The Classix

Regarding Famoux-inspired Stories

Please take a moment to read this.

After a couple incidents about this, I feel like I have to address it:

To preface, I hope you know that I am and always will be so incredibly honored by the amount of people who have approached me in comments, emails, or other modes of message to let me know that I have inspired them to write. That's an indescribable feeling to me, really. But with all good things, there are sometimes caveats to this, such as when I go to read the work I've been informed I inspired and find it to be a complete knockoff of The Famoux.

Bottom line, it makes me uncomfortable to see stories that can be summarized along the lines of: "a girl who is a 'glitch' to her dystopian society gets changed into a new person, and by the way, there's this elite group of celebrities everyone watches called *insert name about fame and other words that newly end with X*. . ." That really freaks me out. And having to come in and tell people who have just told me I motivated them to write that their story makes me nervous is something I hate doing.

So please, if you're going to write something like The Famoux, put "Famoux Fanfiction" somewhere in the title. Tag "famoux" so I know it exists and can find it easily. I understand that in most cases you have plot ideas that have nothing to do with my direct plot. I understand that you have characters that I didn't create. But you're using my world as a mold, and like the many Hunger Games fics I've seen encompassing certain Games that Suzanne Collins didn't touch upon, it's still considered fanfiction.

So yes, you can keep writing your story, because I don't want to be that person who douses out the fire that made you want to write something in the first place, but I can't just let a dozen Famoux copies float around the internet with no indication that the Famoux inspired it.

The thing is, the Famoux is not like The Hunger Games or Harry Potter. Only so many people tune into these chapters week by week. People aren't going to simply know that your writing is influenced by another story, and I don't want misunderstandings to arise. Readers might think I'm some monster with more reads who's copying you and your idea. On the other hand, if your story suddenly explodes with popularity, what if you move to get it published and I have to sit here and watch that happen, thinking about the nearly 10 years I've spent planning this story out? That's a little dramatic, but my mind can't stop considering all the possibilities.

I really, really love you so much. I think what you have to write is important. I think your voice deserves to be heard. I think your thoughts are a thousand times more imaginative and colorful and beautiful than my own, and that we're probably going to stand in the same room one day, and my hands will be all sweaty with nerves just meeting you and your brilliant mind. But I just want us to be on the same page about this situation. It's been making my stomach sink for a while now.

Tag "Famoux." Make it clear where the idea initially arose from. Then, everything's fine.

Okay. That's all. Love you.