Advice needed: From fanfic to novel

YeonAh · Jun 29, 2012

I'm probably opening myself up to a ton of criticism, but here goes: Never Online began life as a fanfiction. Now, my co-author and I are reworking it, reimagining parts completely, with the hope of querying it one day. Except neither of us plan on hiding the fact that it used to be a fanfiction...a possibly fatal move, but an honest one.

I'm not opening up the can of worms about if fanfiction is valid writing or not, if we're 'real' writers, etc. Really I'm just curious about how the situation can be handled when it comes to query/publishing time, because obviously some fanfiction writers are getting published. Those I know of (besides 50 Shades) went the self-publishing route, but what of those of us who want agents?

Any opinions on this is welcome...fellow authors, agents, publishers, editors, readers, anyone.

A few quick notes about the story to set the records straight, and facilitate discussion:

It was 'Real-Person Fanfiction'...a band to be specific. That brings up issues all it's own, but I think the copyright bullet of not taking other people's stories has been dodged. If anyone knows otherwise, please tell me.
The fanfiction was very AU, with just the character's names and a basic grasp on their personalities ("The loud one", "The crybaby", "The guy who likes carrots"...). At this point they are more inspiration than anything. And of course names have since been changed in the rewrite...hell, some genders have changed.
A lot has been redone in the rewrite, or even excluded: the work went from over 200k to just under 100k, and still fluctuating.
The work HAS been available online. We plan to take it down when we reach the querying stage.

Neither of us want to hide the fact it was a fanfiction. It's not really because a past reader could potentially call us out for it: I think we've had 75 readers max, it's a very small fandom. We don't want to hide our roots because we're proud of where it started, despite the bad reputation of fanfiction.

(Plus to be perfectly fair, the band in question has admitted to writing fanfiction. Of themselves.)

TL;DR: With the bad publicity fanfiction gets, how do you go about querying, publishing and promoting a novel that used to be fanfiction without bending the truth, losing agents/publishers who have expressed interest in the novel, and without getting mowed down by legal issues?

quicklime · Jun 29, 2012

No bias at all.

That said, honest question: it seems to me you have a pretty good idea of the bias about filing serial numbers and pubbing fanfic....knowing the possible limitations of announcing it to an agent, why are you so eager to do so? I don't suggest you lie, but there's a big difference between telling a girl if the outfit makes her ass look fat when asked, and just blurting "whoah, that's one big ol' butt!"

so, why would you go out of your way to do this? I just don't see the gain, but I DO see the risk.

side note: FSoG sold because it came with numbers to back its success....it is an extreme anomaly, a bit like deciding you will check the trash for winning lottrery tickets because you read a waitress in Cleveland found a winning Powerball ticket in her garbage a month ago....as you said yourself, everyone else wound up self-pubbing, correct? Nothing wrong with self-pubbing, but the one agented case was (unless you're selling tons already) a fluke.

YeonAh · Jun 29, 2012

quicklime said:
That said, honest question: it seems to me you have a pretty good idea of the bias about filing serial numbers and pubbing fanfic....knowing the possible limitations of announcing it to an agent, why are you so eager to do so? I don't suggest you lie, but there's a big difference between telling a girl if the outfit makes her ass look fat when asked, and just blurting "whoah, that's one big ol' butt!"

so, why would you go out of your way to do this? I just don't see the gain, but I DO see the risk.

Thanks for your reply!

I see it more as a matter of being honest. If the book gets published, manages to do reasonably well, and THEN the agent or publisher finds out it was a fanfiction and previously available (it could be something as silly as a previous reader leaving a review about it being better than the original version)...what then? I don't want an agent or publisher to feel I wasn't being truthful, even if it was omission rather than outright lying.

And I also don't want to appear like I'm one of the fanfiction writers chasing after 50SoG's success: I was working on reworking fanfiction to novels well before I even heard of that story. Ho hum.

quicklime · Jun 29, 2012

YeonAh said:
Thanks for your reply!

I see it more as a matter of being honest. If the book gets published, manages to do reasonably well, and THEN the agent or publisher finds out it was a fanfiction and previously available (it could be something as silly as a previous reader leaving a review about it being better than the original version)...what then? I don't want an agent or publisher to feel I wasn't being truthful, even if it was omission rather than outright lying.

