Tell me the truth. This is not fan fiction.

Tarikris

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Can someone please tell me what is classified as fan fiction? I wrote my first novel and dedicated it to my #1 actor Jake Gyllenhaal. It is getting great reviews but some reviewers are labeling it as fan fiction. As a screenwriter for many years and now a new author, I can honestly say that I am in my feelings about it. I feel like it minimizes my work.
 

Maggie Maxwell

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A dedication doesn't make a story fanfiction. It's the content. If the story's ABOUT Jake Gyllenhaal or any other characters existing in real life or in other people's story universe, then yes, it is, but just a dedication means nothing.
 

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First off, the term "fan fiction" is merely a descriptive term, not an insult. There are many brilliant works of fan fiction, and by dismissing the art form as "less than," you need to be aware that you're basically insulting all the authors who pursue it. (I'm not saying that was your intent, just wanted to give you a heads-up).

As far as a definition, "fan fiction" refers to basically any story that incorporates characters or world-building that was originally created by another author. Fan fiction based on modern material often can't be legally published because those characters and settings are still the property of the original creator.

However, there is also a ton of fan fiction based on material that has passed into the public domain, that IS saleable and often very successful. For example, "Wicked" is fan fiction of "The Wizard of Oz," and the reason so many Sherlock Holmes TV shows and stories are hitting the market recently is because those stories recently passed into the public domain.

Additionally, there's often a fuzzy line between "fan fiction" and "licensed/cannon material." The film version of "The Hobbit" took a slim volume and padded it out with a lot of additional material to turn it into a three-film saga. That additional material could reasonably be called "fan fiction," as it wasn't the work of Tolkien. So could those books in the "Dune" series that were written by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson after Frank Herbert's death.

If your work isn't actively incorporating someone else's material, than it's not fan fiction. If that's the case, then you may need to investigate why people are saying it is, because it may be similar enough to an existing work that that it gives the impression of being fanfiction "with the serial numbers filed off," so to speak. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it.
 
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Brightdreamer

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Adding to the "careful about putting down fanfic" voices. Many popular authors started out writing fanfic; it's a great way to cut one's teeth, with an established world/characters and (sometimes) a supportive community that understands one's passions. (See also: Naomi Novik on fanfic and Seanan McGuire on fanfic. Both Novik and McGuire are rather successful novelists.)

That said - what about your story, other than the dedication, makes people think it's fanfic about JG? Do you use him as a character, or use films/characters he has played? (Note that this includes what are essentially him/his characters with the serial numbers lightly filed down... like if I were to write about a land called Middling Ground where a diminutive robbit named Grodo had to take the One Bracelet to Dire Hill with a Friendship of brave companions, nobody would be fooled into thinking I wasn't essentially rewriting LOTR.) Is your MC described as basically JG, again maybe with the name/serial number lightly filed? Do the reviewers who describe it as fanfic offer any clues? If so, it's something to keep in mind for your next novel; maybe you subconsciously "cast" JG in your novel and didn't realize it (which does happen - authors don't write in vacuums, and influences sometimes creep in unintentionally.) If not, they're just reading too much into the dedication and can be safely dismissed.
 

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Agreed. There's awesome fan fiction out there!

Is the issue that you were writing something with a character very similar to Jake Gyllenhaal but named something else, and readers may have picked up on similarities because of the dedication? Unless you made the setting a complete clone of his life, I wouldn't worry about it. "Fifty Shades of Gray" and multiple other books started as fan fictions of "Twilight." They got their share of reviews pointing it out.

It's hard, but sometimes you just have to step away and let reviews be a space for readers. One important thing to keep in mind is that even if you pick up like the GREATEST book ever (by whatever metric you use) it will have one-star reviews detailing how terrible it is in that person's eyes.
 

Maryn

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Did you call your main character Jack O'Gyllenhall?

Maryn, unable to resist
 

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That additional material could reasonably be called "fan fiction," as it wasn't the work of Tolkien.

Some of it was, just drawn from other Tolkien sources outside of The Hobbit.
 

