Anderson writes:

Unless it is a parody fanfic or taking place in an alternate universe, the characters should be acting as expected. To have Ami suddenly becomes a flirt or Haruka being timid without a good reason will turn people off from the story. It's much like giving your own characters the names of the Sailor Moon characters when you don't have them performing in expected ways.

One of the hottest debates that has been raging in the newsgroup and 'Net community has been the concepts and importance of recognition of plagiarism. What does plagiarism have to do with characterization ? Much! The beginning of the 1998 year saw a flurry of news threads that were dealing with not only the plagiarism of a well recognized Sailormoon Fan-Fiction site: A Sailor Moon Romance; but also the plagiarism of a fairly known fan-fiction author: Jennifer Wand.

Professor Washuu pulls out the dictionary:

Plagiarism: that act or an instance of plagiarizing => 1. take and use (the thoughts, writings, inventions, etc. of another person) as one's own. 2. pass off the thoughts etc. of (another person) as one's own.

--Concise Oxford Dictionary, Ninth Edition, 1995

How can I claim that someone has plagiarized Ms. Wand? I cannot state this lightly, however, the 'suspect' in question: Anya Romanov had initially claimed to have written Reaching for Your Star prior to the release of Ms. Wand's work: Yaten's Love Song; later, that claim was retracted in preference for a claim of authorial and creative priority, as in, Ms. Anya had written the ideas prior to Ms. Wand, and thus, she asking for a removal of Yaten's Love Song from the major SM fanfic archives.

Even before the 'mud-fest' in the newsgroup occured, I had read a copy of Ms. Wand's story, Yaten's Love Song (hereafter referred to as YLS) from the archives for A Sailor Moon Romance in March. I would stress that in the view of the international common law, the first published and time/date stamped copy of an original piece of writing (regardless of origin -- i.e., fanfic or original story) will be held as having author priority and concept copyright seniority.

An example might be, I could write a story about Haruka dying in a car crash -- spectacular drive off a cliff...into a sea of fire...and whatnot. And Michiru could suddenly decide to pitch herself into the same sea (because she couldn't bear to be separated from Haruka). No matter how cliché the story, if I print out a copy and sent it back to myself (via the postal service) then the sealed copy would have a date and time stamp on the top. This is also known as the Poor Man's Copyright. Similarly, when we extrapolate these rules into 'Net-publishing and posting, we look at the time stamps for posting to the newsgroup and/or to web pages. Regardless of the actual dates for writing and synthesis of concepts, Ms. Wand had a copy of the story on her site, for the sake of comparison on an equal footing.

Comparison based upon one piece of writing (or even, one story) is insufficient. Ms. Anya has only one other piece of writing posted at any archival site (or web-site for that matter): Sailor Moon Z. Of note, there are four known series which include the title: Sailor Moon Z. The recognized series include: Sailormoon Zodiac by Janelle Jiminez; Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon Z by John Biles and Jeffrey Hosmer; Sailor Moon Z by 'Oscar Martinez' -- the infamous writer of Artemis' Lover -- a single story that started the MiST history of anime fan-fiction.

To get a fair indication of the storylines written of; what styles have been used; what plot holes remain gaping wide...I suggest reading the available fan-fiction through the archives, sites, and downloads. "Tuxedo" Will Wolfshohl mentions that a potential fan-fiction writer should read at least 25 fan-fiction stories before embarking on a journey of writing. Reading not only fan-fiction but 'non-fan' fiction will mean that you are not only absorbing writing styles and ideas of what draws you to a story (if reading 'regular' fiction) but also to see how ideas are developed.

No author writes in isolation; this is true for fan-fiction as well as others. No driver would ever enter the road without familiarizing thenmselves with the vehicle and road conditions; the story is both, to paraphrase McLulhlan, the medium and the message. The way that you tell the story is just as important as the story that you tell. An excellent example is Chris Davies. His Together Again stories are not only written in a script format (film-like, complete with entrance and exit instructions to the scenes) but also in a reverse order.

One might question whether Davies has spoiled his story if he starts from the very end... I would say NO! Davies has established his universe in such a manner that we know the general details of what has transpired, but none of the specifics...making for an intriguing story when he does get around to writing the 'past' so-to-speak.