The value of fanfiction

[Quiver he/him]

So discussion topic for you guys; how much worth or value do you place upon fan fiction as an enterprise?

Otherwise one hand, it can be a great way to practice writing, to explore themes an author doesn't, or to try out things they don't..

But is it something that should only ever be viewed as a phase? Should the goal of someone be to eventually create original work and drop fanfiction all together, or is there an artistic merit to be found in it as it's own thing?

[Jo and the Bush all/any]

I've been a member of both camps at different times, and currently support both sides.

I've written lots of fanfictin, and read literally thousands of fan fic stories. (900 on FimFiction alone.) And I think that Fanfiction is an excellent starting point for writers. It gives them templates to practice with so that they understand how different character types interact. It also gives them access to readers who will be quick to point outflaws, and teach them further. But some authors never drop the fanfiction for original work. I've read fanfiction that rivals Brandon's skills. If the stopped writing Fanfiction, and wrote Original stuff, they could easily be the next Robert Jordan.

So really, I don't have an opinion. Fanfiction is good, for both itself and for original fiction.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

I've heard arguments from both sides. Fanfic is good; fanfic is bad. Fanfic teaches you to write; fanfic teaches you to plagiarize. I'd be lying if I said I was against fanfic, because I'm very much for it. And while I suppose I can see where writers like Diana Gabaldon and George R. R. Martin are coming from, I can't understand it. 

I began writing fanfic when I was fourteen. Some of it was solo, some of it was as part of a free-form RPG, and all of it was dreadful. I had better grammar and spelling than most writers that age, but that's about all you can say in my favor. Mary Sues abounded. Plot points were fixed or nonexistent. Romances were forced, friendships forged with little to go on, and any story gems I had were buried beneath a mountain of rookie mistakes. 

You probably think this is the part where I say that fanfic gave me a chance to make those mistakes in a safe environment, where the most embarrassing stories could be deleted with a click of the mouse. And you're right. Writing fanfic gave me a chance to not only get all of those rookie mistakes out of my system, but to compare my stories to canon and see where I came up short. It allowed me to learn how to manipulate words, how to get them to do what I wanted. When I look back at how I'd struggle through the writing process ten years ago, and I compare it to how I write now, the difference is astounding. I still wouldn't call myself an expert, but I no longer sit in front of my computer and wonder why this scene that was so vivid in my mind falls flat when I put it on the page. I can make the words obey me, and that's a direct result of writing so much fanfic. 

But there's a deeper reason. I've mentioned it elsewhere on the site, but as this is a discussion of fanfic and its value, it bears another mention here. Long story short, my parents didn't like the Harry Potter books. At all. You know those parents who took the quote from Philosopher's Stone, "There is no good or evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it" out of context and made it out to be the theme of the book? Yeah. Those were my parents. They've never read the books, and they never saw the need. They know what those filthy, sinful books are all about, and they know that they are a direct threat to their way of life. No—they're a direct threat to truth itself. They represent everything wrong with the world, and while they can't stop their kids from reading them, they can at least rant about them and how terrible they are. 

If you stop here, you may assume I identified with Harry. I was basically raised by the Dursleys, after all, and while my siblings and I got along well, people who have read accounts of Twimom and Twidad's shenanigans have called them abusive—like the Dursleys were toward Harry. And, yes, for the first few books, Harry and I got along well. He was a little hormonal in the fifth book, but I understood him. I can't say I really identified with anyone, though; I liked Harry and Ron and Hermione and Neville well enough, but we didn't click, and that was okay because I was reading at a blistering pace, too caught up in the plot and world to care. 

And then in the sixth book, something happened. 

Something involving a blond cremhole, a bathroom, and a nervous breakdown. 

I didn't understand what was happening at the time—another thing Draco and I have in common, I suppose. I didn't know that I identified with him. All I knew was that I thought Harry handled the situation in exactly the wrong way, and I was not happy with Rowling for sending that blond cremhole out with a whimper instead of a bang. I wanted him to defy Voldemort. I wanted him to come into his own, even if he didn't join the Order or the DA and defied Voldemort on his own terms. I was so upset that he stayed on the wrong side until the end that I wrote story after story where his arc ended the way I wanted it to, with more emphasis on what led to that nervous breakdown than Rowling probably ever considered. I rolled my eyes at the Draco in Leather Pants stories popping up around the same time I was posting my work. Those stories, in my opinion, glossed over the most interesting part of his character, robbing him of much of his appeal. 

