This is a topic about which I'm passionate, so much so that I super secretly wrote twice for it in this issue. So super secretly.
Anyway, what I and the writers here hope to share is that fic is never cheating, from Shakespeare and his real person fic on through to the books written by various author all about the same trope—werewolves or lawyers or vampires—all writing is valid because it comes with our voice.
Read on for more and if you spot my super secret dual writings let me know by telling me what you think of this issue or anythingatallreally. — Atlin Merrick
Spark Spoke: This newsletter, podcasted by Lockedinjohnlock!
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Built on Bones
By Merinda Brayfield
Yes, there are differences between fan fiction and writing from your own worlds. But you know what? No matter what you're writing from scratch, you're still building from what's come before. Even if you've never picked up a Tolkien book, your idea of what constitutes a fantasy novel is colored by him. Your idea of a romance novel is colored by Jane Austen and Danielle Steele.
Sure in fan fiction you're working from someone else's framework, but just because you've got the bare bones of a world doesn't mean you aren't putting in the hard work. People act like anyone can write and I suppose, on a basic level, that's true. Anyone can put words on a page.
But to tell a story, to paint a world, that takes time and practice and skill. There's nothing wrong with taking the pieces of something you love and starting from there. God knows there are plenty of fantasy writers who started off with 'I like Tolkien, so I'm gonna write a thing'. Yeah, they may use other names or imagine another world, but if you scratch at the paint you'll find bones underneath.
Nobody writes in a vacuum. There are no 100% original stories.
If you enjoy telling stories about John and Sherlock, or Tony and Steve or anything else, it's still you writing it, it's still your imagination. It's you figuring out how Hannibal would react to this time, this situation. Yes, even if it's a 600 word PWP fic, it's still your imagination at work.
All stories are built on the bones of what's come before. Just because fan fiction has a more visible skeleton doesn't make it invalid or cheating.
Storytelling is a skill, and a valuable one at that, no matter where you're starting from.
Merinda Brayfield is a prolific writer of fan fiction, mostly on AO3 under Janto321. You can primarily find Merinda on Tumblr and Twitter.
Three Shouty Trick Questions
By Wendy C Fries
Gonna make this short and sweet:
Did Shakespeare cheat when he wrote real person fic about Richard III and Henry V? How about Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, Stephenie Meyer, or the hundreds of others who've made bank writing books about vampires?
Did the Disney animators cheat when they paid people to model for their animations?
Did all the winners of the Great British Bake-Off cheat when they adapted recipes they learned from cookbooks?
These are all trick questions because there's only one answer and it involves a shouty string of me swearing before I finish with "—no damn it!"
Creativity does not happen in a vacuum. Given the sixty thousand years of human history none of us has an idea no one has had before. We build our societies, our myths, our creations on what went before and if that's cheating then every last one of us are bamboozlers.
Which would be extremely cool actually because look at that nifty word—bambbooooooozler.
Except we aren't that thing.
We are, however, creators adding to the collection of human myths and legends using the voice only we have. Hundreds of people have written novels about WWII, Greek gods, bed and breakfasts, or horses. And every last one of them did something all the rest of them never did: Told it their own way.
That is never cheating.
So when you write a Star Wars story with characters inspired by J J Abrams who was inspired by George Lucas, when you write a House and Wilson story (David Shore acknowledges House was inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes and Watson), you're doing what thousands of humans have done before you.
You're taking inspired joy from what is and creating a world of what might be.
You're making something brand new.
If that's cheating then you have tens of thousands of years of good company, so let's keep 'cheating,' okay?
Wendy C Fries is also Atlin Merrick. Why she decided to be one over the other today may be related to the caramel latte she consumed. Who knows?
Gripping With Both Hands
By AlchemistDoctor
When I was young I was in a writing course, and we were assigned the writing a short story. It could be about anything we wanted, anything at all. I was in the middle of reading Anne of Green Gables. I loved Anne of Green Gables. And so, inspired by her, I started to write about a different little orphan girl, finding her way into a new home.
