Speaking Up About Written In the Stars

Congratulate me, I’m some kind of fandom boogey-monster. About eighteen months ago, a story was posted with a similar storyline to mine (different climate, though), which was fine until they outright took whole paragraphs from my story, To Resist Both Wind and Tide). I asked for either attribution or removal of those paragraphs. Instead, the author pulled the entire story down without an explanation to her fans. She told me that she didn't think it was such a big deal because it's just fanfiction.

Later, she returned: the story had been updated, the paragraphs removed, but…the plot was just too familiar for me. After messaging the author privately, I said something publicly along the lines of “I hope the plot is changing soon because I’m uncomfortable with this. You said that you were planning to change the direction of your plot, so I hope that’s soon.” Given that this person had already outright plagiarized my work, I feel like this was understandable. In reply, the person told me again, “It’s just fanfiction!” and yanked the story down, again without an explanation.

I didn’t ask the story to be removed. I didn’t report the story. I asked readers not to get involved because I didn’t want a war. People on the message boards blasted me, others boycotted my stories, so on and so forth. I got a couple of angry messages, one from somebody named missupertigz who went on to start writing in the fandom with messages along the lines of “if my writing sparked an idea, then go ahead and write it because to the people who think chuck belongs to only a small group of people – your wrong (sic).”

Well, turns out that story is still going on behind closed doors. You can PM MsRomanceWriter’s ff-net name and get access to it, if you like. Have at it. I chose not to speak up in my own defense when the story was pulled and I wonder if that was the wrong decision. Maybe it was, but I didn’t want to sling mud at MRW. Mostly, I want people to know that I didn’t have anything to do with the story being pulled. I know it’s my word against hers, but it was the author’s choice to pull it both times. I didn’t make any threats or demands.

And that’s all I really have to say about it.

Frea