Have you ever read a fanfiction which was so engrossing and wonderful that you felt as if you were reading an original work?

There's a Sess/Kag fanfic called "Life Debt" by Tsuuki (I don't think it's on Dokuga, but it's on fanfiction.net), which was truly great, but it was never completed.

In my brain, I've thought about how this fic would/should/could end, and have debated the artistic morality of actually writing an ending to it. Would that be plagiarism?

Have you ever read an awesome but incomplete fanfic that you wanted to finish for someone? OR, have you ever read a fic that was complete, but you wanted to continue living in the world the author created by writing a fanfic in that universe?

(Maybe I should just come up with my own ideas)

Oh yes I have read many great stories that I wish the author would finish, and yes the stories were so engrossing that I too wish I had the opportunity to finish these stories. There are a few fan-fiction stories, not necessarily Ses/Kag that I like very much and I have drawn inspiration from them, but that's where it ends. I believe that I have enough imagination and creativity to come up with a good plot and do it justice.

In my brain, I've thought about how this fic would/should/could end, and have debated the artistic morality of actually writing an ending to it. Would that be plagiarism?

What I understand plagiarism to be is the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

I am sure if you do not have consent from the author to finish his or her story no matter how much you like or admire their work, then you have no right to do so. If you feel very strongly about finishing this story, please seek out the author and get his/her explicit consent before writing a word.

Of course! I wouldn't ever do it, but I have thought about the morality of it often!

I only speak for myself but I know I would view it as someone trying to take my story. I myself have a story right now that has been put on hold for a while because I'm at a total mental roadblock and can't think of what to write. One thing I always ask and encourage is the viewers ideas. It never hurts to give an author an idea or two if they're struggling with a story. At least this is my opinion. So be careful because not everyone will want to have help! I don't mind suggestions though.

Thats basically a fanfic of a fanfic. I read something like this a few months back. The author gave her blessing once she was told what happened, but the readers were not having it.

I think that anyone who attempts to finish someone else's story should prepare for pushback.

But this leads me to wondering how 'moral' fanfiction is in the first place. I mean, finishing an established story with your twist on it is the definition of fanfiction. So what's so different about these two instances?

ponpiri wrote:

But this leads me to wondering how 'moral' fanfiction is in the first place. I mean, finishing an established story with your twist on it is the definition of fanfiction. So what's so different about these two instances?

This is something that could be argued about a lot and certainly there are established authors who dislike any fanfiction written about their books. But in my personal opinion there is a lot different about writing fanfiction and finishing someone else's story.

Fanfiction adds to the canon, it changes things from canon, sometimes significantly. You can take the characters and put them into a completely different setting or a timeline. You can make the characters human or vampires or whatever you wish. You can follow the canon storyline up to a point but then diverge from it to explore a wholly other avenue. You can keep alive characters who would have died in the canon. You can create (romantic) relationships even when there would be little to no evidence for it in the canon (COUGH COUGH SESSKAG).

So to me, a fanfiction can be a lot more than just finishing an established story. Fanfiction explores the source work. Fic writer takes the canon and then makes something completely different out of it based on their own ideas and thoughts.

If you're finishing someone else's fic, you add an ending for sure, but other than that there is not much change to the original fic. The ending you write would probably be different from what the original fic writer had had in mind so there would be some changes and differences. But just a continuation would follow the existing story very closely, certainly much closer than a lot of the fanfiction out there follows canon.

Fanfiction is relatively new word used only the last decades, but many writers get inspired by others works, for example the well known Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley is a fanfiction of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. We can't forget the classic fairy tales that always get reused and reworked, in my opinion it's ok to be inspired but to copy others work is definitely not ok. I myself had my original work stolen word for word so the experience wasn't pleasant!
If the author gives consent and states that they cannot write anymore I guess it's fine, I recently got an author note on fanfictions saying she won't continue writing but anyone can take the plot and write, only give credit and not rework what she already had written, in rest she encouraged everyone to finish it.
That is an example of an willing author but if the consent isn't given, I would not do it!
One can argue that fanfiction is already writing your version of the story but the fact is you state it's not yours and you don't copy it word for word and state it's yours no?
I respect Dokuga in this sense since here I feel more protected! I had an character stolen from me on fanfictions from an inuyasha fanfictions and her fic is very popular even if it's most a bashing fic. Kykio the gang sesshoumaru's mother everyone is Eviiiiil! Only kagome and sesshoumaru are perfect! Why I say this? Because she twisted said character that she took from me in such a disgusting way that I really feel hurt, but since fanfictions isn't doing a very good job on protecting its writers I stopped writing there altogether.
So make your own choices but be respectful of others work!
Good luck everyone!

