A Friendly Note Regarding the Rules Saga (and fanfictions of fanfictions)
I got a couple emails I didn't expect this morning, since generally I consider myself a low profile individual. Long story short, another writer is writing a story that they wished to publish as the ending to one of my works in progress, The Rules Saga. I have denied them permission to declare their version "official", but I am not asking them to take it down because I believe the creative privilege I make use of when I write additional or alternate material about someone else's stories (ie, fanfiction) extends to this person as well. I am quoting my entire response to the author below as a reference for those people who have had questions for me about this, and anyone who may have a question in the future:
Hi, there. I really appreciate you asking for my permission in this case. Since I haven't abandoned The Rules Saga, I must deny any permission to write the "official" version. I will be writing the official ending as soon as life and my persistent health problems allow. According to the schedule I established when my health took a turn for the worse, I will start writing that ending next year, although I may wait to publish it until I have enough written to post the ending in its entirety with no further hiatus. This may be as late as 2017. I'm letting you know this because I have not read the chapters you have already posted, and I will not read them until after I have completed and finished the official ending. I need to avoid reading them in order to protect both of our stories from accusations of stealing plot points. I consider your work a fanfiction in its own right, and worthy of the respect due to any work of fanfiction.
As such, I will not ask you to take it down. You have a right to share your own thoughts and ideas. I will, however, ask you to remove any text that you may have copied from my work. Specifically, I am asking you to change the title of your fanfic, and to write new summary for your work. I would prefer that this summary include a note that you are writing a story "inspired by psiten's 'The Rules Saga'". If your chapters contain any text that is copied verbatim, I need you to remove it, however because I have not read your chapters, I cannot say if this is the case or not. A character quoting a few previous words is fine, but copying an identifiable segment of text is not. As long as you remove all text that was copied verbatim and clearly indicate for readers that this is a fanfiction of my fanfiction, not an official ending, I will not ask you to delete the story.
I will be posting this response on my Dreamwidth journal as an open letter to anyone who may read my stories. I hope this will serve both as a way to end any controversy or ruffled feathers caused by this story, and as a guideline to anyone who wishes to write fanfiction inspired by my fanfiction in the future. For your protection, I will not name you or link to your work on my blog. I don't want you to face a sudden wave of negativity in the event that any of my blog followers disapprove of your decision to continue the story.
I'm glad to know the story I started was an inspiration for you to write your own. Creativity should be respected wherever we find it. Good luck, and best wishes.
I want to thank everyone for being understanding. For clarity's sake, I'm going to make a short list of guidelines I would like people to follow if they wish to write fanfiction about my fanfiction, seeing as we would be publishing in the same spaces, which could cause more confusion between works than is possible when writing fanfiction of a traditionally published work.
Guidelines for Writing Fanfiction of My Fanfiction
In appreciation for you following these guidelines, I will make you the following promises:
I hope everyone finds that reasonable! <3
This entry was originally posted at http://psiten.dreamwidth.org/120633.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Hi, there. I really appreciate you asking for my permission in this case. Since I haven't abandoned The Rules Saga, I must deny any permission to write the "official" version. I will be writing the official ending as soon as life and my persistent health problems allow. According to the schedule I established when my health took a turn for the worse, I will start writing that ending next year, although I may wait to publish it until I have enough written to post the ending in its entirety with no further hiatus. This may be as late as 2017. I'm letting you know this because I have not read the chapters you have already posted, and I will not read them until after I have completed and finished the official ending. I need to avoid reading them in order to protect both of our stories from accusations of stealing plot points. I consider your work a fanfiction in its own right, and worthy of the respect due to any work of fanfiction.
As such, I will not ask you to take it down. You have a right to share your own thoughts and ideas. I will, however, ask you to remove any text that you may have copied from my work. Specifically, I am asking you to change the title of your fanfic, and to write new summary for your work. I would prefer that this summary include a note that you are writing a story "inspired by psiten's 'The Rules Saga'". If your chapters contain any text that is copied verbatim, I need you to remove it, however because I have not read your chapters, I cannot say if this is the case or not. A character quoting a few previous words is fine, but copying an identifiable segment of text is not. As long as you remove all text that was copied verbatim and clearly indicate for readers that this is a fanfiction of my fanfiction, not an official ending, I will not ask you to delete the story.
I will be posting this response on my Dreamwidth journal as an open letter to anyone who may read my stories. I hope this will serve both as a way to end any controversy or ruffled feathers caused by this story, and as a guideline to anyone who wishes to write fanfiction inspired by my fanfiction in the future. For your protection, I will not name you or link to your work on my blog. I don't want you to face a sudden wave of negativity in the event that any of my blog followers disapprove of your decision to continue the story.
I'm glad to know the story I started was an inspiration for you to write your own. Creativity should be respected wherever we find it. Good luck, and best wishes.
I want to thank everyone for being understanding. For clarity's sake, I'm going to make a short list of guidelines I would like people to follow if they wish to write fanfiction about my fanfiction, seeing as we would be publishing in the same spaces, which could cause more confusion between works than is possible when writing fanfiction of a traditionally published work.
Guidelines for Writing Fanfiction of My Fanfiction
- Please ask me for permission before copying any substantial portion of my work into your work. This includes summaries and titles as well as sections of chapters. If you're not sure whether what you wish to use counts as "substantial", please err on the side of asking my permission!
- I will not grant anyone permission to present their work as officially part of my story unless I have explicitly abandoned that story. I reserve the right to withhold permission to present a work as the official conclusion of any abandoned story pending review of your writing style to be sure it's a good match and a discussion of where you plan to take the story -- a policy I'm borrowing from the process J.M. Barrie's estate used to find an author to write the official sequel to Peter Pan. (This only applies to writers who wish their work to be considered "official". Anyone who wants to provide "their take" and does not care about me linking to them as the official ending of the story can skip this and go to Guideline 3.)
- Note clearly in your summary that this is your work, inspired by my work. Please do this either as a fandom tag (for example, including "The Rules Saga [psiten]" next to "Prince of Tennis" when you declare your fandoms for the story, replacing "The Rules Saga" and "Prince of Tennis" with whatever stories you are referencing) or as part of the summary (for example, adding a clause that your work is "inspired by psiten's 'The Rules Saga'", using the name of the story you intend to reference -- please note, this is the only option available to you on Fanfiction.net because of their fandom tag submittal process). I hope this will be no more onerous than the process of noting the original fandom that inspired both of us!
In appreciation for you following these guidelines, I will make you the following promises:
- I will not steal your ideas for the official story. In order to ensure this, like many authors before me, I will avoid reading your fanfiction so that I do not accidentally co-opt your innovations as my own.
- I will not post any criticism of your work. For me to do so would be to invite others to say that I do not approve of your fanfiction. I'm a fanfic author, too. I approve of your choice to write about anything that inspires you.
- I will not ask you to remove anything unless it is a verbatim copy of my own words. This includes content that contradicts my story, or content that I personally find offensive. Any fanfiction you write is your story, and I won't try to exert any control over it unless you wish for your story to be considered the "official" ending to a story I've abandoned.
I hope everyone finds that reasonable! <3
This entry was originally posted at http://psiten.dreamwidth.org/120633.html. Please comment there using OpenID.