Fan Fiction Meme
A question came to mind from a comment made. Fan fiction is an odd area because it’s really a bunch of people writing stories with an established person’s world and characters. It’s a safe area for the most part since money isn’t being made by the fan fiction writers for these stories. It is still strange to me when compared to other types of writing. I know I’ll anger fan fiction writers, but I’m trying not to say what they do sucks or is worthless. There are fan fiction authors that capture the characters and write good stories. That does take a lot of skill. Unfortunately, there are more that do it simply to get the ending or hookups they want. Read some Avatar: The Last Airbender and you’ll see some insane stuff. The same can be said for indie authors with many that churn out quick slop and others that put hard work into their self-published novels. Sadly, the terrible tends to get more attention than the talented in both fields.
Now, there was a comment made that was confused about a retelling of Alice in Wonderland. I was curious about the difference between a fairy tale retelling and fan fiction, so I asked Ionia the Wise. She said “Fan fiction is based on characters and fairy tale retellings are based on story that does not hold exact copyright.” That’s when the term ‘Public Domain’ clicked in my head. For those that don’t know, Public Domain is the term for artistic creations that are free for the public to use. These are characters, stories, and worlds that have been around so long that they are no longer covered by copyrights or the families of the creator never renewed the copyright. Look at the comic book series ‘Fables’ and you’ll see how many fairy tales and old stories are Public Domain. Everything from Grimm to Arabian Nights to Jungle Book are fair game. I’ve heard that there are some disputes of Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan too, so you always have to make sure you are retelling a Public Domain story. This is why you can get so many Alice in Wonderland remakes and you still have hoops to jump through for The Hobbit.
Fan fiction tends to work differently in that it uses characters and worlds that are still under copyright. Even when it uses a Public Domain character, it tends to be a version of that character from a retelling. For example, fan fiction that involves Alice and Mad Hatter from the Tim Burton version. That isn’t really a retelling because there is no change to the characters from that specific movie. Again, this is fine and oddly flattering as long as the fan fiction author doesn’t try to make money off it. I think that’s the line for it and why fan fiction is so widespread. It’s a hobby for many and a way to flex their creative muscles. I will admit that I have trouble talking shop with a fan fic writer because the discussion of designing characters tends to be iffy. Seriously, I’ve had some rough conversations with people who have openly asked why I don’t simply take characters directly from Lord of the Rings and change their names. Yes, it has been suggested that I blatantly steal from preexisting works.
So, what’s your opinion on retellings of Public Domain stories and fan fiction?
Legends of Windemere 
A good number of historical fiction writers rewrite history or least had much historical content…a little like public domain writing. I like to see rewrites of public domain and I think all art….including literature, mimics other art to some degree, or at least is inspired by it.
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History is a big one for retelling because you can find different perspectives on the same event. A big one in this country is the Civil War. Being a person who was born in New York and substitute taught in Florida, I was amazed at the difference in curriculum. I learned that the North fought the South to stop them from using slaves and trying to break the Union. I taught that the North invaded the South and threatened their traditions and way of life. Both versions had their ‘side’ winning the whole time. It was very telling about how humans view historical events depending on the side that they’re on.
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It is funny that you mention the Civil War, when it was really not about slavery at all, but about economics. The North wanted the blacks as cheap labor. They weren’t really looking to glorify the race or promote freedom.
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I didn’t hear that in Florida either. Both sides have glorified their positions when it was probably a bunch of ego and an inability to compromise.
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Retellings can work brilliantly. Especially if the author puts their own twist on it. There is some fanfiction – though it can take a while to find – that is really, really good. Some Harry Potter ones are written wonderfully, and again, especially great if they put their own spin/twist on it. I started out writing fanfiction and then moved onto working with my own worlds and characters. I do still write fanfic at times, but for me it’s sort of a break, a way for me to work on my writing without worrying too much about the characters because they’re already in place. And how could anyone suggest just taking characters from something and changing their names! People aren’t stupid. And it would just show a lack of creativity and skill (I’m thinking 50 Shades here).
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I never read much in the way of fanfiction. The ones that were sent my way were typically erotica. (I didn’t know Harry and Draco could bend that way.) I think the erotica ones overshadow the ones that have actual skill. One thing that I wasn’t sure how to add in was the published book series of other worlds. World of Warcraft, Halo, Dungeons & Dragons, and other worlds have book series that authors can submit ideas to then write the novel. That’s fanfiction, but kind of not because the authors try to use their own characters and stories.
