Fiction, Sequels and Copyright

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I'm in in the process of writing a novel which is a sequel of sorts to another work by another author. The previous work was published over 20 years ago and itself borrowed heavily from a couple of other stories from around the turn of the last century. My story contains a few characters and locations from the earlier story and broadly similar theme but the all of the words are entirely my own. What I didn't consider when I started writing was whether if I were to publish my story I would be infringing the other person copyright. What is the legal status with regard to sequels and copyright? I'm especially interested if anyone knows of any precedent here in the UK.

I'm now at 20,000 words and it would be a shame to change what I've done so far. It wouldn't be a big deal to rename the characters and locations and with a little editing have a stand-alone story but I'd very much like to keep it in the spirit of the original if possible.

Usually you need permission from the copyright holder to use their "universe." The exception I know of, is if the original writer had help writing a story, the helper can later continue writing more stories in that "universe." I believe some big franchise holders allow some leeway for writing in their "universes." A couple of these are Star Trek and Star Wars. I think that's because, although the basic story universe was created by one person in each case--Gene Roddenbury and George Lucas, in the movie and TV industry, scripts by a number of other authors were submitted for these story universes, and some of them were used on screen. This opens a kind of door way to allow others to write in those universes, but you must check with the copyright holder, and also attribute the original idea to the original person(s). I know of several other authors who had people helping them with their story line. When the original author died, the helpers had the right to continue using the base story line to write more stories. They had to be able to prove that they had this right, though.

I suggest you check the copyright rules, either online or in the library, and then find out who owns the copyright on the original story you are interested in. It may not be the person who originally wrote the story. If they have died, or not renewed the copyright, someone else will own it. Most likely either a relative or the publisher. It will be best if you have permission from them, other wise you could be looking at a law suit.

Thanks for the reply. I already suspected this to be the case. IMHO it is an unfortunate consequence of copyright law. It is hard to see how a follow up work can damage the original author financially or alter the quality of the original story. But the rules are the rules.

For all sorts of reason it will probably be more trouble than it is worth to resolve this through the original publishers or copyright holders. I can produce a similar story while still removing any common elements I think. As long as none of the names or places are recognisable and I don't copy plot devices verbatim I should be safe, do you think? It is safe to do "in the style of" I would have thought.