Fan Fiction: a crutch or a good start?

I think fanfiction is a great start if you enjoy writing. There's nothing you can gain from writing completely original stories that you can't gain from writing fanfic. As for no confidence in creating your own world, with fic, you can build on that confidence. You could try putting some of the characters in a world not mentioned in canon, an AU, which would improve world building. Also, you could create original characters in the story. Once confidant doing that, you could tell the fanfic from the OC's point of view about the main characters. These are things that won't hurt a writer to learn.

posted over 12 years ago

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Anonymous‭

5 reputation 0 1 1 0

I don't know if Fanfic is a crutch or useful practice, but it is fun. For me, writing fanfic is one of the ways I enjoy a book. So I'd do it whether it's useful or not.

That said, can writing fanfic be useful?

• Fanfic allows you to engage in "what if" scenarios: what if Frodo and Sam were lovers, what if Draco Malfoy was secretly good, whatever. (I'm deliberately choosing infamous examples here.) "What if" scenarios are useful for when you write your own stuff too: when you're stuck, you can ask yourself "what if this happens", when something doesn't work you can go "what if this happens instead of that." Such flexibility is necessary to arrive at a good story.
• You (hopefully) learn to realise the limitations and the conventions of the characters and the world: when a character is acting "out of character", when whatever doesn't exist in this world, when Captain Kirk can't die because the world will change its basic laws just to keep him alive. In turn, you can then learn to realise the limitations of what you write, and consciously use them, or avoid making them.
• You can learn to recognise when you're writing something that's objectively bad, but for one reason or another really fun for you. For example, you might have inserted yourself as a Mary Sue who goes on to save and marry the main hero of the franchise. Having learnt to recognise this bad practice, you can keep it to your drawer stash and away from material you try to publish.
• Utilising all the above, a fanfic story can be good. You can use the established and widely familiar world to draw attention to something, in which case the fanfic aspect becomes a strength of the story rather than a weakness. For example, in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, Eliezer Yudkowsky deconstructs the whole Harry Potter series by stressing multiple logical failures in the original and suggesting how smarter characters should have acted. He is also quite funny in the process. This is achieved by asking "what if Harry Potter's aunt and uncle were nice Oxford professors instead of schmucks" (point 1) and by noting the limits of Rowling's world (point 2).

posted over 6 years ago

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Galastel‭

1885 reputation 81 551 319 3

I have encountered numbers of excellent fanfics out there which could stand out on their own, and be excellent works by themselves if the author just didn't constrain himself into the pre-created world.

I'm not saying that you should always create your own worlds, but when you're confident about your work and people start to appreciate it, it might be a good time to whip up your own universe and make a recognition for yourself.

posted about 14 years ago

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Axarydax‭

40 reputation 3 2 6 0

I am a bit of an amateur writer and I have always considered fan fic to be the bottom of the barrel. The people who write it are generally those who have obsessed over some one else's work. They may re-arrange the concepts and plot, but they are creating nothing really new. Most are also so inept at writing that in truth they detract from it.

As some one else mentioned, world building is a large portion of writing fiction. Without those skills, you are ruining your own potential as an author. Honestly you should take the time to write completely original short stories. Share these stories with a few friends to get their honest impressions, then toss them aside and work on another. After a few months, once the story is old and mostly forgotten, re-read it yourself, and re-write it.

posted almost 14 years ago

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Evil Spork‭

25 reputation 1 2 4 0

It's a crutch.

The scariest thing about writing is the idea that nobody will like (or even understand) the stories and characters you create. Writing fanfic is an attempt to dodge that risk by using stories and characters that are already well liked and well understood instead.

The problem is that you never learn anything without taking a risk, and so by hiding behind other peoples' characters fanfic writers stunt their own development. The way you learn how to write good characters and compelling stories is by writing bad and boring ones. The things you do wrong give you insight on how to do it right. But this never happens in fanfic, because you always have that world's established tropes to fall back on.

In other words, to tell great stories you have to be willing to fail completely, and fanfic writers aren't.

posted almost 14 years ago

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jalefkowit‭

10 reputation 0 1 2 0

The problem with fan fiction is that it will always be tied down to the source material, and can't really become more than what it is. They're a sidetrack rather than a stepping stone.
Okay, to reword that first paragraph:
If you are going to draw from a source material, be aware that you are creating a branch of the source material. You're creating something that is anchored in someone else's fiction. As HedgeMage illustrated in her answer, sometimes this is a good thing in specific cases, but in general "fanfic" use it leads to bad habits.

If you find yourself having trouble creating your own fiction, ask yourself what it is specifically about this source material that you like. It won't help to wholesale copy characters/settings/etc from a source, but it's certainly okay to find inspiration from the elements that compose your favourites.

If you're having trouble world building, perhaps you can draw inspiration from real world locations. Every fictional city/street/country draws something from one or more counterparts in the real world.

posted about 14 years ago

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Tim‭

10 reputation 0 1 2 0

It's a crutch if you don't make it solid enough to stand on it's own. Write good stories that can be read in any context and you'll be able to mitigate that.

Don't let yourself get stuck in niche fanfic cultures. Don't write stuff that requires people having read every other fanfic on the forum to understand. And don't let fanfic be the only type of story you ever write.

Understand that you're just choosing the constraints and backstories of your world. People that write non-fantasy use the real world as their source material. It's not a crutch for them, it's a choice.

posted almost 14 years ago

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Jethro Larson‭

5 reputation 0 1 1 0

Fanfic can help you learn writing skills if you treat it as a professional project. If you strive to make it the best it can be, then you will have learned something while doing it. Good luck!

posted almost 9 years ago

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Deau X. Machinus‭

75 reputation 5 3 12 0