Plot bunnies live over here

[Sage]

Very true
Which is why I have no time for people like Anne Rice, Robin Hobb et all who slam fanfic (they're just big egoistical meanies)

Yeah know the feeling; so many ideas, so little time.

[Marion]

Sage, I don't think 'being mean' comes into it - these are professional writers with their reputations and livlihoods to protect. It also has to be said that under current copyright law, (as I understand a complex subject) intellectual property is as privately owned as physical property - that is - authors own their imagination and everything that springs from it... It may seem as if they are just being spiteful, but I imagine it is far more than that.
There does seem less reluctance to allow fan fiction in fandoms where the original genre is not a literary one.
Before the web was available for fan fiction writers to share their ideas and works this problem never arose - and we all wrote happily in the obscurity of our own notebooks or folders. There is nothing to stop anyone still doing that, should they have an overwhelming urge to do so on a fandom where the originator does not appreciate competition.
BTW - This was discussed earlier on the thread 'Neat Article'....http://spectrum-headquarters.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=353&highlight=hanif

[chrisbishop]

On the other end of the Spectrum - pun fully intended - there are people like J.K. Rowlings who doesn't mind fanfic. SHE even said to a young fan, on a response she gave on her official website, that she feels honoured that her characters should inspire young writers!

I imagine - as long as those writers keep respectful to those characters!

[Marion]

True, Chris - but it is the authors' prerogative to sanction fanfiction or not...
I also think the problem is that not all fan fiction is respectful of the fandom, and not all is well written. If the author fears it might damage their own reputations, or be detrimental to their earning power, to have alternative plot lines posted on the internet, (perhaps even more so where the fan fiction might have genuine literary merit ) I feel they are justified in saying they do not like it.
As I said, the problem might not be in writing the fan fiction - merely in making it freely available...

[Sage]

Hmm maybe so.
It's fine for them not to like it, and for fanfiction.net to respect that by refusing to archieve work by those authors. Even so you don't have to publish essays on your personal website slamming it, as Hobb did.

Far as the law stands fanfic is perfectly legit with regards copyright issues. You cannot copyright actual characters, just your own words and plotlines. As was explained in the article/thread you mrentioned (know that because I posted it in the first place)

99.9% of people who read fanfic of a certain fandom are already familiar with said fandom. So they will obviously know the diffrence between appaling fic and the author's actual work. Likewise virtually no one just coming into a fandom will read the fanfic first, even if they did it wouldn't harm their perceptions of it.

Hmm no idea why they'd be more touchy about book related fandoms. Maybe writers are just too senstive.
Let's not forget though, that it's the fans who write the fic that are the ones who are paying the authors' wages. So they best be careful not to offend them.

[chrisbishop]

Shadokp said:

Is it possible (and don't kill me here) that writing and reading fan fiction expands the OCS story and characterization to the point that when you say you love the OCS characters, you are basing that on almost 40 years of watching OCS, reading and writing comics and fiction?

Yes. Even unconsciously, a writer would be yearning to show his/her style, and would certainly need to express his/her own vision of the character(s), expend on it, add details to the background and technologies.

And no. In order to keep within the fandom, you still need to keep a certain amount of existing and official background and characterisation from the said fandom, so to make it still recognisable to people. Or what would be the point, if the character becomes totally different from the one appearing in the series?

That said, in the case of Captain Scarlet, there's a lot of that existing 'background information' that can be used for the writer, and from so many different sources. TV series, comic strips, novels (remember the John Theydon's books), references books, magazines... Contradictory information abounds in those sources. Like Captain Grey's height, which differs from one source to the other, or Rhapsody's dodgy and diverse background - or the semptiternel question: are each of the Anderson series stands on its on, or are they all related to each others, and part of the same, unique universe? That contradictory information might appear a little awkward, but it might end up interesting for a writer, as he/she would use whatever suits his/her needs and still keep true to what is called the official background.

Back to the 'yes' side: expending on a character or a TV series in fanfic, by still keeping it firmly grounded in its official background, is only a natural course of any storytelling. The story has to evolve. See comic books stories for example, where a character like Superman evolved from his early, bumbling, very modest beginning to a more complex character, with a more complex background too, and made the jump to other medias - books, movies, TV - and in so many different versions, that you might not even reconcile with each other!** But all the basic is still there, and respected: he's still the big blue, ultimate boyscout, he still has those incredible powers, he's still vulnerable to Kryptonite, he still was raised in Smallville by the Kent family, and he's still desperately in love with Lois Lane (whom he married, ten years ago - how's that for expension?)

Since the story needs to evolve, and since the series is not there anymore to do that, and there isn't any comic strip either, fanfic writers offer their own versions of what is now happening to the characters. And those different are as different as there are writers, as they have a different view of these characters, even though they came from the same basic background***. Which makes it all the more interesting.

Certainly the most recent 'expension' of the classic series, still based on that classic background, but departing more than any fanfic ever did from it, would be the New Captain Scarlet series. Of course, in that case, it's an 'official' story, which starts completely anew, instead of filling the gaps in the original series. Someone in another thread called it the 'ultimate Multiverse story'. It works just as well. And we can't argue with the fact that it was a successful attempt.

Chris

** You cannot really reconcile with ease the present-day Smallville with the 1990s Lois and Clark series, and even less with the 1988 version of Superboy. This only to show that many takes of the same basic background can be equally entertaining in one version or the other... As also demonstrated by OCS and NCS.

*** It's frightfully odd to realise, that while writing a fanfiction story, sometimes you will get the same or a very similar idea for a plot, or a detail background as another writer. That would happen more than once, and we often pondered exactly how and why it had happened. Basic background is the same, yes... and some plotlines are 'classic' - but it doesn't always explain those odd coincidences.

Could it be the work of the Mysterons?