And I also don't want to appear like I'm one of the fanfiction writers chasing after 50SoG's success: I was working on reworking fanfiction to novels well before I even heard of that story. Ho hum.

looking at your last graph in particular, isn't that exactly the impression you'd likely leave by saying right off "this began as fan fiction but I changed some stuff"?

you should absolutely tell them at some point, but I would do so after the query and sample, when they asked for a partial or full. See what others say, but it just seems to me that fanfic roots won't doom a good story, but may bias a reader going into the query.

veinglory · Jun 29, 2012

You you are ever going to query with a book that has any substantial sections of the fan fic, take the fan fic down now. This will maximize the chance it is not archived and can be completely removed from the internet.

Amadan · Jun 29, 2012

I think quicklime is right - at some point in the process you will mention to your agent that it began life as fan fic, but you don't have to say so in the query letter (which is likely to hurt you). No, your agent isn't going to feel "conned" because you reveal it was originally fan fic. If she already liked it well enough to represent it, her only concern is going to be whether she has to worry about copyright issues. So as long as you make sure you are bulletproof in that regard, you're fine. Even before 50SoG, plenty of books started out as fan fic with serial numbers filed off.

veinglory · Jun 29, 2012

Unless is is still "Googlable"--in which case i think they might be annoyed as this has implications for rights.

YeonAh · Jun 29, 2012

Thanks for all the replies! It gives me a better idea of how I should handle this.

veinglory said:
Unless is is still "Googlable"--in which case i think they might be annoyed as this has implications for rights.

This might be my biggest problem, since I know Google caches things for a while. I'm wondering what are the exact legal issues of this? Since I'm not really clear on all the details. The story is mine even if it is Googlable, and there are no issues with taking other author's works, so what would be the legal 'rights' issues still associated with the work if it has been archived on the internet? If I were to make an announcement through the medium the fanfiction had been available on that the story has been reimagined and published, would that hinder or help?

Thanks a bunch guys!

Katrina S. Forest · Jun 29, 2012

IMO, fanfics can fall on either side an extreme. There's the type that's heavily based in the world of the fandom, that can't really be detached from it. Then there's the type where, really, the author had an original story in mind, and for some reason, decided to stick existing characters (or people) in the roles, bending their backgrounds and personalities to suit the plot. It's the type of fanfic where the only resemblance to the original material is the names.

Now, if that's really what you have, then it doesn't matter much if you do a replace all on the names and call it an original work. That's what it was from the beginning, you just decided for some reason to call your characters John, Paul, George, and Ringo instead of something a little more creative during the first few drafts. In fact, in that case, I would say that you're giving the fandom too much credit by trying so hard to present your novel as a converted fanfic. If there's something original there, take pride in it and call it what it is. Who cares what people or songs or movies inspired it? Agents might ask you that question eventually, but the info has no place in a query.

Now, imo, if your fanfic falls somewhere in between the two extremes, you might have some issues. Maybe your story is mostly original but there is that one scene where your characters take ride on a yellow submarine to visit an octopus' garden. You could change it to a blue helicopter and have them visit a tiger's jungle, but then what the heck are they getting on a blue helicopter for? It's a scene that only made sense in the fanfic world.

Only you can decide if you've got a truly original piece (in which case, call it what it is) or you've got a nice AU story that just doesn't work outside the fandom. And if that's the case, stop trying to turn it into something it's not and work on something new.

About it being online: When publishers buy a story, they are generally purchasing what are called "first rights," the right to be the first one putting the story out there. If you've already done this, first rights are gone. You can't bring them back by taking it down or making an announcement or anything else. Now, there's different kinds of first rights, first print rights, first electronic rights, ect. But with e-books as popular as they are, first electronic rights are a big deal.

If the story was only available in a password-protected area (such as the one AW uses for sharing our work), Google didn't see it, and you could still offer first rights. If it was publicly accessible (such as on fanfiction.net), then you need a publisher that's willing to buy one-time electronic rights instead. That's where things are sticky for agents, because it's a harder sell. So on this, yes, you absolutely need to upfront early on. Unless the new version is so drastically different that it bears no resemblance to its fanfic form.

quicklime · Jun 29, 2012

Katrina S. Forest said:
Publishers don't like the pay for things that have already been given our for free. (50 Shades of Grey being an obvious exception, not a rule.)

this is the issue with it being "googleable." Your entire pitch is based on "this will make you money." Having it already out there for free impacts that pitch and their business decision to invest in your book.

