What is Fanfiction, anyway?
In case you are not familiarized with the depths of the fandom world, or don't own a Tumblr account, fanfiction is a genre created somewhere around the 60’s, popularized and defined thanks to the Star Trek fandom and their fanzines.
It is, broadly defined, as fiction created by fans in which they use existent characters, settings and storylines taken out from already famous books, TV shows and movies.
For example, let's say you are a hardcore The Walking Dead fan (high five) and you hated the fact that Glenn died last season. You just can't stand the show without him. So, you go and write your own version, a somewhat alternative The Walking Dead universe in which Glenn is still alive and Negan kills Daryl instead, because you are an evil son of a bitch and want to watch the world burn.
And someone will read it and, I assure you, someone will love it.
Or maybe you feel like creating a new, original character who is going to be Khaleesi's new bff in your story. Or... even better! A story where Negan captures Hermione Granger and Carl Grimes runs to save her because, why the fuck not?
Here's the thing with fanfiction, you can write whatever you want and trust me, someone will always like it.
Fanfiction is most certainly not everyone's cup of tea and even among authors whose stories are being changed all the time, there's an ongoing debate. Some of them hate it tremendously while others are flattered with the idea.
And some shows, like Supernatural, are so open about it they even made an episode which centered around a group of excited high school girls producing a school play named Supernatural: The Musical, and instead of being a 50 minute long fan-shaming episode, it was an absolutely beautiful tribute to their loyal and, mostly female, fanbase.
To the Supernatural writers, the fact that their characters inspired someone to write their own version of the show is always worth of celebrating. Because, at the end of the day, fanfiction doesn't make any money off it since they don't get published for, well, obvious reasons.
for your characters, hence, you.
I can't help but to agree with authors such as Stephenie Meyer who, despite not being against fanfiction, encourage their fans to not waste time writing fanfic and instead, invest time creating stories of their own.
Nevertheless, it is proven that fanfiction can help aspiring writers to get better at both style and grammar since they do not have to waste energy creating plot and characters, and they can focus on storyline and setting only.
l'll talk about that in my Creative Writing 101 bootcamp, you can check it out in older posts.
I can understand the authors’ anger or discomfort towards fanfiction, though, I don't necessarily agree with them.
As an artist myself, the art I create is obviously mine and nothing will ever change that, but, once it's out there, I'm aware l'm setting it free so it becomes a part of those who read it, see it, hear it.
It belongs to them as well.
And to me, if anything I create, whether is a drawing, a story or a song, inspires you to make one of your own, that's the greatest praise I'm ever going to get.
What are your thoughts? Are you a fanfiction writer? Do you read it? Or you think it's a waste of time? Tell me in the comments!
Photo by Annie Spratt for Unsplash
Screencaps taken out of Supernatural's episode "Fan Fiction" - Warner Bros
Photo by Lilly Rum for Unsplash
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I'm not a writer nor that creative either now that I am an adult. I was wondering how does one write a Fan Fiction with the goal of being adopted as spin off by popular demand such as a game or book?