My teacher sent it back with her critique written to my mother: I feel as though they’re just trying to re-write Anne.
Now, don’t get me wrong. It was a terrible story. I was around 13-14 years old. My writing was atrocious, and exactly as melodramatic and unreasonable as you’d expect a young teen’s writing to be.
But that wasn’t what my teacher criticised, was it? She didn’t write, “The prose is unreadable” or “Why have they used 6 adverbs in a row,” or “Please tell them to stop overusing a thesaurus.”
She wrote, I feel as though they’re just trying to re-write Anne, as though I’d cheated the assignment somehow.
That hurt.
That still hurts, and I’m still mad about it! Why? Because so what if I was? I’m allowed! You’re allowed to write fan fiction, no matter what, but more than that, I’d created an entirely new character with her own story to tell. I wasn’t rewriting Anne, I was writing Priscilla. If she hadn’t known I was reading Anne of Green Gables at the time, would she have even thought to criticise me in that fashion? Probably not.
In other words, specifically because I was enjoying something, I was told I shouldn’t write it. That it was cheating.
Bullshit.
Do you know the advice I hear most often from writers? “Read.” Read everything, pick it apart, note the sentence structure, the tone, the characterisation, the things that made you grip the book with both hands and keep reading. And then write with what you’ve learned! That’s called learning. That’s called using your resources. And it’s not cheating, it’s smart.
So, my advice?
Rewrite Anne. Take a piece apart, digest it, learn from it, write it. Use the inspiration from your favourite things to write more things! That’s how art grows and morphs and it’s perfectly okay.
Cite your sources. Thank your inspirations. And rewrite Anne.
Do you feel like you're cheating writing fic/drawing fandom characters? If you did but don't now—how did you combat that?
Atlin Merrick @atlinmerrick
I'm not cheating when I'm inspired by fic. Or fact. Or Domhnall Gleeson's butt. Or anything that helps me get words onto the page. Anyone who tells anyone that they're cheating if they find inspiration in references or TV shows, well those anyone's are two things: Toxic and stupid. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ignore the fuck out of them and continue doing what they can't: Creating.
Camellia should-be-gradin@cmdr_camellia
I don't feel so much that I'm cheating, because cheating implies that I'm creating a valuable end product via a dishonest "easy route" means, and I often worry that the end product is worthless both for not being entirely original and for its subject matter. I'm not sure that there's much to combat that sort of sentiment other than 'fuck 'em, I'm having a good time and people are enjoying this content.'
For autumn @forautumniam
I had an incredibly toxic BFF who would dismiss all my writing as "softcore gay porn for teens"—but I kept writing, and kept finding an (adult :D) audience. Despite this, I noticed that I'm not comfortable calling myself an author/writer; there's still some lingering bs shame.
J. Baillier
I’m tired of defending fic. No, this is not just a dress rehearsal for a "real" novel. Yes, I know I can create original characters. In fact, fic requires a heck of a lot more base knowledge of canon than starting an original story from scratch does, the competition is fierce in big fandoms, and high quality expected since there is already so much of it around. Every author of say, a novel with historical characters, essentially writes fic. We’re not doing anything "real" authors haven’t been doing for a few thousand years—it’s just that now it has a name.
Kirie G.
I spent entirely too much time reading classic novels in middle school. Buried in The Scarlet Letter, Jane Eyre and Alice in Wonderland for hours on end, I picked up a few tricks. I learned how to describe and gained a fondness for dialogue. The trade-off was that I became prone to purple prose... The greats of the past served as my inspiration. I wonder how they’d feel that I channel their writing to crank out gay porn! Writing fan fiction has never felt like cheating to me, and if I had to compare it to a type of “cheating” it would be to the delight of being on a diet and sneaking in a slice of cake: well-earned and indulgent!
