30 Published Fanfictions

[shadowkat]

Here's a list of published fanfiction...books and or musicals/plays that either started out as fanfiction or are clearly fanfiction and got published, because they fall under a legal loop-hole. (ie. the original work is in the public domain or, it's vaguely based on the original work but in reality bares little resemblance to it. Everybody's Human fic for Spike and Buffy and other genres probably fits here.)

1. Fifty Shades of Grey - based on a Twilight fanfic (oddly Twilight feels more like it was based on a fanfic than this does, also this reminds me of a Harlequinn that I read in 2002 that was written by an acquaintance and based on a Spuffy fanfic. I'm reading it - the writer seems more interested in Thomas Hardy and Tess of D'Urbevilles - I have the oddest desire to watch that film now or read the book. Twilight - I found unreadable and gave up - in the book store. I'm not saying it's great, by any stretch of the imagination, but it's no worse than a lot of Regency or Harlequinn novels I've read, and/or half a dozen other books. It is interesting how insane people are about it. Oh? It is better written than The Story of O (which I tried to read and gave up, I don't know it was the translation - but that is a badly written book) and Anne Rice's Beauty...which I also attempted to read, and is also a poorly written book and fanfiction - an erotic retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story but seems to be mostly about the porn. It's Porn without Plot in capital letters, so too was The Story of O. At least Fifty Shades has a plot. And some witty lines, the other two don't.)
2. Pride & Prejudice and Zombies (god this one was bad, I picked it up in book store, unreadable tripe. And a blatant attempt to use someone else's work to make money. If Austen was alive? She should sue for plagirism.)
3. Sense and Sensability and Sea Monsters (stop the madness please)
4. Ahab's Wife - won an award
5. The Wide Sargasso Sea - about Mr. Rochester's first wife in Jane Eyre
6. Death Comes to Pemberly by PD James - I hear it is deathly dull
7. Scarlett - the sequel to Gone with the Wind (not very good I hear)
8. Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres (a modern version of King Lear)
9. Alice Hoffman's Here on Earth - a modern version of Wuthering Heights
10. Geraldine Brooks - March - a parallel re-telling of Little Women
11. JM Corteze's novel - Foe based on Robinson Crusoe
12. Stephen Moffat's Sherlock and Jekyll - fanfic series based on Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
13. My Fair Lady - a rip-off musical version of George Bernard Shaw's Pgymallion
14. West Side Story - a rip off of Romeo and Juliet
15. Bridget Jones Diary - a modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice

Go here for an extensive list :
I'm done explaining about fanfic This is really a brilliant post, everyone who reads my journal should go read it now. If it doesn't change your views about fanfic's legitmacy than nothing will.

16. Mr. Darcy's Obsession by Abigail Reynolds
17.Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy - the Last Man in the World - by Abigail Reynolds
18. A Wife for Mr. Darcy by Mary Simonsen
19. Mr. Darcy and the Secret of Becoming a Gentleman by Maria Hamilton
20. Serenity: Float Out by Patton Oswalt (Serenity - Firefly fanfic)
21. Arche Enemy : The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

Another extensive list of published fanfiction - which was originally shelved at least once as "published fanfiction" - by the author: http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/published-fanfiction

22. Mistress Masham's Repose by TH White
23. Songs of the Dying Earth: Stories in Honor of Jack Vance by George RR Martin
24. The Beekeepers Apprentice by Laurie King
25. Maskerade (Discworld 18) by Terry Prachett
26. It's Superman! by Tom De Haven
27. The Billionaire Bum by Samatha Blair
28. The Spainish Bride by Georgette Heyer - is a Real Person Fanfic based on the autobiography of Harry Smith.
29. Blonde - a novel by Joyce Carol Oats - a Real Person Fanfic on Marilyn Monroe
30. Neil Gaiman's Sandman - a retelling of the original Sandman comics.

Comments

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Neither does Fifty Shades under your definition, or for that matter
several other works on the list. Actually Sandman is closer to fanfic than Fifty Shades or any of the Everybody's Human fanfic - whose only resemblance to the original is they use the character's names.

It really does depend on how broad the definition is. Did it start as fanfiction then changed over time to become something else entirely?
(example Fifty Shades, where the writer was inspired by an original work, than gradually pulled away from it and created an original story that bares little resemblance to the original.) Did it start as a fanfic that merely used the names and descriptions of the characters in the original work or their archetypes? Fifty Shades (this isn't really fanfic, since all you have to do is change the names and it's original...and honestly, I often wonder why a lot of these writers don't.) Or is it a continuation or sequel? Scarlett is an example, as are the Pride and Prejudice novels (Death comes to Pemberly - is an example), and the Looking Glass Wars. Is it an adaptation - were the story is loosely based on the original? West Side Story and My Fair Lady. Is it a modernization? A Thousand Acres, James Joyce's Ulysees, and Here on Earth. Or is it a story from another character, possibly a supporting or minor character's pov? The Wide Sargasso Sea, Ahab's Wife, Rosencrantz & Guilderstern are Dead, and March.