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I tend to stay away from the erotica ones. And the Mary Sues. I was always glad if I had an original female character and reviewers said I managed to avoid making her a Mary Sue. But yeah, I’ve read brilliant fanfics involving the founding of Hogwarts, Dumbledore’s Army during Harry’s seventh year, the marauders, all sorts. I have also read some terrible, terrible ones. (And I try to read more than just Harry Potter)
Yeah I think that’s different if the authors use the worlds but their own characters. Reading Legends of Windemere does remind me of the two games I played of D&D, in the style, descriptions, etc, (maybe that’s partly because I know that’s where it’s from, though) but with those sort of things, even if I wrote a book based off D&D it would come out completely different. It’s not fanfiction in the same way a lot of things are. I’m actually trying to rewrite an old Heroes fanfic of mine at the moment, but making it original. Changing the plot and characters totally, just using the basis. Fingers crossed it works! If it doesn’t, I’ll still be glad I tried because they are yet another group of characters (the original ones) that I can’t get out of my head.
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Fantasy is an odd one because all worlds seem to resemble each other. Windemere is a different world than Forgotten Realms, but they have similarities much like FR gas similarities to Middle Earth.
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I know what you mean, but I think it’s like saying all vampire novels are the same. Or all horror. Yeah, they share similarities but the author still has the chance to put their own twist on things. A Song of Ice and Fire is vastly different from Lord of the Rings, just like the Anita Blake vampires are different than Anne Rice’s Lestat, Louis, etc. I haven’t read Forgotten Realms (worth checking out, would you say?), haven’t read a lot of fantasy (but do want to read more so feel free to suggest some) but the ones I have read, I think they’re all different in their own ways. And yeah, worlds will resemble each other but that’s because they all have the same basis in our real world – you can’t exactly get too different from that, even in sci-fi. Even our imaginations (sadly) have their limits.
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Forgotten Realms is the big world of D&D that all of the games I played were in. There are books on it, most notably R.A. Salvatore with Drizzt. Some worlds can differ, but you’re right that there will always be even a scrap of reality.
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Think I’m ok then?! But I’ll steer clear of a 50 shades rewrite!
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Avoid 50 Shades. You’re fine though. Alice in Wonderland is a Public Domain thing. If Tim Burton didn’t get sued then you’re in the clear.
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I started a reply to this, but then it got too long so I wrote it as a separate post instead.
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I saw. Loved the post.
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Pingback: Fan Fiction, Pastiche, Homage, and Influence | mishaburnett
I am not a big fan of fan fiction. Truthfully I avoid it like the plague. If someone is a fan of a certain author these fan fiction stories may be amusing, but in general I see it as laziness in writing, or a lack of a fully developed imagination. For borrowing from Public Domain for storylines and characters this only succeeds in my mind if the author puts a new spin on both…
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The new twist is definitely necessary for a retelling and it’s very hit and miss. Fables does a great job with the fairy tales of old. As for the laziness, I agree to some extent. I think fan fiction is more of a hobby for fans instead of a serious writing genre. It might be heading that way with Amazon Worlds or whatever that fan fiction project of theirs is, but it still seems to be more fans writing their own stories.
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Fan fiction I suppose could be considered a great form of flattery in that the fan enjoys the original work enough to want to write stories with the characters you’ve created and so long as they do not profit from what they write I presume it to be harmless fun for them. Retelling of stories in the public domain is fine in my opinion, we’ve seen it done a 1000 times and there is some very good stuff based on this. Dracula as a character and story immediately comes to mind for me. He is one of my favorite characters both fictionally, and to a degree historically; i.e. Vlad the Impaler which has evoked some fantastic books and movies based on Bram Stokers’ legendary masterpiece. So in the case of retelling stories from the public domain, I am fine with that so long as the author confirms that they are truly in the public domain infringing on no ones copyright.
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Dracula is a great example because he’s been done amazingly well and horrifically bad. That seems to be part of the risk of going with Public Domain. You still have to retain some of the original while adding your own twist.
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I would definitely agree with that. If you stray too far away from the original premise of the story you risk turning you version into a mockery, but I suppose there are instances where that is the author’s intention.
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Dracula: Dead and Loving It?
