Article about fan fiction and the pull-to-publish phenomenon

[emmagrant01]

This was written by someone who's in fandom (not going to out her since there's a real name here), and it's a good piece about writing fan fiction. She also addresses the pull-to-publish issue. And you might recognize a few names in there... *cough* ;-)

Part 1 here | Part 2 here

Comments

[connorblond.livejournal.com]

:D Nice. And well said.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Agreed!

[girlofavalon.livejournal.com]

That's a very interesting article. :) I still don't like the idea of pulling to publish, but that's mostly because I think fannish work should stay in the fandom, not get copyrighted.

That being said, it would be great to see some quality porn for women in mainstream fiction. In fact, I would like to see both romance and sex stop being seen as some kind of weakness in the plot.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Actually, the next Slashcast will have an interview that focuses on professionally written m/m original erotica. It turns out there's a LOT of it. :-)

But yeah, ITA on pull-to-publish.

[girlofavalon.livejournal.com]

Cool! :) I don't even mean just m/m erotica or m/m romance, though that would be my main interest. Part of me would even like some het erotica, but I just can't stand M/f and that's all there seems to be out there. :\

[winstonmom.livejournal.com]

The name Emma Grant sounds very familiar......

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

LOL! I know, right? Who the hell is that? ;-)

[winstonmom.livejournal.com]

Is that the girl who wrote that fic??? :)

[capra-maritimus.livejournal.com]

*snicker*

[mijan.livejournal.com]

I've often thought about that... taking the framework of one of my fanfics and re-writing it for mainstream, and pulling the fanfic from the web.

More recently, I've been tempted to slightly revise some of my Star Trek stuff and see if it has a chance as real Star Trek books.

I find it interesting that a bestseller was Twi-fic, though.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I guess Star Trek is an example of a fandom where there's actually a market for professional fanfic. I don't know anything about it, but I had the impression that it has to be something that hasn't appeared online for free. P2P is something else altogether, though. I dislike the idea of people repurposing stories they originally wrote as fanfic. :-P

[elizabeth-rice.livejournal.com]

I realise this is an old comment so I hope this is okay.

P2P is something else altogether, though. I dislike the idea of people repurposing stories they originally wrote as fanfic.
You are right. Most fanfic cannot be published as an original story.

From posts that I've read, I believe that Twilight story was a Complete AU. It is easier to take a Complete AU and publish it as an original story.

Example, Harry Potter fights evil, so his noble and heroic qualities are the focus of the series, right? But if you put Harry in the real world and give him a boring 9-to-5 job and make him older like in his 30s or 40s, his other qualities will be the focus of the story. And so if you changed his name from "Harry Potter" to something else, he would no longer be recognisable as JKR's Harry Potter.

Do you follow? This is why people can publish Complete AUs as original stories and this is why other fanfic writers cannot publish their fanfics as original stories because the characters are recognisable.

I hope this helps.

PS: I haven't read the article you have linked to yet, but I have bookmarked it to read later.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, exactly. AU fics in any fandom lend themselves to being rewritten in a way canon fics really just can't be. 50SoG in particular was AU/AH/OOC, so it was already 3 steps removed from canon; in a sense it was halfway there anyway.

Still, I'm iffy about taking even things like that and publishing them as original fiction, for reasons I've probably detailed in comments above (and on at least two episodes of Slashcast, I think).

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the links!!!

I have to say, it rather upsets me when something like 50SOG is getting the superstar treatment, and writers such as yourself and others that I know that have made the leap are relegated to 'erotic fiction writers'...as if that's some kind of cousin you hide in the back room.

There are and always have been fanfic stories that were so well-written that they transcended fandom. LMH and STG come to mind. Not blowing smoke up your fanny, but even with the HP setting and characters, those two stories...books, if you will, could stand on their own as original fiction. We've all read that one story that we think, "Damn...I'd have paid money for that!" Here's to hoping that m/m fiction stops being the red-headed stepchild of publishing and blasts its way to the mainstream.