Kizzia @Kizzia30
No, never have. But then I had an art teacher who was all about the references and an English teacher who said emulating styles was one way to get into writing and accepted Red Dwarf/X-files inspired stories as homework so l was definitely rather lucky in that respect.
Ktula just ktula@heyktula
This is a complicated series of questions! I have things to say, I'm just not sure what they are yet, lolsob.
Ro@holmessyndrome
(Used to) I learned from writers who were successful that even writing out random bs will help you get ideas out+be better in the long run If that counts and isn’t cheating, then thinking of stories abt or practicing by borrowing character or plot points is still valid (and fun!)
Hey, It's Not Your Fault
By NovaNara
Did I get into fan fiction because it was less stressful? Yes. With depression rampant, I’m not about to start building a whole world, and every character populating it. Who has the energy for that?
But do I think my work is worth less than it was when I was penning terribly clichéd but technically original fantasy “novels”? Fine, they were novellas, if even that, but as a teenager I didn’t worry much about word count.
The answer is a resounding no.
One of the main reasons I believe that, believe it or not, Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia. The first masterpiece of Italian literature was actually titled just Commedia by the author, another amazing author of early Italian literature, Boccaccio, called it Divine in a treatise thirty years later, and the adjective stuck. As a high schooler, I was forced to analyse the Commedia for three years straight, memorise the references, and endless medieval trivia. Why?
Because it’s exactly the kind of story I, with my taste, would skip over. A Biblical self-insert fic in verses (100 chapters…oops, I mean canti), in which the author sticks into the hereafter dozens of real people—some people still alive while he was writing, because fuck them? If Dante was updating right now, I wouldn’t dare to click on it—and miss something brilliant.
So, you see, it’s never been a question for me that fan fiction could be amazing literature. The only difference is that critics seem to turn their nose at what we use as sources. But it’s not my fault if I was born while Doctor Who is still ongoing (if it will ever stop) and I write a Wholock, is it? And it’s not yours, either, if you aren’t three generations removed from Harry Potter or whatever fandom is inspiring you.
The moment someone tries to talk down to you—tell them you might be the next very obligatory high school text. Do they really want to risk being immortalized in the most gruesome way possible?
Elena writes as NovaNara and you'll find her Sherlock and other stories on AO3 with stories also on Fan fiction.net.
I Sure As Hell Try
By Jamie Ashbird
My writing is the sum total of everything I’ve ever seen and read filtered through the unique neural pathways my brain has laid down throughout my life. My teachers are numerous. That orange tinge the world gets every so often in the late afternoon; Miss Pepperell in Grade 1; the entire works of Terry Pratchett; ants; Albrecht Dürer's hand and fabric studies; the tadpoles in the dam down at the farm; Jim Henson. This list could go on but you’d soon get bored. I already am.
So do I feel like I’m cheating if I use humorous footnotes like Sir Terry? No, he didn’t invent them. He perfected them, sure, and there is no one who has managed to reach his heights of footnote mastery. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try. He taught me what an amazing comedy tool they are and when I want to do it, I sure as hell try.
Do I feel like I’m cheating when I trace and outline, or copy the style of the etchings in my Hans Christian Anderson collection? You might want to look into how Byzantine icons have been painted for a thousand years, or how animators create realistic movement. Do I feel like I’m cheating? It’s as much cheating as animating some dude in a mo-cap suit, so no.
So do I feel like I’m cheating writing fic using already existing characters or places? Excuse me while I cough and mutter the names of too many authors for this word limit. But to name a few biggies: Gregory Maguire, Neil Gaiman, Angela Carter...
I'm glad I came to fan fic after studying some history otherwise I may well have felt like I was cheating. I can't help but see parallels between the old ways of storytelling and the way a fandom's fiction evolves. The old skalds tasked with passing on histories might number the opposing army a thousand instead of a couple hundred, put wittier words into a king's mouth, but the story remains the same. They learned from their predecessors and in turn pass those stories on to the skalds after them. Or their contemporaries will give it a try. Go bigger and better than Einarr down the road.