Thank you, Pyre... my sentiments, almost exactly!

As well, those were the sentiments of Miss Kagura, if I recall correctly. She was not a big fan of people messing with other people's work, even as a homage. Thus, we will not knowingly host a story that was written by one author and finished by another unless we can verify that the second author had permission to do so.

We do have a few instances where this has happened, where we HAVE verified that the original author had turned her stories over to another for finishing. That's fine. Doing so without permission is NOT fine, as far as Dokuga is concerned.

Thank you to all who contribute to this discussion, as well as all of those who follow our (admittedly) often onerous rules!

~~Wiccan~~

It really boils down to having permission or not having permission from the original author, provided you can contact them.

I remember one such case on FFNet where an author had an unfinished fic that was popular in some fandom (I forget which XD) and a fan of their's took it upon themselves to write an ending and publish it. The person didn't have permission to do so from the original author and made up a song and dance about it with fans. Their continuation was seen as plagiarism and they were hounded by legit fans of the original and eventually reported.

Which led to their story being deleted anyway.

It also happened on A03 too. Awhile back. A person had taken it upon themselves, without permission from the original author, to finish a fic that wasn't their own. The fall out was ugly from the fanbase. And the story was left again unfinished.

I say ask to be courteous and polite. Try to find a way to contact the original author, and if you can't. Let it go. If you go ahead yourself and write that ending without asking the author, and publish it yourself without their blessing. You're inviting a lot of flack for work that's not your own.

You could also be seen as 'stealing thunder' since the original author did all the work. And you're just finishing something off that they started, despite many good intentions.

I think, if a person had permission to do that. I'd be fine with it. I don't think I'd read their written ending, but I could accept what they've done to help finish the story. If they don't have permission. Well, in a nutshell, they'd be plagiarising something that's not their own work.

As for the morality of fanfiction. Personally, I think it depends on the attitude of the fandom's original creator. Like for example how Anne Rice didn't like peeps writing fanfiction about her universe. In that instance it would be a moral dilemma if someone wrote fanfic based on her stuff and posted it online, after she expressly stated - Please don't do that.

If not than fanfiction is essentially free advertising for a fandom. Not necessarily flattering advertising - since we all have different skill levels. But it is advertising. I learned about Inuyasha from Forthright's work. And I ended up here on Dokuga as a result.

It works.

~ Pyre

I have read many wonderful Fan-fictions which were not completed and would love for the authors to complete thwm. I would never try to complete someone else work even if they gave their blessing simply because you really don't know where they were going with the story. The story is a product of their imagination and only the know how it was truly going to end and what little plot twists they were going to add.

I'll confess this, I am horrible at starting something and not finishing it. It took me almost six years to complete one story I've noticed a lot of my friends on here and elsewhere have lost the lust for writing.I have even gone through it recently with a story I pulled from here.

If I'm interested in a story and clearly it may not be finished, I'll write an ending for myself and never post it. My story Liberation (NO YIMS EVER) was born because I wanted a story to be finished. I did not take the authors work or anything, but as I began to write ideas flowed.

If someone approached me about finishing one of my stories, I don't think I would have an issue unless I have been mapping something else out.

If you wanted to finish a story you could try asking the author if they would be interested in collaborating on finishing it. It can be a lot of fun to work with another writer. I had one story in another fandom where the prologue was a story 'contest' prompt. There were four cute and funny stories completed; so I got more fic to read!

I finished Absconding Sorrows for Profiler120 after e-mailing them and begging for it.

This was back when I wrote garbage tbh, but I think is what is important to note is if you do continue a story to avoid any pushback (which I luckily didn't get any) you should try to write it in a style that is close to the source material. I had written Marriage of Convenience around this time which is kind of a grammar gross character mess, and I was kind of aware that continuing Profiler's work, who is my favorite sess/kag author, could have been a bit of my league. So I spent a lot of prep time re-reading Absconding Sorrows a few times and trying to write sentences like her, and of course tried to get any information as to what she had planned.

