What Is Fan Fiction?

I'll admit I knew nothing about fan fiction until this past week.  My understanding of what fan fiction is; is that the person writing the story is a fan of  the  person they are writing about.  It can be a favorite author, a band, a singer, a favorite book, television series, or anything.  Although, most definitions say fan fiction concerns the writings of an author, specifically, rewriting the story. 

Definition : Fanfiction is when someone takes either the story or characters (or both) of a certain piece of work, whether it be a novel, tv show, movie, etc, and create their own story based on it. Sometimes people will take characters from one movie and put them in another, which is called a cross-over.

Harry Styles

How I became interested in this topic is because a young woman, a fan of Harry Styles and the One Direction band wrote stories about them.  She wrote fan fiction about Mr. Styles using his name and the other band members drawing a huge crowd to her site.  This woman has received a six figure contract with Simon and Schuster for a book titled After. 

One Direction

Of course, the publisher had the author change the names of the characters in the book, but everyone knows who they are originally.  The typos have been removed from the book and the sex scenes expanded. 

Here is the premise of the book:  The synopsis is just as vague and dirty as one could imagine. According to the After Table of Contents on Wattpad.com, the story follows thusly: "Tessa Young is an 18 year old college student with a simple life, excellent grades, and a sweet boyfriend. She always has things planned out ahead of time, until she meets a rude boy named Harry, with too many tattoos and piercings who shatters her plans."

Harry Styles is, of course, the Harry in question. Other members of One Direction make appearances in the story as well.

At this point, there hasn't been a comment made by Harry Styles or One Direction.  I forgot to mention that the book is going to be turned into a movie.  Many of Harry Styles and One Directions are very upset by this depiction of him and the band even though it's fiction.  Some fans have turned away from the group because of this book assuming the story is factual.

Fifty Shades of Gray was written as fan fiction for the Twilight series and made it huge. 

More information can be found on the links below.

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/one-direction-fan-fiction-writer-gets-six-figure-book-deal-20141023

http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/what-is-fan-fiction-and-why-is-it-making-people-nervous-1334505-Mar2014/
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fanfiction
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/22/business/media/harry-styles-of-one-direction-stars-in-anna-todds-novel.html?_r=0
http://www.musictimes.com/articles/6535/20140603/harry-styles-starring-one-direction-fanfiction-gets-official-book-deal.htm/

These authors of fan fiction might need to read the copy right law of 1976 because they could get into serious trouble.  The rights belong to the author to make any changes to her work she/he wants to. Some authors have encouraged fan fiction writers because most of them never get published. 

While many authors and television show writers such as J.K. Rowling and Joss Whedon have supported fan fiction, in that they have even hosted contests for fan fiction, these same writers have also later brought copyright lawsuits against writers of fan fiction. Returning to the Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling initially was supportive of fan fiction writers, in particular, the Starkid Productions’ A Very Potter Musical franchise. However, Rowling was also surprised by the amount of sexually explicit fan fiction written about her characters. She took action against specific writers of “smut” while remaining silent against other derivative works such as James Potter, a series concentrating on the future generations of the Potter universe. An author has a right to protect her work but what does it mean when an author chooses to prosecute a particular type of writing while allowing and encouraging others? Unfortunately for writers of fan fiction, it is unclear and the power remains with the author of the originating work.   

More can be found at this link on this topic: http://lawblog.usfca.edu/internetjustice/2013/fan-fiction-and-copyright-law/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_with_fan_fiction

Do you see anything to be concerned about with fan fiction, or do you think it's okay?

Thank you for reading.  Have a great week, and I'll see you next Sunday.

Sandra K. Marshall, Author

@ Eirelander Publishing
http://www.eirelanderpublishing.com
http://www.skaymarshall.com

Go Royals!

You're the best

Oh yes, Kansas City is behind the Royals!  There hasn't been this much excitement over a sports team in Kansas City in many years. 

 

Do you think the Royals will win the series?  Here's why I think they will win:  There's not a big ego among the whole bunch of players.  Not one player thinks he can do it without the others.  As long as the Royals work as a team; they can win. 

 

Each player on the team contributes, and they are all wonderful no matter what position they play.  Go Royals!

 

I'll be watching!  Will you?      

We support you!

 

Have a great week, and I'll see you next Sunday.

 

Sandra K. Marshall, Author

Eirelander Publishing

Website, Facebook, Twitter

The Truth About Christopher Columbus

Tomorrow is Columbus Day, and it's observed to celebrate Christopher Columbus discovering the new continent.  What we have been taught in school may not be the total truth about this man.

The man who wrote this article explains how to tell the story of Columbus to a child after they've been given misinformation at school. 

The story goes that Columbus had to persevere against the odds to get support for his venture, because everyone but him believed the Earth was flat. This just isn't true. The ancient Greeks proved that the Earth was round about 2,000 years ago, and one even used the shadow of the Earth on the moon during an eclipse to estimate its circumference. The problem for Columbus is that he was bad at math and worse at geography, and everyone with an education knew it.