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I am not a fan of fan fiction either (okay need a new word to say that) but I do think that writing fan fiction can help with general writing. By setting boundaries within someone else’s world it helps you learn to focus and feel out characters as they were originally intended (there is a difference between fan fiction and fetish faniction [looky I created a new word!]). If someone uses it as a tool to help them think about characters and writing style, it is a useful tool. If it is just used as a desire element then I consider it worthless.
That being said, American Copyright is life of the author plus 70 years (You can thank Samuel Clemens for that one). Copyright is not the same internationally however, other countries have different laws for it, so gotta be careful with that one. Also fairy tales are rather different because in the case of the Grimm Brother’s tales, I believe they went around collecting different folklore stories and wrote them up (Hans Christian Anderson on the other hand I believe was all original).
Either way, a fairy tale retelling is a retelling, in other words you write a story using the same elements but you either expound, change or warp how you see fit (any Disney cartoon ever). Fan fiction tries to exist inside the world without really changing the overall plot.
Then you have weird things like Star Trek and Star Wars expanded Universe books. (I’m at the point where I just pretend those don’t exist, lol). Stuff like that is just weird to me.
I sure hope you scolded the person who said you should just plagiarize Lord of the Rings? (Seriously who would even think that? Blah 😦 )
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It was college and I don’t talk to him anymore. Good point on using fan fiction to work on one’s style. I guess it could remove the challenge of character creation and evolution, so you focus entirely on story and technique.
Best rights story I ever heard was Peter Pan by James Barrie. He left the rights to either a children’s hospital or orphanage. Don’t remember which all of a sudden and I gotta head out for errands. Anybody on Wikipedia right now?
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I think fanfiction is a good way to hone your writing skills. You don’t have to spend time building a world, so it allows you to concentrate on the writing itself. I’ve done fanfiction myself, and I’m actually publishing a fanfic story on my blog at the moment, though it’s an existing world with new characters (The Shire but 2000ish years later). I’ve read some absolutely fabulous fanfic, and there are established writers who started off like that, such as Cassandra Clare, who used to write awesome Harry Potter fanfic.
Yes, there’s tripe amongst it, but isn’t there in everything? Personally I can quite enjoy fanfic, but the key is always in the writing.
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Sounds like the trick for readers is to sift through the tripe because everyone thinks they can write fan fic. Reminds me of self-publishing.
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I got here from Mr. Burnett’s pingback on his post…
I used to write a lot of fan fiction. I was a big online role player (similar to D&D role playing, but with words rather than dice rolls) and did a lot of writing in certain genres. I did a lot of Marvel Comics and Star Wars fiction with other players and it was some of the best stuff I’ve written. It was something I used to facilitate my inspiration and keep myself writing as a hobby, because I have trouble keeping my own worlds going. The longest piece of fiction I’ve ever written is a fan fiction piece from Star Wars containing all original characters from a role playing group. It was pretty amazing.
I try to steer clear of fan fiction now since I’ve removed myself from role playing. I got tired of dealing with prima donnas who could not take constructive criticism to save their life. I miss writing fan fiction at times. It was a great way for me to flex my creative muscles, because people already had a basic idea of who the characters were and I didn’t have to build the world up myself. That’s what I’m finding to be the hardest part of all my original writing: world building. I think that’s why so many people continue to do fan fiction other than just their love for the characters or settings: it’s easy.
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I did a little role-playing on-line with a D&D forum and it went pretty badly. I ran the game and one player kept taking control. It ended after the player decided to fight me on the weather. I had it a nice day and they wanted it raining, so they kept having it rain in their posts while everyone else was in sunlight. So, I had the NPC’s start calling the character Eeyore and ended that hobby.
It’s interesting how some fan fiction writers can’t take constructive criticism. I would think they’d be more open-minded since they were off interpretations of preexisting characters and stories. I can see how it is easier though.
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I’ve been a moderator before for the online role playing. Too many people don’t like losing control to someone else and so I had several butt heads with me about my setting, motives, and game information. It was all original work that I had spent six months putting together and yet they felt they knew it better than I did. I ended the game some time after that, because I was tired of that.
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It’s rather frustrating when that happens. I didn’t even get a good story out of the game, so it felt like wasted effort on my part. All over one player wanting it to rain for ambiance.
