Does Fan-Fiction ever become Fan-Reality?
 

Lately I've been tinkering with the idea of writing an X-men fanfic. I've been wanting to get back into writing, so I thought up an original story that, as far as concepts go, I'm pretty proud of.

It's always been a dream of mine to go proffesional with my writing, so I want to take the project pretty seriously. That's when I started wondering about the possible relationship between comics and fanfics.

I know when it comes to fanfics for TV shows or videogames, the odds of that work becoming something official are pretty nonexistant. But does the same apply to comics? With so many alternate universes and ever-changing writers, I was wondering if the odds for writing for the comic biz (especially a well-known series like X-men) were perhaps a little more favorable? After all, I can't imagine Marvel hired an experienced writer to produce crap like the following:

http://webzoom.freewebs.com/davisjes...Mangaprev2.jpg

But yeah, what does it take for someone to get noticed by the big name companies? One suggestion I was given was to have artwork to go along with my writing. Positive word-of-mouth was another. I'm also wondering what would be a good place to host my works other than fanfiction.net (that pond's a bit too full...and polluted).

So even if my odds are still zilch, I appreciate any information you can give me.

I think as long as you're able to come up with quality stories, work under a deadline and generate work in a timely manner it shouldn't be too difficult. I'm not sure how companies see fan fiction especially if it is given to them as resume examples. They might have to pass on that kind of stuff out of fear of a lawsuit as they could have a story in a similar manner as yours, or if they do lift it then it could be grounds for copyright violation.

I wasn't really planning to send the fanfic directly to them (unless it turned out they do more than just toss it aside), but rather host it online somewhere and silently hope Marvel or some other company takes a look and thinks "hey, this guy can write".

It isn't so much the fanfic itself becoming professional, but rather that the work itself generates a favorable buzz for me.

In that case, I think your chances are slim to none in it getting noticed. You'd have a better chance starting up a webcomic and getting noticed that way.

A few of the current writers write across mediums, like Joss Whedon for example. Your best bet (Should you want to go professional with your writing) is to offer yourself (with some samples) to an indie publishing house or a small comics publishing house and hope you get noticed from there. Yes, while the staff from Image, DC and Marvel do browse through the internet, they don't go through every email with a fan demanding such and such a story arc or even fans providing samples of fan fiction.

This article from a link provided by someone does a good job at answering my question about writing for an established media series.

http://www.sfwa.org/writing/media.htm

So I understand now that no writer, no matter how famous, can volunteer to write for something big or well-known, like Star Wars. I still have two questions left unanswered though.

1. Does the same rule apply to comic series? I'm going to assume that it does, but I just want to make sure.

2. So let's say I continue with the fanfiction idea (and I certainly would like to, because I've got some really good ideas that I'd hate to waste, plus it would be fun if nothing else). Then, sometime later, I actually hit it big with an original publication. My name actually becomes notable to other publications, comic or otherwise. Now let's suppose Marvel comes up to me and requests that I dabble in something for them.

So what happens if I were to say "hey, I wrote this fanfic a bit back, how about you take a look?". Are there any legal loopholes to keep them from considering something I already wrote and put on the internet? I'm just wondering if hosting anything in a website like fanfiction.net automatically voids that story from ever becoming something proffesional, even if the writer himself has managed to.

Yeah, it's pretty much the same.

Well, sure, that isn't really a problem. You just have to pitch it to the editor. He won't care where the story came from as long as it's good and it's yours.

I don't know for every site, but as far as Fanfiction.net goes: The site is a reposaitory for fanfiction, sort of an indexing site, so while ff.net has the reserved rights to remove or edit your content (As it is hosted on thier site) when displayed through thier site, you still retain ownership of the writing.

What you CAN'T claim is copyright of the source material, being the comic/tv show/anime that you based your fanfic on.

If you want to have a clear and definitive answer, I would check both the sites you have posted fanfics at for thier user-agreements, as well as writing to Marvel/DC and try and get an answer from them.

I know that on some sites that retain dual-ownership of the media alongside the original author, that it would be much harder for marvel to use the fanfic, even though its technically thier own IP that is being used. I'm nowhere near a legal expert on this, but asking them versus us would be best should you run into something like this down the road.