Sometime back, I started reading what I called ' a different variety' of content from the publishing world. Thats when I came in touch with some innovative re-telling of favorite stories. What is popularly called Fan-Fiction. I learnt that die-hard fans somehow want a different interpretations of their favorite works - be it books, tv serials or movies. I came across fanfictions of a variety of entertainments - Jane Austen books, Star Trek and Inuyasha from the world of visual media. I am not very sure about the merits of Fanfiction. Earlier, I used to think 'they can't write something original themselves, but they want to write over what is already written' - this was some years back. Tell you, some of them really made me re-think my thoughts on these writers. some works were really quite good. (Unless it is offensive, I generally encourage any creative endeavour). As far as fan-fiction was concerned, my bone of contention was that these writers are picking on the works of original authors. Copyrights of the work, credits to the author, the original idea etc were all worry points with me. I found that almost all fan fiction writers, not only gave due recognition to authors (some of them were real devotees to these authors and their beloved works), they also acknowledged that these characters and the base story line is from the original author. Which made me think, is this obsession the reason to re-hear the story in a way they would have wanted? But I have to say, its one way to start off your practice on writing. What ever may be the reasons that might encourage fanfiction writers, as long as you know what you are doing and what you are due to whom, I am ok with it, otherwise I will have to call it plagiarism. Having said that, I somehow have to admit to some of the innovative creations that have come out of this variety.