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I’ve both written fanfiction and fairy tale reimaginings. I think you’ve hit it that the only real difference is whether or not the source material is in the public domain or not. After all, Xena is just Greek Myth fanfiction, and Thor was not only Norse fanfic, it was badly done Norse fanfic. (don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the movie, but WTF were Norse gods doing running around New Mexico of all places!? And not even in their appropriate roles.)
So if we’re so familiar with a story that we forget who first wrote it, we don’t see it as fanfic, we see it as a retelling.
With all that said, fanfic is *often* defined by being erotica, gay porn, mary sue, or “cut your teeth” writing exercises. I find, no matter how much I dislike specific fanfics, I can’t bring myself to condemn them because anything that gets people practicing writing is a *good thing* to my mind.
I am currently re-imagining Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Rapunzel, Beauty and the Beast, The Princess and the Pea, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. Why? Because I think the overall message these fairy tales send is actually rather wrong and destructive to girls in 2013. No, you DON’T have to stay with the ‘beast’ and try to make him better. No you DON’T have to run off with the prince who molests you in your sleep. No, you DON’T, have to wait around for the one true love to come rescue you. I think there are much better morals that can be taught to both young girls and young boys these days, as well as grown men and women.
But I will never lose that special place in my heart for fanfiction.
After all, no matter how it is expressed, fanfiction is merely loving someone else’s creation so much you take a partial ownership of it and make it yours. And I can’t really fault someone for the depth of their connection to a character.
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The rough thing with Thor is that it was based on the comics instead of the actual mythology. The comics were a little nicer to the Norse mythos, so I would say they are the better fan fic between the two mediums.
I’m always torn on the fairy tales because their classic and open to interpretation. I’ve met people who say they are terrible influences that push for girls to subservient and boys to be perfection. There are so many underlying themes that two people can see the same fairy tale and define it differently. It made the Children’s Lit classes I took in college a near free-for-all.
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Reblogged this on The Arkside of Thought by Sahm King and commented:
Good information, here. Never really considered the finer points, myself.
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Well I love historical fiction, but I’ve never been able to even open up a fan fiction book. Just doesn’t seem real somehow, I couldn’t see investing the time, not to piss anyone off, it’s just a hang up somehow for me.
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A lot of people are like that. I think fan fiction has been underground for the most part and it’s only recently that it has become moving more to the surface. This is caused by Amazon’s new Worlds or whatever thing where certain franchises have given the rights for fans to self-publish fan fiction on Amazon. I’m still not sold on how great an idea this is because I haven’t heard if fan fiction will be kept on separate lists and categories than original fiction.
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Great post! Being both an Anime and Star Trek fan I’ve seen a lot of fan fiction in my time… I think that best of it really comes when they use the setting and avoid writing stories about established or main characters. People tend to modify characters to fit their perception of them which in and of itself is fine except in the reader it can create that; “Wait a minute” thought running through their heads when the characters act out of character.
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There is definitely an alteration when someone uses an established character in fan fiction. I have been told that there are a few out there who do justice to the characters, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was still something off.
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I agree it’s hard to keep the Character in character, even professional writes have a hard time, if you’ve ever read a series where there are multiple writers the characters can suffer from minor changes to their characters. If you’ve ever seen or read the anime/manga series, Cowboy Bebop the Movie loses the whole barge of the damned feel that is a integral part of the orignal manga & anime series… Great picture on the post too, I know who all the characters are depicted on it and appreciate the altruistic statement made by the character in the background… LOL!
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I love Cowboy Bebop, but I did like the movie. I took it as a different entity than the series and braced myself for it feeling different. One of the changes in anime that I can think of is Fullmetal Alchemist. Love the manga, but the first series deviated so much that I found it kind of lacking near the end. Most of it was the use of Scar and Homonculi.
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“Yes, it has been suggested that I blatantly steal from preexisting works.”
I would say that as a Dungeons & Dragons geek, sand longtime reader of Forgotten Realms, LoTR and now your blog, I cannot imagine the time you took during your life to create the world you have created. With the detail that is provided. Just creating and describing one monster requires a significant investment of time.
You can easily spend as much time as you can imagine describing the next village over, valley or pub, or waitress in the pub…
I have tried to create a world, and got so far as a couple castle blueprints and decided that the Forgotten Realms world was good enough, haha. Stayed busy adding my own little details for a home game of course. Just one playable NPC is many hours of work, if you care about character and background.
