Fanfictions

[KitKatMatt]

I wrote original fiction for a while before venturing into fanfiction, and I think it really helped me refine my writing skills. For one, it was a lot less dark than my original fiction D), and reading new stories introduced me to a very large vocabulary and many different writing styles!

Just recently I have been writing most of my stories in second person, which is really fun!

The only problem I seem to have now is that I can't seem to properly build characters of my own since I'm so used to pre-made characters and worlds. I need to look up some exercises online to help me with that

The slash debates... been through those for years. You like what you like, you don't like what you don't like. Personally, I just don't read or pay attention to fanfiction with subjects I don't like- because it's common courtesy to label them with warnings before starting the story. If someone doesn't label their stories, it's OK to send them a message or review asking them to do so nicely!

I'm a shipper, so perhaps I feel a little hurt whenever I hear people say "they shouldn't upload their fanfics" or "they should go somewhere else". I label all of my fics properly, and put them in the right sections, so I don't see why we can't get along (Even if you don't like them!)

In response to someone's concern with fanfiction that has a Christian theme- Star Trek isn't one of my fandoms, but I would LOVE to read fanfiction with a Christian theme or references! That sounds super interesting (And Fanfiction.net is definitely a great place to upload, I've been there for years!)

 

[jw203]

I tread lightly with fanfiction since most of them are kinda bad.

 

[catzetier]

I agree, jw203. Most fanfiction is badly-written. But then again, one could say the same thing of quite a few books. It certainly doesn't mean that there are no good ones!

If I find a fanfic author who can write, I tend to at least look at their recommendations, because often those will also be by people who can write. (I find new authors this way too, incidentally - there's no way I would have found James Thurber if Peter Beagle hadn't mentioned him, and his children's books are hilarious.)

Also, edit since first posting here - I have recently discovered the BBC Sherlock fandom. Some of those are utterly amazing. However - like with a lot of fandom - you have to actively avoid stuff you don't like. I don't like slash fanfics - I used to be able to put up with it if it was well-written and it wasn't the main point of the tale but not any more - and I do try to avoid extreme violence. With Harry Potter (my main fandom), these two are a problem although that's probably because there's so many stories - you get absolutely everything and I mean this literally (years ago I read a tale about the Hogwarts years told from the point of view of a floorboard, and if you can get THAT...). And also many of the fandom are quite young. When you get a thirteen-year-old trying to write romance the results are seldom good!

With Sherlock, the main thing I find myself actively avoiding is slash. Sigh. I thought it was made perfectly clear in the very first episode that John was straight and Sherlock completely disinterested in any romantic relationship whatsoever... but then, the thing about fanfic is that if you don't like something you can change it. And if you don't like whatever the premise is, don't read it. As long as the author is considerate enough to tell the reader at the start, that is! And most are.

 

[LadyNRA]

While I agree that people can write whatever they want there is an unexpected problem with certain types of fic...namely slash fic. Not that it is written. I get that folks out there like it. But sometimes the writers get so carried away with slash pairings and writing it, that the average adventure or episodic fics get drowned on the page and pushed way back on the list of things to read. I see this with Warehouse 13 fanfic. Even though the HG Wells/Myka ship was NEVER established as canon (HG is a woman in this), the folks who swear they see the 'subtext' have run with it. The result is that 80% of the fic writtenfor the fandom are HG/Myka stories. so if myself or one of my friends write a straight-up adventure (without any shipping at all), it stays up on the first page for a day or so. Then blammo, it gets booted to the second page because suddenly the slash shippers start posting again (or adding chapters to existing stories to bring it forward again) and the adventure/episodic type stories are gone from view. It's very frustrating. For that reason alone, I sometimes wish that there was a separate set of pages for slash fic so that I don't have to scan through the stories to see which are slash and which aren't. In my case, I can occasionally use the filters to find a particular character and that helps me bypass most of it, but even then, it doesn't always work.

 

[KitKatMatt]

Having to filter through stuff you don't like comes with the territory of everything, though.

Just another one of those things about life.

 

[LadyNRA]

I've been writing fanfiction for years. There was a time when it was a lifeline, as I could do little else due to ill health. I still write it now although as I'm trying to be a professional writer, obviously original stuff takes priority.

With regard to slash, I was into it at one point, before I became a Christian. This has caused a few problems as now I face several stories I started posting and now want to completely change. In some this can be achieved simply by replacing one character with another; in other cases it merits tearing the stories apart completely and rewriting practically from scratch.

There are some archives which don't allow slash fiction--they tend to be smaller, pickier ones, which can be beneficial. I guess it depends on the fandom though, I'm in three: Harry Potter, Buffy and Doctor Who, and have only found sites like that for the former. If you're in a big fandom it's probably worth a lot of Googling to track down the lesser-known archives.

