45 - A Book That Started Out as Fan Fiction

[Christina]

wasn't... Tell Me How You Really Feel Gilmore Girls inspired? not sure if it started out as fanfic though...

[Kristen]

I recently read, If This Gets Out, which was an enjoyable, but poorly disguised, One Direction fanfiction.

Also don't forget that Fifty Shades of Grey is a Twilight fanfiction. Not that I'm recommending it. But if that's your jam...

[Nadine in NY]

I don't know for sure, but I've always assumed that Sing is Taylor Swift fanfic. I mean, just look at that cover:

[Rachel]

This is probably stretching the prompt a bit, but I'm probably going to go with Big Bad or Bloody Fool for Love. I don't know if they were ever published as fanfiction but they are published stories about popular Buffy characters, so seems close enough

[Diana]

Recently ran across an interview and evidently Mistakes Were Made started out as fanfic.

[Meg]

For fans of Jana DeLeon's Miss Fortune series (love it), there is a bunch of fanfic out there. Officially licensed ones by Shari Hearn is a good place to start, such as Mutiny on the Bayou.

[VM]

Sofia wrote: "Also Throne of Glass started out as a Cinderella fanfic"

Love that one!

[Vanessa]

I think I'm going with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

[Kim]

Alex wrote: "I'm going with Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner (from Star Trek) which looks hysterical. It's written like it's his autobiography, but it's entirely fiction. He basically wrote a fanfict..."

This sounds great! Thanks for the lead!

If I don't go with that one, I had Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, A Deadly Education, and Austenland on my TBR lists, and had no idea that they were fanfic.

[KT]

Kim wrote: "If I don't go with that one, I had Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, A Deadly Education, and Austenland on my TBR lists, and had no idea that they were fanfic. "

I don't know about the others, but "A Deadly Education" is a bit of a stretch.. As far as I can tell, the author wanted to write about a magical school like Hogwarts that was more realistic about how dangerous it was, but that's just where the idea for the story came from, it was not ever actual Harry Potter fanfic, nor was it intended to be fanfiction at any point. It was always an original story set in an original world.

That's a little outside the bounds of the prompt for me, but up to you how you want to interpret it!

[Erika]

Sofia wrote: "I'm pretty sure A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik was a Harry Potter Fic."

That would surprise me. Novik founded and runs Archive of Our Own (universe's worst kept secret), and filing the serial numbers off fanfic seems antithesis to what AO3 is trying to do

[Erika]

Linka wrote: "The thing that makes me most sad about this prompt is seeing that the fanfic which does tend to get punished all falls into the same trope of being relatively unhealthy, mostly sex fuelled relation..."

This prompt doesn't sit right with me at all. I wish they'd gone the same route Book Riot did a couple years ago and just made the prompt to read a fanfic. Because not only are you correct and there's so much decent fic out there that isn't getting trad pubbed, I feel like authors taking fanfic and swapping the names out delegitimizes fanfic as a medium (since it says your writing is only good if you're making money off it.)

But I may have a differing opinion on it because I don't just read fanfic, I write it.

[The Pampered Librarian]

Rachel wrote: "This is probably stretching the prompt a bit, but I'm probably going to go with Big Bad or Bloody Fool for Love. I don't know if they were ever published as fanficti..."

That's why I'll be reading Bloody Fool for Love for the prompt A Book based on a popular movie [a.k.a. novelization].

[Nadine in NY]

Georgia wrote: "Not exactly fanfic, but if we’re expanding the prompt to include stories that reimagine popular works I’d include Grendel which flips the epic of Beowulf so that it’s told from the mo..."


That would be perfect for a "retelling of a classic"

[Chai]

Chelsea wrote: "Ughhhhh that bustle.com link, while adding to my tbr also just ruined City of Bones/ Shadowhunters books for me because I was late to the party and had no clue it was Draco/Ginny fanfic *shudders*"

wasn't that draco/hermione fanfictions? I think I have the fanfiction original pdf somewhere still...

[Ron]

Still so hard to find nonfiction books/themes related to this prompt. I might end up skipping it.

[Trish]

I will admit, I'm confused where the line between Retellings and Fan Fiction is after this thread!

Sofia wrote: "Also Throne of Glass started out as a Cinderella fanfic"

On that theory, what about Alix E Harrow's A Spindle Splintered and A Mirror Mended?
"Zinnia Gray, professional fairy-tale fixer and lapsed Sleeping Beauty, is over rescuing snoring princesses."

What about G. Norman Lippert's James Potter books? They seem like they would work, unless being actual fan fiction disqualifies them: https://www.goodreads.com/series/4529...

