This is Jonoraptor, and I love Star Wars. Does this website allow one to submit fan fiction novels?
Fan Fiction Question
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This is Jonoraptor, and I love Star Wars. Does this website allow one to submit fan fiction novels?
No.
It absolutely does not.
Are there any publishing companies that accept fan fiction, because I wonder how all the people who wrote their own Star Wars books got published.
1. Nope
2. The publisher hired them to write the books, then they wrote them, then they were published.
2. The publisher hired them to write the books, then they wrote them, then they were published.
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What about stories like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Little Vampire Women, Jane Slayre, or Alice in Zombieland?
1. Is this considered fan fiction?
2. Is copywriting not an issue because of the age of the source material?
1. Is this considered fan fiction?
2. Is copywriting not an issue because of the age of the source material?
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Public Domain.
If a work falls under public domain (rough guide - if you can get it from Project Gutenberg it's public domain, though depending on what country you're in, can be iffy) then revamps and "fan fiction" are basically okay. You need to be doing something pretty cool with it for pubs to sit up and take notice, though.
EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION: I am NOT talking about AbsoluteWrite's particular rules on the posting of fanfic, and I'm not arguing against them. I was answering NewKidOldKid's comment asking why things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies get published without legal problems.
If a work falls under public domain (rough guide - if you can get it from Project Gutenberg it's public domain, though depending on what country you're in, can be iffy) then revamps and "fan fiction" are basically okay. You need to be doing something pretty cool with it for pubs to sit up and take notice, though.
EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION: I am NOT talking about AbsoluteWrite's particular rules on the posting of fanfic, and I'm not arguing against them. I was answering NewKidOldKid's comment asking why things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies get published without legal problems.
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They are hired by the publisher or a packager. The publisher approached the author, in other words.
No, actually, that's not the case on AW.
Fan Fiction is not ok.
Here's why:
The definition of "public domain" as well as Trade Mark vary from country to country.
AW is international.
So, basically No Fan Fic.
I'm not kidding about this.
Yes; they are no longer, depending on the source edition, covered by copyright in some countries.
You will note that they are not for sale in all nations.
Public domain is tied to geography.
N.B. They are also professional writers with multiple credits though often, not under the same name.
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They were hired by the publisher, who pretty much will not accept queries for any new novels since they already have a pool of talent to draw from. The publisher has licensed the publishing rights from George Lucas.
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Sorry, i wasn't actually thinking about AW when I was posting that, I was answering the poster above who asked about why certain remakes got published and what made them not fall under the internet concept of fanfic.
Sorry for the confusion, I'll go back and edit it to make it clear.
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Although in almost all cases, the answer is 'NO', and definitely in the case of Star Wars/Star Trek etc, but I know back in the '90s Virgin used to accept unsolicited queries for their New Adventures line of Doctor Who novels. Sadly this is no longer the case.
Interesting clarification of the rules. I understand that not everything on Project Gutenberg is out of copyright everywhere (Agatha Christie's early works spring to mind), but what about basing a work on something that very definitely is out of copyright, because copyright didn't even exist when it was first written?
Shakespeare? Chaucer? The bible? (Okay, now I'm just being silly, but it is an existing work)?
I'm not complaining; I can accept and understand the reason for a flat rule. I'm just curious.
Ali
That article was amazing, if only for this line:
"then George Lucas' Sith Lord lawyers would unleash their dual-bladed tortsabers on them"
My friend said to his agent, "I want to write a D&D/World of Warcraft/ and/or Star Wars novel. How can I do that and get paid for it?"
She searched her contacts and talked to the editors in question and got him a contract to do X amount of books. From what I understand, they give him a character and a plot and he takes it from there. So while he's writing in the universe, it's not really fan fiction -- it's canon. Some he writes under his own name, but most he writes under a pen name.
Because he was a known commodity (Hugo award winner, had a series of books published, as well as stand alone books) the publisher was comfortable assigning the work out to him. They knew the quality of his work and knew his work ethic.
I think it would be very difficult for a beginning writer without publishing chops to break in this way.
Although, if I'm remembering correctly, that was an easy way to break in about twenty years ago.
Funny how things change.
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See, this is one reason it gets tricky.
Unless you go to an out of copyright known public domain work (see caveats re: public domain and international issued) you are using an edition of Chaucer, Shakespeare, etc.
Editions have copyrights.
Earlier editions tend, frankly, to kinda suck; they are poorly edited often, as well as censored.
But derivative works are not at all rare, or uncommon. Aside from parodies, there are things like Wide Sargasso Sea, etc.
N.B. IANAL.
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Well, I'm talking about using a character or a situation from a story. Wouldn't copyright on editions relate more to the specific text used, and not to the story/characters?
For example, I could set up a publishing company to print my own fresh translation of The Canterbury Tales, right, but I couldn't pinch a copyrighted edition and print that...
But an edition being copyrighted wouldn't prevent me from, say, writing The Continuing Erotic Adventures of the Wife of Bath and publishing it legally, unless I was quoting chunks from a copyrighted edition or using something only specifically mentioned in that copyrighted edition?
But that wasn't really my question.
Let's say I do write the aforementioned novel and it doesn't violate copyright laws, previous comments suggest I wouldn't be able to post it here. I'm just wondering how far that rule against previously existing works goes. For example, would a fractured fairy tale be allowed?
Ali
First, that's a derivative work but not fan fic (all fan fic is derivative, not all derivative work is fan fic).
As long as the character is not TM (don't even start with asking about that--it's way too complicated, but say, Snow White could be a problem because Disney has some TM restrictions on the name and even the character--even though she's from a traditional fairy tale--you can't use Snow White, say, and the Disney dwarves).
The Continuing Erotic Adventures of the Wife of Bath were already written. There's even a film version. But:
Right; thats a derivative work (not fan fic)--that's the basic idea behind Wide Sargasso Sea is; a continuation of Bronte's Jane Eyre. There are a lot of novels and plays even (Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, for instance) that do that.
But that wasn't really my question.
Fractured Fairy tale sorts of things would probably be fine. That's one of those things that would be a case-by-case question.
You'd have to ask, frankly, if you were worried. The SYW mods are listed on the forum page. You can PM MacAllister. There have been prior instances where, for instance, a game company asked writers to submit stories using the game's world and characters, and members used SYW for crits.
Bluntly put, this is a privately owned server, and MacAllister can delete or restrict access at any time for any reason at all.
Thank you all for your responses. I am disappointed about the publishers directing what one writes (in a sense), but I appreciate the help.
Just to clarify, publishers directing what one writes strictly applies to authors who've been hired to write books for an existing series.
If you've talking about an original novel, you can write and submit whatever you want.
And, really, it kind of makes sense to put limits on books that take place in existing worlds. The readers are going to have expectations about how the world will work and how familiar characters will act, and they'll expect the events to make sense with the rest of the canon. If the author deviates from that, the books won't sell.
If you've talking about an original novel, you can write and submit whatever you want.
And, really, it kind of makes sense to put limits on books that take place in existing worlds. The readers are going to have expectations about how the world will work and how familiar characters will act, and they'll expect the events to make sense with the rest of the canon. If the author deviates from that, the books won't sell.
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