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I haven't read either book, Twilight, or Shades, but what I wondered when I first heard about it being fan fiction (none of which I have either ever read) was just how the publisher of Twilight reacted? Just on the face of it, it seems that plagiarism charges have been laid for less. Just for a few paragraphs in a book. I think that it was Janet Dailey who copied, slightly rearranged, love scenes from another writer some years ago. I don't know what the publisher of the plagiarized books (think the writer might have been Nora Roberts?) did but there was a lot of embarrassment and tears on behalf of Dailey.
Nope, it's straight up fanfiction. It was published on various fanfiction websites under a different name with the penname "Snowqueen's Icedragon", which is perhaps the most hilariously 'fanficcy' name I've ever heard. The author then moved it to her own site, rewrote some of it, changed the character names, and there you have it- she's rolling in dough. Stephanie Meyer seems to have just shrugged it off. In a different situation, with a different author, I think things would have turned out differently.
Complicating matters is that is an AU. If it wasn't well-known to have come directly from a fanfic, would Meyers have been able to prove that Gray and Ana were her characters with different names? I'm thinking not. Yet...it is KNOWN that it's fanfiction, so I would think Meyers would still have the right to claim plagiarism if she wished.
And really, the fact that she wouldn't be able to prove they were the same characters to me just implies it was badly written fanfic to begin with. I've written AUs, but my characters are still recognizable no matter what setting I stick them.
I do wonder if this will make other authors strike back against fanfic. It's happened before, with a few authors being well-known for not being 'fic-able', as it were...Mercedes Lackey is one, and the author of the Pern novels allows fanfic but is very controlling about it.
Nope, it's straight up fanfiction. It was published on various fanfiction websites under a different name with the penname "Snowqueen's Icedragon", which is perhaps the most hilariously 'fanficcy' name I've ever heard. The author then moved it to her own site, rewrote some of it, changed the character names, and there you have it- she's rolling in dough. Stephanie Meyer seems to have just shrugged it off. In a different situation, with a different author, I think things would have turned out differently.
Complicating matters is that is an AU. If it wasn't well-known to have come directly from a fanfic, would Meyers have been able to prove that Gray and Ana were her characters with different names? I'm thinking not. Yet...it is KNOWN that it's fanfiction, so I would think Meyers would still have the right to claim plagiarism if she wished.
And really, the fact that she wouldn't be able to prove they were the same characters to me just implies it was badly written fanfic to begin with. I've written AUs, but my characters are still recognizable no matter what setting I stick them.
I do wonder if this will make other authors strike back against fanfic. It's happened before, with a few authors being well-known for not being 'fic-able', as it were...Mercedes Lackey is one, and the author of the Pern novels allows fanfic but is very controlling about it.
Okay, so if I understand you correctly, she basically wrote it with the original Twilight characters' names but the background was changed because that is what fan fiction is about - an alternative universe. I'm lost on what "AU" stands for.
Usually, it is the publisher that gets pissy about plagiarism - the author having some say of course, but it also cuts into the publisher's profits and the usual contract with the author allows the publisher to take action unilaterally. I'm thinking they must have thought that with the change of names, and the total change in background, that in court it wasn't technically plagiarism with everything so different. It might have been morally that, but maybe not to prove in court. Or did the publishers of Twilight also publish the Shades book?
I know a writer who had a unique idea for a novel based on a true story, and who talked it over with other writers, as writers often do. Only to have his unique idea stolen by another writer who wrote on that idea. Obviously both writers could have written on the same subject without it being plagiarism but among the writing community it was seen as morally reprehensible and given the time frame, no publisher, knowing there was one book coming out already on the subject would bother with a second book on the same subject in such a short period of time. (This was long before self-publishing became such a big deal and it wasn't the kind of story that would attract a market large enough for two books on the same subject).
So I'm guessing that the lawyers for the publishing company for Mercedes Lackey got involved or how did it become known that one couldn't fanfiction her?
(Sorry if my questions sound ignorant - I didn't even know fan fiction existed until the Shades book came out and I saw it talked about on the threads here)
Okay, so if I understand you correctly, she basically wrote it with the original Twilight characters' names but the background was changed because that is what fan fiction is about - an alternative universe. I'm lost on what "AU" stands for.