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Can someone please tell me what is classified as fan fiction? I wrote my first novel and dedicated it to my #1 actor Jake Gyllenhaal. It is getting great reviews but some reviewers are labeling it as fan fiction. As a screenwriter for many years and now a new author, I can honestly say that I am in my feelings about it. I feel like it minimizes my work.

Most things that people do are built on the things that have gone before. We don't spring from nothing and create something completely original with no influence from anything around us. That's not inherently a bad thing and doesn't mean something is lower in quality. It only becomes an issue when it overlaps with legal issues.

I had a look at your book. I couldn't see any reviews saying it was fan fiction in the usual places, but I can see why the book has that vibe. The character is called Jake Benjamin. The actor's full name is Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal. So you've clearly named the character after him (and the dedication draws attention to it). The name of the protagonist also shares the same initials as your author name, which suggests an author insert.

It's the story of the plain jane who falls in love with a star and somehow manages to meet him and end up in his inner circle. This is a very common storyline in real person fan fiction. The writer imagines themselves as the plain jane, with the real celebrity being the crush. Even if you take it in a different direction than expected, a subversion of a trope is still a version of that trope.

The legal side is something I'd be cautious about here. When Anna Todd republished her One Direction fan fiction with the serial numbers filed off, the publisher got permission from the featured celebrity to do that. The publisher obviously didn't want any issues later, as there was no arguing where the book had come from. You might want to consider filing off the serial numbers to the point that the actor inspiration is not obvious.
 

Maryn

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In seriousness, I think your biggest worry is coming too close to RPF--Real Person/People Fiction, in which you thinly disguise a celebrity and create stories starring him or her, often with a Mary Sue or Gary Stu character as the romantic interest.

The potential for legal action against you, especially if the celebrity does not like what you had his fictional version do or say, exists. (It can be as simple as a celebrity who's married in real life becoming divorced so he can fall for Mary Sue, or something utterly depraved, and everything in between.) Whether Gyllenhaal would file suit is unknown, of course. Whether you'd win such a lawsuit is almost beside the point; defending yourself in court would cost more than you're likely to earn.

So if this is RPF or real close to it, I strongly urge you to fully disguise your main character so no one who reads it, including Gyllenhaal and those who know him quite well, would think your character is him. I'd also advise removing the dedication.

This isn't legal advice. It's common sense.

Maryn, whose first novel started as RPF
 

Tarikris

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Very well put and great information that I wasn't aware of. I did think "fan fiction" had a negative connotation because I guess I didn't realize what it really meant. Thanks for the clarity. New author still learning the ropes. :)
 

Tarikris

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Wow thank you for your post. You've done your research on the book and I can now see why a reviewer did indicate that. Even to the point where the characters initials have my same initials. That was an honest coincidence. This is not about me or even him. It's just a screenplay that I made into a book specifically for him to play the main character, if it is worthy. :)

Again thank you so much for the information. Very helpful!
 

Maryn

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Tarikris, mostly we can't tell which person your posts are addressing. I'm going to assume all the grateful and flattering ones are to me. (That's a joke, of course.)

Allow me to teach you a small but very useful detail on using this website. It's from this FAQ and you'll use it often once you've mastered it.
  • To reply to the last post in a thread, you just start typing in the Quick Reply box. Usually this makes it perfectly clear which post you're replying to--unless someone else happens to post in the thread before your reply is posted. It happens in busy threads that move quickly, and sometimes in slower-paced threads, too. To make it clear who you're addressing, it's always okay to address the person with their user name. Maryn, your post reminds me of a thing I read once...
  • To reply to a specific post, it's often helpful to copy it as part of your own post. To do that, you press Reply With Quote at the lower right of the post you're replying to. That post will appear in a text box within the reply you write.
  • To reply to multiple posts in a single post, press the icon to the right of Reply With Quote, the open-quotes with the plus sign, on each post you want to reply to. They'll all be quoted in the reply box and you can write below each one what you want to say in response to that post. Tip: To keep such replies from getting really long, you can edit out the parts that are not what you're replying to. People commonly note they've done this by typing in <snip> in place of deleted text.
There, now you know something you didn't before. Impressive!