Alex wrote: "I'm going with Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner (from Star Trek) which looks hysterical. It's written like it's his autobiography, but it's entirely fiction. He basically wrote a fanfict..."

It looks great, but boy is it expensive on UK Amazon.

[Nadine in NY]

Trish wrote: "I will admit, I'm confused where the line between Retellings and Fan Fiction is after this thread!

Sofia wrote: "Also Throne of Glass started out as a Cinderella fanfic"

On that th..."



I am not a dictionary so I could be wrong, but for me, fanfic is something written by an amateur, with characters and a world created by an existing show or movie or book (but usually a TV show), with no intention to sell it or profit. Every now and then a fanfic will be so popular on sites like fanfiction.net that the author starts to shop it around to publishers, gets signed, changes the names and places to avoid copyright and hide the origins, and go! A book that started as fanfic is published. A retelling starts out with the intent to publish, it's often written by an established professional author, it leans into the original with no intent to hide the origins, and as a result it is almost always based on classic stories that are long out of copyright.

[Anushka]

Ron wrote: "Marie-Eve wrote: I saw Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell on the list.. do we know what is it a fanfiction of?

It's based off of a fanfic that Rainbow Rowell's character, Cath, wrote in the book 'Fangirl'."

I'm pretty sure Baz and Simon are also inspired by Draco/Harry though. I haven't read fangirl, but I'm positive Carry On is repackaged Drarry fic

[Nadine in NY]

Anushka wrote: "Ron wrote: "Marie-Eve wrote: I saw Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell on the list.. do we know what is it a fanfiction of?

It's based off of a fanfic that Rainbow Rowell's character, Cath, wrote in the b...

I'm pretty sure Baz and Simon are also inspired by Draco/Harry though. I haven't read fangirl, but I'm positive Carry On is repackaged Drarry fic"


I haven't read Carry On, but I read Fangirl, and the descriptions of the Baz Simon fic sounded EXACTLY like Harry Potter fanfic. Which made it extremely weird when Harry Potter was mentioned in the book, with the implication that it's got nothing to do with the Baz/Simon thing.

[Diana]

I haven't been able to 100% confirm it, but it looks like Gideon the Ninth might have originally been or at least based on Homestuck fanfic. It seems the author was a big writer in the Homestuck fandom and the series has references and possibly some lifted scenes from the comic and her old fics. Even if it didn't exactly start out as fanfic, I think you could stretch it and make it work.

[Trish]

Nadine in NY wrote: "I am not a dictionary so I could be wrong, but for me, fanfic is something written by an amateur, with characters and a world created by an existing show or movie or book (but usually a TV show), with no intention to sell it or profit. Every now and then a fanfic will be so popular on sites like fanfiction.net that the author starts to shop it around to publishers, gets signed, changes the names and places to avoid copyright and hide the origins, and go! A book that started as fanfic is published. A retelling starts out with the intent to publish, it's often written by an established professional author, it leans into the original with no intent to hide the origins, and as a result it is almost always based on classic stories that are long out of copyright."

That's what I originally thought - but then there are things in this thread being mentioned, like Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which I would call Retellings, but other people are saying fanfic. Hence my confusion.

[Nadine in NY]

Trish wrote: "Nadine in NY wrote: "I am not a dictionary so I could be wrong, but for me, fanfic is something written by an amateur, with characters and a world created by an existing show or movie or book (but ..."



LOL yes, it's because a lot of people are confused about the difference, and a lot of other people don't want to find a book that started as fanfic so they shrugged and said "eh, a retelling? close enough for me!"

Our crowd sourced lists are SO HELPFUL when you're stumped, or when you don't have a TikTok account (like me!), but sometimes they add to the confusion. Nature of the beast!

[Vanessa]

This is a really comprehensive list of P2P Pics (Pulled to Publish - I just learned this term):
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2...

[Nadine in NY]

Vanessa wrote: "This is a really comprehensive list of P2P Pics (Pulled to Publish - I just learned this term):
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2..."



This is FANTASTIC!! I had never heard that term before, either.

I'm pretty much set on reading The Love Hypothesis so it's just curiosity that has me looking...

what fandoms were these books based in:
Wallbanger = Twilight fanfic
Beautiful Bastard = Twilight fanfic (originally titled The Office)
Poughkeepsie = Twilight fanfic
Boycotts & Barflies = Twilight fanfic
After = One Direction fanfic
City of Bones = Draco (Harry Potter) fanfic
Lingus = Twilight fanfic
Animate Me = Twilight fanfic
Pieces of Us = Twilight fanfic

and of course:
The Love Hypothesis = RenLo (Star Wars) fanfic

HOLY COW THAT'S A LOT OF TWILIGHT FANFIC!!!!!

