Edward Cullen looks around. Everything is quiet. He relaxes, until suddenly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer jumps out from the bushes.
In a second, Edward lies dead, and Buffy stands over his body. Not to be outdone, Obi-Wan Kenobi appears out of a tree above her and slices her in half with his light sabre.
If that plot sounds unbelievable, it may seem even more so, considering such a story could exist, namely as fan fiction.
Fan fiction, known as fanfic by practitioners, is when fans of a book, movie, or any other kind of story pen their own versions using the characters or settings from the stories they love.
Millions of stories exist as fan fiction, from popular fantasy series such as Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings to obscure television shows from the 1970s like Emergency.
Starwolf, which he says is his legal name, is the former president of the Ottawa Science Fiction Society. He says fan fiction really started with Star Trek in the 1970s.
“Star Trek had been off the air for a couple of years and fans were anxious for new stories . . . stories that the studio would probably not publish, so they wrote their own,” he says.
The fans then started passing around the stories at conventions, and the response was overwhelming, he says.
There are many reasons why someone would want to start writing fan fiction, according to Starwolf. One of the main reasons is if a book, show or movie series isn’t going the way the fans want, he says.
“A prime example is that of the virtual seasons of [Star Trek Voyager], where fans were like, ‘This is ridiculous,’” he says.
The fans then decided to take matters into their own hands by writing a whole series of episodes as if they were part of the series, Starwolf says.
Starwolf says he’s written fan fiction before. He joined a mailing list for a spy fiction series called Quiller, which was written by Adam Hall, who died in the 1990s. After Hall’s death, the official story for the main character was sent out to the readers, explaining why no more stories would be released.
However, Starwolf says he didn’t like the official story. So after getting another idea after a conversation about spam mail, he started a Quiller fan fiction to explain why the series ended.
Starwolf’s idea was that the character got called into spy headquarters, where he got an assignment he didn’t like.
“They wanted him to go after spammers,” says Starwolf.
In Starwolf’s fan fiction, the character throws his badge on the desk and walks out of the headquarters.
But it’s not all creativity and fun, as the issue of copyright haunts fan fiction writers. Under copyright rules, no work is allowed to take characters or settings from another work. This rule falls into a legal grey area with fan fiction, according to copyright lawyer Grace Westcott.
“Its legality is questioned. When you make fan fiction, the whole idea is you’re trying to take recognizable portions of somebody else’s work,” she says.
“In Canada, it’s in a grey area because people and creators of works will typically tolerate it, and even see the benefit of it, because it’s only fans that make fan fiction.”
Although most tolerate it, there are authors who oppose fan fiction, including notable A Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin.
In a blog post, Martin said taking an author’s work is equivalent to stealing his characters and doing whatever one wants with them.
Authors who allow fan fiction end up risking bankruptcy as their work is taken over by millions of derivative ones, he said.
H.P. Lovecraft is a prime example of this. Lovecraft, who invented the character Cthulhu, allowed fan fiction to be written from his work and eventually ended up bankrupt, according to Martin.
“A writer’s creations are his livelihood . . . is it any wonder that most writers are so protective of them?” Martin wrote.
Starwolf says while he enjoys writing fan fiction, he would not write a piece that borrowed from someone like Martin.
“I would respect the author’s wishes,” he says. “Otherwise, why am I writing?”
Westcott says she thinks fan fiction should be allowed as long as fans don’t try to take over the author’s work.
“I suggest that it is something that is tolerated for a good reason, and I think fans should be civil about things,” she says. “I think you can go too far with everything, but I am supportive of making a safe zone for fan fiction.”
And for anyone who wants to write fan fiction of their own, Starwolf says the first step is putting in the time to research fan fiction. This will spark different ideas on how to proceed, he says.
“And then? Write.”
