Fan Fiction

Along the lines of the last post, I got another interesting PM the other day. The poster was concerned that the revelation of details about various aspects of BIONICLE, through my answers, was messing up his fan fiction in progress (which he was trying to keep as close to canon as possible).

Not going to debate the nature of fan fiction here, or get into the fact that a lot of the questions being asked are by other fan fiction writers who want the info for their stories ... but rather discuss the world of "licensed publishing."

So let's say that you now have my job -- you are the writer for the official comics and books for BIONICLE. And you have a great story idea and your book is humming right along.

And then you find out a set you thought was going to come out (say, shadow Toa Ahkmou) has been cancelled. But there are three new combiners you need to work into story, plus a new poster whose action has to be reflected in story. What do you do?

You rewrite, of course.

Why? Because that is the very nature of writing in a universe you do not own or fully control. In the end, I don't decide what sets come out or don't, or what kind of ad materials get done, or what the web game looks like ... I just have to incorporate all of that into what I am doing. It's the same for someone writing a Star Wars book, or a Star Trek comic, or anything where he/she did not create the universe and does not own it. Someone else can always change things and you have to be ready to turn on a dime and make changes to reflect that. You are playing with someone else's bat and someone else's ball and they make the rules you have to follow.

Not everyone likes that. Some writers only want to create their own universes so that they don't have anyone else making changes, and that's fine. And a lot of people write fan fiction that is THEIR BIONICLE universe and does not try to reflect the official one too much -- and that is great too! But if you are going to write for a property someone else owns -- or write "canon-close" fan fiction where you are trying to match it to my answers -- this is something you will have to deal with multiple times in your career. Nature of the beast.