Re: Writers Central
Posted: Sun Jan 02, 2011 1:52 pm
*dusts off my own soapbox*
Openhome~ I think you hit is dead on when you pointed out the following:
My guess is that he must have taken the first offer that came his way and I'm also guessing that Omnific approached him while it was still a "work in progress". I have to wonder if SR even tried to get a query together and find a literary agent who could help get major publishers to look at his story as an original all on its own. ???
(And for those of you who are unaware or wondering why we wouldn't consider Omnific an established publisher, that is because it is owned/operated by the same people who started Twilighted.net. Many of their staff are former and current fanfic writers and betas in the Twilight fandom. Kinda makes you go "hmmm...")
Lastly...
My thoughts on this aren't really specific to UofEM, but just thoughts in general.
It seems to me that other than the names "Bella" and "Edward", most All-Human fanfiction has very, very little - if any - material that could be tied back to Twilight or Stephenie Meyer. Am I wrong there? The names and family trees of the original characters belong to SM in the context of the world of Twilight. The plot of a clumsy young girl moving to a new town and falling in love with a good-looking vampire belongs to Stephenie. Sparkling vampires, vampires with funky abilities, shape-shifting werewolves, hybrids, the Volturi, shiny-silver Volvos and little yellow Porches... those all belong to Stephenie Meyer as well. But outside of those indisputable facts, it seems that many hopeful authors claim that they've re-worked an original idea they had and just borrowed SM's character names so that they can get their stuff out there and get feedback right away. I'm sure it's not a great way to go about crafting your own story, but is using fanfiction as a platform for your own work always a form of stealing??
I don't know the answer to that as it hurts my brain to think about it too much. But I guess that questions and others like it are (as Kayla said) a very good reason to keep your fanfiction as fanfiction, and keep your original work to yourself.
Sorry for the rant... *steps down and puts soapbox back in storage*
Openhome~ I think you hit is dead on when you pointed out the following:
Perfect word there: unscrupulous. Nobody says you have to leave your stories out there forever, but it really, really irks me that he didn't even wait for the thing to be completed all the way through before pulling it. I think that the final chapter was up for maybe a week or two tops?? And never once was the entire story up with epilogues et al. I know there are dozens of people out there who reviewed every chapter and pimped the story out like crazy, and never even got to finish it. Does anyone really think they're going to run off and buy it now? Like this?? Had he wanted to be a legitimate author there was nothing stopping him, but it is really, really sad that this is the route he chose to take. SR came off as a highly intelligent, creative and very capable writer. I never would have pegged him as one to go about getting published like this.openhome wrote:I also have a very hard time with the ideas of:
1) pulling your fic to make money off of it after it was posted as a fanfiction. Why pull it if it is a "new" story? It's not like the story will disappear.
2) lying to a fan base that supported you and then expecting them to pay for the thing. That seemed like a very unscrupulous thing to do.
openhome wrote:This leads me to ask why he didn't go with an established publishing house.
In SR's case, why isn't Random House or even Harlequin asking to publish his work? It was certainly written well enough to be published by them. So, why wasn't it?
My guess is that he must have taken the first offer that came his way and I'm also guessing that Omnific approached him while it was still a "work in progress". I have to wonder if SR even tried to get a query together and find a literary agent who could help get major publishers to look at his story as an original all on its own. ???
(And for those of you who are unaware or wondering why we wouldn't consider Omnific an established publisher, that is because it is owned/operated by the same people who started Twilighted.net. Many of their staff are former and current fanfic writers and betas in the Twilight fandom. Kinda makes you go "hmmm...")
Lastly...
Openhome wrote: Fanfiction, no matter how original, is a form of legal plagiarism. I admit it, freely. The fact that the authors allow fanfic writers to write is simply a matter of grace and legal gray areas. I hope for SR's sake that he did alter it because if the book reads exactly like the fanfic, that is a very shaky legal position to be in.
My thoughts on this aren't really specific to UofEM, but just thoughts in general.
It seems to me that other than the names "Bella" and "Edward", most All-Human fanfiction has very, very little - if any - material that could be tied back to Twilight or Stephenie Meyer. Am I wrong there? The names and family trees of the original characters belong to SM in the context of the world of Twilight. The plot of a clumsy young girl moving to a new town and falling in love with a good-looking vampire belongs to Stephenie. Sparkling vampires, vampires with funky abilities, shape-shifting werewolves, hybrids, the Volturi, shiny-silver Volvos and little yellow Porches... those all belong to Stephenie Meyer as well. But outside of those indisputable facts, it seems that many hopeful authors claim that they've re-worked an original idea they had and just borrowed SM's character names so that they can get their stuff out there and get feedback right away. I'm sure it's not a great way to go about crafting your own story, but is using fanfiction as a platform for your own work always a form of stealing??
I don't know the answer to that as it hurts my brain to think about it too much. But I guess that questions and others like it are (as Kayla said) a very good reason to keep your fanfiction as fanfiction, and keep your original work to yourself.
Sorry for the rant... *steps down and puts soapbox back in storage*