Forum: Story Discussion and Feedback

Many questions. But do you really want a sequel for a nearly perfect story. It is a question I end up contemplating every time I finish re-reading the story. I still don't really have an answer, but then again, I smile and realize I can be happy with just the one story.

Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone was a pretty damn near perfect story that didn't need any sequels. It stands on it's own quite well, but Rowling managed to write another excellent story for every year Harry was in school.

Yes, Island Mine was a great story. It does not mean that Refusenik could not write another story or three in that universe if he found a story to tell. I believe his name may provide the answer. It's not so much that he can't, but he won't.

Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone was a pretty damn near perfect story that didn't need any sequels. It stands on it's own quite well, but Rowling managed to write another excellent story for every year Harry was in school.

Except, J.K. Rawling didn't write seven stories, one after another. Instead, she had a vision of Harry's story evolving over his years in Hogworth's, thus the series should be seen as a whole, not as a string of individual stories. Thus, any question of sequels would be over any stories that come after the Hogworth's series.

However, as someone who's written many stories that I considered 'finished', I can relate when readers request sequels and authors just can't figure out how to arrange it. Hell, I've killed off a few main characters, yet readers still demand sequels.

Trust me, if an author kills off a character, they never imagined writing sequels. They may still create one, but only after they figure out a way to pull it off effectively, not based on reader demands (most of my sequels were written well after the story concluded, when an idea for a whole new 'sequel' suddenly occurred to me). I also had a sequel to my first story, "The Catalyst", long requested, that I never completed. I felt it would have satisfied those requesting a sequel, and provides an alternative 'happy ending', but I just didn't feel it 'fit' the original story. :(

I can relate when readers request sequels

They probably have in mind something like a sequel on a different topic that parallels the timeframe of an existing story.

They probably have in mind something like a sequel on a different topic that parallels the timeframe of an existing story.

In one case, "Singularity", they wanted to know what happened to everyone who came after the MC who died ("passed on to a higher plain" is a more fitting term in that case).

While that would be worth exploring, it would only amount to three to five short chapters, rather than a full novel, so I never pursued it (though I still might someday). But then again, I'm still considering "Passing the Torch", my final sequel to "Catalyst".

Sorry about the off-site link, boss man, but I thought it appropriate, even though the story isn't available anywhere yet, just so readers can see what I'm referring to.

Except, J.K. Rawling didn't write seven stories, one after another. Instead, she had a vision of Harry's story evolving over his years in Hogworth's, thus the series should be seen as a whole, not as a string of individual stories. Thus, any question of sequels would be over any stories that come after the Hogworth's series.

Yes, Rowlings planned the entire series. My point was that she wanted to write a series. Refusenik apparently does not want to write more on that story, even though at least a few of his fans feel that there is more story he could tell. In fact, Refusenik has dropped off the scene. I was told that he was deeply involved in a business venture that took all his time and he had set aside any efforts to write.

I hope he so chooses

Or a really good writer could get his permission to write a sequel using Refusenik's writing style.

Refusenik apparently does not want to write more on that story, even though at least a few of his fans feel that there is more story he could tell. In fact, Refusenik has dropped off the scene. I was told that he was deeply involved in a business venture that took all his time and he had set aside any efforts to write.

My understanding is that he plans to return, and his 'business venture' is finally winding down, but whether he chooses to continue his finished saga or start a brand new one, is anyone's guess (most likely his, though). 'D

I do know one thing for sure about all of this. Whenever Refusenik publishes again, I'm stopping whatever the hell I'm doing and reading it.

Unless Cold Creek happens to post at the same time. Tee Hee.

I have this deed for a lovely bridge in Brooklyn, and can sell it to you cheap. Are you interested?

(disengaging weird humour mode)

Depends on how cheap.

very cheap, but certain government organisations claim they own it, too.

I have this deed for a lovely bridge in Brooklyn, and can sell it to you cheap. Are you interested?

Depends on how cheap.

Don't listen to him! It's a scam. I'll have you know that my Grandfather left me clear title to the Brooklyn Bridge, and I'm not selling.

I'll have you know that my Grandfather left me clear title to the Brooklyn Bridge, and I'm not selling.

you got the clear title and I got the murky title. that means you own it when the water under it is clear and I own it when the water under it is murky.

typo edit

you got the clear title and I got the murky title. that means you own it when the water under it is clear and I won it when the water under it is murky.

Aaaaaaahahahahaha! :D

So far I'm about half way into Dman4

????? Where? D3 isn't finished!

