Dear Janet,
Your response to OP on March 13th left me a little perturbed.
This is the portion that concerns me, "And then there's the matter of a publishing contract that has a little clause in the Warranties section that looks something like this: the Work is original, previously unpublished and neither the Work nor any material portion thereof is in the public domain."
My problem is, the MG I'm working on deals with well-known characters that are in the public domain. They're not the main focus of my story, but they make a brief appearance (at different times) to my protagonist when he needs them. There are a few words exchanged, but no material portion is used other than their names (think Tom and Huck, Crusoe and Friday, etc.) It's important to this story that the characters are well-known. Will this be a problem to an agent? Will they not want to take on this MG for that very reason? I believe in this story, but will this be a hard sell or an instant no because of this?
No. You're in the clear.
The intent of the warranties clause is to prevent wholesale lifting from someone else's work, even if that work is no longer protected by copyright. The governing language there is material portion. Material portion means more than a little.
Using a character's name is fair game.
You can even put Huck Finn on a raft and send him down the Mighty Mississip, as long as you don't use Mark Twain's words to do so.
6 comments:
Another key aspect is "from someone else's work." Would you still endorse the idea of serializing portions of your own manuscript online? (To gain exposure, publication credits, etc.) Or has the world changed, and now it's unwise for any portion of your opus to appear online (if you want to go the traditional publishing route).
Ooh, I didn't realize that was OK. Where would an author draw the line between using another author's character as a cameo in a story, vs calling the story fanfiction?
Sorry OP, not trying to make your worry worse. I know there's a difference, I just don't know what.
These grey, line in the sand, situations are why I try and avoid them. Glad to hear you are in the clear, OP!
Lennon,
It's not uncommon to use public domain characters in current works. Look at all the Sherlock Holmes movies, television shows, books, games, etc. And now that the ol'Pooh bear is public domain, you've got Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey.
Funny thing is, no one calls this fan fiction. Maybe *because* the works are public domain, meaning it's now legal? Maybe.
Non-public domain characters... I'm not sure. That may be stickier.
OP, I love the idea of classic fictional characters dropping in on your main character. I'm so glad to hear it's okay.
Right about now Carolynn with 2 N's is getting mighty jealous of Huck with THREE N's.
I'm picturing Carolynn and Huck in a game of Liar's Poker on a raft just south of Hannnnibal. To the victor: the slice of pi that Janet carved out of the Mighty Mississip.
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