It took years for me to realize I identified with Draco, and longer to realize why. Again, if you're familiar with the Twimom and Twidad Saga, you know that they are very prejudiced people. Toward other religions, toward the LGBT community, toward evolutionists, toward people who dress in ways they don't like….take your pick. Yet they don't bear much resemblance to Lucius and Narcissa, who genuinely wanted what was best for their son. No, their treatment of me reminded me of the way Voldemort treated Draco—setting him up to fail, punishing him for that failure, turning him into an all-purpose scapegoat—all of that was familiar in a way that took me years to comprehend. And when I finally reconciled what my head was saying about my parents with what I'd been telling myself, I was able to take a few steps away from them. Like I'd wanted Draco to do with Voldemort. I looked at him, and I saw someone who was trapped by what he'd been raised to think was true; someone who knew something was wrong, but thought there shouldn't be any reason for complaint; who was fighting his own destiny and suffering for it; who was raised to think that white was black and black was white, with no room for grey. I looked at Draco, and I saw myself. 

Rowling did not see what I saw. 

She does not like his character. I'm not speculating here; read any of her supplemental material on Draco Malfoy and you'll see her disdain practically oozing from the page. Her Pottermore article on his background seemed designed to strip him of any and all depth, even at the expense of logic. (She wrote, for instance, that he refused Snape's help because "he didn't want Snape to steal the glory for himself," when all logic and Draco's own actions say that he was afraid of hidden strings.) Spoilers for his role in the upcoming play have convinced me not to see, read, or integrate that play into my headcanon or fanfic. And when I read those things, I was furious and heartbroken. Maybe you'll think I'm overreacting, but remember, this is who I identified with. Imagine if Harry's arc had ended with him making a deal with Voldemort and returning to the Dursleys and their abuse for the rest of his life, or if Hermione's had ended with her snapping her own wand and working as a waitress. Now you have an idea of how I felt. I vowed to jettison Rowling's vision of this character who meant so much to me, and embrace my own. 

And this, I believe, is the true value of fanfic. While the internet is certainly flooded with Mary Sues and forced romances, it's also filled with the visions of hundreds of writers. A truly good fanfic is a piece of a writer's heart, one that shows what the story meant to them. Fanfic allows writers to pursue their own meaning in a popular story, to explore avenues that the original author might have never seen. And, in cases like mine, it allows for catharsis. I didn't understand it then, but writing those Draco-centric stories was cathartic for me. All I knew at the time was that I had a story to tell, and I told it, and I felt better for the telling. And when people praised those stories, it made me glow a little inside. It was like they were seeing what I saw, and that was beautiful. 

So, while fanfic is definitely an invaluable training ground, it can be more than that. It can be a place for young or novice writers to explore ideas, to work through issues they didn't know they had. 

And, in my case, it introduced me to some original characters I wanted to write about. I have my own story to tell now, and I'm going to tell it. 

[Mestiv he/him]

Umm, yeah, I wanted to write something, but after reading what Twi wrote I feel kinda speechless  

In few short words: Fanfic has a lot of value, especially for those who write it. Unfortunately, it will never have any financial value, because of copyrights. It is a very good training ground for new writers, as it allows them to focus on story and characters, while the worldbuilding is already done. It can be considered a phase, because once someone finds the joy in writing, they'll want to create their own world, to unleash their creativity

[Delightful]

Just by the way, there was a thread with @FeatherWriter from ages ago on the same topic, I'll see if I can find it...

Edit: Nope, no idea where that thread got to...

Edited June 28, 2016 by Delightful

[Eagle of the Forest Path he/him]

I think it depends on the goals of the writer.
If the goal is to be published, then by necessity fanfiction can only be a phase (copyrights and all that).
If you write for personal enjoyment and don't mind being limited to the internet, then fanfiction can remain a valid option for however long you want.

In the second case I believe it then comes down to what kind of person the writer is.
If they're crazy fanboys/girls going "kya" and only want to go nuts writing badly spelled semi-pornographic romance about their favorite ships, they probably won't ever quit fanfiction unless they stop writing altogether. (Okay, so I might be a bit lot prejudiced, but anyone has to admit, there's way too much of that stuff out there.)
The somewhat more serious writers (who wanted the canon story to go in another direction or simply enjoy expanding the fictional worlds they have read) will probably at some point feel the desire to create something from scratch, but that shouldn't be a reason for them to leave their fanfics behind altogether.

[FeatherWriter she/her]

There's the thread you were probably thinking of, Delightful. Funnily enough, it seems that Quiver was the one to start that one as well, a little over two years ago!

I didn't go reread that whole thread, but I seem to remember making points towards how fanfiction can be incredibly exploratory and explanatory. People talk about it's "training wheels" or it's "harmless fun before you work on real things" and yet I feel like there are many ways that fanfiction can contribute great value as a writer and as a fan. It all depends on what kind of story you're writing and what you want it to convey.

