Disclaimer:

Disclaimer: If you are easily offended by sheer honesty, or you think me having my own opinions is "being negative", then this is not the place for you, and I suggest you leave and head elsewhere. I call a spade a spade, and I don't sugarcoat anything.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Fan Fiction

What is it?? I've been hearing the term for some years now, and a couple of author sites that I am a member of do not allow fan fiction, and I always wondered what it was. So, tonight, I finally looked it up. It seems the term "fan fiction" has a lot of meanings, and despite the fact that these author sites do not allow this type of writing, it seems to be VERY popular!!! The most common meaning I've seen for this type of writing seems to be a writer who takes another author's characters and applies them to their own stories and happenings. I saw that and I said "That almost sounds like what Cathy and I did with our Batman stories!" that was back in my 1992/93 writing season. That's what I call it. The only difference is we didn't use Batman's characters per se. At least, not in the form you would see them if you bought a Batman comic book, opened it up and looked inside. Though in some ways, they do resemble the original characters, we used common UMG Productions characters instead. Or we used animals that matched the character of each villain. For example, Uncle Martin himself portrays the Mad Hatter. And Bucky himself portrayed Batman in the beginning. But the character who portrayed, say the Joker, was not a typical UMG character, but just a screwy squirrel that was created solely for the purpose of the story.

We did like 5 or 6 stories like that. The latest portrayed a character who was the daughter of the Riddler, who in my stories was portrayed by a "fanatical fox" with no set name. That was a story I created originally in 1992, but never finished then. Then I rewrote the story in 2002 and this time I completed it. I just titled it "Batman Battles the Daughter of the Riddler". There was also another story where Batman (this time portrayed by Cairo) battles the Mad Hatter (portrayed again by Uncle Martin) that I made in 2001, and it turned out as funny as HELL!!!! At least I thought so, so did a lot of my friends who read it. I titled it "The Hatter's Mad Caper". It was the best title I could think of at that time. I go back sometimes and read my stories, just for the trip down memory lane. I always find they are funniest when I haven't seen them in a long time. But I look back and I think about what happened to those days? Why can't I create like that anymore? I don't know why. I haven't had a fresh, epic story idea like those since 2007, when I actually wrote a story about impeaching Martin from the gang's leadership. Now that was a great story!!! It was kinda based on an incident that happened in a forum I was once a member of and it came out GREAT!!! I will be putting that story on the UMG site soon.

Typically when I write stories, I tend to write them in "collections", that is, I usually have a big sketchbook with blank pages, that you can usually find in any art supplies, or book store, that I fill with several stories. When I can, I try to only fill them with new ideas. Though over the years, I have occasionally done "re-makes" of classic stories from our old collections. Some of my most recent re-creations have been some of Katie's stories. She passed away in 1986.

But anyway, I always thought that "fan fiction" was taking actual people, like the men of INXS, and applying them to a story of my own. Like for example, the story I have of INXS going to Mount St. Helens. But I see those kinds of things going on all the time. Even the Simpsons do it on TV. Now, I'm not saying I like the Simpsons at all, but it is true they often depict celebrities on that show, and the voices are mostly done by impersonators. It gives an idea of how popular that kind of writing really is! I've had a lot of public figures portrayed in my stories, from INXS to Roxette to Osama Bin Ladin!! Cathy and I are even working on a story that depicts Obama. Though that will be sometime down the line. In just the past few months, I've had to throw some story ideas away, just because I could not think of an ending to them (I am notoriously BAD at endings!!!!!) Sometimes I need help finishing a story because I am so bad at it. That's often where the team-power comes in handy. But yes, I have several stories that depict celebs. Some good, some bad. Some are depicted in a fanatical way, some are just people that the characters bump into by accident. In the case of INXS, I had them come to my state to see our biggest tourist attraction, Mount St. Helens. At the time I started that story, I was still living in the vicinity of the mountain, but I didn't finish the story until 6 years later. Yes it is a story based on fantasy, but I carefully mention that in the beginning, that the story is not meant to be taken seriously. Anyone who reads that and does take it seriously has not read the disclaimer. I didn't even use their real personalities in the story. I kinda poked fun at them in fact. Specifically Jon, being the youngest in the group at the time I started that story, I kinda portrayed him as sort of a goofball, and even a bit of a brat, like younger brothers usually are. But it was only made to poke a little fun at him, in a loving way, of course. It's called "good-natured ribbing". I like Jon a lot! I'd never have portrayed him like that if I thought it was insulting. I made Tim the solid, rugged guy, who I couldn't stop making sheeps-eyes at in the story (almost like in real-life, only more-so). But again, it is only good-natured ribbing.

BTW, when the Batman series was originally completed in 1993, it was shown that the whole series was nothing more than Bucky having a dream. In the last half of the last story, he wakes up and goes into the living room where 2 of his friends are sitting, and he tells them about the dream he had, of him as Batman. I kinda think of these stories as something of a parody. But I am not sure. Parodies are apparently protected under the right of free speech. Though I understand Obama is going to try and take away that right. Not sure if that's a rumor or not.

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