@Nocturnal_Stillness You are my hero
I agree whoe heartedly…and im glad we didnt breifly get into talking facts about 300 lol
Yah, I tried not to get off topic, but how is your story coming along @Greenwolf?
I can see the appeal of fan-fiction. It must be compelling for people to share a world and an interest, to want to tell stories of their own set in that world, to write how things should have been, or what they could be. That’s just a natural part of storytelling.
Take Fairytales, for instance. There’s so many different fairytales, so many on the same or similar themes, so many different interpretations of those stories.
It’s the same with King Arthur and Camelot, there is no one definitive version. The whole setting has had so many different people over the centuries writing in it, adding their own spins on it, creating their own characters, transforming existing characters and demonising others which were once popular.
This has always been common. I believe that stories are at their best when they’re interactive in nature. When people get passionate about shared worlds and where they no longer feel like they’re just a spectator but they get involved and they share that enjoyment with others.
I’ve never really been a part of any sort of fandom. I’ve always preferred writing in my own worlds with my own characters. However I am a roleplayer, there’s something compelling about playing my own characters in other people’s worlds along with my friends.
As a child though, back in the dark ages when there was no internet, and when I hadn’t even heard of copyright laws, you can bet I was running around with a basket on my head chasing my sister and yelling “EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!” I’d drape a blanket over my shoulders and it would be all NANNANANAAAANANAAA BATMAN!!! We’d play at being our favourite cartoon characters. He-Man would ride atop a My Little Pony and assault a lego-fortress ruled by Barbie and her army of dinosaurs. Some of those are so under copyright, but toys were always for playing with.
Why do we have to stop playing now that we’re older? It’s always struck me as something intensely unfair that children get all this excitement and imagination and adults are meant to be serious and cast such childish things behind them.
I think fanfiction to a certain extent might capture this.
People dress up as characters at halloween and at conventions but don’t you dare pretend you are that character, or share your ideas about what could happen with others.
I don’t actually engage in any writing of fanfiction. The whole murky world of copyrights concerning it are somewhat offputting to me.
All the Sherlock Holmes movies, the two new tv series, young Sherlock Holmes, all of those are fanfiction. Pretty much any movie that’s been based on a book, rarely follows it word for word, you could call those a form of fanfiction. The new Hobbit movies which have somehow taken a short children’s book and stretched it out into 3 movies adding their own filler is definitely fanfiction. But those works have permission.
Once upon a time and all of those Disney cartoons are fanfiction. Imagine if Hamlet was a lion, and it was set in Africa, and there were some songs. That’s fanfiction, it’s also The Lion King. 
I think as long as you don’t intend to make money out of fanfiction, or you use properties that are out of copyright there’s no reason not to write it. It’s as much for your own protection as others though.
However with Choice Games you have to understand that they’re a company and if they’re seen to be profitting over copyrighted works, be that even having them up for free, they could possibly be liable.
Which I know isn’t what was asked, since Hero’s Rise is posted on the site. You can try and contact Zachary Sergi and ask for permission. But be prepared to receive a no in response.
HEEE-MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!
Isn’t Walking Dead Game fanfiction? I know it’s Canon but isnt it fan fiction to some extent?
I loved He-Man and Castle Grayskull and Cringer/Battlecat. And when I got this game crossbows and catapaults for Xmas you can bet that there were wars. And who would win in a fight, He-Man or Lion-o? There was only ever one way to find out, and it generally involved hitting people with sticks while yelling Thunder Thunder Thunder Cats! No! BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL!!! I am He-Man!
I miss all the fun I had as a kid. I’m just glad that as adults we get to have fun too.
I’m sure it is fanfiction to some extent. I’ve never actually played it.
It’s pretty unique, When I seen the gameplay on youtube I thought it was boring. then I played the demo and the first five minutes I was going “This is going to suck.” But oddly when I finished I was like “MORE!! I WILL SELL MY SOUL FOR MORE!” and it was weird because it had so many things I always hate in a zombie settings, and made them some of the reasons why I liked it.
Like you have to watch over a possibly parentless child. At first I was all “Pssh! I don’t wanna babysit!” then that turned into “Okay, maybe I care a little.” then that turned into like “She’s technically my daughter! Not by blood but she is!”
50 Shade of Grey has made millions and it started as fanfic. Not my cup of tea, but unarguably successful.
@Lucid I heard about that somewhere. I didnt know what it was so I just wiki’d it right now, and read the plot… Haven’t read the book but the plot sounds horrid. I think I misread it does the plot revolves around a sex conract? o.o
Yup. Mommy porn. Between it and Magic Mike, there’s a population surge expected 9 months after release.
Lmfao! that reminds me I was going to see Magic Mike because I thought it was going to be an Action movie. I was still going to see it when I found out what it really was but I decided against it because I was too cheap. I still feel gullible like the title almost gives it away and im over here all “I bet this is gonna have tons of violence! Yay!”
The determinant isn’t whether or not you give credit to the original writer, it’s whether or not they give you the permission. Whether or not you profit off it is irrelevant. Other fans can’t sanction it.
I’m not saying anything against tropes and archetypes. Also, fairytales aren’t comparible to one modern writer ripping off the work of another; they’re usually the product of lost records and the variety that comes from oral tradition. They served roles wholly different from modern fiction.