So, now my question is: did I just happen to click on titles that were all Twilight fanfic? or was this list originally Twilight fanfic or created by big fans of Twilight fanfic? Or did Twilight REALLY dominate the fanfic world for years???? Because it's pretty amazing that it inspired SO MANY other stories.

Was it just a timing thing? Did publishers suddenly wake up and see the value of fanfics JUST AS a bazillion Twilight fanfics were being written? Or does Twilight truly dominate the fanfic world?

Because I had no idea. I was big on reading fanfic BEFORE Twilight existed, so I completely missed this trend.

[Kendra]

I read This Is Not a Book about Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something--Anything--Like Your Life Depends on It and it talks about fanfic. Basically, fanfic is any story where the author takes characters or situations created by someone else and creates their own story. And originally, most stories all featured the same characters - bards and traveling storytellers would just make up their own stories about Robin Hood or King Arthur, or they would take old stories, but tell them in their own way. Then with the advent of the printing press and book publishing, the idea of intellectual property came about, because publishers had to justify why all the money had to go to them and only them, and not just anybody who could copy out a book. So all retellings are fanfic. But because they're in the public domain, the author can profit from the story without having to change names.

[Joanna G]

Nadine in NY wrote: "Vanessa wrote: "This is a really comprehensive list of P2P Pics (Pulled to Publish - I just learned this term):
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2..."
..."

I believe that 50 Shades started as Twilight fanfic. If so, that might explain it - everyone is looking for the next one that will sell like that!

[ETA: Heh, yeah, I see it's the top 3 spots on that list!]

[Sherri]

Question. If all retelling are fanfic then is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver fanfic?

[Nadine in NY]

Sherri wrote: "Question. If all retelling are fanfic then is Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver fanfic?"



that's for you to decide! Personally, I do not consider Demon Copperhead to be book that started as fanfic. But I also don't consider retellings to be fanfic.

[Melinda]

So if the Sherlock Holmes knockoffs are fan fiction, I guess the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King would be also?

[Allegra]

Dea wrote: "Alex wrote: "I'm going with Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner (from Star Trek) which looks hysterical. It's written like it's his autobiography, but it's entirely fiction. He basically wr..."

I guess I don't really get fan fiction. And looking for an option here, I don't understand how some of these qualify. Plus, these stories seem difficult to obtain. All of that said, I saw your post and it saved me. THANK YOU!! (available on hoopla; yay)

[Theresa]

Melinda wrote: "So if the Sherlock Holmes knockoffs are fan fiction, I guess the Mary Russell series by Laurie R. King would be also?"

I came here because I was trying to figure out if A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas, which I happen to be reading, fits fan fic sufficiently to plop into that prompt. Thomas was a published author before writing this, but it is also quite a departure from the purely historical regency romance or mildly fantasy young adult work. Not that I have knowingly read fan fiction in the padt, but this feels like fan fiction more than a retelling, taking a character and evolving into a new one sharing qualities and skills of the original, but in a whole new setting and/or set of circumstances.

So...consider this series for the prompt.

[Theresa]

Nadine in NY wrote: "Trish wrote: "I will admit, I'm confused where the line between Retellings and Fan Fiction is after this thread!

Sofia wrote: "Also Throne of Glass started out as a Cinderella fanfi..."

I sort of share your definition, Nadine, but on thinking a while, decide that is too narrow. There is overlap between what is a retelling and what is fan fiction. In fact, fan fiction fits as a sub-genre of retellings. Plus an established writer can write fan fiction, the project being atypical of what he/she writes and publishes, and in fact it actually gets published mostly because it is by a published income producing author. P.D. James in her introduction to and interviews about Death Comes to Pemberley makes it abundantly clear she wrote this fan fic as Austen is her facorite writer and she loved P&P she just had to write something with the characters.

[Sofia]

Erika wrote: "Sofia wrote: "I'm pretty sure A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik was a Harry Potter Fic."

That would surprise me. Novik founded and runs Archive of Our Own (universe's worst kept se..."

It started out as a Draco/Harry fanfic. It's still on ao3. Here's the Goodreads page of the fanfic The Scholomance Series. She didn't even change the name. So I think it does count (Astolat is Novik's username on ao3)

[LeahS]

This is such a bad prompt. It could have been 'read a fanfic' or 'read a book that is a fanfic (like Wide Sargasso Sea )and then there would have been some choice.