AU just means alternative universe. Fanfiction has its own genres, just like regular fiction. Most fanfiction takes place in the established universe of the original media. So if you're writing about Twilight, in most fanfiction you're using both the characters and their history/setting/powers/etc. So you might write about what happened after the books ended, or focus on a side character and write things from their perspective. Or you might write about a character you invented, but in the Twilight universe, so maybe you're writing about a hot boy werewolf who steals away Jacob (a HUGE amount of fanfiction is slash, which mean it involves two male characters in a relationship...and the vast majority of slash fic is written by women. Go figure. In fanfic, Edward and Jacob are a team at least as often, if not more so, than Bela/Edward or Bela/Jacob.) AU means you are taking the characters, but not the universe...so you might write about Bela and Edward being regular teens instead of vampires, or Bela and Edward in space even. Or Bela and Edward in a supremely messed up BDSM relationship where Ana is a college student and Edward is a businessman, and nary a fang is to be seen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by netwit
Usually, it is the publisher that gets pissy about plagiarism - the author having some say of course, but it also cuts into the publisher's profits and the usual contract with the author allows the publisher to take action unilaterally. I'm thinking they must have thought that with the change of names, and the total change in background, that in court it wasn't technically plagiarism with everything so different. It might have been morally that, but maybe not to prove in court. Or did the publishers of Twilight also publish the Shades book?
I'm 90% certain it's a different publisher, and a small house one at that.
I agree that's probably why...if 'Ana' and 'Gray' had still been vampires, it would have been a stronger case. I'm still surprised she got away with it through since the history is recorded. It's not that this hasn't been done before, though in terms of community it angers people when fanficers try to publish. But in previous cases, the books never made it big like this.
Fanfiction has been around forever, since before the dawn of the internet even. It used to be published in small magazines that were mailed. So in the beginning, it was common to charge for it to make back the cost of publishing the 'zines, but even then it was severely frowned upon to make a profit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by netwit
So I'm guessing that the lawyers for the publishing company for Mercedes Lackey got involved or how did it become known that one couldn't fanfiction her?
Mercedes Lackey herself came out and said she considers fanfiction theft and that she didn't want it written. Her publisher never got involved. For the most part, the community respects the authors and won't write if the author gets upset. The vast majority of the time, authors and other creators are either ignorant or don't mind...fanfiction keeps people interested and forms a 'fandom' around the creation, which means more activity and word of mouth.
As an example...on one of the largest fanfiction sites, Twilight has 204, 972 entries. Not all Twilight fic is on that site, so that's just a sampling of what's out there. This particular site doesn't allow erotica, so that number doesn't even represent all the NC-17 fics with the characters. Of course most fandoms aren't as large, but that's a massive amount of creative fic being generated. And anyone invested enough to write fic, is invested enough to buy merchandise and bug their friends to read the books.
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Originally Posted by netwit
(Sorry if my questions sound ignorant - I didn't even know fan fiction existed until the Shades book came out and I saw it talked about on the threads here)
Fanfiction is...well, to be blunt, it's literary masturbation. I write it when I need a break from 'real writing'. It's a creative outlet where I don't have to worry too much about the gritty little details of the craft...I can be unrealistic and write to please entirely myself. At the same time, I've learned a lot about the craft of writing while writing fic...all writing is real writing, even if you'll never publish it or share it. There is great fic out there that rivals any published novel. And there is an amazing amount of junk where the author misspells every other word and mangles the characters.
Wait a minute. Fan-fiction? Are you telling me that Fifty Shades of Gray was a book about pre-existing protagonists who were already well-known and fully fleshed-out literary characters from other works? And that E L James intended it to be read primarily by people who were already aware of those characters, and already knew about their lives and activities and their psychiatric diagnoses? If a reader (like me) is unaware of that when reading the book, how does that affect the reader's experience?
No wonder I didn't know about all the psychological details in the closets of Ana and Grey.
Wait a minute. Fan-fiction? Are you telling me that Fifty Shades of Gray was a book about pre-existing protagonists who were already well-known and fully fleshed-out literary characters from other works? And that E L James intended it to be read primarily by people who were already aware of those characters, and already knew about their lives and activities and their psychiatric diagnoses? If a reader (like me) is unaware of that when reading the book, how does that affect the reader's experience?
No wonder I didn't know about all the psychological details in the closets of Ana and Grey.
Well, you also don't know about some of the details because you haven't finished all three books. I think you can read 50 Shades fine without reading Twlight, and that's mostly because in both Twlight and 50 Shades, the characters are rather flat. If you borrow a flat character and stick them in a new situation, you've still got a flat character. Fully-fleshed out doesn't really apply here.
