Yet another fanfic story–but this is one of the exceptions

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.