"He failed to get funding for a long time because his calculations of the earth were on the small side, he thought that dry land covered more of the sphere than it does, and he believed Japan was some 1500 miles off the coast of China." In other words, most people knew roughly the distance between the west coast of Europe and the east coast of Asia but believed it was filled with a vast ocean in which Columbus would surely die.

Columbus was stubborn. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, he refused to give up his plan, and because he was so stubborn, he kept fighting for funding until he finally broke through to the Queen of Spain. His stubbornness kept him from ever admitting that he hadn't reached Asia. For Columbus, the idea of a whole new continent and unknown peoples just didn't fit his worldview.

The indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, however, were used to hosting strange arrivals from all over the Americas in their towns, according to Howe. Their settlements were decades or even centuries old, built in part on transcontinental trade, and Columbus did not seem so outlandish. These were settled lands with rich societies, not, as often depicted, simple or primitive.

That's one of the real tragedies of the story of Columbus and probably the hardest part to explain to children. The complex indigenous societies of the Americas were decimated by exposure to Old World diseases, crumbling under the weight of epidemic. By the time later waves of settlers arrived in North America, they often found wilderness. It was a new wilderness, born of drastic population decline.

Columbus didn't know that his voyage would spread diseases across the continents, of course, but disease wasn't the only problem. Columbus sailed the ocean blue not for the love of exploration but because he wanted access to Asian gold. Instead, he found marvelous soft cotton, which was far superior to similar cloth in Europe. He also took slaves for display back home and to work in his conquered lands. Cloth and slavery defined the Columbian exchange from the beginning.

Despite all this, it's not correct to simply demonize Columbus. He was a brave man, launching his ships into an uncertain fate, driven by greed, faith and hope. Like many brave men, he believed very strongly that he knew what he was doing -- even though he was wrong about so many details -- and it's OK to be impressed by his bravery.

Moreover, his voyages had an undeniable historical impact, sparking the great age of Atlantic exploration, trade and eventually colonization by Europeans. In a very real way, this era reshaped the world, the languages we speak, the religions we follow, the foods we eat and the diseases we catch. I don't know if that's a reason to have a school holiday, exactly, but it's definitely worth remembering.

So if your child comes home in the lead up to Columbus Day, like the man's in this article did, full of praise for the explorer's bravery and vision, that's a fine place to start, even if he didn't really "discover" the Americas or figure out that the Earth was round. He was, indeed, brave.

But then explain that brave people can do bad things, and worse things can happen without any planning. That's one of the lessons of history.  Below is the source I used for this blog. 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/10/opinion/perry-columbus-day-what-to-tell-your-kid/index.html

Have a great week, and I'll see you again next Sunday.

Sandra K. Marshall, Author

@ Eirelander Publishing
http://www.skaymarshall.com

Share The Road

I know I have written about this problem before, but I just have to say more on this topic. Have you ever gotten mad at the drivers around you?  Drivers have no patience these days; they are all in a hurry.  You may know my hubby and I got a Suzuki Burgman over a year ago.  We don't go too far on it, and so far we've felt relatively safe riding it, but that hasn't been the experience of many others.

Hubby when he first got his Burgman

 

 Last Sunday, my husband and I rode our Burgman motor scooter to church, but we stopped for breakfast first.  While eating breakfast, a young couple walked up to us and started talking to us about the Burgman and asking how we liked it.  We told them we loved it, and really got a lot of enjoyment from riding it. 

The woman told us the story of how she used to ride her Burgman to work because it was the  perfect size for her to manage, and had room for her laptop and other things she needed for work.  One day, she was headed to work on I-635 when a young driver drove her off the road.  When she got back up on the highway, she was astonished when the young girl flipped her off after nearly causing her to have a bad accident. To make a long story short, the woman who rode the Burgman to and from work became so afraid after that incident she sold her scooter.  She will not even ride on the back of her husband's motor cycle. 

A young woman at our bank lost her husband this past summer just a block or two from his home when a drunk driver in a pickup truck hit and killed him.  This accident happened in a residential area at a stop sign, and the man in the car was hit head on by a driver going 60 plus miles.

 It's monstrous when people drive drunk, text or are otherwise distracted, and are so careless they do not see others on the road.  We've all seen the drivers on the highway weaving in and out of traffic crossing lanes.  These drivers are dangerous.   They need to slow down and have some consideration for others. 

While we're on the topic, I want to say something about the bicycle riders.  It's true they shouldn't be riding on the road unless there is a bicycle path, but they don't deserve to be ran over either.  We need more places for cyclists to ride. 

There's more than one driver on the road.  Stay safe everyone no matter what mode of transportation you use to travel from place to place. 

Oh, by the way, I'm working on a new website again.  If you would like to take a look at it and tell me your thoughts about it, you're welcome to.  http://www.skaymarshall.com.

Also, Romance Books 4 Us is having a new contest this month. 

Romance Books '4' Us contest is up and ready for you to enter! Over 20 prizes, and you have MANY chances to win something!

Visit: http://www.romancebooks4us.com  for rules and prize list. Be sure to check every page; lots of authors and their books, industry rep and services, and a publisher with books to offer!

Have a great week, and I'll see you next Sunday.  

Sandra K. Marshall, Author

@ Eirelander Publishing
http://www.skaymarshall.com