YeonAh · Jun 29, 2012

Katrina S. Forest said:
About it being online: When publishers buy a story, they are generally purchasing what are called "first rights," the right to be the first one putting the story out there. If you've already done this, first rights are gone. You can't bring them back by taking it down or making an announcement or anything else. Now, there's different kinds of first rights, first print rights, first electronic rights, ect. But with e-books as popular as they are, first electronic rights are a big deal.

If the story was only available in a password-protected area (such as the one AW uses for sharing our work), Google didn't see it, and you could still offer first rights. If it was publicly accessible (such as on fanfiction.net), then you need a publisher that's willing to buy one-time rights instead. That's where things are sticky for agents, because it's a harder sell.

So on this, yes, you absolutely need to upfront about early on.

This is definitely the sticky part. No, the website it was on wasn't password protected >< It was available for anyone to see. The only good point about it was that in such a small fandom very few people actually saw it (my LJ stats says maybe around 75 people).

Would I still be about to mention this when/if an agent asks for a partial or a full manuscript, or is it now something that has to be mentioned in the query?

(And about the kind of fanfiction it is, it definitely falls into the extreme where the names are all that links it to the fanfiction

)

this is the issue with it being "googleable." Your entire pitch is based on "this will make you money." Having it already out there for free impacts that pitch and their business decision to invest in your book.

I thought my biggest issue would be copyrights...guess not >< Would removing it from the website early enough really make the big difference?

veinglory · Jun 29, 2012

Check the wayback machine and etc. If it is not well archived you may be able to scrub it. But otherwise you have exhausted first rights and that might be an issue quite separate from the fan fic one. The earlier you take it down and the fewer people saw it, the better. But any one of them might then have pasted it on somewhere else.

shadowwalker · Jun 29, 2012

Definitely having posted it publicly is going to be a problem, even if it's been revamped, because it's essentially the same story. And the Wayback Machine may not have it up at this point - but they're constantly updating so it could appear at almost any time in the future.

Waffles · Jun 29, 2012

I used to write fanfic. When I decided I wanted to write original fiction, I removed all my fics from the internet. (And this made some people in the fandom mad unfortunately).

I don't plan on using the material in those fics verbatim, but some of them had interesting plots and funny lines and I might use those again if they suit my own, original characters.

I have no plans to inform agents that some aspect of my mss may have also appeared in a fanfic I wrote two years ago, etc. At some point I might say "I started out as a fanfic writer" but even then...I'm not ashamed of it, but I don't see how it helps me, either.

So my question to you is - does it help you in any way to have those fics still published? Does it help you to tell an agent upfront? Does it help you to use as much of the fic as you've used? I won't lie, I considered revamping my fics because I'd already done all that work writing and didn't want to do it over again. But ultimately, my wholly original work is better than a modified fic.

YeonAh · Jun 29, 2012

veinglory said:
Check the wayback machine and etc. If it is not well archived you may be able to scrub it. But otherwise you have exhausted first rights and that might be an issue quite separate from the fan fic one. The earlier you take it down and the fewer people saw it, the better. But any one of them might then have pasted it on somewhere else.

I've checked the machine, and it hasn't archived anything (yet!). But the pages are Googleable. Does this mean that if we were to remove the fanfic before the machine catches up, it wouldn't be an issue anymore, or at least less of one?

Making a post asking if there are any mentions of the fic anywhere would also help reduce exposure: we know one or two people who have mentioned it in passing elsewhere on the internet, and can ask them to take their posts down.

Waffles said:
So my question to you is - does it help you in any way to have those fics still published? Does it help you to tell an agent upfront? Does it help you to use as much of the fic as you've used? I won't lie, I considered revamping my fics because I'd already done all that work writing and didn't want to do it over again. But ultimately, my wholly original work is better than a modified fic.

I would at least like to give publishing it a try, even if it was a fanfiction: like mentioned before, only the character names are really part of the fandom. Worst case is that it doesn't get published, and we move on to writing completely original stories. There's not much to lose.

JSSchley · Jun 30, 2012

I would be absolutely certain that you don't rely on too much knowledge of the characters.

