I wrote some fan fiction once. When I was twelve. It was a story about a young girl—she was pretty and smart and clever—who meets the Beatles. (Don’t laugh, now. They were hot—actually, cool—back in the day.) You can imagine who my protagonist was modeled after. 🙂

Of course, back then they didn’t call it fan fiction. I suspect other folks were writing this sort of thing, but there wasn’t any way to share it with strangers. Thank goodness.

But there’s fan fiction … and then there’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Have you ever read the play by Tom Stoppard)—or seen the movie? Here’s how Wikipedia describes it:

The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The action of Stoppard’s play takes place mainly “in the wings” of Shakespeare’s, with brief appearances of major characters from Hamlet who enact fragments of the original’s scenes. Between these episodes the two protagonists voice their confusion at the progress of events of which—occurring onstage without them in Hamlet—they have no direct knowledge.

The first time I saw it I laughed ’til I cried. It’s brilliant.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is what you might call, you know, really good fan fiction. (I know I’m pushing the definition here, but work with me, OK?) It uses literary characters you already know, but places them into a different story.

These characters are in the public domain, which means anyone can use them. And many talented writers have done so:

• Gregory Maguire started with Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and has added three other Oz stories in addition to Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and many more.

• Jasper Fforde published The Eyre Affair, in which a literary detective pursues a criminal through the world of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and now has an entire series called Nursery Crime.

• Jo Baker’s Longbourn takes us to the world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, but tells a story from the Bennet family’s servants’ standpoint.

• The Sherlock Holmes character has been in the public domain in the United States since 1923, thus there have been many reimaginings of the character in film (see: Robert Downey Jr.) and literature (one notable story is The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, Or On the Segregation of the Queen by Laurie R. King).

The corollary to this is to retell (or re-version) a public-domain story, such as a fairy tale. This is also a well-worn path to writing success. Consider these examples:

• Amy Heckerling wrote a screenplay that became the 1995 movie Clueless; it is loosely based on Jane Austen’s novel Emma.

• Joel and Ethan Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? screenplay is a modern satire loosely based on Homer’s epic poem Odyssey.

• Ahab’s Wife: Or, The Star-Gazer, by Sena Jeter Naslund, takes references to Ahab’s young wife from Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and builds another epic tale.

• Madeline Miller refashions the legend of the Greeks at Troy in her prize-winning novel The Song of Achilles, featuring Patroclus and Achilles.

• Cynthia Ozick’s sixth novel, Foreign Bodies, is a loose retelling of The Ambassadors by her literary hero, Henry James.

Copyright law is at the center of this sort of writing, so unless you want to spend a lot of time and money obtaining permissions (think of the sequels to Gone With the Wind released before the copyright expired in 2011), stick to the public domain. The US Copyright Office at the Library of Congress offers this handy brochure to help you determine the copyright status of works, and provides a searchable database too.

Borrowing—characters or stories—from the public domain, as you can see, is a time-honored tradition. And one advantage to using PD characters is the built-in audience for the older work. Do your homework, read up, and get started!

There are other articles in this series: parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Tweet: Borrowing characters or stories from the public domain is a time-honored tradition.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”