After all, when you’re a writer, more writing is always better than less writing. Similarly, prose fanfiction is a fantastic way to hone skills. People write spec scripts like the one Cleolinda describes all the time - it’s pretty much a required exercise in most script-writing classes. That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t continue what you’re doing if you’re a fanfiction writer, of course. So remember my travails, I guess, when an author refuses to read fic (or comes up with something like yours). <–Which is exactly why it’s so easy for a creator to look like they ripped a fan off, when in fact it’s the fan who extrapolated from them. I could have genuinely believed they ripped me off. Years later, there was an episode that was partly but weirdly similar to my script. I was clearly not unique, because they knew a script package when they saw oneĪnd sent it back unopened with a kind stock letter from legal about liabilities. Of course I sent it to them, because I was That Fan. Are dragon-mummies a cool idea, guys? I came up with that as a joke, but now I’m sort of into it.Īnyway, on Twitter earlier this morning, writer Cleolinda Jones (you might remember her from her amazing Hannibal recaps or her Movies in 15 Minutes series - or you might remember her from that time she hate-read the Twilight series and blogged about it, which she will literally never live down) brought up her own experiences with submitting a fan work to an established television series:Ī side note on writers who feel they can’t read fanfic, to protect themselves: young college student Cleo wrote an X-Files script. The human brain works in weird ways, and even if you didn’t intend to write about dragon-mummies, now they’re in your head setting their own bandages on fire and doing whatever it is that dragon-mummies do. Now you can never ever have Herby meet a dragon or a mummy of any kind in your books, because if you do, then that fan is going to think you stole the idea from them and cry foul - and the worst part is, they could be right. You come across a message from an excited fan who thinks that Herby Prancer should encounter a dragon-mummy somewhere along his travels, and before you realize what’s happening, you’re reading the beginning a 10,000 word story about it. You are literally richer than God as a result of your writings, but for some reason you still check your own e-mail by yourself like a charlatan. Let’s create a fictional scenario to explain: you are the writer of a hit series of children’s books about a young boy warlock named Herby Prancer. It’s because you’re sending them a ticking time bomb of copyright problems without realizing it. A lot of writers especially hate it when you send them fanfiction based on their work, but usually it has nothing to do with what they think of the medium as a whole. Despite its popularity, fanfiction still gets a pretty bad rap in some writing circles.
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