If I were to accept the logic that you are stealing anything, I’d then have to accept that George Lucas blatantly ripped off Gene Roddenberry as Star Trek and Star Wars and are both set in space.
And I will not do that.
In my amateur eyes, your work stands on it’s own. It offends me that someone would say that to you, and I believe they have no idea of what they speak, whatsoever.
I realize that is tangential, but I’m the guy with graphics of John Stewart and Stewie from Family guy on my silly blog, that I have badly made… So as to whether or not I would write any fan fiction based on your setting. I might if the mood took me, but it wouldn’t be as good, and it wouldn’t be a true work.
I’d rather read your works.
Now please excuse me, I have to write a silly song that I call a parody so no one sues me.;)
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Thank you. That does mean a lot. I believe what the people who say that are confused on are influences and similarities. I was heavily influenced by LOTR and D&D, so it shows in my work. There are people out there who read specifically to compare books to other books and then tear into the author for ‘stealing’ ideas. They ignore the differences and focus on the similarities to the point where they see plagiarism in every detail. I just ignore it these days because I figure they will see what they want to see.
I will admit to being interested in if fan fiction of Windemere will ever turn up. I keep fearing that it will all be erotica or pairings of characters that aren’t together in the books. Still, it will be interesting.
Nothing wrong with John Stewart on a blog. He brings class to wherever he goes.
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I find I cannot agree with people who see plagiarism everywhere or else I’d just have to say that Elminster = Gandalf since both are Wizards and Wizened Bearded Fellows.
I also believe that you will see all manner of fan fiction show up, hehe. And am certain you won’t like some of it as it’s your baby.
This coming from a person who didn’t like it when someone suggested I change a word in a silly parody song, that I had written.
I did ask Kato Kaelin if he minded that I used his hair on Mr. Bill for the KaDoh! Institute. He has not responded to date. If he didn’t want me to, I’d cease and desist.
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Kato is still around? That’s surprising.
I have to admit that I hate Elminster with a passion ever since I read one of the Spellfire books. He went on about how it’s a rare ability that surpassed his own power. Later in the book, it looked like he was using his own version of spellfire. Right then I realized Elminster was the Mr. Fantastic of the Forgotten Realms. A true level of uber-cheese that DM’s would pull out to show off their knowledge and make their players realize how small they were. Okay, I may have had some Elminster-obsessed DM’s in my time that had the group saved by him every couple of sessions.
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I was rather surprised when he retweeted a joke I had told.
A fellow I was speaking with said he was a Keto vegetarian. And I asked if that was Kato Lite.
So then I spoke to Kato a bit, but I fear he was offended by Mr. Bill with his hair. Oh well, I also have Farrah & Dorothy Hammil looks to change to.;)
If you read my tweets, I pretty much speak to anyone, and I follow lay lines. If my tweep mentions someone, and I find I have an interest in the subject I will speak.
I actually don’t know if it’s the real Kato, as he doesn’t have a verified account.
I am satisfied you are the real Charles, as I followed you from your link here. So yes, I tweet my tweeps and say hi and what not. That seems the point of Twitter to me. To communicate.
If the people find the @’s annoying, that’s very strange to me. I think communication should be two ways, not just me reading their feed with no ability to respond, or having to worry about if my response annoys them. Twitter disagrees with me on this, and I find myself suspended on occasion for speaking, as I was taught in school here in California in the ’80’s. So much for a free speech approach at Twitter.
Oddly enough, of all the writers of the Forgotten Realms, Ed is my least favorite from a writing standpoint. But he invented a glorious world, so I excuse The Chosen and their cheese to some degree.
Elminster does have his own Spellfire, haha, and it’s a slightly different version in the rules set, at least through 3.5 than the Spellfire that Mystra “gifts” on one of her followers that isn’t a chosen. What a gift….
Elminster doesn’t have to absorb spells to use his own Spellfire.
Still, I have every FR book and have read them many times, until they switched to the 4.0 and changed the world dramatically.
And that, I did not like, because it no longer seemed Ed’s world.
Even as D&D changed hands from the 80’s to 4.0, FR was still Ed’s in spirit and he is and has been very active with the fans in answering questions.
With the new company that I will not name, it is not. So I stopped buying the books. The market at work.