Maryn, equally impressive in these PJs with umbrellas and raincoats
 

Tarikris

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Tarikris, mostly we can't tell which person your posts are addressing. I'm going to assume all the grateful and flattering ones are to me. (That's a joke, of course.)

Allow me to teach you a small but very useful detail on using this website. It's from this FAQ and you'll use it often once you've mastered it.
  • To reply to the last post in a thread, you just start typing in the Quick Reply box. Usually this makes it perfectly clear which post you're replying to--unless someone else happens to post in the thread before your reply is posted. It happens in busy threads that move quickly, and sometimes in slower-paced threads, too. To make it clear who you're addressing, it's always okay to address the person with their user name. Maryn, your post reminds me of a thing I read once...
  • To reply to a specific post, it's often helpful to copy it as part of your own post. To do that, you press Reply With Quote at the lower right of the post you're replying to. That post will appear in a text box within the reply you write.
  • To reply to multiple posts in a single post, press the icon to the right of Reply With Quote, the open-quotes with the plus sign, on each post you want to reply to. They'll all be quoted in the reply box and you can write below each one what you want to say in response to that post. Tip: To keep such replies from getting really long, you can edit out the parts that are not what you're replying to. People commonly note they've done this by typing in <snip> in place of deleted text.
There, now you know something you didn't before. Impressive!

Maryn, equally impressive in these PJs with umbrellas and raincoats

1,000 thank you's for the tip. :) I was wondering how that worked.
 

Tarikris

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First off, the term "fan fiction" is merely a descriptive term, not an insult. There are many brilliant works of fan fiction, and by dismissing the art form as "less than," you need to be aware that you're basically insulting all the authors who pursue it. (I'm not saying that was your intent, just wanted to give you a heads-up).

As far as a definition, "fan fiction" refers to basically any story that incorporates characters or world-building that was originally created by another author. Fan fiction based on modern material often can't be legally published because those characters and settings are still the property of the original creator.

However, there is also a ton of fan fiction based on material that has passed into the public domain, that IS saleable and often very successful. For example, "Wicked" is fan fiction of "The Wizard of Oz," and the reason so many Sherlock Holmes TV shows and stories are hitting the market recently is because those stories recently passed into the public domain.

Additionally, there's often a fuzzy line between "fan fiction" and "licensed/cannon material." The film version of "The Hobbit" took a slim volume and padded it out with a lot of additional material to turn it into a three-film saga. That additional material could reasonably be called "fan fiction," as it wasn't the work of Tolkien. So could those books in the "Dune" series that were written by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson after Frank Herbert's death.

If your work isn't actively incorporating someone else's material, than it's not fan fiction. If that's the case, then you may need to investigate why people are saying it is, because it may be similar enough to an existing work that that it gives the impression of being fanfiction "with the serial numbers filed off," so to speak. Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it.

Thank you so much!
 

Tarikris

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Most things that people do are built on the things that have gone before. We don't spring from nothing and create something completely original with no influence from anything around us. That's not inherently a bad thing and doesn't mean something is lower in quality. It only becomes an issue when it overlaps with legal issues.

I had a look at your book. I couldn't see any reviews saying it was fan fiction in the usual places, but I can see why the book has that vibe. The character is called Jake Benjamin. The actor's full name is Jacob Benjamin Gyllenhaal. So you've clearly named the character after him (and the dedication draws attention to it). The name of the protagonist also shares the same initials as your author name, which suggests an author insert.

It's the story of the plain jane who falls in love with a star and somehow manages to meet him and end up in his inner circle. This is a very common storyline in real person fan fiction. The writer imagines themselves as the plain jane, with the real celebrity being the crush. Even if you take it in a different direction than expected, a subversion of a trope is still a version of that trope.

The legal side is something I'd be cautious about here. When Anna Todd republished her One Direction fan fiction with the serial numbers filed off, the publisher got permission from the featured celebrity to do that. The publisher obviously didn't want any issues later, as there was no arguing where the book had come from. You might want to consider filing off the serial numbers to the point that the actor inspiration is not obvious.

