The Big Easy

Every now and then, a discussion arises -- on a bulletin board, in a chat room, on a mailing list -- as to the nature of fan fiction (derivative) writing versus the nature of writing entirely original work. Some people have a perception that writing fan fiction is easier than writing original material due to its derivative nature -- that is to say that a lot of the work has already been done in creating the universe.

There are two arguments:
Let us first consider the affirmative -- "Fanfic Writing Is Easier Than Original Work."
When writing an original piece, it is necessary to create a universe from scratch. Research is required into various topics, some of which are mere incidents to the plot. I hear that some professional writers even pay other people to do their research, or at least to help them with it, which seems like a very good idea if one can afford to do so... (sometimes I wish I could, but then I realise it wouldn't be as much fun, or as educational, but then I realise that even if I chose not to, it would still be nice to be able to afford to, and all this is beside the point, so let's get on with it, shall we?)

Where was I? Oh, yes: research. It is necessary to do scads and scads of research. Then there's the characters. You have to invent all the characters. Give 'em names, backgrounds, histories, family trees, ethnic groups, mannerisms, speech patterns, habits, vices, virtues, hair, fashion sense, favourite colours, tastes in food, cars, love interests... the whole 8.23 metres, as it were. (That's 9 yards in metric!)

Heroes, villains, settings, societies -- even planets and cultures if one is writing SF. History, if one is doing an historical story, cosmology, if one wishes to get spiritual... oh, all sorts of things have to be made up. Building a universe is a big task. No bones about it.
Then there's the question of the Plot -- did you hear about the impoverished writer who starved to death in his garret? He was so poor... ("How poor was he?") his family couldn't afford a plot, so they had to bury him in the synopsis! Boomboom.
<ducks sundry vegetables thrown from the peanut gallery>
Plot, story line, structure, character development... wow, what a job... <whew!> It's a wonder anything ever gets written, and aren't word processors wonderful? When I was a kid, we used manual bloody typewriters, on bond paper, with carbon, set to double line spacing for manuscripts. You youngsters don't know how easy you have it... oh... pardon... wrong tirade... this was "writing" wasn't it? Got mixed up there with "I'm An Old Phart And I'm Okay..." Sorry about that...
Um... where was I again? Ah, of course, yes. To conclude, then: Original work is far more difficult to write than fan fiction.
<polite applause -- a few bits of rotten fruit tossed idly at the podium>

And now, Galah no Murphy and his Ma present the argument for the negative:
"Fanfic Writing is Not Easier Than Original Work." (WARNING: this is riddled with sweeping generalisations and relates to "canon" fanfic rather than "alternate" fanfic.)
Fanfic writing is not "easy." Fanfic writing is challenging. Fanfic writing is a genre unto itself. Fanfic writing is...
WRITING.

All writing is an art form. And as an art form, it deserves (but doesn't always get) the same kind of attention as original work. Of course it is necessary to research original work. If a story is set in New York City in 1945, then it is of course essential to find out what NYC was like in 1945. By the very same token, is it not also essential to research Utoland City, circa 1978? Of course it is! Why else would there be so many discussions as to canon and what happened in which episode? In cases where references are obscure, it is just as necessary to create worlds/situations/scenes etc, and sometimes it's harder, because the writer's creativity cannot be given free rein, but is constrained by canon, and by the expectations of what is essentially and by definition a niche readership.
(Am I coming across as emphatic? I'm supposed to come across as emphatic in this bit... just in case you were wondering.)
Um, anyway... Now that we've cleared that up (about me being emphatic, that is) -- fanfic writing imposes restrictions on the imagination, especially if one wishes to avoid the Dreaded Mary Sue Pitfall (and that, my children, is another story, for another time...) A fanfic writer can't just go and start creating characters willy nilly, it upsets the apple cart. Fanfic writing is supposed to be about the original characters, because that's what the fandom is about. Fans -- ie: The Readers -- have an expectation that fanfic is going to be about Gatch / BotP / GoS / ER and not Edwina Nebula "whose snowy bosom heaves with passion as her limpid eyes take in the statuesque form of the Condor stepping out of the shower..." Oh, bother, I did say I wasn't going to discuss Mary Sues and now I've gone and done it... Look, just forget I said that, all right?

Right... characters... In fanfic, one can only develop the characters within very strict parameters. The profiles and outlines are all there. We have to deal with them, whether we like them or not, whether they seem logical or not, whether they totally piss us off... or not. Changing the character changes the whole story. What's the point of writing Ken as though he weren't Ken?
The same applies to the universe. Can one write the GodPhoenix behaving in the air as though it obeyed the Laws of Aerodynamics as we know them? Not just no, but hell no! If we did, the bloody thing would never get off the ground (as Julieanne Adolf so rightly observed in Nanuk of the Internet.) So the poor writer has to deal with somebody else's characters, somebody else's timeline, somebody else's universe and somebody else's SF premises and concepts. Easy? Not by half. Especially when we're dealing with Battle of the Planets and the wildly inaccurate and inconsistent pseudo-science of the much-maligned 7-Zark-7.
Take the case of Planet "Zarkadia" which was apparently "hiding behind Venus." How does a writer rationalise that when even in the 1980s we had the technological wherewithal to conclude that there couldn't possibly be a planet the size of Earth hiding behind Venus? How do we rationalise the very existence of Zark... especially in birdstyle, or wearing that number "7" sweater? One of the other frequently asked questions relating to all versions of Gatchaman is: how do Nambu's/Anderson's/Keane's/Brighthead's glasses stay on his face? A good fanfic writer is often faced with a task comparable to making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Easy? I don't think so!

And that, ladies and gentlemen concludes the argument for the negative. Now, of course, this little diatribe hasn't even touched on the question of alternate universes. This post is already humungous enough as it is. Personally, I think that a lot of the alternate universes created in this fandom are bloody brilliant. There is a school of thought (did you say this to me, Dei?) that any fanfic whatsoever can be considered an alternate universe, and that works for me.

And of course, the overriding rule in fanfic is: There Are No Rules. See? Everything I've said could be completely wrong!