays is fanfiction in some way, shape, or form.

Um, no they're not unless the plot is significantly different. Adaptations follow the source material pretty closely bar some things that don't translate well in other mediums or need to be change for the sake of flow or whatever. There's also the fact that it isn't fanfic by definition; it got funded/approved by God, so it's not an independent work anymore.

I ran into a CLASSIC of this today.

On Facebook, I watch Ao3 - Archive of Our Own's page. Someone posted on there a rant that essentially was an advertisement for their site for allegedly free script-writing forms. The person talked about how they wondered why talented writers "waste their time" on fan fiction when they can write "spec-scripts" to submit to TV shows to supposedly grain more respectability.

Well, Ao3 members shot back. I responded a bit too harshly, I'm afraid. (Sometimes I knee jerk and say "Screw off!" to the type of people I have little patience for). However, their response to the multiple replies of negative feedback made me think she deserved it. She was all, "Aw, geeze, I offer you something for free so you can better your lives and you whine at me!" and people pointed out that it wasn't her free offer that offended, it was the attitude that we were "wasting our time" on something that we see as a fun hobby.

People were saying "Stop replying, she's not going to listen." The Admin said that they were borderline in regards to even allowing the post in the first place as it borderline violated the no-outside advertising rule, but they left it up. I made a reply sighing and carefully explaining to the "You are wasting your talent!" nag with the fact that I, myself, DO actual "real" writing that I sell and am familiar with the concept of trying to make money off my writing, and that I like narrative format and have little to no interest in scriptwriting. Also, my fan fiction work consist more along the lines of something that I'd like to see turned into videogame scenarios, but I know that the games I write for are owned by people in another country who don't give a rip about the ideas of American fanfic-writing fangirls. I left with "Don't force my fun-hobby into work when I DO work!"

So annoying. People think everything creative must be done "for money" to be of value. Such a classic "Stop Having Fun" Guys - or, telling us to "have fun, the way I want you to!"

If you actually want your scenarios to be in video games, then you could rewrite them so they don't require the copyrighted work you used (assuming it isn't so ingrained into the idea i.e. a sequel or Day in the Limelight story) and try to sell it to a company. Alternatively, see if you can actually get in contact with someone and say "Hey, I have this cool idea for a game using your shit." Maybe someone would listen to you, you never know.

Highly unlikely but...meh, you can always try.

I don't want to. When I write for Nintendo stuff, I write FAN stuff. My novels and short stories - my original work - are different. (It has the same flavor in that I like to write emotional and descriptive stuff)... but I already have "real" work I'm working on and a style I am developing.

Fan work is fan work - by a fan, for fans. Geeking out.

edited 3rd Aug '15 10:46:39 AM by Shadsie

THIS SO MUCH. I love thinking of fanfic ideas - I've got two I posted over in the Fanfic ideas you have thread. And yeah, they're based on other peoples work, but influenced by my hand. And I can't just BS around completely, making Kirk suddenly be a Vulcan, or making the Normandy a freakin' organic ship. But that's my favorite thing about it all: I get to take the established rules and lore, and work with them to make my own things. It's like a challenge!

I had someone constantly complaining when I made one of my really old fics that my character was a Mary Sue just because he had somethings in common with the canon characters. Now mind you all of the written Mary Sue redflags? I never crossed ANY of them. I remember even running that character through an Mary Sue Litmus Test and scoring like a 4 or 5 or something so he certainly was not even close to a sue.

This guy had no stories under his belt by the way on fanfiction.net and I don't think he was a beta. So he wasn't speaking from a fellow author's perspective either. This also isn't the first time I heard of Mary Sue accusations on OC characters for just being OCs occuring. I think some of the non-writing people don't understand what the term Mary Sue actually means....

edited 9th Aug '15 12:43:32 AM by Bleddyn

Could you tell us about this character? Im curious, and great thread BTW!

"No I'm not twelve years old. Yes I'm straight. Yes I'm a dude."