As I've said here before, the story belongs to the author! He only loans it to the readers. Were I to loan you my car, would you customize it or repaint it? The story is complete when the author says it is complete. Asking to add to it or change it is the height of arrogance.

If I understand it correctly, the point isn't to 'change an existing work', it's to complete a work the original author was unable to complete himself, just to see it finished or to do it in honor of the author.

Still, it needs to involve requesting permission to rip the author off. Even if you do a tremendous job, it's no longer the original author's, and in order to make the story consistent throughout, you'll essentially have to heavily 'revise' the original author's text to make it match your writing style, an inherently dishonest proposition. It can be done (see Ernest's co-written stories), but it takes a lot of finesse.

The emphasis is on "rip the author off"! I believe the story ends when the author says it ends; or it ends when the author's life ends; or it ends when the author's ideas for the story end! If someone really wants to do something "...in honor of the author", write a review. Allow the author's intellectual property alone. It belongs to him!

While I agree with you (to a degree), there is 'wiggle room'.

Since many authors either don't tell their family they 'write porn online', or don't supply passwords to their accounts, there's no way for anyone to authorize the original author's approval. Several authors have revised or completed stories for still-living but sickly authors, so it seems silly to block those efforts simply because the author didn't prepare for their deaths.

There's also the widespread use of fan-fiction, both here and on other sites, usually with the acceptance of the original authors. The authors, or their families, are free to file a complaint and Lazeez will yank the story, but if they don't, he's more inclined to leave them up.

I tend to search for a lot of photos, fonts and other things for my stories, but I can't tell you how many times I've found something that's ideal for a book, but the authors is 'unreachable'. After trying, I research it fairly heavily, but in many cases, the consensus opinion is that 'the artwork no longer belongs to anyone' (i.e. there's no one to contact), at which point everyone is legally allowed to use the material, as long as they stipulate they tried to contact the author and are willing to remove it if contacted by the rightful owners.

This is an extension of that principal. It's essentially a 'if no one sues, you're free to use it' clause, but it's got a fairly rich history.

Finally, there's the case of 'virtually any use is legit if the original author doesn't lose any income'. Legally, it's almost impossible to stop someone from 'borrowing' character names, situations or ideas, as long as they don't profit from it.

Since the vast majority of the stories here are free already, most of them fit into that legal category as well.

So, you see, it's not as cut and dried as we all wish it was.

I think most can respect that type of either finishing or rewriting a story.

I think the biggest contributor to new authors are either badly crafted or unfinished stories, as most of us started out after reading a bunch of stories and thinking 'Even I can write something better than this!'.

That's not copyright theft, that's an author's work inspiring others to reach for the stars. Copyright isn't borrowing someone's ideas, it's literally copying their words and taking money out of their pocket (by stealing their customers).

So if the author doesn't bitch, no harm no foul? Does that also apply to stories taken from SOL and sold on Amazon? Dead authors don't often complain so can I sell their works elsewhere? After all, "if no one sues...". Often, what is legal isn't necessarily ethical.

The key is, the author isn't reachable, you post your desire to contact the original author, and you NOT profit from the story. You can cheat a little on one or two of those, but those are the conditions which make it legally allowable.

Ethics matter!

Sorry, loose language sinks ships too. I meant, you can fudge the rules a little, like with the fan-fiction situation where authors allow you to 'borrow' their characters (a clear violation of copyright), but since fanfiction authors don't make any money, the FF authors can't be sued for it. Instead, they operate in an unsteady truce. They're free to write under certain 'conditions', but if they screw the author, he'll revoke their ability to use his characters. (There are several infamous cases where this unintentionally happened.)

you can fudge the rules a little, like with the fan-fiction situation where authors allow you to 'borrow' their characters (a clear violation of copyright), but since fanfiction authors don't make any money, the FF authors can't be sued for it.

That may be the case in the US, but in some countries how much you make out of the story only becomes relevant when the judge is piling on the additional compensation penalties you're paying for the copyright violation, and in some countries copyright violation carries a prison sentence. If you don't believe that, ask the guys in Europe sitting in prison for copyright violation on movie downloads.

Crumbly, the problem is some people will do what they want whether or not it's legal. It's a slippery slope when we do what is border-line legal and ignore what is ethical.

There's no sense debating this endlessly. I'm NOT being unethical, because I'm NOT stealing anyone's work. However, the world isn't as black and white as the privileged like to pretend. Some of us have to live in the real world, where shades of gray exist.

I'm not saying I approve of theft, just that I can understand exceptions and exemptions.

