What is the difference between plagiarism and fan fiction? – Non-Fiction

Writer: XP

Subject: What is the difference between plagiarism and fan fiction?

Link: DearAuthor.com

What is the difference between plagiarism and fan fiction ?

Here’s a few references on the matter:

 “Using another person’s ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source constitutes plagiarism…. [T]o plagiarize is to give the impression that you wrote or thought something that you in fact borrowed from someone, and to do so is a violation of professional ethics. Forms of plagiarism include the failure to give appropriate acknowledgment when repeating another’s wording or particularly apt phrase, paraphrasing another’s argument, and presenting another’s line of thinking” (6.1; see also Gibaldi, MLA Handbook, ch. 2).

From DearAuthor.com

Okay, I have just had a rather awkward situation. After publishing a story on LS666 — I was contacted by someone calling themselves the “Plagiarism Detector” … he/she pointed out that the story was originally written by another writer on ASSTR.

My awkwardness was because I don’t want to discourage participation by regular authors on LS666 — but at the same time, we need to acknowledge that it isn’t right to claim the work in part or whole of another writer’s as your own … So in the future, if you ever spot anything like this on LS666, can you please let me know and I will either take it down OR mark it as “Fan Fiction” with full credit given to the originator of the material.

From a personally perspective — when I wrote the story “Black Candles” it was based closely on the movie by the same title. I actually transcribed the entire script of the movie so that I could weave the “real dialogue” into my own version of events. Of course the goal was to make it much darker and more perverted. But, I found it a challenge to make it work with at least 90% with this original script. In the author notes, I acknowledge the movie and my approach. Again, in my version of “Through the Looking Glass” I took exactly the same approach. It was a challenge not to deviate too far from what was originally said, but to re-frame it, in a darker context. 

Before I wrote “Justice” (over four parts), which was based on one of my favorite movies of all time — The Devil’s Advocate — I re-watch the movie several times, as well as read the screen play by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy; and book by Andrew Neiderman of the same name. In my author’s notes I talked about paying homage and used elements of all three in my triple-x version of the story.

I can say that it is tough and time consuming writing original material — fuck! I know — it takes me months sometimes to craft a strong story — and even when I am not actually working on it; I would be thinking about the plot, the characters, the twists, and its progression as a narrative. So, I fully appreciate everything that our contributors do and want to fully acknowledge their creative endeavors.

So, on the subject of recognition — sometimes I come across material and cannot find the original author — if you know who it is or have a link; email it to me and I can update.

Finally, I want to say thanks to the “Plagiarism Detector” — can you provide me with your email address, so that we can correspond more openly — and, if you find any other examples on LS666, please let me know and I will take appropriate actions.

My email address is [email protected]