What do you think of Fan Fiction?

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction' started by JC Axe, Oct 22, 2014.

  1. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    Fairy snuff.
     
  2. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    This is why I don't cook.
     
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  3. Baywriter

    Baywriter Contributor Contributor

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    I don't think there's anything wrong with reading it or writing it. I just read another thread where there was an argument about whether or whether not fan fiction is a lesser form of writing. I think it inherently is, since part of the process of writing is forming a story-line and characters. Even if a fan fiction is well-written, eliminating that aspect of the writing process certainly makes it less work, and therefore, less impressive.

    I have nothing against fan fiction. I used to write it and read it. There's too much crap there for me to venture into that world again. I'm not saying there aren't good writers doing it, but for most people, it's a stepping stone, which means the writer isn't done growing yet. You're probably not going to be reading anyone's true potential.

    Also, why is anyone arguing about whether or whether not they'll make you money? Are any of us going to make money, real money, as writers? It's nice to dream.
     
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  4. Mike Hill

    Mike Hill Natural born citizen of republic of Finland.

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    I also agree that fan fiction is really good training and some create good stories. If you are a kid or inexperienced writer it is easier to write fan fiction than start a own world.
     
  5. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Exactly. If your goal is not "make a lot of money" but "entertain your community with your musical skills," then entertaining your community with your skill at covering great music is not a "failure to make money," it is a success at entertaining your community.

    That's actually a very good way of putting it: "paying to renovate a house that you're renting."

    If your goal of the renovation is "make money re-selling," then you'll want your own house so that you have complete authority over what you can and cannot improve, but if your goal is simply "make the house I'm staying in more enjoyable for my family and our visitors," then renovations that make a rental more enjoyable are not a "failure to make a profitable investment."
     
  6. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I haven't read much of it so I can't really say. I think it could be fun, but it is limiting. I attempted to do a Sweet Valley High Fan fic - in which Elizabeth, Jessica, Lila and the like fall under a zombie attack - it was to be tongue in cheek, very humorous. But trying to write it in the style of the books was stifling, I couldn't get past six pages.

    I couldn't really see it as a serious writing endeavor more like a fan club thing where you trade stories and have fun. I think what also terrified me about finishing it was - what if it caught on and I suddenly became known as the writer who brought zombies to Sweet Valley High? And anything else afterwards would refer back to it. And even worse - tons of downloads and not making one penny off it - lol.
     
  7. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    Isn't any hobby then a 'waste of time'? Let's face it, most fanfic writers are doing it for one reason - they enjoy it. It's fun, and they can be part of a community (fandom). Some people have hobbies for pure enjoyment, and are well aware they aren't particularly good at it - they just enjoy the side benefits. Others enjoy the hobby but take it very seriously, wanting to constantly improve. Neither participant is 'better' than the other. They just have different reasons for the hobby. And just because someone else doesn't like or understand their hobby doesn't make it worthless, or the participants sub-par.
     
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  8. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    I think I made a mistake in my original post on this thread. I assumed 'fanfic' was a word used to mean any spin-off of a series or another book, written either by amateurs or professional writers. I didn't realise that it also means 'illegal if published.' So I guess the books I read that were laid in the Star Wars universe were not, technically 'fan fic.' They were at least approved, if not actually commissioned. My mistake.

    So I suppose ...if you're writing real fanfic, you're at least getting some writing practice and probably enjoying yourself and maybe hooking up with others who share your passion for a book, series or film?. Okay, it won't actually advance your writing career. But practice is a good thing, if it leads you to eventually breaking off and creating your own characters and stories. At least you'll have had some experience in constructing a story and developing your storytelling skills. With the added plus, that, if you belong to a group which shares fanfic, you'll get feedback from people who like your genre. So not a bad thing, really. Especially if it leads to your own work, eventually.
     
  9. KipDynamite

    KipDynamite Member

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    As far as I'm concerned, the whole concept of fanfiction is completely stupid. Sure, people are inspired by the creations of other authors, I get that. There's nothing at all wrong with borrowing tropes. Writers have been doing that for centuries.

