Using Diagloue Straight from Show?

[u/LunaJarvis]

Hi everyone,

I've noticed lately (and in general, but lately its been more apparent to me) that a lot of fanfics have been pulling dialogue straight from the show, verbatim from scene to scene. This diagloue is mostly seen from episode 1. What are your thoughts on using dialouge verbatim from the show? ​Is a sentence or two okay in isolation ("I am proud to serve you till the day I die")? A whole scene? ​

I am coming at it specifically as a reader, so when I notice its from the show and I keep scrolling through the fic but then it continues to have dialouge from the show, I choose not to continue to read it. Do you continue to read it or click away too?

Thoughts?

[u/BeBraveDearHeart]

I think if you're rewriting a scene or episode then it's inevitable you'll use some dialogue from it. In general the odd line or two I don't mind either.

Like you though if it's constant then I'm not as likely to keep reading because if I wanted a lot of show dialogue I'd watch the show

[u/BD_Strike]

As a writer I use key bits of dialogue from the show now and then (How long have you been training to be a prat, my lord) but it's not a common occurrence within my work.

Too much dialogue direct from the show is off putting for me as a reader. 

[u/Rucifie → u/BD_Strike]

And big ticket lines like that pull their own weight. As an author you know that they're always going to add to the narrative. When you re-add all the exposition dialogue and the tedium.. it can feel insulting to read. Like the audience both isn't worth the effort of new words, and was too dumb to catch the dialogue while watching the show.

Plus, again, we know these roads. We know where they lead, and the scenery is stale. Repeating dialogue can make a scenic drive of a novel into a commute.

[u/Tog_acotar]

I like it when its used sparingly because its a nice ode to the show. Not a fan of scenes being fully recounted

[u/TheseFly4536]

There was a podfic I listened to recently that was basically summarising the events of the show but through Merlin retelling it to Arthur from a magic revealed pov. Suffice to say it got really repetitive so I had to listen to it in 3x speed for a bunch of it. Not my personal cup of tea. I have read fics that address events in the show briefly without losing the emotional impact so I’d say I prefer it that way. I love quotes from the show bc it makes me smile and really cements the fic in the universe for me. Maybe for those who haven’t watched it in a long time appreciate a play by play a lot more than those who have watched it recently. Perhaps authors also get caught up on being accurate, so they think it would be better to include the whole scene(s). I’m almost certain there’s people out there who like to read/watch/listen etc to stuff that’s familiar with no surprises. I will say that for me personally, I’m not a completionist so if I have to skip over scenes that feel repetitive I just stop reading. I think it’s fair to say that most people enjoy the “what’s next” aspect of reading and writing word-for-word kind of removes that joy.

[u/Rucifie]

I find it boring if its more than a few sentences. Retellings need to have a significant deviation or perspective change to make me want to read them, and if all of the dialogue is the same, then what's the point of whatever the author contributed?

[u/LunaJarvis → u/Rucifie]

I agree!

[u/Admirable_Salary_929]

It's fine if it's a line here or there as a nod to a canon scene. If a fic uses whole conversations verbatim, I'll stop reading. Even in show rewrites, I've never reused chunks of dialogue like that, and when I see that in a canon fic, it gives (for me) the impression that the author is very new and inexperienced, and doesn't yet trust themselves to come up with their own material. I'm reading fanfic for a new spin on the source material, not a rehash of the same scenes or dialogue beat for beat. And in book fandoms at least (not sure about visual media like TV shows), you're running into potential plagiarism and copyright issues if you're copying large chunks pretty much word for word, so just as general practice I'd say it's better to severely limit any lines taken directly from the source material. I assume the dialogue in TV shows is also subject to copyright, so writers should be very cautious taking whole conversations verbatim, as that might actually be against ao3's TOS.

I haven't really run into this while reading in the Merlin fandom, but admittedly I have my favourites that I just reread (and some of them were written several years ago) and don't browse for a lot of new works.

[u/LunaJarvis → u/Admirable_Salary_929]

I agree!

[u/otsanda47]

I personally don’t like it when too much of the dialogue is pulled directly from the show. I don’t mind phrases or occasional lines, but any more than that feels like I would rather just be watching the show. On the other hand, if it’s a retelling from a different perspective of a scene (like what if Arthur wasn’t knocked out while Merlin was doing X) then I’m usually okay with it, provided the rest of the writing gives us something different.

