cthia wrote:Relax wrote:Guess I am just an independent old cuss. I have never seen why anyone would feel justified taking someone else's work, and writing FANFIC. I can see doing it if ASKED and you are dirt poor and have no other income, but otherwise? Are they imaginatively bankrupt themselves that they cannot create a world/universe? Or just lazy? (I'll go with heaping plateful of lazy with a side helping of low imagination)
The whole idea of writing is to explore new avenues. To extrapolate ideologies cause and effects of said ideologies.
IMO, fanfic is the ultimate homage that can be paid to an author. If one likes your work so well that it stokes one's own imagination to the point that his fingers quiver to wield the quill in your imaginary world as well, then what more is the true measure of success and artistry?
If everyone shared your sentiment then perhaps the Star Trek world would have sadly died long ago and we never would have received such brilliant and truly epic works (in proportion and scope) of such classics as
Spock's World by Diane Duane -- from which I borrowed my handle, cthia.
Fanfic also relegates works to immortal status that will often go on after the author dies.
Fanfic... is like macaroni and cheese. The best mac&cheese is that which uses many different cheeses.
And some talents are more contained in the area of recreating, reverse engineering, than in creating. See => the talents of the Japanese and Chinese industry. At one point in time.
Can't believe I'd ever do this, but I agree wholeheartedly with cthia on this issue. Nowadays, fanfic is a really good entryway into writing; by using someone else's universe, you can train your writing skills in the areas that actually matter in creating engaging fiction (such as plotting and character work), without getting bogged down in the details to establish a whole new world at the same time.
Personally, some of the most entertaining writing I have read has come from the realm of tie-in fiction, and that's basically fanfic with a publishing contract. In addition, shared universes are a proud tradition in SF/F, fanfic is following the same ideas, just without "official" support.