Question Regarding International Copyright Law/ Fan Fiction?

[dickens93]

I have been working on a project for some time. I was inspired by one of my friend's mainly parodious (that's a word now) "Orchestrated Chaos," which played with the ideas of a game called "Super Smash Bros.", (not sure how to write Italics in Yahoo Answers), which places characters from various Nintendo games together and has them duke it out. My idea was originally for fun and humor, but gradually became more ambitious.
Almost two years have passed since then, and in the past year, I've been working with it a lot more seriously. The idea began as putting different characters from different franchises together to see how they interact, with the idea that they were all from different universes and that the barrier between universes was collapsing (typical fan fiction.)
Now, the story is more of a tribute than actual fan fiction. All of the main characters are original, the main world they come from is original, and the worlds they go to are not so much the worlds presented by the original sources, but interpretations of those worlds.
I'll stop you there. I know I can't make money or profit from this. At least, not in its current incarnation.
The thing is that I've been working very hard, and have an overarching theme and plot that has nothing to do with the copyrighted franchises. However, I still intend to pay tribute to the franchises that inspired me to become a writer and to create, and especially the ones that I enjoyed as a youth (and still sometimes enjoy).
My question is this: In x amount of years (possibly 15), when I'm finished with this series, can I make a novel adaptation of it that I can publish, so long as I stick to the overarching plot and theme and avoid using copyrighted characters and trademarks?
I suppose I mostly hope with the project I'm working on now that a) I will be able to do something different with literature... really my main goal in life anyway, and b) that (maybe) it will gain me a following before I publish my first book, no matter how small (hopefully not small, since I am a good writer and am working very hard on this).

[clem84]

If people will read your story and think "oh look, that's the world from series / game / whatever x" then you can't use it.

If they'll read it and think "oh, that world's kinda comic book-ish", "oh, that world's a bit like a sentai anime" then you can.

I don't quite follow your question, though. One moment you say you know you can't publish it and the next you say you hope you'll be able to. If the question's "will the situation have changed in 15 years?" then no. Nowhere near long enough. Copyright is until 70 years after the author's death.

Basically, if you want to write fanfic then write fanfic. If you want to publish a novel, don't write fanfic.

And please don't even _try_ to publish numbers-filed-off fanfic which consists basically of "who would win this fight?" scenes. Is that what you're writing? Because, if so, it _so_ isn't "something different". Go to any fanfic site. It's what half the crossovers consist of, and it's _always_ terrible. You write perfectly coherently. You can do better.

Edit: Did you lose some zeroes? 400-600 words for each is a couple of pages for each one. You'd end up with a single short story, about 15 book pages long.

You own everything which doesn't belong to anyone else. Whether you can separate them out in order to publish your bit is the issue. Trust me, I feel your pain. I've written half a million words of fanfic which is well over 50% mine. No way I could separate it out.

You might also enjoy reading the Chronicles of Morgaine, by C J Cherryh. Nothing new in the world :)

[breasal]

I have been working on a project for some time. I was inspired by one of my friend's mainly parodious (that's a word now) "Orchestrated Chaos," which played with the ideas of a game called "Super Smash Bros.", (not sure how to write Italics in Yahoo Answers), which places characters from various Nintendo games together and has them duke it out. My idea was originally for fun and humor, but gradually became more ambitious.
Almost two years have passed since then, and in the past year, I've been working with it a lot more seriously. The idea began as putting different characters from different franchises together to see how they interact, with the idea that they were all from different universes and that the barrier between universes was collapsing (typical fan fiction.)
Now, the story is more of a tribute than actual fan fiction. All of the main characters are original, the main world they come from is original, and the worlds they go to are not so much the worlds presented by the original sources, but interpretations of those worlds.
I'll stop you there. I know I can't make money or profit from this. At least, not in its current incarnation.
The thing is that I've been working very hard, and have an overarching theme and plot that has nothing to do with the copyrighted franchises. However, I still intend to pay tribute to the franchises that inspired me to become a writer and to create, and especially the ones that I enjoyed as a youth (and still sometimes enjoy).
My question is this: In x amount of years (possibly 15), when I'm finished with this series, can I make a novel adaptation of it that I can publish, so long as I stick to the overarching plot and theme and avoid using copyrighted characters and trademarks?
I suppose I mostly hope with the project I'm working on now that a) I will be able to do something different with literature... really my main goal in life anyway, and b) that (maybe) it will gain me a following before I publish my first book, no matter how small (hopefully not small, since I am a good writer and am working very hard on this).