Well, I wasn't planning on reading either Twilight or Shades but if I find the books on sale at the right price, I just might after all, just to compare the characters.
You mean Shakespeare should not have written "Romeo and Juliet", or Tolstoy should not have written "Anna Karenina", because somebody might be influenced by them and emulate the protagonists? Shame on Shakespeare and Tolstoy, their work should be suppressed, and kept away from impressionable readers, or at least have a "Don't try this at home" warning and kept on a high shelf?
Well, I always enjoy a good bonfire.
I never said anything about not wanting or wanting these books to be written. Silly thought.
Well, you also don't know about some of the details because you haven't finished all three books. I think you can read 50 Shades fine without reading Twlight, and that's mostly because in both Twlight and 50 Shades, the characters are rather flat. If you borrow a flat character and stick them in a new situation, you've still got a flat character. Fully-fleshed out doesn't really apply here.
First, I've never read Twilight.
Second, I thought this thread was about the book entitled "Fifty Shades of Grey", and reading it would suffice to discuss the book.
Third, if a book is written in the first person, it cannot possibly flesh out any character except to the degree that that person's life is known to the first person protagonist, which is a limiting factor, and if too much is revealed, it erodes the credibility of the first person, who is even subject to being lied to or deceived by other characters, without necessarily being resolved. Authors are free agents about that, and not constrained by convention to write the way you want them to, filling in all the gaps. It used to be called "artistic license" and might still be, I don't keep up with literary criticism jargon.
Fourth, the characters in Grey were fleshed out at least as well as the average novel, which is often weak in character development. That was not one of the book's defects. There are a lot of best-selling authors, and only a few good ones, so defects are easy to find in modern literature. Indeed, the book's basic premise was that Ana did NOT know Grey well enough to flesh him out and he remained mysterious, so you are criticizing it for being on point.
Fifth, I read the book from the standpoint of an observer who could not identify with the characters' sexual desires, nor was I tempted to. So I could read it with equanimity, as a literary work. Someone else, identifying closely with a character, might hate the character, but that does not by itself diminish the literary merit of the work. Unless you believe the author's intent was to entertain only a small subset of the reading market who shared the lifestyle of the characters. The widespread appeal and significant sales of the book suggest otherwise.
Second, I thought this thread was about the book entitled "Fifty Shades of Grey", and reading it would suffice to discuss the book.
You brought up that you didn't think you could get everything out of 50 Shades because it is Twilight fanfiction and utilizes those characters. I'm just pointing out that I don't think that origin affected the readability of the book overly much.
So I'm agreeing with you...I think you can read 50 Shades of Gray alone and discuss it without ever knowing about the connection. But I also think the connection is fascinating and worthy of discussion in itself. Fanfiction in a way is quite common in the publishing world...Twilight itself is Romeo and Juliet fanfiction, in a way. The plot is drawn directly from it without question. But 50 Shades stands alone in being a modern example of fanfiction drawn from a current author's work, and being wildly popular at that. You can discuss both a book's plot alone and also how its origin might impact the publishing world or impacted how the author handled the characters. And fans of Twilight might find it very interesting that 50 Shades has such a direct connection.
But in pure terms of does 50 Shades stand alone in terms of readability? I think it does.
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Originally Posted by jtur88
Third, if a book is written in the first person, it cannot possibly flesh out any character except to the degree that that person's live is known to the first person protagonist, which is a limiting factor, and if too much is revealed, it erodes the credibility of the first person.
Fourth, the characters in Grey were fleshed out at least as well as the average novel, which is often weak in character development.
I'm not talking about secondary characters...I'm talking about the POV characters. We'll just have to agree to disagree that Ana is a well-rounded character.
You would see Ana's origins if you'd read Twilight. Both characters are clumsy and have low self-esteem despite having multiple males attracted to them. Their patterns of speech are similar. They both have the "I want him no he's dangerous but I want him" thing going on. So do many characters in other novels, of course, especially of the romance novel genre. Personally, I find Ana (and Bela) generic. It's okay that you don't. You seem to be taking it personally that I hate the books with a passion...I'm allowed to hate them, you're allowed to enjoy them. You're allowed to view them completely differently than I. I brought up fanfiction and the Twilight connection to give another reason why I hate 50 Shades...but if I'd never know about fanfic, I'd still hate 50 Shades all by its lonesome self.
Hehe. It's a fun, trashy read. I wasn't exactly looking for a literary masterpiece when I picked this one up - lol.
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