Plagiarism and reviewing

[louiselux]

I see the plagiarism argument has resurfaced on the old flist.

There's this idea that people who write fanfic are not only breaking the law but are somehow wasting their talent/time/precious souls to boot. I delight in using someone else's characters and derive vast amounts of entertainment from it, as long as the author doesn't mind. If they did mind, then I think I'd stop. Which brings me to a point - would you stop writing fanfic if the author asked you to stop? What would you consider as 'stopping'? Stopping distributing or posting it, or stopping writing altogether?

Another hoary old chestnut that nonetheless bothers me, because you really can't get away from it, is the idea that by attacking someone's fic you're attacking them as a person. I don't believe this is true, but I can see why some people feel it. It's hard receiving criticism, as hard as it is to give pain-free criticism. I think the same general rule applies to this as to any social interaction - practise common decency in reviews and LoCs. Personally, I try and be honest, think about the language I use, and think about my own motives.

Comments

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

And I think it's extremely hypocritical for fanfic writers, pro writers who have written fanfic in their past, or pro writers borrowing from works in the public domain to turn around and say they don't want their fans writing fanfic of their work.

Someone asked me if they could write a sequel to one of my fics once, to which I said, by all means, but would you mind waiting until I'd written my sequel first, to avoid confusion. In the end I never wrote the sequel, and neither did they because they were waiting for me. I've always felt guilty about that. But the point is, there is a point here, I promise, that it was the first time someone had offered to write fanfic of my fanfic, and it was incredibly flattering, never mind that I completely blew it in the end.