Raison d'Fanfic

[hamster8 at hotmail.com]

Heidi ...

'I admit it! I love derivative stories! I love reading novels, 
serieses and short stories that incorporate other literary works into 
them. Rebecca was speaking of Jane Austen fanfic (with a side-note 
that I'm actually writing a fanfic which puts the HP characters into 
Pride & Prejudice' 

Catherine ... 

'Just a side note - bearing in mind recent discussions on Bridget 
Jones' Diary.  Has anyone considered that this is also a kind of 
Pride and Prejudice fanfic?  In the same way that the film Clueless 
is for Emma, Cruel Intentions is for Dangerous Liaisons etc, etc...
There are numerous other examples, but these are the ones which 
spring to mind.'

Me ...

Loads of people do this.  There are very few original stories left to 
write - so practically anything can be interpreted as an homage or a 
re-hashing of something that went before, even if it wasn't 
intentional.  Terry Pratchett does this all the time - Wyrd Sisters 
is essentially a re-working/fanfic of Macbeth, Lords and Ladies of A 
Midsummer Night's Dream.  In Only You Can Save Mankind, there are 
nods to Neighbours with a soap opera called Cobbers - 'Marlene took 
Dwayne's surfboard to pay Sheryl back for telling Kylie that Rock 
took the money from Mick's coat'  Everyone does it.  Fanfic is, IMO, 
merely a more 'explicit' version.  Which begs the question, if 
Shakespeare were still alive, would he sue Pratchett for plagiarism?

Al
*where schnoogling happens a lot, and we think Nancy Stouffer is hot*