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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37641
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37641
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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](http://www.hpmor.com/)_, 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).

Original score: 1