Anyway... I wanted something related to the Potterverse, since I know the books and something of the fandom. I read Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell.

So Rowell wrote Fangirl in which the MC writes a fanfic about Simon and Baz, who are based on Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, and Wayward Son is the sequel to Carry On, which is meant to be the fanfic that is being written in Fangirl . Phew, just hope this counts!

And...I really enjoyed this book. I like US road trip novels, which was why I chose this, and I liked what Rowell had done with the interaction between magical and non-magical people. I thought her universe worked well, and I could see the Potterverse in it (also Buffy , and, I thought, a bit of Being Human). I thought it worked well in any case.

[Ron]

LeahS wrote: So Rowell wrote Fangirl in which the MC writes a fanfic about Simon and Baz, who are based on Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, and Wayward Son is the sequel to Carry On, which is meant to be the fanfic that is being written in Fangirl . Phew, just hope this counts!

I would count this one. Having read Fangirl it would be a good outlet to go based off a fanfic from a book. I like that idea. Fangirl even works for the prompt of 'Written During NaNoWrMo."

*****

This is such a bad prompt. It could have been 'read a fanfic' or 'read a book that is a fanfic (like Wide Sargasso Sea )and then there would have been some choice.

I agree. I didn't like this prompt.

And as a nonfiction reader it doesn't exactly work so I read Starship Therapise: Using Therapeutic Fanfiction to Rewrite Your Life which was the closest I could get.

Although I didn't care for Starship Therapise so I only gave it a 3-star.

I tried reading Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over the World . This one I only gave a 2-star because it was stuff I already knew since I've been writing FF since I was 12.

As a result,t I'm going to attempt my 3rd nonfiction book on fanfiction and end up reading, The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age . I'm hoping this one will be better.

*****

Just discovered a new one in which the paperback will be released come May:

Loving Fanfiction: Exploring the Role of Emotion in Online Fandoms

[LeahS]

That sounds interesting, as does The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age.

[Ron]

Thanks.

I just ordered The Fanfiction Reader: Folk Tales for the Digital Age so it should arrive next week.

I'm hoping to get something new from it, something new about fanfiction, that I didn't with the other two because I'm so deep in the fanfiction community as a writer.

[Jaime]

I'm reading Hamnet and wondering if it could be considered Shakespeare fanfiction.

Or maybe that wouldn't be correct because Shakespeare isn't a fictional character?

[Korey]

I was thinking of doing this - The Story of the Hundred Promises

Not sure what distinguishes retelling and fan-fiction... but this has been on my TBR.

[Nadine in NY]

I'm reading Spoiler Alert right now for "romance with fat lead" and it CLEARLY started out as Game of Thrones fanfiction. (And it's a romance between two fanfic writers, too.) I'm not exactly loving this book, I'll probably end up giving it 2 stars, but I added it to the list anyway.

[Janet]

Michelle wrote: "I think I'm going to read one of the Sherlock Holmes continuations, maybe the one by Anthony Horowitz.. after all, those are basically fanfictions"

Great idea, I am going with your suggestion as I read two of his other non-Sherlock Holmes books for other prompts.

[Anely]

What do you guys think of the series by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows?

The Mary Series
My Contrary Mary
My Imaginary Mary

The Lady Janies
My Lady Jane
My Plain Jane
My Calamity Jane

[Joanna G]

I would say they count - they're clearly revisionings of established work.

(I know some people are being stricter and saying it has to start as a work not intended for professional publication - like how 50 Shades started as Twilight fanfic, but if it's what you want to read, go for it!)

I do want to check those out, too!

[Emily]

Currently have the new Ali Hazelwood from the library and will count that.

[Sherri]

A Deadly Education.

[Laura]

Question, I read The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes is fanfiction. when I tried to find a reference to what it's based on, I can't. What are the thoughts on this being wishful thinking or actual?

[Diana]

Here's an article that may help those still searching for books:

https://www.vulture.com/article/fanfi...

[Ron]

Thanks Diana. That's pretty cool. It's something I've been considering to do on a personal level. I've kind of always wanted to turn my fanfics into actual short stories or novels.

I'm currently working on my second self-published book, but I'm playing around with ideas and that will be my third project.

[Diana]

Ron wrote: "Thanks Diana. That's pretty cool. It's something I've been considering to do on a personal level. I've kind of always wanted to turn my fanfics into actual short stories or novels.

I'm currently ..."

Wow. That sounds awesome all around! =)