Thoughts on Fan Fiction...

Hello All,

First of all, as an aside, thanks for everyone who welcomed me so warmly to LSF after my first few stories were posted. It makes me want to go out and write!

My general question is this: How is one to feel about fan fiction? Now, I realize of course that it's every author's right as an artist to write however they want, so I'm not saying someone should or shouldn't write fan fiction..

What I'm constantly mulling over in my head is the merits. Sometimes I sit down to write fan fiction and my brain shuts me down, thinking 'this story will only be interesting to those who share the common knowledge of the setting/characters, etc.' On the other hand, to that small strata of people, it will be incredibly interesting, benefitting from the full breadth of the established setting without the necessity of setting it up in the story.

Personally, I love reading fan fiction, so I think I'll try writing it. The thread on SmallTalk about mother/daughter spankings, and the shows that could have had them really started to pique my interest in writing FF again, for who hasn't watched one of those shows and thought, "If there were any justice in the world, that girl would be getting her attitude adjusted right now!"

So I suppose I'd just like advice/musings from those who write/read FF about any of this.

Avalon

Some love fan fiction, others hate it.Like everything else, some is good, some not so good.
Have thought about some I might like to write, but so far only that one Xena story I wrote long time ago.
Love to see some F/F fan fiction, especially in the spirit of the great and sadly gone BaredAffair.
Don't think I've ever seen any Baywatch fan fiction. That would be great considering how many lovely bottoms in skimpy swimsuits that were on that show and many " Baywatch Babes" needed spanking. Certainly Neely- she was the worst brat of all. Would have loved to have seen her spanked by Pam Anderson,her enemy on the show. Not to mention Pam being pretty spankable herself along with Yasmine Bleeth, Carmen Electra,Erika Eleniak, and many others

Hi Avalon
Assuming that fan fiction does not cause the library any copyright type issues I for one cannot see any reason why you should not write Fan Fiction. Obviously the stories must be revolving around a good spanking for someone, so why does it matter if we already know the characters?
However like you I am very new to the Library and I would wait to hear from a few others before launching into a frenzy of writing based upon my views! I think it likely that this topic has been raised before, perhaps a good search in the forum may reveal prior discussions.
If it is OK, I always fancied seeing T'pau (?) from Start Trek get dealt with, there is one beautiful bottom!!

Honestly, and respectfully, I avoid fan fiction. Here is why:

In recent decades I have become a bit divorced from popular culture. I rarely watch television, don't watch movies, and haven't read Lord of the Rings or those Hogwart books, nor am I likely to. (I do read constantly, just not books that folks seem to fan-fictionalize.) Therefore, most fan fiction leaves me cold because I simply don't have the knowledge that the author too often assumes his reader to have.

Some fan fiction authors take the time to at least do some rudimentary character and setting development. Their work I can read like any other fiction, and some is quite good.

I find FF interesting in theory, but I've yet to find many examples (even those that incorporate spankings) that strike me as much better than mediocre. But I'm open to being persuaded.

Some fanfic is good, some isn't. The writing term "Mary Sue" (name of a perfect character in a story) arose from someone parodying Star Trek fanfic - well, less parodying and more taking things to it logical conclusion.

That said, I've written a few fanfic stories. One set in the old series Samantha, the Teen Witch. Another is set in ER (the TV show that launch several careers). Micheal Moorcock has encouraged people to use one of his characters (Jerry Cornelius) and used him in one story. And then there is my five part tribute to Roger Zelazny's Amber books - with my version called "The Chronicles of Bamber".

As for posting them here - there is a Fanfic flag that causes a disclaimer to appear at the top of Fanfic stories, so it's all good.

I'm not a great reader of fan fiction. I prefer to create original concepts and characters, but there is a lot of it around, and I have written some (Buffy and Warehouse 13, I also did a Lies of Locke Lamora one for a website I frequent), but overall it's not my thing. There have been some good ones posted here, I think Bogiephil did a couple. I've even had people do fanfics based on my own Spank Shop idea (with permission of course), one was written by Supermario and the other by the wonderful and much missed Bendover.

I used to write a lot of fanfic years ago, and I've got a couple of fanfic spanking stories here, but over the years I read (and wrote) so much crappy fanfic that I got turned off to it.

I agree with you, Avalon, that good fanfic can be a lot of fun for a particular niche of people, and perhaps that's enough reason to pursue it. There's a part of me that loves the idea of many versions of the same story. Unfortunately, as said above, a lot of is just isn't good and that can sour me on the original vesion.

In the end, I think the best kind of fanfic is the kind that doesn't interfere too much with the original version--mostly this means stories that take place in the universe but not with the familiar cast.

-LK

I personally do not read fan fiction, but likewise i have not read Shakespeare or Charles Dickens but i have heard they were quite good tale writers.

My point being if you have a wish to, and or have a mighty tale planned then do it, there are plenty of readers out there who will love your work.

I've written a few fanfics when I was starting out, but I stopped when I started to develop my own stories.
My logic is as follows:

1. If you are worse writer than the original author, then everyone will notice it since fanfiction is eminently comparable to the original.
2. If you are as good or better, then your talents will be better served by an original work.

In either case, it seems to me that an original story will work better.