My first fan-fiction was printed in the early Eighties of the last century. People took the trouble to do things such as typing copies on stencils for a Gestetner, and tried to cover the costs by selling the results. It was a whole different world.
But it meant it was worth them doing a bit of editing.
I'm writing in an amateur shared-world now, and there's a lot of collaboration. My stories feed into the braided rope of that world in a way that they wouldn't do if it was a TV show. So it isn't the same.
But I do some of the same things, except they're my characters, and I put them through hell. There's love, death, and insanity, depraved serial killers working for the Gestapo, black-clad Japanese puppeteers, pirates, "fishing-boats" with planing hulls, and grey-painted airships lurking in the clouds.
When the Graf Spee came into port, late in 1939, things got complicated.
Sure, fan-fiction lets you explore things. But it isn't a living, breathing, world. Fan-fiction doesn't give you a Chinese gangster in drag luring a Japanese General to his death, or a middle-aged daughter of a Duke riding a thunderstorm to victory in an air-race.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-09-02 10:33 pm (UTC)But it meant it was worth them doing a bit of editing.
I'm writing in an amateur shared-world now, and there's a lot of collaboration. My stories feed into the braided rope of that world in a way that they wouldn't do if it was a TV show. So it isn't the same.
But I do some of the same things, except they're my characters, and I put them through hell. There's love, death, and insanity, depraved serial killers working for the Gestapo, black-clad Japanese puppeteers, pirates, "fishing-boats" with planing hulls, and grey-painted airships lurking in the clouds.
And a Prince ends up dancing with a Judge while his dissolute brother, the King, is infatuated with a divorcée who is reputed to know how to do the Shanghai Squeeze.
When the Graf Spee came into port, late in 1939, things got complicated.
Sure, fan-fiction lets you explore things. But it isn't a living, breathing, world. Fan-fiction doesn't give you a Chinese gangster in drag luring a Japanese General to his death, or a middle-aged daughter of a Duke riding a thunderstorm to victory in an air-race.