Fan Fiction
What happens when a hero becomes bigger than what was
intended by the creator? People worship hero’s in our world. We not only
idolize these people but also dream about their world creating a dream world of
our own. This world is unreal but offers a magnitude of
possibilities. We like to imagine the different possibilities of a certain
event and twist the facts in a way we enjoy them.
Many-a-times, we don’t like the way a favourite TV sitcom
ends after loyally watching all the seasons over the years. How important is it
for a writer or a scriptwriter to keep in mind the audiences’ perspective in
mind before penning down a story? These days with increasing commercialism lot
of writers narrate their stories according to the audiences’ taste. There is more
to this. People change certain angles and the perspectives according to their
taste in the stories they love and present it in their own way. This is called
the fan fiction.
While this keeps the story alive over the years, the essence
of the original story might be lost. The copyrights of the novels are valid
only for a certain period of time, after which the writer isn't really in a
position to stop anyone from rewriting his or her story (according to the laws
of the pertaining country). One can argue that when a writer pens down a story,
it is meant for the people. Hence, it can be argued that it is a public
property. However, for some this doesn't go down very well.
Interestingly, while fan fiction is actually necessary in
certain kind of literature, it is criticized by some in the mainstream writing
community. An example where fan fiction is applauded and loved is comics. A comic
writer needs to understand the original characters and interpret them according
to the modern times while keeping the character intact. Superman, Batman, Flash
and Spider man have evolved over the years while having the same characteristics.
There are a lot of fan fiction writers who also publish
their original work. Some famous fan fiction writers are Lois McMaster Bujold (Star
Trek fanfic), Meg Cabot and Cassandra Clare (Lord of the Rings parody). E.L.
James, the author of the erotic mega-bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey was
a fan fiction writer too. (Bella/Edward Twilight fanfic
called ‘Master of the Universe’).
Closer home, author Amish wrote the very famous ‘Shiva
Trilogy’, wherein he illustrates his version of the escapades of Lord Shiva. He
recently launched the first book of ‘The Ram Chandra series’, retelling the
great Indian epic ‘Ramayana’. The great Gujarati novel ‘Saraswatichandra’ by ‘Govardhanram
Tripathi’ has also been given a fan fiction twist through a TV series.
So is fan fiction good or bad? The debate continues. Nevertheless
if you trace back, historical evidence indicates that ‘fan fiction’ has always
been prevalent. Sage Valmiki wrote the original ‘Ramayan’, which was retold by Tulasidas,
called the ‘Ramacharitamanasa’. Tulasidas retold the Ramayana in Hindi even
though he faced criticism as Sanskrit was the literary language those days. His
version reached more number of people as it was written in Hindi. I am sure
every Indian knows the story of the Ramayana. But are we sure whose version the
story we fondly remember comes from? Well, that's the impact of fan fiction over the years. (Though I guess with the advent of Internet, stories would be remembered as told by the original author; but now the issue is- how to direct the internet traffic to the most authentic source, as there are so many loose contents and websites)
