So on another board I got into a discussion on Robert Jordan's Conan novels. When it comes to published books: If you want to read Conan, you read Robert E. Howard's Conan stories*. If you want to read Sherlock Holmes, you read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. If you want to read Lord Darcy, you read Randall Garrett's stories. Etc.
Basically, the character's creator almost always brings it to life in a way that no imitator can hope to do. They know the character inside and out, to the point when they do something new in the world it fits seamlessly in with all their other stories. Sure, The Seven Percent Solution was an interesting Sherlock Holmes story, but it lacked Doyle's genius. Yes, Jordan's Conan included more spankings than Howard's, but Two Guns Bob channeled life into the black hair/blue eye Conan in his own way.
That said, I still think there is a place for Fanfic, but it has to mesh with what came before. For example, no Harry Potter book ever mentioned what sort of underwear the characters wore, so when I came across a "pre-release" copy of the 6th book I knew it was fanfic (long, well written, but missing on some main points) when I came across a passage that mentioned what colour the Hogswart uniform underwear was.
I see three broad types of fanfic. Ones using main characters (i.e.: "Kirk advanced on the green skinned Orion slave girls, intent on seeing if he could turn their behinds red). Then there's using minor characters, including those not mentioned (i.e. "Star Fleet Captain Meadow wrestled with the green skin Orion slave girl, wondering who would end up over whose lap."). Then there's fanfic on genres. For example, when I listed off the fanfic I've done I skipped over the GURPS fanfic. Not that I see it as Fanfic, but it is labeled as such because I borrowed the GURPS world of Technomancer for the setting. I didn't use any published characters (there's just the one sourcebook for it) but I did use that world.
Personally, I find the more that you use the main characters the more someone will say "But Kirk/Buffy/Sherlock/etc would never do that!", which ruins the suspension of disbelief, but that's just me.
* = and maybe the L. Sprague de Camp / Lin Carter, "round out the cycle" stories |