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[Carter-Orange]

It's sort of left me wondering how many other successful books out there were adapted from fanfic!

I'm sure there must be a lot

[julilly]

I'm sure there must be a lot

In that case I'd best get started on my epic historical romance. I'm booking Fabio for the cover photo!

[Carter-Orange]

*Googles Fabio*

[julilly]

NO DON'T DO IT! Lol

You'll regret that.

[Carter-Orange]

Ugh, you are so right!  He's gross *pukes*

[RokofAges75]

This is an interesting thread!  As far as Shades of Grey goes, I have no interest in reading it; it doesn't sound like something I'd like.  That said, I think it's cool that it was originally a fanfic - it just goes to show that it IS possible to convert a fanfic to "original fiction," get it published, and actually be successful!

Without reading the book, I can't say how obvious it is that it was Twilight fanfic, but if the original fanfic was AU - no vampires and werewolves and stuff - it doesn't sound like Stephenie Meyer would have much grounds to sue this author for copyright infringement.  If the book contained sparkly vampires and Native American werewolves and the other stuff that Stephenie created for the Twilight universe, that would be different.

In the BSB fandom, I think you might have some trouble trying to publish a book about a boyband whose members were named Nick, Brian, AJ, Howie, and Kevin, but if you got rid of the boyband thing and changed some of the names, I doubt anyone but a fan would recognize them just from their personalities.  An AU would be no problem, assuming the quality was publishable.  In that way, real life fanfic is probably a lot easier to crossover from than something like Twilight or Harry Potter. 

[RokofAges75]

To answer the other questions Hannah asked in her original post, I hope this will give us some credibility because I do think we have a lot of talented writers in our fandom who could totally get a book published.  Some already have!

That said, I don't know about you guys, but the question I always get from the few people in my real life who know I write fanfic is, "When are you going to write a real book - I mean, not about the Backstreet Boys?"  It's not that they don't think I have talent; it's that they think I'm wasting my talent writing fanfic about the Backstreet Boys.  It's hard to explain the appeal to people who don't get it.

I don't think a book like Shades of Grey is going to make it even easier because, just from the synopsis, it still sounds like what Twilight is - the fantasies of a bored housewife.  Isn't that what people think fanfic is too?  The fact that a bored housewife could get her fantasy published as a book doesn't really make it that much more respectable.

[Pengi]

First off for those questioning the glaring similarities.. . Christian's an arrogant asshole with control issues, Ana's a bumbling lip-chewing nimrod who doesn't consider danger because "holy crow he's hot", and there's a whining latino wuss named Jose that can't seem to stop calling and disapproving of Christian's relationship with Ana. Seriously she could've at least moved them out of Washington State. At least.

I definitely think 50 Shades is a huge, huge opportunity for Stephenie Meyers to hop on the "yo she plagerised" me train. It's like the book's entire storyline copy-pasted and using "find & replace" in Word changed the names, then went through and changed "vampire" to "successful businessman".

I feel like now that I've read more of the book that maybe the credibility I thought we'd be gaining as FF writers from it isn't really gonna happen. I mean this makes it look like anyone can copy the text and "write" an "original" story and get it published. It's like what high school students do with Wikipedia for history reports...

But that said, I'm gonna jump up onto something Julie said ^^ up there ^^...  and also down here (er there's no fancy arrows pointing down, dangit):

In the BSB fandom, I think you might have some trouble trying to publish a book about a boyband whose members were named Nick, Brian, AJ, Howie, and Kevin, but if you got rid of the boyband thing and changed some of the names, I doubt anyone but a fan would recognize them just from their personalities.  An AU would be no problem, assuming the quality was publishable.

See I've been playing with exchanging Something Beautiful to an OF - which is part of what this whole 50 Shades thing caught my attention for - but I want to keep the "boyband" idea, change the names. Course they're more rock than anything and their roles change from boyband to rockband. And honestly the intital concept for Something Beautiful WAS with the OF's characters and make-up and I altered the idea to be a FF, which I now want to convert back to OF.... convoluted I know, but bear with me... I don't feel like that wolud be an issue, though. Because the identities are different, you know? I don't feel like I write any of the Boys accurately enough that it could really be considered ... I dunno, I guess it's not "plagerism" if they aren't literary characters, is it? LOL But yeah I don't feel like I'd be violating that "these characters and events are entirely fictional" disclaimer, either.

How much of a story should be changed in detail before it's no longer "plagerising"?

[Carter-Orange]

Good luck with the OF version of Something Beautiful   I love that story.

[mare]

When I changed Mel's into an OF, it was kind of easy because it was an AU. Writing them as brothers was easy and I really do think if you read the book, unless you know it's from a fanfic, you'd never really guess it was the Backstreet Boys. When I did the same for Shadiw Woods it was a lot harder because they WERE The BSB in that one. I ended up changing a lot more than I thought I would have to. I'm still pleased with the result, even though it still remains unpublished came close but as of now still no cigar!

Best of luck, Hannah! I think it's a good idea to keep them musicians. Try it and see what happens.

[Pengi]

Thanks! I've been playing with it awhile now. It's been rough with the semester and everything - I feel guilty every time I start writing because I'm procrastinatin g projects - but after this week I'm hoping to get cracking on writing again and the OF of Something Beautiful is definitely where I want to get the most work done.

Are you published, Mare? I should probably know this.

[mare]

Yup Mel's was published a few years ago. I entered Shadow Woods in a YA contest through Random House and it was a runner up but didn't win.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1413771149/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/175-9329222-8913042

[RokofAges75]

Hannah, I think you could totally OF Something Beautiful that way.  They kind of still need to be famous, or the whole Amanda role wouldn't make sense, but making them part of a rock band or something would make it less obvious.  Like I said, no one but a fan would recognize the characters based on their personalities alone, even if they're really well-written, because no one but a fan would "know" the Backstreet Boys that well.

Also, I think writer's base characters on real people - or at least take qualities of real people they know - all the time.  As long as it's not blatantly about the Backstreet Boys, you should be good to go.

[Pengi]

I'll defiitely be ordering a copy as soon as I have extra $$ to Mare! That's awesome! I can't wait!


As for the Something Beautiful OF...like i said, originally the story was storyboarded as Brian's character being the lead singer for a Christian rock band (think Jars of Clay-esque), and his name was Tyler. Nick's character is the guitarist for said band, and his name was always Nick. Their band was called The Brothers, and they had a drummer named Eddie. A lot of the story had to be altered to make it a FF, so it's not as easy as hitting find/replace to adapt the story to an OF.

But yeah the whole 50 Shades topic caught my attention because of that and the work I've been doing to adapt it to the OF version.

[Carter-Orange]

Sounds great Hannah!

Doesn't Jackie Collins use real famous people but change the names? I've read a couple of hers in the past and was sure Al King in Lovers & Gamblers was based on Tom Jones lol.