Forum:Free-to-use creations

Forums → Hailing Frequencies → Free-to-use creations (Reply | Watch)

Those of us who write stories, or play in RPGs, or whatever, often come up with background characters, races, groups, technology, what-have-you, that aren't integral parts of our work, and may be no more than a throwaway line or an in-joke. But sometimes they strike a chord with someone else, too. Have you ever been reading someone else's story and seen some little piece of background fodder that made you go "Neat-o, wonder if he'd let me use that in my story?"

When I first started in fandom (good grief, has it really been ten years?), on the TrekCreative Yahoo Group, some of the guys loved to make up these background elements, and post them to the group, free for anyone to use in their stories. It's a fun way to flesh out your universe, and create a sense of community. I was thinking of doing the same here.

There are already a couple articles of mine that would fall into this category: Subspace Domain, Meditations on the Kir'shara, My Andoria, Jackson Center for Archaeology, Pulsar Gamma Corporation and Pioneer Transports come to mind.

If others feel the same, maybe we could start some kind of category for this type of article, and create a template for them? What do you think? --TimPendragon 20:42, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This is something I've always liked the sound of and am very much for. In fact, yesterday I looked at the Subspace Domain article and thought it was pretty cool and was wondering if you'd let one of my characters own one of those albums. I think it's those nice little background details that are common across various fan fictions that provide neat little connections, not large scale things that are too distracting but just small things that make it all seem to fit together more nicely, so yeah, it's something I like the sound of. --The NCC Factor ^Talk 10:29, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Anyone else have any thoughts on this? Sasoriza? Anyone? Bueller? -TimPendragon 16:06, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No thoughts here ATM, sorry. – Sasoriza ^{Adm • Tlk} 16:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I think it's an excellent idea... It would provide more of a sense of community, ya know? -Autumn 18:25, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It also helps to (pardon the pun) unify the fan fics in a way... I'm happy for anyone to use any references from my seires in their own work. :) --Luke80 18:56, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, here's a basic start for a "policy" on this:

Open-use creations are characters, items, groups, ships, etc, which have been created by a fanfic author or RPG player, usually for background purposes, and which are free to be used by other authors in their work. Where applicable, credit for the initial idea should be given to the original author.

What do you think? --TimPendragon 23:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a great idea. :-) --Hawku 23:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)