Thank you so much for your post. It was very helpful. I'm glad you were able to look at my work and let me know things that I wasn't aware of. Such as the plain Jane girl having the same initials as me. It was purely a coincidence, I swear. :) But very good to know. Again, I thank you.

I am confused about filing off serial numbers though. Not sure what you meant by that.
 

Maryn

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I'm not Polenth (no kidding!), but to file the serial numbers off is to render something untraceable. (Criminals do it on guns, for instance.)

So if I write a romance starring my Actor du Jour, I change so much about him that no one would ever guess that's who I was thinking of when I wrote it, not other fans, not people who have worked with him, not his friends, not his family, not the guy himself. It's helpful to change appearance a lot, plus his background, siblings, where he lives, the type of entertainment the person is known for, even the types of roles they're usually offered.

Maryn, who did that with the first novel she sold
 

Maggie Maxwell

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I can give you an example too, actually. When I was a senior in high school, Pirates of the Caribbean came out, and I wrote me the shit out of some fanfiction for that. Similar to the movie, it was a case where two original characters had Jack Sparrow and an adventure with the Pearl as a catalyst for their blossoming relationship. I never wrote more than the first chapter, but I always liked the concept. When I came back to writing after a six year hiatus, I eventually decided to give it another try, but I'd had enough PotC by then and had stopped writing fanfiction entirely. I wanted original. So I took the setting and moved it from the Caribbean to a non-earth fantasy world. I kicked out Jack Sparrow and the Pearl and the crew and inserted in an uncle and his ship that I'd mentioned in passing in the fanfic. Anyone who looked at that novel now would never guess it had been a fanfic. It looks like a standard pirate story. I filed off the serial numbers. If I'd left the Jack character in, I would have had to change his name, his ship, his look, and his mannerisms to achieve the same, but it still would have accomplished the same.
 

Tarikris

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I'm not Polenth (no kidding!), but to file the serial numbers off is to render something untraceable. (Criminals do it on guns, for instance.)

So if I write a romance starring my Actor du Jour, I change so much about him that no one would ever guess that's who I was thinking of when I wrote it, not other fans, not people who have worked with him, not his friends, not his family, not the guy himself. It's helpful to change appearance a lot, plus his background, siblings, where he lives, the type of entertainment the person is known for, even the types of roles they're usually offered.

Maryn, who did that with the first novel she sold

You're a wealth of information. I appreciate you so much! :)
 

Tarikris

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I can give you an example too, actually. When I was a senior in high school, Pirates of the Caribbean came out, and I wrote me the shit out of some fanfiction for that. Similar to the movie, it was a case where two original characters had Jack Sparrow and an adventure with the Pearl as a catalyst for their blossoming relationship. I never wrote more than the first chapter, but I always liked the concept. When I came back to writing after a six year hiatus, I eventually decided to give it another try, but I'd had enough PotC by then and had stopped writing fanfiction entirely. I wanted original. So I took the setting and moved it from the Caribbean to a non-earth fantasy world. I kicked out Jack Sparrow and the Pearl and the crew and inserted in an uncle and his ship that I'd mentioned in passing in the fanfic. Anyone who looked at that novel now would never guess it had been a fanfic. It looks like a standard pirate story. I filed off the serial numbers. If I'd left the Jack character in, I would have had to change his name, his ship, his look, and his mannerisms to achieve the same, but it still would have accomplished the same.

Thank you! Extremely helpful! For me, I dedicated my book to my #1 Actor and used his name as the main character, only to let him know that I wrote this for him exclusively. Everything is else if completely fictional; however, with his name being the main character, it appears that I will probably be classified as such. It's already printed and available and now a traditional publishing house wants it so I have to just deal with it at this point. :)
 

Maggie Maxwell

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...now a traditional publishing house wants it so I have to just deal with it at this point. :)

This is interesting and unusual. Can you tell us a little more about this? What house? Have you looked them up here on the Index? It's very, very rare for a traditional house to republish self-published books unless they've sold a great deal, but there are many sketchy places that will gladly take your book and often your money.