So you.
You're writing your ninth fic in which two characters drawn together by a tenuous attraction are now sopping wet and need to huddle for warmth. You've read fifty similar fics in the last month. So? None of those are the same as anyone else's, nor is it the same as your eight that have come before.
We take beloved characters and place them into our own worlds, or into alternate universes, or in their own worlds but in situations that would never happen outside fic. It doesn't matter which or how or who or where. What matters is you're creating something new. And make no mistake, it is new.
Anyone telling you otherwise is a cagoule-wearing toad-sniffer unworthy of your time.
Writer, scientist, and polymath, Jamie Ashbird's book A Question of Time, comes out with Improbable Press soon; she has appeared in IP's anthology A Murmuring of Bees.
Mentoring Yourself
By Star Urioste
As a youngster (just turned 70 in October), I was very creative, but had few mentors. Loved art, writing poetry and fiction. Making things with my hands. Precocious, yes that was me.
Because what to do if you don’t have a teacher and you want to learn? You teach yourself.
I copied other works of art. I read poetry I liked and tried to mimic the style. Reading was my passion. Trying to write in another writer's voice was exhilarating.
You copy, you mimic, you try to evoke the same feelings and style. It’s part of the learning process. You should have seen my Van Gogh period. That’s not right, you say, invoking the copyright issues of legal claim to works not in public domain. Yeah, I know, but it’s a common enough practice.
Russians sold Beatles albums for years without giving a dime to the original musicians. China uses the Disney characters all the time and they are not licensed. But those are big countries doing their own thing with copyrighted materials. It’s wrong! Yes, yes it is. We should all play by the rules when applicable.
Then we come to fan fiction, vids, podcasts, art and all things fandom. It’s a “I’m going to play with your toys for a while, I’m not going to bend them or break them too much; see how wonderfully they fit into my little world, with my little plot twists. Yeah, you can have them back now,” kinda world.
If you are making a profit off your works, I think we get into a grey area. There are legal ramifications and you can be sued up the yin-yang as they say.
Mostly though, fan works are not high end commercial ventures. In my day there were no computers, no fan sites. There were comic conventions and people who dressed up. SCA people (Society for Creative Anachronism) and a lot of weird stuff all the way around the edges. Fanzines (fan created spiral bound magazines) where how you got fan stories and fan art. It was a lot harder to connect and to be part of a larger population of fans. You had to work for it.
Now, it’s everything you want on a platter, free for the taking and, of course, it’s every fricking where you look.
Cosplay is a thing now, furries and fuzzies, and AO3 for free. Fans united to keep their fandoms alive and well even when that fandom is no long crazy hot. Which is a good thing. Preserving the past is never wrong. Losing the past can be quite painful.
I wish I hadn’t lost all the fanzines I had in the wilds of Canada to my third husband, but that’s another story for another time. I’ve written and illustrated for fanzines for a long time. Now I write for AO3 and sell my other original items on Etsy.
It’s all good. Is using another writer's characters copying? Yeah, but it’s how we learn. How we grow as human beings. Since the beginning of time we’ve passed knowledge down through the ages. How to make tools, grow crops, write stories. We’re just continuing the human tradition.
That secondhand cape from Superman is still a bitching piece of cloth. Am I right? Of course I am!
Find Star Urioste on AO3, where she writes Sherlock fan fiction under the name MacGyvershe, as well as fic in the MCU.
∞
An editor wants your story for an anthology! And then sends it back with lots of edits. You publish your first fic! And someone sends you a bad comment. You love writing! But six months have passed without writing a word because Life.
How do you get back on the writing horse when it throws you? What do you need to help get your spirits up? Help us keep ours up by sharing for Coping With Writing Setbacks.
Share an article (250-600 words) or a teeny snippet (25-120 words) by 26 February and bards will sing your praises!
