Fanfiction

Ho boy. Okay. Here we go. Deep breath.

So.

Here’s the deal.
Let’s rip the bandage off right now.

I started off writing fanfiction.

Some of you clever SOB’s have already found it, or followed me from my FF into my publishing life. But some of it’s still out there, and even though it’s…fuck, it’s terrible…I mean really terrible. I mean really, really, really terrible, I wanted to leave it online for a few reasons. One, as an Easter Egg for my readers, and two, as a reminder of where I started, how bad I was when I began, and because—and this might be a shock to you, so brace yourself.

   A whole lot of writers get their start playing in someone else’s sandbox.

And I think that’s okay.
   

  Part One:  Dracula.

I wrote a small forward about fanfiction and its influence on my writing in the beginning of my Dracula two-parter. And it’s obvious why. That series is fanfiction based upon fanfiction based upon fanfiction based upon—you get the idea.
And I’m not the only one. How many Dracula books now exist, many of which are “traditionally published” that riff on our favorite Big Daddy Drac? How many TV shows, movies, videogames exist based on that one gothic novel?

And how many fanfiction pieces have been written on top of those? 

Dracula continues to be one of the most influential sources of fanfiction material in media. I’m not saying he’s the most influential (I think that crown might go to Tolkien) but he’s up there.

Hell, it started just after the book was written! The novel “Dracula” by Bram Stoker (not to be confused with Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the movie) was published in 1897. It took until 1922 before the very first piece of fanfiction made print—In the form of F.W. Murnau’s silent black and white film Nosferatu.

   Rabbit Hole Side Note Alert

There are so many legends about Nosferatu, it’s hysterical. It was filmed with zero budget in the German countryside, and a lot of weirdness happened with the production. (It’s like the grandfather to Blair Witch.)
My favorite “documentary” on the legends of this film was made in 2000, starring John Malkovich, Cary Elwes, and Willem Dafoe. If you haven’t seen Shadow of the Vampire you should. Willem Dafoe plays Count Orlock. It’s great.
And, yes.
You guessed it.
Shadow of the Vampire is fanfiction. Based on folklore about some fanfiction.
(OG Drac -> Nosferatu -> Random Folklore -> Shadow of the Vampire.)  

Back to Nosferatu. After its release, Bram Stoker’s widow sued, and won, for copyright infringement. The estate ordered all copies of Nosferatu burned, but one had already escaped out into the real world.

OH. And in 1930, a couple of Austrian goons re-edited Nosferatu without permission, filmed their own new favorite ending, removed Murnau’s name from the credits, renamed all the characters, and released The Twelfth Hour: A Night of Horror. I haven’t actually seen this version, because it’s pretty rare.
(OG Drac -> Nosferatu -> Twelfth Hour, for those of you keeping score at home.)

Pro Tip: If you’re gonna publish fanfiction,
Make sure it’s public domain.
Otherwise Florence Stoker will sue your fuckin’ ass.

Or at least get permission. Because in 1931, Universal Studios released the infamous Dracula starring Bela Lugosi. Who…yeah. Poor Lugosi. (Another film recommendation—Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp.)
And what followed after Dracula’s release was ninety years of sequels, spinoffs, adaptions, changes, tweaks, re-releases, bobbleheads, you name it.
Most of what we see now in “Dracula” content is not even truly based on the original book, it’s based on the communal zeitgeist—the Plutonic ideal—of the character.
And from that Plutonic Ideal of Daddy D, sprouted every modern vampire story we have. We wouldn’t have Twilight if we didn’t have Dracula first. The end. Full stop. No debate. No, I’m not going to write a thirty-page thesis detailing that. Not even if you ask nicely.
More on Twilight later.
So the map we end up with looks something like this:

And trust me, this map is NOT COMPLETE. I could spend weeks just mapping out the fanfiction pile-on that has happened here, just from this one point. But ain’t nobody got time for that.

All right. Now let’s move on to our second salient example.

Part Two: The Phantom of the Opera

Oh, you sweet spring child.

I find that far fewer people are aware of the genesis of Phantom of the Opera then they are Dracula. Everybody knows Dracula was based on a book—they were probably assigned it in class once or twice—but fewer people know that Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical The Phantom of the Opera is based on a book by Gaston Leroux. Even fewer are familiar with the 1925 movie adaption by the same name, starring Lon Chaney.

