I've Had A Thought

I’ve been thinking about a very specific topic recently: The validity of fanfiction.

As far as I can tell, there are generally two camps on this topic. Either (1) you are a reader and/or writer, and support it as a creative outlet and haven for the more obsessive fans. Or (2) you think that fanfiction messes with the canon of the original story and that the writers on the site should be working on stories with original characters, as their work could be considered a form of plagiarism.

And while I think both sides have arguments with plausible support, I definitely fall within the first camp. Divergent had me writing fanfiction late into the night, and reading fanfiction into the wee hours of the morning.

Photo: Divergent Wikia

Obsessed doesn’t really cover the extent of my love.

However I would like to pose the point that some of the best works we have are fanfiction because art, by nature, needs to be inspired by something- does this mean everything is fanfiction?!

Photo: Boing Boing

That might be a stretch, but I mean... However I think it would therefore be impossible to say that fanfiction is not a valid form of art.

Photo: Pinterest

And now I shall hit with the strongest point of my argument.

Photo: YouTube

HAMILTON.

Okay, so what about Hamilton?- that was based off a real person. Right? Yes, of course, I’m not claiming that Alexander Hamilton was a fictional character by any means. However, Ron Chernow (the writer of the biography that Lin Manuel Miranda read before creating Hamilton), was inspired by a person to write a book. So… arguably, that biography could be a form of fanfiction (because how do you write a book that long about a person you hate? Gotta love him).

Photo: Penguin Random House

And then, Lin Manuel Miranda, reading a book and loving it and loving the person it was about so much… wrote music and lines and created a musical.

Is this fanfiction??

I think it is!

Then, because her daughter loved Hamilton, and Eliza’s character in the musical so much, author Melissa de la Cruz wrote Alex & Eliza: A Love Story.

Photo: Odyssey 

So… fanfiction again?

Overall: person à book à musical à another book!

And to be honest, I think this is how a lot of the creative process works. I can’t think of a painting I’ve made or a story I’ve written that wasn’t inspired by some other form of art, or at the very least another person. And maybe we need a loose definition of fanfiction for it to apply to that type of situation, but I think it’s still safe to say that the point is worth making.

*End thought.*

Long live fanfiction.

Photo: Monsters of Geek