Film is just translating writing into another artistic medium. Unless what they’re translating is already public domain, they have to ask (usually purchase) the permission of the writer. Where fairytales are already public domain, because they’re produced at the cultural level, most modern literature has specific individuals who own it. When something is in the public domain, you’re legally able to use it on your own work , but unless you’re only using the general ideas and not the specific characters and world, it’s still not very original; just legal.
Parodying something is in a completely different class as well.
For getting any errors. I’m using speech to text on the phone and it isn’t that accurate with my accent.
By those standards I think Romeo and Juliet would count as an un-creative rip-off.
Plus, many fairytales absolutely were the work of specific individuals, not spontaneous manifestations of culture. See: Hans Christian Anderson, Madame d’Aulnoy, Oscar Wilde, etc. And there are tons of fairytale adaptations and original fairytales by modern authors which are certainly under copyright, even when they use the plot of Cinderella or draw inspiration from oral tradition. In fact, if you were to go around collecting folk tales like the Brothers Grimm, adapt them and publish them in a book, that book would be copyright you even though it was nothing but oral tradition set down in your own words.
In any case, I’m not convinced that a work written using characters, settings or plots from a previous work is necessarily worse in any way than a completely original one.
Take, for example, Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy, a set of Star Wars Expanded Universe novels that are pretty well-regarded. If Zahn had written the exact same books without first getting paid by Lucasfilm to do so, would their artistic merit have somehow been intrinsically less? What if George Lucas himself had written the exact same story in the exact same words - would it have been a better story because it had his name at the top? It’s hard to see how.
Or, is recycling characters, settings, or plots artistically bad no matter who does it? Then The Empire Strikes Back wouldn’t be the best Star Wars film, which I refuse to accept. 
You’re perfectly right about the legality of derivative works based on public-domain stuff as opposed to stuff under copyright, but copyright law exists to protect profit, not artistic integrity. It’s there to protect people’s right to gain profit from works they create, which is necessary and just but has nothing to do with how good their works are or how good derivative works might be.
Key word: modern.
Shakespeare used archetypes. No fiction genre can avoid that. It’s nothing like fanfiction. If I write about a British boy wizard and follow a typical hero awakening story, I’m as original as can be, but when I name him Harry Potter and send him to Hogwarts, we have problems; I obviously lacked the creatvity for an original twist.
Fairytales and modern fairytales aren’t quite the same thing; the latter is manufactured using folklore elements. A common discussion in comparitive mythology is whether or not they’re genuine fairytales if they’re the work of an individual and not a cultural product lacking a single source. Even the definition of a fairytale is argued.
An unoriginal work can be well-written. I might try to copy an Armani suit and end up doing better work than the factory. I still ripped them off.
how does writing a story about a world you love mean a lack of creativity?
Again I’ve written original fiction and fan fiction. I don’t lack creativity so can you please stop assuming that the people who have written fan fiction are untalented thieves.
Shakespeare didn’t just use archetypes. He also recycled older stories. Nowadays we’d call that fan-fiction.
Shakespeare pulled archetypes from older stories. Shakespeare wrote plays about historical events and researched from historical texts. Shakespeare retold common stories without known authors. Romeo & Juliet is an example of the last that you’d call fanfiction, I wager. It had been written before, but it was a popular tale with a tradition of being done and redone, as it still is, though now we give Shakespeare source credit.
The source material for his plays was a good two weeks of class.
Why the insistence on “historical” and “cultural” sources as being more acceptable than modern sources? What is it about older stories and unattributed stories that makes using them somehow more original than using a modern, attributed story?
500 years from now, will it become as original to write stories about Harry Potter as about Hercules? Or, if someone else writes a Harry Potter fanfiction story, and I write a story based on their story, would my story become more original because there’s now a tradition of re-telling behind it?
Why is borrowing an archetype that’s been done a thousand times more original than borrowing a plot that’s been used once?
Basically, what is it you’re saying makes old sources more acceptable than new sources, other than merely copyright law?
By god…I didnt mean to spark such debate over Fanfiction…Fanfiction is aa great way for aspiring authors to practice…It can also give them ideas…Say You decided to do a AU FF ((alternate universe Fan fiction)) by putting the entire story in a more modern or futuristic stand point…That is very creative is it not? Thinking of how you could turn a medevil story of magic into a modern one…That can be quite challenging…It can also give you ideas…Say you do that…And add several Ocs…well then you have your own creations in the story…say then you start thinking…Hey…what if I alter the plot a bit…remove the cannon characters and keep my OCs and then keep the modern setting…Boom you have a original story…
I might be very late to this but i just finished the last game of the heroes rise story and wanted to see if there were any more stories to read out there 
seeing as the trilogy ended i just wanted to read more things in the world and the different scenarios that people had come up with.
Heck i was about to write an alternate ending for Prodigal and my hero XD (cause I have it in my mind that useing that gun to drain the powers might have saved her -or might not have we dont know-)
But i know while some people hate on fanfiction my thoughts is that it is just fans who don’t want the story to end. and love the world that was created. Heroes Rise is the best story I’ve read in a while and i hate to see it end. More then likely going to play it again and again for a few weeks, taking notes of my favorite moments. And if people can make a tasteful story that seems realistic in the realm of this world. I say let them, It gives me more things to read and enjoy. If the creator makes another story you can bet the people who read those fanfictions are going to flock to the next installment (which i oh so hope will come in the future.)