Stories Guaranteed To Give You A Headache - Why Your Fan Fiction Ain’t Good
"This is pure fan fiction. This is simply the sad story of Kathy. She is the person that LucasArts threw in the trash, but I have brought her back to life. She is a woman of sorrow and strength. Plus this is simply creativity and not something to offend. So if something in my story offends you I apologize in advance.”
From Final Act, a ‘parallel novel’ to the Monkey Island games (I have no idea either)
Hey, it's fanfic – thanks for the apology.
It’s a simple truth; fan fiction and fan games exist on a joint plane of miserable faux entertainment. Fanfic, as everyone seems to call it, is usually spawned by someone with far too much time on their hands (a bit like me) who feels the need to write their own, imagined follow-up to a popular movie, television show or computer game. And LucasArts’ (LEC) catalogue of games, being more original and story-driven than many others, are ripe for the fanfic writer’s picking. Fan games are not only illegal, they’re just as bad. They’re live action fanfic – it looks livelier, but it’s just as pointless.
I don’t believe in mouthing off about something you know very little about. Sadly, a great percentage of the people who will read this don’t follow that philosophy. But I adhere to it, and I read a lot of LucasArts fanfic before coming to the simple conclusion that it is bad. There are no exceptions. It is all bad, and it’s not getting better. It’s as if a light-bulb (because that’s how it happens in the movies) goes off above somebody’s head and they think, “Hey, I know! I’ll take a series based on humour and remove all of it!” A recent article in PC Gamer made a particularly negative trait of fanfic prominent; that the results either turn a comedy series (such as Monkey Island) into a mind-numbing, joke-free attempt at ‘serious’ literature or the jokes are so bad they’d be booed off the stage at a Carrot Top show.
I won’t patronise any potential readers of this article by repeating what I wrote about the legality of fan games. Suffice to say that fanfic, whilst less of a direct concern to LEC, is still technically copyright infringing material. Pleading that fanfic should be welcomed and, frighteningly, encouraged, is wrong. Very wrong. Fanfic shouldn’t exist. Creativity and originality should. The whole ethos of fanfic is bewildering; taking a game you love and writing something that could never (and has never, judging by what is out there) match up the original. The arguments for fanfic seem to be that (a) it’s a way for a fan to express their love of a game and (b) it’s not harming anyone, so let them be creative. In response to the first argument, the fan seems to lose the sense of what they’re writing about and turns in something that is unfunny, unoriginal, pointless or more commonly all three at once. As regards the second argument, it’s not a harmless activity.
The reason why it’s not harmless is part of the explanation why I truly detest the “it’s all for fun” excuse that was offered as a defence to fan games and other fan output. Don’t worry; I’ll be sure to inflict an article on fan art on you soon. Without exception, the fanfics spawned by Monkey Island enthusiasts are pointless and painful. A Monkey Island serial set 300 years in the future (as in 2300), a Monkey Island and Dragonball Z crossover (I successfully concluded that would be bad before reading it), a joke-free trilogy revolving around Guybrush’s sister (I must have missed that plot line in the four official games)…so much, and for so little point. To prepare for this article, I read a great deal of LucasArts’ canon inspired fanfic. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed proof of what I am stating in this article. Fanfic generally is a terrible thing; Monkey Island fanfic is even worse.
Fanfic writers always miss the point. First of all, no one has asked them to turn out an epic disaster. Add to the mix the fact that the people writing are usually aspiring authors with a serious deficiency in creativity. For evidence of that, just look at any fanfic that stars a character with the same name as the author. The jokes fall flat; there are very few amusing scenes. Apart from the unique – but bizarre – Monkey Island in space fanfic, the others either rehash stories from the Monkey Island games (and the third and fourth releases from LEC did that sufficiently enough themselves) or come up with tiresome stories and mindless plotlines. Anyone with the most minimal of literary dignity in their body would be well advised to leave fanfics well alone. I’m not writing this simply to state how much I detest fanfics; I’m writing it to warn those of you who may never have read one. My advice is simple: don’t.
I have an aim, and that’s to obliterate the “it’s all for fun” defence. It’s a lifeline used by those who, through ego, or boredom, or maybe a mix of both, want to inflict their interpretation of someone else’s work on a less than enthralled audience. The Internet is the new breeding ground of the hack writer – just look at this article – and as such a serious cull has to take place. You can disagree with me or say that I’m simply over-stating the fact that I hate fanfics. Fine, that’s your right. But I’m sticking by the principle that fanfic is not a tribute to LEC’s games. It’s an insult. If someone you knew had devised, written and made a successful game, perhaps fleshing out the story with sequels - to have their own universe of characters with which to be creative – to then have someone with too much time on their hands barge in with their own version of events is both obnoxious and without point. LEC’s stories should stay within the confines of their offices in San Rafael. They certainly shouldn’t be continued by people who feel like inflicting their mediocre works whenever ‘inspiration’ strikes. Hey, you want a great idea, Mr. (or Mrs.) Fanfic Writer? How about a Quantum Leap/Grim Fandango/Afterlife/Yoda Stories four-part crossover? Now that’s going to be worth reading! Oh boy.