    However, it strikes me as very cheesy and unoriginal to write in the exact same universe as another author. No matter how much you like a story, wouldn't it be so much more fun to write your own material than reuse stuff that has already been thrown into mainstream culture? It's stupid, cheesy, and all it does is open the door for plagiarism and exploitation of other authors. Just write your own material.
     
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  10. AlannaHart

    AlannaHart Senior Member

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    I'm so saddened by these negative reactions to fanfiction. It's coming across a bit snobbish to me. One of the best stories I've ever read was fanfiction and the author has moved on to professional writing now.
     
  11. Baywriter

    Baywriter Contributor Contributor

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    I've never read a fanfic as good as the stories and novels I've read. It might be well-written, but a fanfic assumes its readers know its characters and its world because, well, they do. I can't be compelled by a story that has characters I don't care about, but who made me care about the characters? Not the author of any fanfic.

    I'm not bashing fanfics, but I don't think people are being snobbish, even if they're stating their opinions harshly.
     
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  12. AlannaHart

    AlannaHart Senior Member

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    A well written story is a well written story, if you ask me. Bugger the origins. There's a lot of silly, poorly written fanfic, but then, there's a lot of silly, poorly written novels as well.
     
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  13. Baywriter

    Baywriter Contributor Contributor

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    But the origins... That's half the work. There are plenty of shitty novels, sure, but a good novel is always better than a good fanfic.
     
  14. Bjørnar Munkerud

    Bjørnar Munkerud Senior Member

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    I don't personally read or write fan fiction, but I can see the appeal of both. If you're a fan of, say, the Harry Potter books then reading more stories in the same universe is likely to appeal to you, and if you want to write stuff, but don't have the inspiration or dedication or whatever to go all in and quit your job, make up a story and write a book, fan fiction might be the thing for you. Like all genres and media, though, the thing that matters most is the execution, in this case the writing, and, sadly, my impression of the quality of most fan fiction is not at all good. This makes sense considering who the writers are, but that doesn't make the fan fiction any better.

    The most egregious thing about fan fiction, though, is all the Mary Sues. Need I say more? As an author, what I love the most about fan fiction is that it gives me an opportunity to unabashedly scoff their almost invariably absolutely horrendous character development.
     
  15. AlannaHart

    AlannaHart Senior Member

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    I don't look at it from a 'have they put the work in?' angle. If I had the choice, I'd just rather read a well written piece of fanfiction than a trashy novel.
    Mary Sues are rampant in every genre of fiction, by the way *cough*twilight, anyone?*cough* and you'd be surprised. Sometimes a poorly developed character from a published work can be thoroughly explored and elevated through fanfiction. Just like original stories, however, one must sift through the shit. I understand most couldn't be bothered with this.
     
  16. elynne

    elynne Active Member

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    Watership Down is one of my favorite books of all time. I was thrilled when a collection of "sequel" stories by the author, Richard Adams, was published, and raced to get a copy. the stories were, unfortunately, exceptionally disappointing. few of them had the spirit of the original, and a couple of them broke canon established in the book in pretty terrible ways. on the whole, it read like bad, poorly-researched, ham-handed fanfic. feeling a bit depressed about this, I went to AO3 and looked up highly-rated Watership Down fanfic. I found two stories and one collection that were all amazing--as good as the original, or even better, that delved into concepts from the book in fascinating new ways, or introduced new characters that would have fit into the canon universe perfectly. if I had been presented with one of those stories from AO3 and one of the "sequel stories" by the actual author side-by-side, told that one was fanfic and one by the author, and asked to choose which was which, I know I would have chosen wrong.

    I've written more original works than fanfic, but I've only found one good platform for web-publishing my writing--AO3--and that platform only allows the posting of fanfics, so that's all I have there. AO3 has a very good tracking system, which allows me to see how many hits my pages get as well as showing me when my stories get "favorites" or comments, and which is how I know that my stories have been read by thousands of people.

    any complaints that could be made about fanfic can also be made about the majority of original fiction, because remember--90% of everything is crap. what gets read is what the readers like, and you can debate the tastes of the audience and how they're shaped by society and market forces as much as you like, but ultimately if you don't get an audience, you don't get the opportunity to reach and affect people. fanfic comes with a built-in audience base, but that base is just as picky about what they read as any other, if not more so. for some people, knowing that what they're reading was written not by some inaccessible creator sitting in an immaculate ivory tower being gifted by inspiration directly from the angelic host, but by some shlub just like themselves who liked the original idea but decided to do something a little different with it is the spur that they needed to give writing a try.
     