I could make my guesses as to why, but that’s not the point of this blog entry. (Go watch Lindsay Ellis‘s vlogs on Phantom of the Opera for someone who goes into incredible detail on so many aspects of PotO.)

   But…maaaaaybe this has something to do with it:

Sexy.

…..

   But I digress.

There’s actually rumor of another, earlier film dating to 1916, but it was lost to time. It’s only referenced in other books and media. After the 1925 silent film, out came a flood of other movies. I won’t bother listing them all, but you can find them here.

Then comes the weird bit. The really weird bit. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera hits the stage in the 1980’s, and THE FANFICTION FLOODGATES WERE OPENED.

I’m not even talking about the torrent of stuff you can find online on ff.net and the like. I’m talking published shit. And this was back before Amazon was a thing, so these people had to get agents and find real $@!%damn publishers to do it. Like “Phantom” by Susan Kay. I remember reading this when I was young, and it was awesome. (At the time. I haven’t read it since I was like 13, so I have no idea if it holds up.) But it was bizarro town full-on fanfiction of Gaston’s original work (yay public domain!) and stealing heavily from the musical…without doing it so badly that it gets sued.

And then…And then… Paint Never Dries Love Never Dies happened. Lindsay Ellis once more beat me to the punch on this one. Here’s a link to her amazing video on the musical and how exactly that monstrosity came to life. But I’ll summarize.

Andrew Lloyd Webber wanted to make a sequel to Phantom, but didn’t want to write the story himself. So he paid a guy named Frederick Forsyth to help him out, and he wrote a novel called “The Phantom of Manhattan.”

And…

Woof.

Just. Woof. If you haven’t read it, and you want to make your eyes bleed? Go for it. Otherwise? …Yeah. No.

So Webby decides he doesn’t like the book, but wants to use it anyway, so fires Forsyth from the project, and decides to rewrite himself. Again. And again. And again. And—you get it. And that’s how Love Never Dies happened.

So we wind up with:

OG Phantom Novel > Movies > Musical > Musical Books > MUSICAL BASED ON MUSICAL BOOKS.

Fanfiction begets fanfiction begets fanfiction begets fanfiction. And I’m sure there’s Love Never Dies fanfiction out there as well.

The cycle. It never ends. Which brings us to…

PART THREE: KINKY BDSM FANFIC GOES MAINSTREAM

AKA…50 Shades of Gray.

I’m gonna keep this short to avoid the inevitable flamewar that will follow. I will also state that for the sake of my own sanity, I have not read 50 Shades. But let us appreciate exactly how fucking beautiful its rise to fame really is.

OG Dracula > Western Concept of Vampires > Twilight Novels

Now, it is a simple fact that if you write a piece of fiction that goes popular online, and your series does NOT contain all the characters dirty screwing each other at every possible outcome, the internet will seek to fill all those holes. Yes. All of them.

Literally all of them.

Sometimes with whips and chains attached.

Pick two characters that exist in the world—any two, regardless of what fiction they exist in—and I guarantee they have done the nasty at least once on the internet. 

Especially if it involves Harry Potter.

Anyway.

50 Shades of Gray used to be kinky fanfiction based on the Twilight series. And someone figured it was so wonderfully popular on the internet, that it would do great as a novel series of its own! I would wonder if they regret their decision, but they’re probably wiping their tears of regret with hundred-dollar bills. And then movies happened of those books. And then fanfiction happened of that fanfiction turned mainstream.

And so on, and on, the cycle goes.

Look down your nose at fanfiction all you want, but it’s everywhere. It’s inescapable. And you probably love it just as much as the next person.

Vampires? Fanfiction. Werewolves? Fanfiction. Elves? Dwarves? Dragons? Fanfiction. Angels and Demons? Fanfiction. Mummies? Fanfiction. 95% of the fiction that we all love and enjoy is based on the pile of popular zeitgeist the rest of the world of media has created for us. We’re merely building an ever-branching tree of stories based on other stories based on this glorious game of Round Robin we’ve been playing since time immemorial.

Embrace it, I say.

And I promise this has nothing to do with my upcoming series that launches next year. I swear.

Nothing at all.

Not even in the slightest. 

…

Shush.

Until next time.

-K