"This is pure fan fiction. This is simply the sad story of Kathy. She is the person that LucasArts threw in the trash, but I have brought her back to life. She is a woman of sorrow and strength. Plus this is simply creativity and not something to offend. So if something in my story offends you I apologize in advance.”
From Final Act, a ‘parallel novel’ to the Monkey Island games (I have no idea either)
Hey, it's fanfic – thanks for the apology.
It’s a simple truth; fan fiction and fan games exist on a joint plane of miserable faux entertainment. Fanfic, as everyone seems to call it, is usually spawned by someone with far too much time on their hands (a bit like me) who feels the need to write their own, imagined follow-up to a popular movie, television show or computer game. And LucasArts’ (LEC) catalogue of games, being more original and story-driven than many others, are ripe for the fanfic writer’s picking. Fan games are not only illegal, they’re just as bad. They’re live action fanfic – it looks livelier, but it’s just as pointless.
 PC Gamer was not impressed by Monkey Island fanfic |
I won’t patronise any potential readers of this article by repeating what I wrote about the legality of fan games. Suffice to say that fanfic, whilst less of a direct concern to LEC, is still technically copyright infringing material. Pleading that fanfic should be welcomed and, frighteningly, encouraged, is wrong. Very wrong. Fanfic shouldn’t exist. Creativity and originality should. The whole ethos of fanfic is bewildering; taking a game you love and writing something that could never (and has never, judging by what is out there) match up the original. The arguments for fanfic seem to be that (a) it’s a way for a fan to express their love of a game and (b) it’s not harming anyone, so let them be creative. In response to the first argument, the fan seems to lose the sense of what they’re writing about and turns in something that is unfunny, unoriginal, pointless or more commonly all three at once. As regards the second argument, it’s not a harmless activity.
The reason why it’s not harmless is part of the explanation why I truly detest the “it’s all for fun” excuse that was offered as a defence to fan games and other fan output. Don’t worry; I’ll be sure to inflict an article on fan art on you soon. Without exception, the fanfics spawned by Monkey Island enthusiasts are pointless and painful. A Monkey Island serial set 300 years in the future (as in 2300), a Monkey Island and Dragonball Z crossover (I successfully concluded that would be bad before reading it), a joke-free trilogy revolving around Guybrush’s sister (I must have missed that plot line in the four official games)…so much, and for so little point. To prepare for this article, I read a great deal of LucasArts’ canon inspired fanfic. Not because I wanted to, but because I needed proof of what I am stating in this article. Fanfic generally is a terrible thing; Monkey Island fanfic is even worse.
Fanfic writers always miss the point. First of all, no one has asked them to turn out an epic disaster. Add to the mix the fact that the people writing are usually aspiring authors with a serious deficiency in creativity. For evidence of that, just look at any fanfic that stars a character with the same name as the author. The jokes fall flat; there are very few amusing scenes. Apart from the unique – but bizarre – Monkey Island in space fanfic, the others either rehash stories from the Monkey Island games (and the third and fourth releases from LEC did that sufficiently enough themselves) or come up with tiresome stories and mindless plotlines. Anyone with the most minimal of literary dignity in their body would be well advised to leave fanfics well alone. I’m not writing this simply to state how much I detest fanfics; I’m writing it to warn those of you who may never have read one. My advice is simple: don’t.
I have an aim, and that’s to obliterate the “it’s all for fun” defence. It’s a lifeline used by those who, through ego, or boredom, or maybe a mix of both, want to inflict their interpretation of someone else’s work on a less than enthralled audience. The Internet is the new breeding ground of the hack writer – just look at this article – and as such a serious cull has to take place. You can disagree with me or say that I’m simply over-stating the fact that I hate fanfics. Fine, that’s your right. But I’m sticking by the principle that fanfic is not a tribute to LEC’s games. It’s an insult. If someone you knew had devised, written and made a successful game, perhaps fleshing out the story with sequels - to have their own universe of characters with which to be creative – to then have someone with too much time on their hands barge in with their own version of events is both obnoxious and without point. LEC’s stories should stay within the confines of their offices in San Rafael. They certainly shouldn’t be continued by people who feel like inflicting their mediocre works whenever ‘inspiration’ strikes. Hey, you want a great idea, Mr. (or Mrs.) Fanfic Writer? How about a Quantum Leap/Grim Fandango/Afterlife/Yoda Stories four-part crossover? Now that’s going to be worth reading! Oh boy.