Nuff said. We've wasted an entire day on these discussions and I've got stories to write.

where shades of gray exist

Are there 50 of them? Which is also a perfect example of this:

the fan-fiction situation

Because that originally WAS a Fan Fiction.

Only if the fan is rotating, and then only until the effluent strikes it.

Who's dumb enough to sit on a rotating fan?

They prefer to be facing you when you sit on their faces.

Of course there are exceptions, such as ceiling fans, who have the suspension kink, not to mention those extremes like the turbo-fans that enjoy a great deal of thrust.....

I like fans because I appreciate being blown. Of course, if I decide on something different, I can reverse it and get sucked instead. 'D However, I ain't about to stick my dick anywhere near the thing. I just don't trust those types!

Unlike the dyslexic but well endowed young lady who purchased a bust duster.

Ow, but I'd still rather vacuum my tits than stick my dick (or balls) into a spinning fan! One's painful, but the other is excruciating.

There aren't a lot of stories about fans to move air around, possibly to make things cooler. If your story has a fan in it is it cool?

I'd say they are, because story that feature celebrities in fictional situations, or which 'borrow' someone else's characters aren't 'hot' and leave me cold!

Fan Fiction

Isn't that a story about a fictional fan that people can't see, but they think they feel the air from it washing over them?

Isn't that a story about a fictional fan that people can't see, but they think they feel the air from it washing over them?

No, no. If it features things not yet possible with current technology, then it's fan-sci-fi! If it's about things we don't know how ends, then it's a fan-mystery. If it's about romance, then it's a fan-romance: fanboy romance if about a guy, and fangirl romance if about a woman.

If it's about romance, then it's a fan-romance: fanboy romance if about a guy, and fangirl romance if about a woman.

Ah, so they're the types of stories where a guy at an Miami game meets up with another Miami fan and they get to know each other real well after the game?

If it's about romance, then it's a fan-romance: fanboy romance if about a guy, and fangirl romance if about a woman.

Ah, so they're the types of stories where a guy at an Miami game meets up with another Miami fan and they get to know each other real well after the game?

Or, more likely, a story where iPhone and Samsung users meet other iPhone or Samsung users, or hookups during comic con.

I would think a more appropriate take-off for Twilight would be titled something like Fanciful Fangs, a Fanfiction.

This article is a couple of years old (first published in 2015), but gives the details:

http://www.businessinsider.com/fifty-shades-of-grey-started-out-as-twilight-fan-fiction-2015-2

you'll essentially have to heavily 'revise' the original author's text to make it match your writing style

The alternative is to write in the original Author's style following any outline they or their heirs may have provided. An extremely difficult thing to do, and only an excellent, flexible Author could pull it off.

I don't believe authors can copywrite plots.

I agree. There are a limited number of plotlines in existence. A love story is a love story; both have the same basic plot - X meet Y and this is how they met and what happened.

Only the first story in a plotline is original, the remaining novels and stories are just copies of the original with different characters, settings, scenarios, and narrative/dialog.

To hijack the thread a little, why not write your own story *inspired* by Island Mine? There are plenty of other, very good stories that feature one or handful of characters receiving, inventing or discovering advanced space travel technology and their subsequent conflicts with Earth governments?

Don't need to borrow Waylon or skirt copyright violation.

What brings most of us to write fiction is reading something we think: I could do better.

When you read a successful story, you try to imagine where it goes in the future. When you read an unsuccessful. but promising story, you decide to start over from scratch, building a better story from the ground up, rather than 'borrowing' an already flawed story.

The plot to justify a sequel including Waylon is simplicity itself...

Giant ants run amuck. Those are always popular. Either that, or something with the Wayan brothers or Melissa McCartney.

I believe that any story marked incomplete and inactive is open for any author to finish. One year after the last chapter indicates the original author has abandoned it. By any chance does this site notify the author that there story has been declared inactive?

No story is open to be completed by another unless the original author specifically states it as such or it's dropped into the public domain due to the expiry of copyright which is many years after the author died.

Yes, when a story earns the dreaded yellow stripe the author is notified of the event by Lazeez. An author who had that happen to him told me about being notified.

Then the writer has to write their OWN version of that story with their OWN characters.

But if Tucson were to do that, he would not be completing an existing storyline.

He would be doing what we all do - select a basic premise (i.e., the same one as the unfinished story), create a plot, and then flesh it out with characters, dialog, and supporting narrative. In other words, he would be creating a new story.

