On Tue, 17 Mar 1998, Richard Lawson & Joseph Palmer wrote:

        "What kind of fanfic should an author create,
          and how true to the original should it be?"
_______________________________________________________________________

The kind I like, of course.  Okay, enough of my ego :)
 

by Richard Lawson

So why do we write fanfics?  Two reasons, I think.  One: much of the
hard work has been done for us.  The characters have been created, the
background developed, the situations put in place.  No longer do we have
to create the shy ESPer or the irreverent spaceship captain - this has
been done for us.  We don't have to spend time and effort to develop
these things before plunging right into the plot - our readers already
know these things.

For me, this isn't a factor.  Most of the best fanfiction puts enough work
into expanding the universe of the story that 'the work having been done
for us' isn't very true.  It does, however, make the READER's job easier.

 

Which leads into the second reason we write fanfics:  a ready audience.
People are much more willing to read a fanfic about an anime or manga
series of which they're already familiar than somebody's original story
with characters they don't know.  We write fanfics because we know an
audience is already out there, waiting to read.

Hai.  That's a BIG factor.

I think you left out a third and fourth major, or at least minor factor,
however:  

3.  Dissatisfaction with some aspect of a story.  For example, the ending
of Ranma 1/2 has spawned a TON of fanfics because people didn't like the
ending for some reason and felt the urge to provide their own.

4.  The 'What if' curiosity factor.  What if Ranma had fallen in the pool
of Drowned Wombat?  What if A-ko transferred to Tomobiki?  This reflects
the desire to see characters meet each other who we think would interact
in interesting ways.  This tends to spawn elseworlds and crossovers.  

My answer:  there *are* no rules.

I disagree :)  More later. 
 

stronger around her.  These visions are different from the visions that
the manga or anime artists had of the characters, but - and this is
important - they are *no less valid*. 

I do not think that any series should be made to bear the burden of any
possible story.  Yes, you CAN write a story where the cast of KnO is
gangraped, or where the forces at conflict in X: 1999 decide to play
Trivial Pursuit for the destiny of the world, then everyone goes out for a
burger afterwards.  But was there any point in writing THAT story with 
that particular universe?  In my own opinion, when dealing with stories
that have definite fixed authors, there's a certain disrespect for the
original author shown when you take any liberty you want with the universe
that he or she has created.  Where exactly the line is drawn in any
particular case is another question.  I can't offer a formula for how much
liberty is too much.

The situation is different when dealing with stories/mythos that have no
particular creator, such as the tales of King Arthur, the Greek and Norse
myths, etc.  

When you're doing this, keep in mind reason #2 above.  The further you
diverge from the anime or manga, the smaller your receptive audience may
be.  By taking characters into uncharacteristically dark place - or even
uncharacteristically happy moments - you lose some of the appeal of the
characters.  How many people want to see a story about Ranma growing

I'd argue that in many cases you may be negating the entire point of using
the characters.  There are plenty of series that already have any tone you
might want or need without having to impose one that doesn't fit the
series.  I remember the glut of Ranma fights some Alien being for no
particular reason and people get brutally mangled stories way, way back,
for example.  

by Joseph Palmer

  My gut reaction to the question: "What Kind of fanfiction Should an
Author Create?" is that we are guests, and we should act like guests.

  To me, this means we should strive to make our stories true to the
'nature' of the original. It wasn't until I recently consulted my
dictionary that I was finally able to put words to my long and deeply
held beliefs.

While I hold to this, the existence of copyright law doesn't influence my
opinion on the subject.  We are univited and illegal guests, and a story
that is highly respectful of the original is just as illegal.  For me, it
is a mixture of moral and aesthetic belief that causes me to think that
fanfics should be at least mostly true to the original ethos of the show
or shows/ book or books being taken off from.  

Grafting things that don't fit onto the original strikes me aesthetically
as being like taking one of those old Greek statues whose head is missing
and sticking a bust of Elvis on top.  

  To do so protects the artistic rights of the creator, for if we remain
true to the nature of the series, we are unlikely to dilute the
essential qualities that drew us to the series.  We also protect the
creator's economic rights, since we are unlikely to affect our readers
feelings in a way that would tilt them away from future purchases of the
artists works.

I personally find it implausible that any fanfic would make people NOT
want to buy the original, since people rarely read fanfics of series they
don't know and I HOPE they have the common sense not to somehow think the
fanfic should shape how they view the original.  

Richard Lawson

Herein lies the main problem of Joseph's viewpoint.  To him, there is
one way a "guest" should behave.  I have guests who put their feet on my
furniture and jeer at my taste in music.  How guests "should" behave
varies greatly from individual to individual.

Yes, but does that make them a good guest or a bad one?  Would you WANT
people to put their feet on your furniture and jeer at your taste in
music?  Does this cause you to invite them back?

In short, the battle is unwinnable.  So why fight it?

Because as the Norse believed, some battles are worth fighting even if you
can't win.  You don't fight the good fight because you expect to win; you
do it because the good should be fought for.  

Yes, there is no authority which can enforce any sort of standard, but
that doesn't mean the idea of standards of good and bad writing, or the
act of trying judge how true a story is to the spirit of the original
should be abandoned.  Even if it makes you a lone voice crying in the
wilderness.  To say otherwise, IMO, makes any critique of another person's
stories impossible, or at least pointless. 