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I’m still trying to figure Twitter out. I learned enough to promote my books and reblog, but I get confused when someone tries to talk to me on there. I’m getting better though.
I haven’t touched D&D since 3.5 Edition, but I heard things about the new one. Mostly I heard gnomes are monsters, which made me turn away crying.
So, Elminster can just use Spellfire without absorbing magic. I really don’t like that character. Does he have any weaknesses? I made Nyx the caster very powerful, but she has a few weaknesses that can be used against her. Not sure if telling them would be spoilers since they haven’t been made extremely clear yet.
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Well, he doesn’t really have any weakness with the rules sets throuhg 3.5. He can heal himself with his own Spellfire as well, which is unlimited.
So, from a gaming standpoint, unkillable unless you can shock a 50th EL or so character with large enough damage damage, which doesn’t really seem possible, since he has a Mystra given Constitution bonus to his hit points, hehe.
I’m certain Nyx would be upset with you revealing her weaknesses.;)
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She’ll figure them out at some point. They’re hinted at more in the third book and won’t be revealed until she figures out what she really is. Even then it might not be clear.
So if Elminster is so strong, why is the Tarrasque still around?
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Heck if I know, haha.
The uber powerful oddly seem not to interact on a direct level very often.
Elminster seems to foil their plots without spoiling them directly.
And he’s not fought the Tarrasque that I’ve ever read.
I guess since The Harpers and the Chosen are concerned with the Balance, that might leave room for some evil, just not to much.
Seem to be pretty hard to kill anyway, Manshoon has unknown amounts of clones around if you manage to kill him. His soul transfers to a clone…
So yeah… Cheese.
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Makes one wonder why a player’s adventurer is supposed to make a dent in evil.
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I suppose the level 1 CE adventuring bands are out making a balancing dent in good, lol.
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Interesting…I think I might have read fan fiction like Star Trek or Star Wars when my son was younger. But I guess they were approved by the original copyright holders because they were regular books. Never asked myself the question about Fan Fiction.
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The regular books are approved by the copyright holders and I believe they are checked for continuity. There is a limit to what published fan fiction can do. For example, you can’t kill off main characters or blow up major locations in a novel because it takes your book out of the continuity. It also angers the fans and hurts sales. In unpublished fan fiction, you can do whatever you want without much in the way of repercussions.
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Unless the copyright holder grapples you and shuts down your blog or YouTube account I suppose.
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It doesn’t happen too often with fan fiction because the author acknowledges the original copyright holder. It happens a lot with music usage on YouTube though.
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Yeah…I noticed, even if you use music from the Public Domain…sometimes a publisher claims rights just because he’s re-published…
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Music is a mess ever since the Napster days.
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Okay, I must have been living under a HUGE rock. lol I’d never even heard of fan fiction until the other day. I’m not sure there is even a story I would want to contemplate doing that with. This was a great post…it made me think! :0)
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Thanks. Fan fiction seems to be rather fringe and popular within certain fandoms like Star Wars, Star Trek, anime, and Dr. Who. Almost every fandom has a group of fans that write their own stories.
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Pingback: How to Revolutionize Your Fan Fiction (part 5) ~ by Claire Violet Thorpe | The Write Stuff
Reblogged this on The Literary Syndicate and commented:
Very interesting topic and question. I missed this one the other day. What say all of you?
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I haven’t read any fanfiction, but I don’t see a problem with it. What is the saying? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I think when someone writes fanfiction they’re sending a strong message to the author that says, “You created a world and characters so believable, that I can’t stop thinking about them. I don’t want the story to end.” Pretty powerful, I think. Since the author of the fanfiction doesn’t profit from it, then it only benefits the author of the original work by continuing to promote their story.
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That’s definitely the big point. The fanfic author shouldn’t profit. My only issue has been with a fanfic author acting like they’re original. Dealt with a few in the past that acted like they were better because they finished stories quicker. Strange egos on them.
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I didn’t know someone wrote a fanfic of your story. I’d say that is awesome but it sounds like they did it for their own ego rather than paying homage to characters they love. And it’s just idiotic of them to imply they did it better. Of course they may have finished quicker but YOU did all the hard work for them. World building and creating characters,that is where they true talent lies.
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Nobody ever did fanfic of my stuff. The situation was them using fanfic for a college writing course. It felt underhanded to me.
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Oh, definitely.
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