He would be doing what we all do - select a basic premise (i.e., the same one as the unfinished story), create a plot, and then flesh it out with characters, dialog, and supporting narrative. In other words, he would be creating a new story.

Considering that Island Mine is a completed work, that is all that anyone can do as there is no incomplete story to be finished. Even Refusenik himself would be creating a new story if he chose to write a sequel. Anything another author could do would be in the nature of fan-fic, with all the legal ramifications that come with it - mainly, would Refusenik choose to ignore such a work, or not.

Tucson posted:

I believe that any story marked incomplete and inactive is open for any author to finish.

You are correct in that Island Mine is a completed story. However, the above is what Tucson posted. He specifically addressed 'incomplete and inactive' stories without mention of Island Mine.

What Tucson stated would apply to all 'incomplete and inactive' stories, and that would be a copyright violation if he were to act on his specific statement.

What Docholladay suggested was to write a similar story rather than build on a story that another author owns, which is what I was addressing.

What I saw was about 7 or 8 hooks that I didn't recall when I first started this thread.

I've noticed that in ending a story, most authors have many 'potential' subplots that are briefly mentioned but never developed .

Let the comments fly!

The copyright laws of most countries include the actual text as a given. However, they also usually include the characters and names of places that aren't real places. The names get very iffy at times, because the name itself isn't copyrighted, while the named character is. For example: write a historical story set in 12th century England with a character named Hermione Granger and you aren't violating copyright (in most jurisdictions) but use a character named Hermione Granger in a modern day magical universe and you are violating copyright. However, using the same plot device or concept in a story with your own characters and plot development is legal. So to write a story about students at a school of magic called Hogwarts is a copyright violation (due to the school name) writing the same story about students at a school called Merlin's is not a copyright violation and is legal, as long as you don't violate with the character names.

In a story the story Revenge for the School we first wrote to Connard Wellingham to get permission to use their characters, then wrote a story using them. I did the same when using Dual Writers characters for cameos in a few of my stories. If I had not got their permission prior to publishing the stories I would have been in violation of copyright.

In the context of this thread you can use the same concept to write your own story, but you can't use the same characters in it.

On the other hand, they are using the author's plot, settings, and characters as the basis for their own work.

One aspect of that, which I do not recall being addressed, is the original author invested a great deal of time and effort in creating his story. That time and effort yielded a story that gained the respect of readers and authors.

For some author to use the story as the basis of their new story, with or without permission, can have a very negative effect on the respect given to original author's story. This is especially true when the new author has poor writing skills and fails to handle the characters in the appropriate manner which includes placing them in situations that are appropriate per the original author's character development.

For example: The original author's MC treats his woman with respect, and the new author has the MC treating her as a slut.

From the reader's perspective, such a change would damage the original story's respect for readers tend to overlook the fact that the two stories are written by different authors. They want the characters to be consistent throughout all of the stories.

I think there are people who would complain regardless. My idea is based on respect and ethics nothing more or less. in admitting where the idea came from and stating you are creating your own version of the story. A writer acknowledges the original creator while creating their own version based on that original version.

In principle, I agree with you,doc, but, that's not always possible due to the age and difficulty in tracking down who it was who first wrote a story with the basic theme. I wouldn't expect anyone to put an acknowledgement to H.G.Wells in front of their time travel story, because the genre is that old and well known, the same is true for many other types of stories. However, when they take directly from a specific story universe, I would expect the acknowledgement, which I've done when I think I should.

In some cases a blurb stating something like

That is different from building on an existing story or finishing an 'incomplete and inactive' story, which is what was suggested earlier in the thread.

In my opinion, some people would view such a blurb as the author distancing his story from an existing story. I would have to ask, Why is the author trying to distance themselves from something, when it is obvious that they used that something as a model for what they created? I also think that many of us recognize that when someone puts out a blurb like that, they are actually hoping the denial will create a link that will make their story more acceptable to the reader.

We can always find an exception to everything that is stated as indisputable fact.

I maintain it is an indisputable fact that two plus two is four. Where is the exception to that statement?

Maybe as the number twenty-two or when you use binary numbering or base three for it to be something else.

Mind you you could have it for dancing as a a tutu.

Where is the exception to that statement?

When you adding 2 and 2 results in 22.

ETA: As EB said, 2 + 2 in base 3 format yields 11.

It sounds as if your statement conflicts with itself.

If the original author is granting approval, then there would be no need for the new author to 'distance' them self from the original work. If the original author insists on a blurb, it would probably be worded along the line of - This story is base on XYZ with the permission and approval of ABC.