Then someone requested to finish Teen Blues, which was the sequel to Baby Blues, and I gave them permission knowing I'd never do it, but also made sure to pass long as much information as possible. If that was going to be the ending to my story I had to make sure the original intentions was still captured, so the concept of just doing it yourself with your ending you made from scratch is a bit of a foreign concept to me tbh.

Then again I never finish anything, so I should just be glad things are getting finished out there with the help of others.

I am guilty of this. I'd like very much to continue my stories but I wrote them when I was depressed. I guess I'm kind of over it so it's on the back burner for now. But I'm trying to continue but that's not a high priority for now. I, too, would like some stories I follow to continue but people have a life and this is but a creative outlet.

Life Debt is still on my favorites list on ff.net. Unfortunately, there are dozens of such stories ('En Famille', 'FLIGHT') that will never be finished. It's just the nature of fan fiction. Since most writers get into this around high school, many people grow out of it, graduate into time consuming fields, or make the choice to attempt to self-publish/get published. After they try the latter, very few will ever return (as failure and lackluster reviews are embarrassing). Couple that with the crashes certain sites have suffered...

I've momentarily felt the need to finish certain amazing stories, but the reader's vision seldom comes close to that of the original author. Permission is key, though. It's definitely theft if you don't have expressed permission. I joined ff.net and mm.org long enough ago that I remember MiSting and when the sites were more open to one author finishing a story that'd been left hanging. Believe me when I tell you that, aside from a few laughs, it did more harm than good.

Well another nice thing if your story was good enough to inspire someone to rework it or finish it without your permission you can bet you'll get a random review on ff.net of someone letting you know. Beware thieves snitches are everywhere

You make a good point about fanfiction authors. I'm still finishing a story I conceptualized in high school, and I dream to finally finish it this year. There were years where I didn't have the energy to even think about finishing it!

I get what you're going at. I've stumbled across a many unfinished fics (SesshKag or otherwise) I've hoped for a continuation by the original author or by someone else.

I think that, ownership-wise, fanfiction lives in a very gray area. The author of the original fanfic has no claim over the characters or the fandom, and if someone continues their story, they neither have the rights to the original characters, settings, etc. but I think (?) from a legal point of view, I guess they are not infringing any laws if they continue on a pre-existing premise of a story that already is based on a pre-existing premise of a story the owner of the franchise hasn't given their explicit authorization to expand on. So, legally speaking, it's either okay or at least ambiguous to continue on an unfinished fanfic. But not straight-forwardly forbidden if the second writer acknowledges that their story is based on another fanfic.

Morality of continuing an unfinished fanfic is a whole another thing.

Me, personally, I publish somewhat seldomly (I'm not a very profilic on Dokuga yet, but I've been a member of FF.NET for over a decade ((GOD I'M OLD!!)), but I've never left a fic unfinished even when concluding has taken me ridiculously long.

I've never had the issue of not having enough ideas on how to conclude my fics (tho, mine are rather short anyway). It's mainly time management issues on my part.

As a fanfic writer myself, I'm not opposed to the idea that someone would be inspired enough by my story to want to complete it on their own. I rarely have enough time to write myself, so it would be even kinda neat to have a co-writer.

Preferably I'd like to be notified if someone was continuing my story. If someone was to continue my fanfic without my permission, though, I guess I might be somewhat upset, but as long as they don't claim to have written my chapters as their own, I don't think I'd have time or energy to fight over it.

The only thing I'd be horrified by would be if some illiterate doofus would continue my story. I'd literally tear my pants if I saw someone was leet speaking or chat formatting *shudders* their continuing chapters to my story.

I've had some straight-up requests to co-authoring, but to this day I've declined every single one since their grammar and style haven't been up to bar. (Not that I'm some sort of god's descent to humans myself..)

But if my goddess, Youkai Yume, without announcing would want to continue my fanfic, I'd prolly piss honey and cry diamonds over the sheer amount of being honored.

TLDR; May not be illegal albeit morally questionable. Me personally I'd allow it on my own fanfic if the continuing author was legitimately good.