Joseph Palmer


  Lawson points out that Takahashi has herself created stories "from
purely humorous to horrific". The fact that the "horrific" so evident in
her other works is conspicuously missing from Ranma 1/2, both in the
manga and licensed anime, is irrefutable proof of her intentions that it
not be there.

Well, maybe not entirely irrefutable.  There are some elements of horror
stories, such as the demon doll story, for example.  Still, I do tend to
agree in the broad terms with your argument that the sheer bulk of Ranma
episodes and the fact that many sorts of things she DOES treat in detail
in other stories are not present in Ranma 1/2 except ta a fairly
incidental level makes an argument for the exclusion of certain things
thematically from a Ranma story.

Things become trickier however with a story that has a smaller corpus or
some degree of thematic confusion.  Or with multiple contradictory, yet
official versions.  For example, the Manga and Anime versions of Sailor
Moon often HEAVILY contradict each other.  They also have a difference of
tone.  The anime is much more innocent and sweet than the Manga, which can
be rather brutal at times.  Some characters are fairly different between
them as well.

An even worse example of this is the Dirty Pair.  Between Movies, OAVs, TV
series, Dirty Pair Flash, the Original Novels, and Adam Warrens
fanfics^H^H^H^H^Hcomics, it's very hard to say what is the REAL Dirty
Pair.  

James Bond is another example of this.  The Connery and Roger Moore Bonds
are hardly recognizable as the same person.  

  If an author feels the need to unleash dark and horrific visions on
their readers, (a subject for another discussion) why not choose a
series where those elements are already present, or better yet, why not
start with a truly clean sheet of paper?

I'd agree.

  Our readers are intellectually aware that our stories are not part of
the original series, but fanfiction, particularly if it is well written,
can leave a profound impression in the heart of the reader.  If that
impression is negative, we have taken both from the series creator,
(since they may lose sales) and our reader, since they may be

I really STRONGLY doubt this.  I've never read a fanfic in my LIFE that
altered what I thought about the original series.

I honestly do not think that a bunch of us churning out stories on Usenet
are going to effect the sales one drop.  Fansubs are another story here.

and a positive return to the original characterization, and a plot
device to explain the abnormal behavior.  The slightest flaw in that
connection damages that character forever in the mind of the reader.

I think you're underestimating the elasticity of the human mind.
At least in my own experience, my only reaction to a story that violates
the ethos of the original is usually to be disgusted with THAT author, NOT
the original, and usually it makes me wary of reading anything else
they've produced.  It doesn't somehow mystically taint my perception of
the original.

 

Richard Lawson

   e. e. cummings, among many others, demonstrated that rules are made
to be broken.  His poetry broke many of the molds that had constrained
literature up to that point, and lent legitimacy to new forms of
expression.

I would be more impressed by this example if I didn't think e. e. cummings
was a lousy poet :)

Joseph Palmer

  Fanfiction is the use without permission of proprietary, copyrighted
property. (We do not write fanfiction, we commit fanfiction.) :)
Copyright laws are rules of a sort, and while writing a story and
leaving it spinning on our hard disks can be considered fair use,
publishing them in the internet breaks that copyright law.

But sticking to any set of rules won't make it any less of a copyright
violation.  (Excluding the Fair Use laws)

 

Joseph Palmer


  As authors, we should be especially sensitive to the rights of other
authors. As fan fiction authors we must additionally recognize that our
works are distributed worldwide, for free, and are frequently more
accessible than the original. We must recognize that if our vision is
different, and we assert that vision with great force and skill, that we
are violating the artistic rights and intentions of the original author.

Period.  I don't think you can successfully use this as an argument to
constrain how we write, because no matter how true to the original's
spirit we are, it's STILL illegal.  End of story.  If I write something so
perfectly Ranma 1/2 that everyone thinks I'm really Takahashi, it's still
illegal.  

 

Richard Lawson

As to returning the car in the same condition you got it in: there are
those who say you should never have taken the car out for a joyride in
the first place.  Following Joseph's own arguments to their logical
conclusion would lead us to never write fanfiction in the first place.
I loved Joseph's line about "committing" fanfiction.  ^_^

I have to agree with Richard here.
 

My overall conclusion.  On how to write fanfiction, I tend to agree with
Joseph, though I've broken with the original spirit of series sometimes
myself (Like putting BGC and Sailor Moon in the same universe in Dance of
Shiva :))  On why I am not bothered by writing fanfiction, I tend to agree
with Richard.  

There's my two cents, for what it's worth.



 John Walter Biles :  MA-History, Ph.D Wannabe at U. Kansas         
ranma@falcon.cc.ukans.edu       
rhea@tass.org              http://www.tass.org/~rhea/falcon.html
rhea@maison-otaku.net      http://www.maison-otaku.net/~rhea/

War is the way of the Wyrm.  And War is easy.  Peace is the way of Gaia.
But Peace is the hardest work there is.  So why not fight an all-out war
against the Wyrm?  In the shadow of the Apocalypse, why not win at all
costs?  Because that's what the Wyrm wants.  Because in winning we will
lose.  If we triumph in the Apocalypse through terror, suffering and
betrayal, we will create a world of terror, suffering and betrayal.  And
the Wyrm will win.  The only solution is Peace.  But how do we wage Peace?
We must win by healing the world.  We must win by changing ourselves.  Or
else our salvation becomes our damnation.
--Children of Gaia Tribebook (WW Storyteller system)