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On original fic and fanfic
So, re: the debate going around about whether AO3 should allow original stuff in with the fanworks:
There are some people who want to keep a wall between original and fan fiction, and want to keep AO3 limited to fan writers. And I can see their point - I, too, am far less likely to read something if it's original: it's harder work to read, less likely to be id-tastic, when I'm in the mood for fanwork I don't want original, and either the average quality of original fic is less, or I simply don't have good enough filters for finding the good stuff with original as compared to fan work. Plus, many original writing communities are not only very different in culture to fanwriting communities, some of them are openly hostile to fanwriting, or to some of the values that my particular fanwriting community espouses.
The problem I have with that viewpoint is that the separation between original and fan work *isn't* a wall. It is, at best, a long sloping gradient with something on it that might be an attempt at a wall that has fallen over in places and wasn't very straight to begin with (and has only been there for a paltry few decades anyway.) The boundary between original and fan work is not a hard boundary. People have brought up historical RPF several times already, but as far as I'm concerned, it's only the tip of the iceberg.
I write stuff that is definitely fanfiction. I write stuff that is definitely original fiction. And I write stuff that, um, I have no bloody idea if it's one or the other.
And the thing that attracted me, as an author, to AO3, is that it's one archive where I don't have to worry if my fanwork is "enough" for it. Is it slashy enough, or too slashy? Shippy enough, or too shippy? Too porny or not porny enough? Too long or too short, not canonical enough, not finished enough, too crossovery, too script-y or meta-y or poem-y to be a proper story, not angsty enough, too much or not enough... on AO3 I can just put everything up, as a proper archive, without having to stress over categories.
I would love if "not fan-fic-y enough" was one of those categories I didn't have to worry about on AO3. And since - *for me* - the most important role of AO3 is to be an archive for fanwriters to universally preserve and organize their work, I want all the edge cases to be allowed; if that means blanket allowing original fiction (and I suspect it does), then so be it. I would, however, support a restriction that every author account must have at least one definite fanwork uploaded, to preserve the archive as primarily fannish and to filter out people who are hostile to fanfic culture. And a rule that any original work hosted on AO3 must allow derivative work.
And, sheerly out of curiosity (and not intended to be anyone's opinion on what should or shouldn't get posted at AO3): Here is a poll about some of those "edge" cases. What do you think, fandom-at-large? Original or fanwork? (And no, you don't get tickyboxes or third options. You must make a judgement! Like archives always make me do!)
Historical RPF about dead people!
Non-historical RPF about living people!
Historical fic set in a specific place and time but with mostly-original characters (because the people I'm writing about went unrecorded by history!)
Fic set in the present with original characters, but all about their relationships with real celebrities, places, and/or current events!
A story set in fandom with characters who are all recognizeable fangirl achetypes!
A story based on a story my great-grandma wrote that was only ever published in a tiny edition!
A story based on something in my high school literary magazine!
Fic based on a friend's unpublished and unfinished original novel!
My original story that my friend pulished fic about before my story was finished!
A non-canon AU I wrote in my own original universe that uses fannish tropes like AMTDI or "five things that never happened"!
A story where my original characters meet fandom characters!
A story my original characters meet historical characters or celebrities!
A fusion where my original characters are put into a fandom-canon universe but no canon characters appear!
A crossover where my original characters meet me and my friends!
A crossover where my original characters meet my friend's original characters!
A story about recognizable living real people where all the names have been elided or changed!
A story about anthropomorphized objects or concepts!
A story about anthropomorphized *fannish* objects or concepts!
A retelling of a myth or fairy tale where all of the names, the setting, most of the details and the ending are different!
A retelling of a myth or fairy tale to make it work in the framework of my original universe or with my original characters!
An obvious parody/pastiche of a published author's style and subject matter that doesn't reference any of their characters or settings!
A side story to my fanfic epic, about two original characters from the epic, which based only on internal evidence could be set in a non-fannish world!
A novel set in [fandom A] that's all about original characters who live around the world from canon events so the only explicit reference to canon is passing allusions to distant events!
An AU story based around minor OCs from an AU of an AU of an AU that has since been thoroughly jossed!
A novel about characters that started out as fanfic OCs or AUs of canon characters but I have deliberately moved outside the fandom context!
A shared world written by many authors with no "primary" text or "series bible"!
Biblefic!
A slashy story about an angel that draws heavily on traditional Western angelology and eschatology, including [list of canon texts in original sense of canon texts], but is not based on specific text!
A Lovecraftian horror story that mentions the Necronomicon but is otherwise completely original!
A story that is direct commentary or critique of tropes, plots and characterizations specific to a very small subgenre but with all made-up proper names!
A novel that is mostly an original work but in which the Doctor makes a cameo (because he can!)
A professionally published story using other authors' characters and settings that the pro author loudly insists is not fanfic!
(I will stop there before poll gets even longer, but for the record, none of these are hypothetical cases - they are all either things I personally have written, or things other people who identify as fanwriters have done that I could point you to.)
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Would individual creators be able to create tags for their own original characters?
Well, I've already done this for an OC in a fanfic, since it was the easiest way to collect all the stories I've written with that character (one of them is already in a series based around a different character and works can't be in more than one series at once) I don't know if there's instances of people using tags for other people's fic OCs they have then written their own fic about, but I wouldn't be surprised.
Something this conversation is increasingly reminding me of is the RPF/FPF argument: I don't read RPF, it doesn't tend to hit my fanfic buttons and also squicks me, and it's irritating when RPF comes up in my FPF searches (which it does constantly). But I don't see that as an argument for removing RPF from the archive.
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I definitely want the implementation of a NOT filter for the tags way before any expansions into any direction get tackled.
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And yeah-- there's a lot of unusual tags out there, which is fine (and sometimes hilarious). But those tags add to the size of the archive and the possibility of ambiguous tags (like "Apollo" and the like) that a user might sift through.
And honestly I'm not sure what my own position is, so poke away! (I do feel strongly that working on functionality for non-writers is really important, but that doesn't mean I hate original fic.)
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Oh, hey, as a fanartist who doesn't write original fiction I am right there with you!
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I don't know how my saying 'hey, let's put the vidders and artists first' made me a Fandom Policer!
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Well, I've already done this for an OC in a fanfic, since it was the easiest way to collect all the stories I've written with that character
Ditto. I've already created tags for two OCs, and once I get into posting the Returning Saga, there will likely be more.
Plus, there are already pieces tagged as "original fiction": I know this because I'm reading one (which comes with a multitude of OC tags) and I posted another myself. Granted, I would say that it has fannish sensibilities, but on the other hand I'm not tagging it with the names of the source material that I'm borrowing liberally from because a) I'm still trying to convince myself that I'm not really writing RPF; b) If I list one I have to list them all, and this thing is going to be borrowing from the tropes of at LEAST an entire genre.
When I posted it (locked, btw), I did so because of the other fic that I was reading. Which has started as straight fanfic but as I said, has now spawned original-fic side stories that I'm reading as eagerly as the chapters that are clearly fanfic.
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I am at some point going to have to track down some fannish original fic which sounds like my sort of thing (possibly tricky, since most fic is Not My Sort Of Thing, and I specifically am not particularly inclined towards slash which seems to be one of the big draws) and give it a go, because it's just so far from the way I usually go about fannishness.