I've read a lot of former fanfic novels, and one thing I've found them almost all to have in common is that oftentimes the character motivation and behavior makes absolutely no sense if you don't know the source material. Even if all you've relied on is so-and-so being "The smart one," did you establish that he's smart before expecting the reader to see him that way?

That said, real-person fanfic sidesteps one of the major questions of scrubbing fanfic, which is that of how much borrowing is infringement. There's historically been much more latitude to write novels which fictionalize real people, even in a thinly-veiled way, than there is to write a book which clearly rips off all the characters from another book. (The books Steve Jobs' sister wrote about him come to mind).

bearilou · Jul 1, 2012

JSSchley said:
I would be absolutely certain that you don't rely on too much knowledge of the characters.

I've read a lot of former fanfic novels, and one thing I've found them almost all to have in common is that oftentimes the character motivation and behavior makes absolutely no sense if you don't know the source material. Even if all you've relied on is so-and-so being "The smart one," did you establish that he's smart before expecting the reader to see him that way?

That said, real-person fanfic sidesteps one of the major questions of scrubbing fanfic, which is that of how much borrowing is infringement. There's historically been much more latitude to write novels which fictionalize real people, even in a thinly-veiled way, than there is to write a book which clearly rips off all the characters from another book. (The books Steve Jobs' sister wrote about him come to mind).

Two points.

First, I think if you're looking to p2p, go ahead and pull it now, don't wait for the query stage. This would buy time for it to fall from the Google Cache? This is also me being naive and not knowing how it works but I think the longer it's out of the public eye, the greater your chances of its roots being discovered go down.

Leaving aside my personal objection that a work created for fandom being repurposed for original works is in bad faith, the only thing I can caution you on is to make sure your work really reads smoothly. I can't really explain it (someone else on the board did once and I wish I had saved it, it may have been JSSchley since she brings up the same points) but there's just something about fanfiction, the way it reads, the way its written that just screams fanfiction. But usually only to other fanfic writers. Or maybe just me.

I've come across works that left me with that 'fanfic' taste in my mouth and upon further digging, discovered that it was fanfic. Sure there are other works that were so thoroughly (or well) rewritten that the fanfic flavor wasn't detectable but when I do come up on one, it really sours me on an author.

And most of the 'co-written' stuff I've read that has come out of fanfiction has been RP and that also has a particular rhythm to the prose that is detectable by those who RP.

So, if you and your co-writer are working to smooth all the tell-tale signs out and polish that sucker up so that it reads like a novel and not a novel-length fanfiction/RP, then I go with what has been said before. Wait until you get the request for the partial.

Katrina S. Forest · Jul 1, 2012

YeonAh, my advice would be to go ahead and remove the fanfic, and if you're really determined to publish this novel, continue editing the story. Get a lot of beta-reader feedback to make sure it's standing on its own before you submit. I suspect that when you're ready to submit, you might not have much of the fanfiction material left, making this whole discussion irrelevant.

If you really think it's ready to go now, then probably saying, "a version of this story has been previously available online," is the most honest way to phrase things without making this sound like you just filed the serial numbers off.

I don't have anything against authors who start stories as fanfics. I don't think it works terribly often, but on the off-chance it does, what do I care how the finished product came to be?

Amadan · Jul 1, 2012

Google cache eventually gets emptied. However, the Wayback Machine does not. There are other Internet archives, not all of them public. So once your story has been posted, even if you take it down, there is no guarantee that it hasn't been archived somewhere.

nonasuch · Jul 6, 2012

I borrowed the original characters from a 5k fanfic short I'd written and ended up with 50k of original novel. I'm not going to worry about telling anyone where they came from until someone likes my story enough to do something with it. I wouldn't advise you to worry either.

Advice needed: From fanfic to novel

YeonAh

Hey, Baby Love Crash

quicklime

all out of fucks to give

YeonAh

Hey, Baby Love Crash

quicklime

all out of fucks to give

veinglory

volitare nequeo

Amadan

veinglory

volitare nequeo

YeonAh

Hey, Baby Love Crash

Katrina S. Forest

quicklime

all out of fucks to give

YeonAh

Hey, Baby Love Crash

veinglory

volitare nequeo

shadowwalker

empty-nester!

Waffles

YeonAh

Hey, Baby Love Crash

JSSchley

Have Harp Will Travel

bearilou

DenturePunk writer

Katrina S. Forest

Amadan

nonasuch