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sureiThe trouble with fanfiction as a term is that, for many people, it's become derogatory. However, technically, what Shakespeare wrote was fanfiction. So obviously, if you think that being fanfic makes it automatically bad, then you'll see where I have trouble with the term as it's used today.
So we need something else to call the serious stuff that borrows someone else's story/world/idea and runs with it. It's not like we don't do that all the time anyway.
Fanfic is the fannish stuff. The stuff that was written by fans in a moment of OMG this story! orgasmic glee, and that can't possibly be any good (note the sarcasm. More like fanfic gets a really bad rep because there's no one to go through the slush pile and pick out the stuff worth reading and throw the rest away. Anyway). The other stuff, the serous stuff, like Shakespeare, and all the people who retell folk tales and fairy tales and all that, and also the really, really good stuff out there that I'm tired of seeing derided despite the obvious quality and original plot and good characterization and absolutely wonderful ideas because maybe it borrows a bit from something else and has the decency to admit it – the stuff that has to make shift with the term "fanfiction" but doesn't deserve the flak – that's world-borrowing.
So yeah. I've got a new term to separate the flailing stuff that can't stand without the original story from the stuff that's original but borrows bits (IC bits only, please) from someone else. The first is fanfiction. The second is worldborrowing. Or worldplay, that's easier to say but a little more confusing. Plus it sounds an awful lot like wordplay. Still, I think I like worldplay as a term a lot. We'll see.
Wah, blather.
So we need something else to call the serious stuff that borrows someone else's story/world/idea and runs with it. It's not like we don't do that all the time anyway.
Fanfic is the fannish stuff. The stuff that was written by fans in a moment of OMG this story! orgasmic glee, and that can't possibly be any good (note the sarcasm. More like fanfic gets a really bad rep because there's no one to go through the slush pile and pick out the stuff worth reading and throw the rest away. Anyway). The other stuff, the serous stuff, like Shakespeare, and all the people who retell folk tales and fairy tales and all that, and also the really, really good stuff out there that I'm tired of seeing derided despite the obvious quality and original plot and good characterization and absolutely wonderful ideas because maybe it borrows a bit from something else and has the decency to admit it – the stuff that has to make shift with the term "fanfiction" but doesn't deserve the flak – that's world-borrowing.
So yeah. I've got a new term to separate the flailing stuff that can't stand without the original story from the stuff that's original but borrows bits (IC bits only, please) from someone else. The first is fanfiction. The second is worldborrowing. Or worldplay, that's easier to say but a little more confusing. Plus it sounds an awful lot like wordplay. Still, I think I like worldplay as a term a lot. We'll see.
Wah, blather.