Out of curiosity what did you like about Slash. I've been trying to figure out why people like it (unless they were gay, in which case I could see the appeal...but the majority of slash writers/readers are not gay). I'm not being sarcastic, I really am trying to understand what the appeal is. I asked this once on a secular forum and got some okay answers and some testy answers but I'm just trying to figure out the appeal.

Yeah, my fandoms in the past didn't have a lot of slash (although I'm a true blue Sci-Fi fan so like most "universes") but the one I wrote for a lot lately got totally overwhelmed by it and now I rarely go on that page unless I'm really in the mood to waste time weeding through the slash to find the regular adventure stories.

Love HP, Doctor Who. and enjoyed Buffy on TV. Don't know what to say about the ongoing slash stuff you wrote that you now want to change. It's a lot of work. I know that. Up to you and how much you love your stories and want to change them so you can finally finish. But I can see putting them aside in order to work on the original stuff. My problem is that I rarely come up with original story ideas. I'm so used to working in established universes. Ah well, what can ya do? Good luck with your writing!

 

[englishmuffin]

LadyNRA: That's an interesting question. I'm not certain, although I think the fact that, for some time during my teens, I was convinced I was bisexual, probably was some influence.

Another factor might have been my lack of close friends, which caused some confusion as where friendship could end and romance begin; I'm no psychologist here but I have noticed that the ships I tended to like were the best-friend ones. Plus I was a teenager so probably read too much into innocent things.

Anyway, it wasn't specifically slash that I liked--I don't think I ever thought "hmm, I fancy reading some slash"--I tended to get attached to specific pairings, and looked for/wrote them. Other pairings I wouldn't touch. I have to say, I've never enjoyed overly sexual writing in any form.

Rewriting my fics are going to be some work. At least in most of them the pairings were sub-plots. And at least it was for only one fandom.

I feel that I should have more original ideas, being a professional writer. (Well, I haven't made any money out of it yet, but I've had two poems published, so that makes me a professional.) But often I find, because I have universes (and other people's characters) ingrained in my head, that plenty of original ideas come to me in fan fiction form. I've been known to trial an idea as fanfic and then adapt and change it round for original fiction, once I've built new characters for it. (It takes me a long time to write real characters. Plots are much easier. Especially with a giant whiteboard.) I'd never just change the names (coughfiftyshadescough); to me that feels like cheating. Besides, I'd want people who read my fanfic to be able to read my novels as well without knowing the ending already.

If you want to write something original, why not comb through your fanfiction and see if there's anything worth turning into an original story? As long as you tweak it enough and come up with different characters, there's no harm in it.


I began writing Doctor Who fairly recently (compared with my other fandoms), and knew from the start that slash was not going to play a part, despite its appearance from time to time in the Whoniverse itself. My biggest challenge so far has been the character of Jack--for anyone who doesn't know, he'll flirt (and sleep) with anything and anyone; and the only long-term 'relationship' he has in canon is with another man. I originally planned to just avoid dealing with his love life when he appeared--all a matter of who's perspective I was writing from--but it turns out quite a few writers have paired him with Donna and that seems quite acceptable. So I've done that in more or less everything. I've become quite fond of the couple, actually.

 

[mojoboy31]

Fanfics! I'm so happy to see a thread about it here.

I've been writing fanfics on fanfiction.net for over a year now. I found it to be a great way to get feedback on my prose without the risk of showing anyone my original creations. And interacting with a fandom while in the process of writing has been a huge blast.

I have a few fics in progress, a Star Wars: Force Unleashed one, which was my first and started as just something fun for me and my little brother, because he loves everything Star Wars.

A Teen Titans one. My second, and easily the best. I'm pretty proud of it. It started out as an exercise to see if I could write angst. Somehow, the story spun into action/adventure/mystery with plenty of teenage angst thrown in. And my prose got better and better with every single update.

19 chapters, 50,000 words, and 96 reviews. And *still* no one has guessed who the villain pulling the strings is.

 

[keith99]

I wrote original fiction for a while before venturing into fanfiction, and I think it really helped me refine my writing skills. For one, it was a lot less dark than my original fiction D), and reading new stories introduced me to a very large vocabulary and many different writing styles!

Just recently I have been writing most of my stories in second person, which is really fun!

The only problem I seem to have now is that I can't seem to properly build characters of my own since I'm so used to pre-made characters and worlds. I need to look up some exercises online to help me with that

The slash debates... been through those for years. You like what you like, you don't like what you don't like. Personally, I just don't read or pay attention to fanfiction with subjects I don't like- because it's common courtesy to label them with warnings before starting the story. If someone doesn't label their stories, it's OK to send them a message or review asking them to do so nicely!

