I find reactions to fan fiction vary as much as taste in books, and it’s always interesting to me to hear why people do/don’t like it. Especially because so many feel so strongly about it.

All I do know is that it’s good there are so many choices, not just with fan fic for those who like it, but in TV series, books, movies. Of course, I strongly believe everyone should share my tastes…naw, that wouldn’t be very fun, would it?

I also tend to become very emotionally invested in the lives and fates of fictional characters, both my own (where it’s at least halfway acceptable) and those created by others. In my experience it is perfectly possible to feel something akin to friendship for fictional characters. These fictional friendships can last a very long time. Rereading/rewatching something I enjoyed a long time ago feels like meeting old friends again, even if the actual quality of the material is questionable.

When fictional characters I have formed a bond with begin acting out of character, I tend to get very angry. This is part of the reason why I stopped watching soap operas and reading long running comic book series altogether, because I figured out that sooner or later a new creative team would come in and ruin some or all of the character relationships I had become invested in. Interestingly, I still feel connected to many of the characters, even though I no longer follow their adventures on an ongoing basis.

At the moment – and that’s why this post connected with me – I am experiencing a situation where a TV show I loved has totally changed direction for its current season and the characters behave unlike the people I met and bonded with last season. And it hurts. Not only have I lost my favourite TV show, my second favourite TV show (because this one was a spin-off of another show I also liked), I have also lost my liking for the characters. And even though it is silly and the people who tell me not to get upset, cause it’s “just a TV show” are probably right, it feels very much like losing friends. And I’m not sure if I can ever recover them, i.e. if I can go back and rewatch the episodes I liked and ignore what went wrong later. For example, I find that I cannot rewatch The X-Files, a show I loved back in the day, because I cannot forget that there was no real answer to the many questions they raised and that the ending pretty much sucked. Though I still like Mulder and Scully as characters.

As for fan fiction, I think it is a natural reaction to strong investment into a story and also a natural step in the early development of many writers. I wrote what would be called fan fiction today in my teens. Of course, I had never even heard the term back then, nor did I know that millions of people were doing the same thing as me, I always assumed I was the only one. Fan fiction is where I learned how to write dialogue, for example. And I still tend to continue a stories I liked in my head and sometimes edit things I disliked, though I now longer bother to write it down. So fan fiction as private practice writing and a transitory step towards original writing is perfectly fine. Though I do see the potential for problems when fan fiction becomes public. For starters, because I can understand how authors would be annoyed and squicked out by some of the stuff that ends up in fan fiction (and the plagiarism issue mentioned by some of the previous commenters brings the problem to a whole different level). Besides, internet fan fiction communities tend to offer beginning writers a lot of quick gratification via uncritical praise (and usually, even the worst fan fiction gets praise), which might actually stall the development of promising writers and lead them to get stuck in the fan fiction sandbox permanently.

Interestingly, I very rarely read fan fiction. I have tried it on occasion, to get a quick fix, when a series I enjoy is currently between books/seasons. But because fan fiction is essentially a very private thing describing a very personal view of the characters, it usually does not work for me, because the chance that someone else hits exactly the same view I have of the characters is very low. Besides, a lot of fan fiction is just plain badly written, usually because it is the output of beginning writers. Never mind that there are huge swathes of fan fiction, e.g. the popular practice of slashing obviously heterosexual characters, that I just don’t get.

and I agree…if you remake a movie, do NOT make it the exact same!!! I mean really! One of my favorites is You’ve got Mail…oh grap! now I can not remember the original movie…it had Jimmy Stewart in it…Oh I Loved it! And You’ve got mail is the remake, but as a remake should be, with an update twist to it…so instead of notes left in your work locker, it is email…Sabrina is another remake that I loved…because they updated it…don’t get me wrong though, I love the original movies too! I love old movies period…the tragedy is that some of the old movies are really not what I consider old :) I mean I saw the orginal release at the Movie theater!

And yeah, I agree about The Stand. Man, I loved that book, although my favorite of his is The Green Mile, and I adored the movie, too.

I’m really on the fence about fanfic. On the one hand, I am absolutely furious about “fans” who simply lift the names of the characters in our books and swap them out for their favorite soap opera characters, then present the work as their own. I know it’s not the same thing–that’s flat-out plagiarism–but it is tied into the fanfic community because I know several authors (myself included) who this has happened to!

I do, however, understand the idea of “ownership” of characters you truly love. There are some books I’m so close to I feel almost betrayed when I see a movie version that I think has lousy choices of actors. This happened to me with Stephen King’s The Stand, one of my favorite books. I really liked the miniseries, but was just appalled by one or two of the actors chosen to play in it.

And another grin because the only fanfic I ever wrote was X-Files. No desire to write another, or any other kind. I wonder if it had something to do with how the end of the series broke my heart. (I guess I am like that Firefly fan)