#FANFIC WRITER PLUS#

Mary Shelley’s original novel is sparse in the way of description for the character, and so Universal invented their own ‘look’ when putting the monster onto the big screen. The most famous example is Universal’s hold over Frankenstein’s Monster. But beware!Ĭopyright is a complex process, and there are many public domain characters who are famous because of facets added by later works. Some companies will do somersaults to keep characters out of the public domain but this is the exception rather than the rule, and a studious Google will tell you whether your chosen character is public domain or not. That means that a huge amount of the world’s most recognizable and popular characters are available for fan fiction writers to treat however they want. This varies from country to country, but is generally the norm. Or, if the work is published anonymously or for hire, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation (whichever is shorter).

#FANFIC WRITER PLUS#

In the US, the author retains their rights over a work for the entirety of their life, plus the 70 years that follow their death. Public domain characters like Tarzan and Dracula are yours to use. There are several ways a story can enter the public domain (the author could, for instance, give up their rights to the work), but the most common is simply the passage of time. This includes characters such as Robin Hood, Hercules, Tarzan, Dorian Grey, and Dracula (which is why there’s an almost constant stream of movies, books, and video games starring these characters). If a thing is in the public domain then it can be used freely in any work. To that end, we’ll start out with the simple stuff.

So, in this article, I’ll provide some legal facts to help fan fiction authors stay out of trouble while they create, and work in harmony with the creators of their beloved source material. This is doubly the case when they publish their work for others to enjoy. By writing stories featuring someone else’s characters, fan fiction authors are treading on risky legal ground. The fly in the ointment is that fan fiction deals with legally protected works. In fact, the quality is frequently high enough to sustain entire communities who share, appreciate, and write fan fiction. For these readers, writing fan fiction stories featuring pre-existing aspects of other works is a fantastic outlet for their creativity and their love of a particular story.įan fiction stories can be incredibly high quality, after all they’re labors of love written by people who possess an encyclopedic knowledge of stories that have already been proven to work.

Some stories involve us so deeply that they can no longer be enjoyed passively: a character or setting grabs a reader in a way that only creation can satisfy.

Fanfic writer