Gotta go, gonna re-read LMH. :)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Aw, you're very sweet! But you know, I kind of doubt the reaction would be much different if it were me or one of my favorite writers, you know? There would be plenty of people happy to say I'm a hack writer who didn't deserve it. :-P

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

What a nice set of articles. I'm going to have to bookmark them so I can cite them later on in future research. And such stunningly brilliant people to seek quotes from. :D

Also, I may or may not have spent an hour on your tumblr last night. I still don't get how tumblr works, but it was fun!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Tumblr is SO addictive, OMG! All I do is reboot stuff, for the most part. It's he place to find gif sets, fan art, and photos of the actors, though. I'm sorry I waited as long as I did to get one. ;-)

[dark0feenix.livejournal.com]

Hee! Interesting article. :)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

:-D

[abbyvonnormal]

Those were some nice articles. Thanks for posting :)

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!

[heidi8.livejournal.com]

I read the first part last week, and liked her depth of knowledge, and the mention of, among other things, A Study in Winning. Off to read Part 2!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

She did a great job, I thought. And yes, I loved the nod to "Winning"! Oh, that fic. THAT FIC. *flails*

[winstonmom.livejournal.com]

Do you by any chance have a link to that fic?

here you go. :D

[capra-maritimus.livejournal.com]

http://archiveofourown.org/works/366788?view_full_work=true

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Actually, I don't teach there these days, heh. And I didn't tell her I did, so that was a surprise when I read the article TBH. But it's just as well it's incorrect, because I definitely don't want my current employer to find out about my hobbies. :-P

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a beautiful quote! SO MUCH SENSE YOU SPEAK.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Hey, you! *snogs* Are you coming to Ascendio, by any chance?

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I don't have it scheduled, or planned, though I have not completely ruled out the possibility. But it's remote right now, sigh!

[capra-maritimus.livejournal.com]

Since LJ ate my comment...

Thanks for the article link. :D

BTW, I'm now "stalking" you on tumblr. :D

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

Yay! Mwahaha, Tumblr has taken over so much of my fannish life. And it's not like I put any original content on there either. ;-)

[floppybelly.livejournal.com]

You teach in Texas? Neato!

The article makes me even sadder that I'm unable to come up with original characters, and that the characters I DO work with would be instantly recognizable even after a name change. I feel like I've got this incredible restraint in that regard.

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I've had a few ideas for original fics, but I don't have all that much spare time to write and I enjoy writing fanfic so much that it's never been a priority. Maybe I'll write something original someday and try to get it published (now that there's a market for it it's at least more of a possibility than it used to be), but for now I love fandom so much that I really want to play here all the time. :-D

[shantismurf.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't realise Master of the Universe got published, and will be a movie! It's an amazing story. Thanks for linking...that was an interesting read!

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it myself, but I know several people who have (both the original fic and the novel) and they've frankly had very little positive to say about it. I've heard that the writing is mediocre and that the BDSM relationship portrayed in the story is actually rather abusive and a fairly offensive representation of that lifestyle. SO that's not really encouraged me to take a look, heh. That I'm I'm a bit squicked by het D/s with a female sub. :-P

[shantismurf.livejournal.com]

I was reading a lot of twific het a couple years ago (which led to twi slash, which led to drarry where I now live forevermore tyvm) and so at the time I had no problem with het. I thought it was good at the time but it's been awhile. I still vividly remember quite a lot from the story so that's some kind of testament at least. The "bdsm" relationship was not really at all, and I could see how some people would be offended by it claiming to be such, and being upset with the way it's tied up in Edward's emotional instability. I'm curious at least to see how it's been adapted for publishing.

I think AH (all human) Twilight fic lends itself much better to being "scrubbed" and published since it's not much off from any other contemporary fiction. With other fandoms, at least those with distinctive elements like HP or Star Trek, etc. it's got to be much harder.

[rte-175.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting this--a great article! And there you were, right in the middle of it! :-)

[jedirita.livejournal.com]

Wow. I didn't know that book was Twilight fanfic. Cool!

So what exactly does "pull to publish" mean? Rewriting a fanfic and removing it from the web in order to publish it?