Using Pam's example of Maggie Sawyer (who has been used in fanfics several times) there can be a range of knowledge. L&C never used her, so your readerships largest component of background doesn't know her.
You know, this is really interesting, because, back when I was reading all that early fanfic, I always mistook Maggie for the character in IOM. I think LNC called her Betty Reed? I hadn't paid attention well enough watching the episode to realise the names were different and Maggie as a character was always so close to Betty I just (wrongly I now realise!) put two and two together and came up with five.
:rolleyes:
I have to agree with Pam that authors should take a moment to think about what FoLCs may or may not recognise in their fanfic.
I remember, way back when, I was very impressed with a particular FoLC author's original characters. I'm not saying who, so don't ask.
It was only months after reading most of her stories that I suddenly became aware that these weren't original characters at all, but characters which had been taken direct from the comics. I'd never read the comics and so had no way till someone mentioned it in passing to realise the difference.
I remember I felt so disappointed, even cheated. Here I'd been, praising this author for her inventiveness, and the characters were secondhand.
I should stress here that I have no reason to believe that this particular author was trying to pass off comic characters as her own or indulging in anything underhand. Rather, I suspect it was simply a case that it never occurred to her that anyone would mistake them for other than they were.
But it does illustrate Pam's point. That if you use such characters, don't assume everyone will recognise them for what they are. You could always put an author's note in to say that you've used comics characters A, B and C (or whatever), if you don't want to spend a lot of actual story time introducing them in depth.
LabRat