For me, a lot of my fics take a character that I've put a lot of thought into understanding and try to display some of the conclusions I've come to about who they are as a person, the kinds of crises I feel like they struggle with. It's one thing for me to write out a dissertation on why I think Renarin is great. It's entirely another when I can set up a scene and, by writing him in-character, show a reader why I think he's great. I think it takes chops to both conceive the proper kind of situation to write as well as maintaining the integrity of the character. When another fan reads my work, I want them to recognize the characters I write and be able to connect that character's actions, motivations, and ideas back to what we've seen in canon.

I tend to have a lot of complex thoughts about characters and their motivations and I often write fic to untangle those ideas and share them with other people. Sure, I could just write out my thoughts, but there's something powerfully creative in taking the reins on a character you're invested in and seeing if you can make everything mesh.

There's a similar thought process behind things like AUs and crossovers. Crossovers and AUs feel more like a puzzle or a game to me, and I love it. How can I take this character out of their original context and recreate them with these new tools. What kind of person would they be in this world? What kinds of aspects of this world would shape them into who they are? How can we change their backstory and situation to make them fit, while still retaining the core of who that character is. Again, it comes down to motivations to me. 

If I put Renarin in the Dragon Age universe, he won't be a secret Radiant anymore... but maybe he'd be a secret apostate mage. If Tien doesn't get conscripted into the army for Kaladin to follow and protect him... maybe Tien got taken to a Circle and Kaladin volunteered to join the Templars to protect him instead. If Shallan is no longer a Lightweaver from a minor Veden house... maybe she would be an Orlesian bard, sneaking through the night. 

What about Marvel's Asgard? What if the Kholins were actually Asgardian, and Shallan took more of Jane Foster's role, the mortal human studying with one and being fascinated by their culture? Rather than trying to get to the Shattered Plains, what if Shallan was trying to figure out how to get to Asgard and tell Jasnah's family that she'd been killed?

Anyway, there's so many other amazing things that I feel like fanfic can accomplish and explore, but this is already long and I'm running out of writing steam. Long story short, fanfic's great and a worthy fannish endeavor for all.

[+Slowswift]

Cory Doctorow has an essay from a few years back called In Praise of Fanfiction. It's got some great points, and I enjoyed it quite a lot.

[Guest]

On 6/26/2016 at 4:55 PM, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

...

I stumble upon this thread by pure happenstance and since I actually enjoy fanfiction, I decided to read it. I have to admit I truly love reading good, well-written fanfiction tackling plot or characters of interest to me which, sadly, does not happen very often (I have very specific tastes which, of course, aren't always the specific tastes of the writers out there). I wished there were more fanfiction writers out there so it would increase the probability of myself stumbling upon a story which falls within my personal preferences. This being said, I wholeheartedly agree this is selfish of me and I am assuming myself perfectly well here. I wish to read stories which speaks to me, in a personal way, anyone managing to achieve it, be it a professional or an amateur writer makes me be eternally grateful.

I have to say Twilight's post did hit a sensitive cord in myself. While I do not share her personal interest into Draco, I do understand where she comes from. Finding a character whom echos out own personal struggles in such a mesmerizing way is truly precious, rare and antagonistically painful. Other people on other forums would call for blasphemy for Twilight expressing her own judgment upon Rowling's narrative choices, claiming the author failed to see key elements into a favored character, but not I. I certainly understand how painful it is to truly love a character whom we feel we can relate to only to see our beloved author not give this said character the page time, the depth and the complexity we foresaw while reading him/her in the first place. 

In the case of Draco, I have to admit Twilight is probably right: Rowling did not like the character nor did she think he was worth building on and I do agree there was untapped potential here. I certainly feel the exact same way about one character from another series whom I will not mention (but everyone bothering to read me already know about it), so I certainly will will not point out the straw into her eyes when I have a plank (or many planks or even an entire house ) in mine.

Fanfiction can be a relief, a means to tell a story we feel needs to be told, but wasn't told due to narrative choices made by the author or simply because the author didn't feel as strongly about this story as we did. I wish I had the talent and the capacity to put into better words how I feel about certain things, it surely would be catharsis, but I am seriously lacking in this matter. You do not teach an old monkey how to smile which is why I wish I had learn how to write when I was younger, but hey... back in the day, I couldn't put up a decent, readable sentence so at least there has been progress. I wish I was able to put out in words all that is in my head in a way which would make people understand and not judge, but I do think it is beyond my capacities. I therefore strongly encourage the younger people out there to keep on trying through this wonderful means which is fanfiction to express their inner self through characters they connect with. 

All this to say I do not think you are over-reacting Twilight because I do believe we all have a story to be told. When we find the glimpse of such story into published work, it makes us yearn for more, which often does not happen in the way we wish it did. So long live fanfiction to help others tell those "other stories", the ones who do not get published because reasons.