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  17. daemon

    daemon Contributor Contributor

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    A very significant subset of fanfiction is, indeed, fanfiction of fanfiction. I have read a bonus chapter that someone wrote for someone else's fanfic (the bonus chapter is actually far better than the fanfic itself), sequels to fanfics, alternate universe fanfics of fanfics, etc. Fanfiction communities are quite resourceful. If two or more ideas have been developed in different places, and if they would work well in unison, then you can bet someone will combine them into a new work.

    New thoughts (shifting to the general "you"):

    You can theorize all you want about a category of things. But until you actually observe a good example of that category and give it a fair evaluation, you are incapable of anything other than ignorant drivel about the quality or merits of things in that category.

    It is easy enough to come up with arbitrary ideals (like "develop your characters from scratch") that you expect everything to follow, but if you expose yourself to a good variety of things outside your comfort zone, and if you are a half-decent learner, then your priorities eventually shift so that you only judge something based on the thoughts you have after observing it. Just like your parents (I hope) used to tell you since before you could read.

    I used to believe in some of the common criticisms of fanfiction. "Fanfiction steals the hard work of someone else." "Designing original characters is half the battle." "Fanfiction is just a decent exercise for writers cutting their teeth until they are capable of writing something truly good." "If you can write a good fanfic, then you can write a better original novel, so why waste time writing fanfiction?"

    That was until I actually read some fanfics at the recommendation of a friend. They captivated me despite my reluctance. I enjoyed them greatly. They impressed me. They moved me. They gave me knowledge that contradicted the vague ideas I had developed out of my philosophizing. That knowledge forced me to reconsider everything I thought I knew about writing.

    Today, it just so happens that my favorite work of fiction is a fanfic. The quality of writing is a mixed bag; there are some brilliant passages, and an entire chapter or two that blew my mind, but overall, it could use quite a bit of editing. But even without better editing, it accomplishes something that no other work of fiction (to my knowledge) has ever accomplished.

    Could it have been written as a non-fanfic? Yes. And it is being re-imagined as a non-fanfic (which is my current project). But would it have gotten to that point without the existence of fanfiction as a jumpstart for developing the idea? Probably not. And why should it? All that matters is the end result. If a good result comes from a long process in which many people reimagine and recombine each others' ideas, then every step along the way is worthy of praise according to how much it contributed to the result. That is already how society generally feels about scientific, technological, and mathematical progress; why should fiction be any different?

    Furthermore, I have also read fanfics that would not work any better as non-fanfics than a parody would work without its source material. I greatly enjoyed these fanfics; therefore, I think something significant would be missing from the world if they had not been written. Therefore, "don't waste your time writing a story about someone else's characters" would have been terrible advice to those authors.
     
  18. Baywriter

    Baywriter Contributor Contributor

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    I think it's unfair to assume that people who don't think fan fics are comparable to original work haven't read fan fiction. I've read a lot. A lot. More than I care to admit. It was a couple years ago, before I realized that I actually wanted to be a writer, but I imagine it's exactly the same as it was then.

    I'm not even hating on fan fiction. I don't have any issue with its existence. I just have an issue with glorifying it. When I read something, I want it to be artful. Eliminating the creation of original characters in an original world automatically makes it less artful to me. This is just my opinion, of course.
     