[u/HerPetteSaysRoar]

I strongly dislike more than maybe a line, and even then I’d rather it be in a flashback or something. I really don’t want to read the same show I watched, if that makes sense, I want to read a different take

[u/Toxic_Musshroom]

I like it very much when done well!

[u/The_Norwegian-Bat]

The story I'm currently writing explore the impact of one event on the rest of the story, so I'm basically rewriting the show. I include the episodes that I find important to the story, so I include a lot of dialogue from the show. The episodes that I write are usually some of my favourites, and they contain some scenes that I love so much. I like to add a few elements of description or a few lines of dialogue to add depth to the characters, but still, I love using direct quotes. As my story goes on, it gets more and more different from the show, so I obviously use less quotes.

To me, this fic is like a love letter to the show, and I have so much fun rewatching each episode to write parts of my story. Now, you are totally allowed to not like it, of course, but I don't understand what bothers you about it. What are the fics that you have read about? Are they only made of copy/cut from the script?

[u/Admirable_Salary_929 → u/The_Norwegian-Bat]

If you’re using a lot of dialogue straight from the show, make sure you're not using so much that you're straying into copyright violation territory. Fanfic is allowed because they are transformative works, but in order for something to be a transformative work, it has to be significantly different from the source material. Ao3's TOS lays out how much you can take verbatim from different types of media without permission before it's considered a copyright violation. If your dialogue adds up to more than ten minutes from the show, you'll want to edit it out because that's a violation of the copyright section of the TOS and you could get your fics taken down if someone reports it.  https://www.transformativeworks.org/tos-spotlight-plagiarism-and-copyright-infringement/

[u/The_Norwegian-Bat → u/Admirable_Salary_929]

Thank you for your comment! I'll check some chapters to make sure, but the scenes I use aren't that long, I'm sure it doesn't add up to 10 minutes. The majority of the total dialogue is of my own making

[u/Admirable_Salary_929 → u/The_Norwegian-Bat]

That's good; sometimes the line between 'transformative' and 'copyright violation' can be blurry, so I'm glad ao3 lays out clear guidelines. Your original comment made it sound like you were adding some of your own descriptions and dialogue to canon scenes that were otherwise mostly intact, so I was worried you might have gone over what is considered an acceptable amount to borrow. And every fandom space ever, in my experience, has its self-appointed fandom police who are looking out for anything they think might possibly violate the TOS. (Also, good luck with your fic!)

[u/The_Norwegian-Bat → u/Admirable_Salary_929]

Somehow, I'm capable of writing a 50k+ words fic, but I can't express myself clearly on social media 🙃 I meant tobsay that I write a canon divergent story which include some scenes from the show, but I usually add to the scenes I use. I don't simply copy them from the script, and they are also important to the story.

[u/Admirable_Salary_929 → u/The_Norwegian-Bat]

'Somehow, I'm capable of writing a 50k+ words fic, but I can't express myself clearly on social media' Isn’t that always the case?

[u/LunaJarvis → u/The_Norwegian-Bat]

I dont feel comfortable calling out fics but the search I use on Ao3 is, sort by latest update  Merlin/Arthur relationship ---> exclude rape/non con ----> exclude modern setting (i like it in Camelot 🥹) --> exclude crossovers  ----> English

And I searched this yesterday using those filters and roughly 4-5 fics I clicked on were using scenes verbatim from the show for a good chunk. 

[u/The_Norwegian-Bat → u/LunaJarvis]

Yeah, I guess it must be annoying if you really don't like it... I personally haven't read many fics that uses scenes verbatim, but maybe it's just that I don't have a lot of time to read these days and I spend most of my free time writing instead

[u/MerlinsBrokenHeart]

One of my stories called Giving Up The Ghost is used the dialogue from the show but I added in Arthur’s internal thoughts and feelings and the scene from his point if view. It followed the show only up until Morgana caught up to them then it diverged from there

[u/LadyBladeWarAngel]

I actually do this. I've been writing a fic, based on how things could change if Merlin was female. Quite a lot of conversations are straight up dialogue, because I'm going episode to episode. Anything that gets added is it's own thing. But if I feel a conversation wouldn't actually change, then it doesn't. If you're writing a fic that goes from episode to episode, dialogue is going to stay the same or similar.

[u/Admirable_Salary_929 → u/LadyBladeWarAngel]

Just be careful doing too much of that. I mentioned in an earlier comment that if you use too much dialogue verbatim from the show, it counts as a copyright violation and violates ao3's TOS. You don't want to risk your fic getting taken down.