After racing through the fifth Harry Potter book, Francisca Solar, a 21 year old journalism student from Chile, suffered withdrawal. So she wrote her own followup and posted the 33-chapter, 756 page result online. Not only did she attract legions of fans, but an interested publisher as well:
A 21-year-old journalism student Francisca Solar, from Chile, published her own version of the sixth part of the Harry Potter saga on-line in Spanish, and more than 11,000 visits to the web site and the interest of a major publishing house have shown that ”fanfics” can help catapult a young and talented writer's career.
... A big publishing house based in Spain told its representatives in Chile to contact Solar with the initial intention of publishing the book. But around Christmas they gave up on that plan, when their lawyers informed them about the strict copyright that protects Rowling's books.
The only way to publish the book would have been to change the names of the characters, places and all references that identify it with the Harry Potter books - a proposition that the young Chilean writer turned down flat, as ”The Decline of the High Elves” would not make any sense if it were not set in the world of Harry Potter.
Nevertheless, the publishing house is holding onto Solar's manuscript as a treasure, and has expressed an interest in reading other work written by her.
Um, yeah, that might have been a bit of a problem, but as it happens, Solar's working on a new project: a detective novel:
In March, she may sign a contract to publish a detective novel she is writing, which could give rise to two more books, as part of a trilogy based on the same characters.
Solar's main inspiration has been Agatha Christie, the legendary British mystery writer (1890-1976). She is also a fan of crime writers like Thomas Harris (”The Silence of the Lambs”) or John Grisham (”The Jury”, ”The Client”).
”Agatha Christie is one of the writers from whom I have taken examples, techniques to follow. In some ways, she reflects what I want to do, the continuous sense of suspense and surprise. One of the reasons that I write is because I read a lot and while I am reading I anticipate what is coming. I don't like that because I see literature becoming more and more predictable,” she said.
But this story only goes to illustrate that when it comes to fanfic, the exception truly proves the rule.
If you could get ahead writing fanfic, I'd have had Rowling like sales long before Y2K, be on the downward slope in my career by now, and probably qualify to appear on I LOVE THE 90'S.
Posted by: Jim Winter | January 11, 2005 at 09:55 AM
I´m so sick and tired of this girl!
I´m a fanfic writer too why don´t you or anyone else pay attention to other writers??
is she the only one around??
Posted by: Dana Wiles | August 27, 2005 at 11:01 PM
ohhhhh, Dana you poor girl... nobody pays you attention? World is so mean...
Posted by: For Dana | October 10, 2006 at 11:16 AM
What I wish - is that someone would translate it to English so others (like myself) who do not read/write Spanish coud enjoy it as well.
Posted by: Mark Manning | January 09, 2007 at 07:01 PM
"For Dana" -- you missed Dana's point. She's frustrated not because "no one's paying attention to her," but because everyone is acting as though this Francisca Solar is some sort of writing goddess just because she can steal J.K. Rowling's characters and settings and write her own version of a story. I've nothing against fanfiction in itself -- I've written fanfiction -- but I am getting *really* sick and tired of people acting like a "writer" like Solar is somehow talented just because she can write about other people's characters.
Solar has out-and-out said that she can write better Harry Potter stories than J.K. Rowling can. (!) Let's see how her own "original" stories are before we decide just how fabulously talented she is, however.
Posted by: V | January 13, 2007 at 10:45 AM
Well, I think you should read the fic in your own language, that way you'll find out how lame this story was, even for a fanfiction.
I've had read the first chapters, all was so confusing and redundant, and the main character was supossed to be Harry but all the attention was stollen for the original character, which is known for being a Mary Sue.
The book has a lot of oncingruences too and contradictions, has nothing new to offer, is just like a very long sotry of X files, saying much of it.
This girl is a fraud.
Posted by: Mathew | June 18, 2008 at 05:26 PM
Well I think she's just a plain jerk - Arrogant, for one thing. I mean seriously, it's J.K. Rowling's world. If she's so good, why does she write fanfiction? Why doesn't she write numerous novels?
...oops, she doesnt!
Guess that talent isn't there after all. By advice to her would be to stop being a bitch and actually look at her own writing.
Posted by: Mia | December 04, 2008 at 09:29 PM