I'm a shipper, so perhaps I feel a little hurt whenever I hear people say "they shouldn't upload their fanfics" or "they should go somewhere else". I label all of my fics properly, and put them in the right sections, so I don't see why we can't get along (Even if you don't like them!)

In response to someone's concern with fanfiction that has a Christian theme- Star Trek isn't one of my fandoms, but I would LOVE to read fanfiction with a Christian theme or references! That sounds super interesting (And Fanfiction.net is definitely a great place to upload, I've been there for years!)

Bolding mine. A character need not be entirely new to seem that way.

Since this is in Science Fiction and Fantasy I'll go the the author I know best. Heinlein.

Johnny Rico - Starship troopers
Johnny Ezra Dahlquist - The Long Watch
John Lyle - If This Goes On

Are all from the same mold. All idealistic young men with talent who were put in hard situations and did their duty as they saw it. (All men who underestimated their own abilities, a very common thread in Heinlein).

John Lyle had an older, more experienced Friend Zeb.

That same pairing gets used in Starman Jones. But here one other thing gets thrown in. Jones is a mathematical wonder.

Hmm a math wonder who undervalues his talents. Who does that remind me of? Oh yea, Andrew Jackson Libby, introduced in Misfit. Here the math front and center where in Starman Jones it is more just a plot device.

Back to Starman Jones. Spoiler alert for 2 of the stories. Sam seems to be a deserter from the marines. Something not made clear until near the very end when he turns to cover the escape of Jones, the only person who has any chance of getting the ship home. (We find out because the stance he takes to fire is textbook for marines). Sam had no desire to be a hero, he just knew what mattered. Rather like Dahlquist.

Now look at Logic of Empire. Same kind of pairing. Naive and cynical but the gap reduced a bit and the story line separating them and the cynical one is all but out of the story.

A side shoot. Have Spacesuit will Travel. Same naive talented guy, but this time paired with a precocious girl. His lack of seeing his own talents the most magnified of all. So magnified the reader perhaps even misses them until we are hit over the head with just who his parents were.

Reverse things a bit in Coventry. The naive modest young man is instead a self centered ivory tower twit who grossly overestimates his own talents. And the pairing with an older more cynical partner happens a bit farther in than usual. But in some ways still the same pairing and once his head is forces out of the clouds (I so wanted to use a different image but you know the censors) he then underestimates himself, or at the least his progress. Oh and one 'minor' character is the daughter of the only real doctor in Coventry. One who is very near the twin of the girl in Have Spacesuit will travel.

I could go on, but you get the idea. The basic core characteristics can be reused and reused easily. But you need to avoid reusing less important stuff like physical descriptions, profession or tag lines.

Take anyone's characters, then reskin them. Make the surface different but keep the core the same, or tweaked in just one of two ways.

BUT you need to be careful. You need to think in terms of making yuor won character with the same traits as an existing character, not just dressing up the Character.

 

[Bananagator]

Lol I used to read fanfiction back in jr high.

I only liked the stuff that was devoted to world-expanding; not really "alternate realities" or whatever. So being a little more specific, I liked stories centered around characters and events that were mostly in the background during the main story.

I did find some pretty good ones but yeah, a lot of them just... weren't

 

[mojoboy31]

Lol I used to read fanfiction back in jr high.

I only liked the stuff that was devoted to world-expanding; not really "alternate realities" or whatever. So being a little more specific, I liked stories centered around characters and events that were mostly in the background during the main story.

I did find some pretty good ones but yeah, a lot of them just... weren't

Yeah, the AU ones are just dumb. lol

 

[KitKatMatt]

My fandom basically requires AU if anyone wants to read anything remotely happy

 

[mojoboy31]

My fandom basically requires AU if anyone wants to read anything remotely happy

In that case, I would probably enjoy AU universes, but most my fandoms, AU usually just means "everyone's in highschool, crushing on each other"

 

[KitKatMatt]

To be honest, I consider those entertaining AU fics depending on the writing style.

 

[mojoboy31]

To be honest, I consider those entertaining AU fics depending on the writing style.

Hahaha. If the writer is good, they can be quite entertaining. If the writer is not........ Yeah....

 

[YoureMyBeloved]

Sherlock Holmes fanfictions are my favorite.

 

[mojoboy31]

I've never read a Sherlock fanfiction.

 

[YoureMyBeloved]

I've never read a Sherlock fanfiction.

Are you talking about the Sherlock series? The fictions I like to read are based in the true character. Victorian Holmes always.

 

[mojoboy31]

Either or. lol.

 

[Bananagator]

Are you talking about the Sherlock series? The fictions I like to read are based in the true character. Victorian Holmes always.

Honestly, I consider anything not written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle fan fiction when it comes to Sherlock Holmes