Then there's the one's that are basically taking the original story and plopping it into a different genre. - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

[flameraven.livejournal.com]

I think that to call any work that is even partly based on anything else "fanfiction" blurs the term into such vagueness that it's pretty much useless. Much like "Mary Sue" has become a term that is too broad and vague and hard to apply. Every story is going to be based partly on or inspired by some other story, that's just how stories and ideas work. "Fanfiction" in its internet context is a story that is using the characters and world of another story, that the author of the fanfic did not create. That's why people mention when they're introducing Original Characters-- because fanfic readers are expecting to get only or mostly the characters from the source story, not ones the fanfic author is making up.

But once you start making up more and more original characters, or new setting details, or even removing the story to an entirely different setting from the source story... you've really ceased to write fanfiction, because there's little of the source left that can be recognized.

As for adaptations... when it comes to archetypal stories, I feel like they are more a framework. A trellis, if you will. But even with the framework, the author still has to make up the characters, the worlds, the individual motivations and conflicts. When the story is done, if the author has done their job well, you can only see glimpses of the framework under all the new pieces that have been fit in-- like a trellis that's buried under flowers, leaves, and vines. And of course the author can always change or subvert the typical story and twist it from the usual shape. A story that is based on a framework but doesn't have enough original detail falls flat, just like a trellis by itself, or with only one or two flowers, is really boring to look at, and the story falls flat.

Fanfiction is a balancing act. If you're going to play in someone else's sandbox, with their world and characters, you have to get enough of the setting right so that it resonates as THAT setting in the readers' minds. But you have to bring enough new conflict that it doesn't just become the same story twice. The best fanfic I have read kept everyone in character, but answered or explored areas of the story that were off screen or weren't addressed for some reason. The worst fanfic has characters who share the same name and maybe the same vague appearance as the original characters, but who act nothing like them and who are in a world that has almost no resemblance to the canon. Like everything else, there's way more godawful crap fanfic than good stuff.

Wandering back to specific published examples... I think you can't just blithely say everything is "fanfiction," it's more like a sliding scale of Fanfiction -- Reimagining -- Adaptation -- Mostly Original. I would say works like Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Mr.Darcy's Wife and such are pretty much fanfiction-- they're set in an existing world with characters that are recognizable to readers of the original. Things like Romeo & Juliet vs. West Side Story or Wizard of Oz vs. Wicked are adaptations-- the plot is easy to recognize, but the characters and setting are different OR the story is approached from a different point of view. I would throw out something like Treasure Island as Mostly Original? It was unique enough that everything in it became its own trope and was mimicked over and over. Maybe the 'Mostly Original' category is really just stuff that mixes up other influences in a unique enough blend to become its own mythology. I can't comment too much farther on that point because it veers into Literature and Classic Works territory which I honestly am not all that familiar with.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

Again, I think it is basically a question of semantics. But generally speaking, I agree with you - as does copyright law. Copyright law defines illegal fanfiction as you describe fanfiction:

""Fanfiction" in its internet context is a story that is using the characters and world of another story, that the author of the fanfic did not create."

From a copyright perspective - if you publish a story that fits this definition without permission, you are in direct violation of copyright law. That's illegal.

I think..it's a spectrum. Personally, I find the idea that Fifty Shades is fanfic based on Twilight ludicrious, it bears no resemblance to Twilight at all. Whether it did or not in its initial version? Is
irrelevant. The published version - that people are paying for - isn't.

But...Pride and Prejudice with Zombies is definitely fanfic. And I think Sandman was in its initial stages, Gaiman even references the original version - paying homage to it.

The thing of it is? You can't really define fanfic narrowly, you can try, and more power to you - but that's just your view. The internet defines it far more broadly (see fanfic.net and various web sites to see along with both links I provided). Note: The list above that I came up with? I grabbed from GoodReads "Published Fanfiction" listing and "bookshop" published fanfiction listing. I didn't come up with the list on my own. The authors of those works considered them fanfic,
as did various other people.

The media sees Fifty Shades as based on fanfic. The writer states she published it as a fanfic. So...is it one? Whether it is good or bad fanfic is largely subjective and a bit like saying Buffy is better than Firefly. Depends on which you happen to like better and what works for you personally, I suspect. Also what you are comparing it to?
Compared to Twilight? It's better in my opinion but I also find Twilight unreadable, compared to The Story of O (sigh, definitely better, the Story of O is also unreadable in my opinion), compared to Tess of the D'Urbvilles or say Harry Potter, not so much - those are definitely better.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

But once you start making up more and more original characters, or new setting details, or even removing the story to an entirely different setting from the source story... you've really ceased to write fanfiction, because there's little of the source left that can be recognized.

I agree. I know in my own writing...it may start out as fanfic, but over time as I build the story it's not...and there's no resemblance. I was merely inspired is all.

An all stories really can be traced back to another's story as inspiration. That's the nature of stories, they build on others stories.