Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Crediting a fellow author question

I just got started on writing a story which will fill in the backstory gaps of what happened to Lois & Clark in a alt-world story my friend wrote. How would I go about crediting sections of the story to her? I'm thinking about taking sections and then writing around it...Kind of like how a TV show or movie focuses on one person or whatever while other things are going on. I was thinking it might be easier to quote what was said in her story because her story won't be released for a while even though she wrote it a long time ago.

LOL...I hope this all makes sense!

Thanks.

That's a tricky one... if her story was already out there, I'd just recommend that you include a link to it in your author's notes and tell people to go read that one first. But if it's not yet published... you could write your bits, then set hers off by special quotes or something, but as a reader I think I'd find that jarring. Maybe it would work as flashbacks, but it sounds like you're trying to write the whole thing to *explain* the backstory, so that might not work very well.

Are you trying to write a self-sufficient story that uses whole scenes and paragraphs from her story? Or are you working within the elseworld universe she set up, maybe using some of *her* flashback sequences as present-day action in your story?

I think I'm leaning toward telling you to try to integrate her paragraphs/scenes with your story as non-jarringly as possible, and then add a detailed note at the *end* of the story, explaining which bits are hers. At the start, you could say something like, "thanks to my friend for letting me play in the universe she created; this is just a preview of what she's coming out with." Oh, and give her co-author credit, of course.

Have you talked to your friend about this? It's hard for me to picture what you're talking about, but she'll have a much clearer understanding -- I hope!

PJ

Yeah, she knows I'm doing this and the funny thing is was I forgot I had planned to write this until I was going through some old WIPs notes back when we were all cheering each other on.

My ultimate goal is basically to write about what was going on in the Metropolis universe that she briefly alluded to in her story. Some brief dialogue between Superman, Lois and Lex was used (which I helped on) but I want the story to flow in such a way that this time we see things from Superman, Lois and Lex's point of view and what was happening to them, instead of what was going on with her Batman alt universe characters. At the same time though, I'd like to use the same dialogue and situations that are in her story when my story reaches that point. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to go about that or credit it.

Should I italize her parts of the story? Or just put an author's note in the footnote of the page?!?

I get it -- neat idea! (My fundraiser story starts off as a re-write of an on-screen event, just from a different POV -- it was fun matching all the dialog and movements to the show, yet attach different significance to them) Anyway, I'd definitely go for the author's note at the end. Don't distract the reader.

PJ

Kewl...thanks for the information!

I think it will be a neat idea too. I just have to figure out what kind of things need to happen to the characters outside of the already established scenes.