  19. elynne

    elynne Active Member

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    this seems like a very arbitrary delineation to me--but that line of thought immediately goes into questions like "what is art?" and at that point we're all just monkeys punching each other.

    but again, you've read a lot of fanfic--and I assume you've read a lot of non-fanfic; even given the fact that most of the fiction you've read has probably passed the editor hurdle in order to get published, I'd bet that you've read some non-fanfic that was worse than the best fics. given the advent of blogging and self-publication, I'd go so far as to say that there's a whole lot of really, really terrible fiction out there, that makes even some of the more painful Sonic the Hedgehog/Harry Potter crossovers look like noble aspirations of art.

    the only quantifiable difference between fanfic and non-fanfic is that fanfic by its nature has less gatekeeping on it than "traditional fiction," in the form of editorial control for publication--and even that boundary is getting blurrier as time goes on. personally, I'm a fan of removing gatekeeping whenever possible. 90% of everything is crap; but that remaining 10% contains genius, and I'd rather remove the barriers that would prevent a lot of that genius from being allowed onto the field to begin with.
     
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  20. daemon

    daemon Contributor Contributor

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    Is that an a priori opinion or is it based on instances when you read fanfiction and thought "Something is really missing from this story... I would find it more satisfying to read if I were discovering these characters for the first time right now"?

    What is your opinion of parody? Or of fanfics that showcase fans' theories about the original work? Or of fanfics that take some kind of plot or character development concept from the original work and draw it to an interesting conclusion that deepens how you think about the original?

    Granted, in general, I agree that original character development can be a huge artistic bonus (primarily because it gives the author more control, and thus more leeway to write the story in the way that works best), which is the primary reason why I chose to pursue my current project of writing a novel about original characters in a re-imagination of the premise of existing fanfic. But it is impossible to divide works of fiction into originals and derivatives and to say the set of originals is categorically more artistic than the set derivatives. There are many factors that go into the artistic merit of something; original character development is just one of them.
     
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  21. Baywriter

    Baywriter Contributor Contributor

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    Yes, I've read a lot of non-fanfic, but I do not read self-published books or anything of that nature, so most of what I've read is more polished than the fanfics I've read.

    If you want to literally define art, then it's "the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination," which I would argue, is applied in a greater sense when writing an original story with original characters. You have to imagine more.

    Obviously, there is art in any form of writing, including fanfic, because writing is an art in itself, but still, I think original writing is, by nature, more artful.

    Not to start a debate about art. xD

    Y'all, I'm seriously not hating on fanfics. I wrote a lot of InuYasha fanfics when I was 16. Been there. I've just moved on.
     
    Last edited: Oct 24, 2014
  22. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Dangerous words.

    When I was in High School and my first year of college, I watched a lot of sit-coms like Big Bang Theory, Modern Family, How I Met Your Mother, Rules of Engagement...

    And then "I moved on." I had a finite amount of time in my life to spend watching TV, and started devoting all of that time to shows that I considered more "respectable:" crime dramas where there was "more at stake," where "there was a reason to watch." Even dramedies like Castle, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, and the Marvel Cinematic 'Verse were "acceptable" to me because "there was an actual plot where actual things happened."

    And you know what? I've since started watching comedies again. I don't know how I convinced myself that straight comedies were "less compelling" than dramedies and straight dramas, but somehow I did, and I am never doing that again.

    I tend to be the guy with his head in the clouds and who over thinks everything to the point of missing the important details right in front of me. When I get to the point of saying "philosophizing is a poor substitute for real experience," I know it must be serious ;)
     
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  23. Lilly James Haro

    Lilly James Haro The Grey Warden

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    Unfortunately there is a lot of terrible fanfiction that is actually painful to read due to lack of imagination, bad writing or even too much imagination. However I have read some very good fanfiction as well, I remember reading a Les Miserables one that was so good it could be canon, it really depends on the author, like all pieces of writing. But yes, on a whole I do think it is a legitimate form of self expression and creativity.
     
  24. shadowwalker

    shadowwalker Contributor Contributor

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    Wow. Judgemental much? But then I suppose all of your activities are totally worthwhile in the eyes of everyone else.
     
  25. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    What about the original author's intent? I think I'd be upset if I wrote a bestseller, and then someone took my characters and did something I didn't approve of with them.

    Take Star Trek, for example. What if someone made Kirk and Spock gay and wrote sex scenes with them? (This has already happened.) Or what if Scotty turned out to be a saboteur working for the Romulans, and betrays the crew and blows up the ship? What if you were Gene Roddenberry reading this stuff and seeing your own characters horribly distorted by people you haven't authorized? Would you feel violated? I think I would.
     

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