Fanfiction - your thoughts

[Larkspurlane]

What are your thoughts on fanfiction? Love it as a wonderful creative extension of your favourite novels/movies/shows? Loathe it as an insult to The Almighty Canon?

Do you read it? If so, what was your first foray into fanfic? Do you read gen fics or shippy fics? If shippy, crack or canon?

Do you write it? Is it a guilty secret or something you share? What kind of fics do you write?

Have you ever come across a stupendously bad fic? Do you still bear the scars? -- & conversely, have you found a fic that was so friggin' good you gushed at the author and linked it to anyone who would stand still long enough?

***

Whee

I used to loathe fanfiction, but I got into it when Harry Potter started to suck after the 5th book & I discovered that some people on the great wide internets are completely amazing writers. Read a lot of gen HP fiction in my day, and now whenever I find a new fandom to fangirl over (whether it be a show, a game [Halo - lulz], a movie) I hop off to FFnet to see what I can see.

Not going to lie, most of it is pure shit. But you do occasionally come across some gems - and sometimes faves list full of gems - that make wading through the shit worthwhile.

Writing it is my guilty secret. I don't really understand my own logic, because I don't give a damn about writing for the Neopian Times or whatever (which is, essentially, neopets fanfiction). IT JUST FEELS DIRTY.

Oh, and my badfic experience was a Hogwarts Castle x Giant Squid that I read out of morbid curiosity.

[Jazzy]

Would Beauxbatons allow a giant squid to violate her?

brb, crying with laughter. Best bit is when the pipes all burst as the castle, er, climaxes.

[Usul_Princess]

Is it a guilty secret or something you share?

My roomate in my freshman year of college had an all-nighter schedule of reading LOTR slash from 'Library of Moria' followed by the um..."artwork" featured on the site. We would read stories we'd recommend to each other from our favrorite male/male pairing until 3AM (midnight NST so we could do our nightly labray zaps). After the whole slash phase, she moved onto Harry Potter and writing her own. I wrote some LOTR garbage myself, (non-slash, but still garbage). I just couldn't upload it, and stuck with reading the talent of others.

My worst experience was Glorfindel's Child or Courting Death. It seems to be a tie. The former is actually well written, just....hella sordid. The latter was written by someone no older than 16 who was into the whole emo trend.

*points up* Lark, I know what you mean about feeling "dirty" when writing about cartoon fictional characters. Mainly because 99% of the time they can't stay in the perameters of G-rated Disney friendly. I've had borderline disturbing obsession with The Lion King since I was 11, and a few of my poems and god-awful stories I decided to stop repressing on other Lion King fansites and purge them in high school. I'm so glad the majority of them are deleted and gone forever.

[Madge]

I've got a friend who reads buttloads of fanfiction ALL THE TIME (i'm talking, he can spend 4 hours a day 7 days a week with no trouble) and I went through a little bit of a phase with it when I was like, 14. Pong fanfiction was my favourite.

I must admit I wrote a couple of really atrocious pokemon fanfics when I was 14 - I showed them to said friend and he gave them a 3/10 because they were spelled correctly for the most part .

If you want I could see if he has any recommendations. I seem to remember him reading some sort of yugioh slashfic last time I peeped, though!

Also, my atrocious fanfiction is here: http://www.fanfiction.net/u/269894/Vera3

And UP, your mention of lion king fanfiction has caused a place in my brain to open that I thought had been forever hidden (and with good reason). I can't get the horrendous, incredibly graphic, Simba doing Kiara, Kovu, and also Scar fanfic out of my head now. I think Scar was in a separate fic but I do remember a Simba/Kiara/Kovu threesome happening. Urrrrrghhh.

[Usul_Princess]

And UP, your mention of lion king fanfiction has caused a place in my brain to open that I thought had been forever hidden (and with good reason). I can't get the horrendous, incredibly graphic, Simba doing Kiara, Kovu, and also Scar fanfic out of my head now. I think Scar was in a separate fic but I do remember a Simba/Kiara/Kovu threesome happening. Urrrrrghhh.

Yeah. XD I think you and I might be referring to the same one(s) where every possible sex combination from that poor movie and its horrible sequel. I keenly remember a comment referring to the author saying "You managed to write 11 chapters of this shit?"

My fanfics weren't horrible in the blatant furry porn sense, but they were very morbid and dark. (Relentless abuse, suicide, mental torture, the occasional Mary-Sue, things of that nature). Its hard to imagine I'd have the guts to conjure up any of that at 17.) Let alone publish them.

[Wingsrising]

Nope. I read one or two short Angel fanfics back in the day by people I knew to be good writers, but in general I ignore. I have no problem with fanfic, I just don't have the time or inclination to sort the good stuff from the drek, and there's just too much other stuff out there I want to read.

I don't write fanfic, but I do entertain myself by composing my own private little fanfics in my head.

My favorite fanfic related Internet interaction: I never got into many Harry Potter related Internet discussions except right after Book 6 came out. I was arguing my opinion (formed immediately after closing the book) that maybe Snape wasn't REALLY a Death Eater but was actually still working with Dumbledore. I still remember one forum member saying (as best I as recall): "Well, if you ever read Harry Potter CANON you wouldn't say such things."

Since I've never read any Harry Potter fanfic (and have no desire to) I found that entertaining. And, naturally, when Book 7 came out, I felt vindicated.

[TCStarwind]

I don't write fanfic, but I do entertain myself by composing my own private little fanfics in my head.

This is what I do. I keep my thoughts to myself because there's usually no plot, lots of porn, mary sues, and general fan-wankery. :B Which is mainly why I stopped writing fan-fics. I stopped writing in general because I can't come up with a plot to save my life. Or interesting characters. I'll stick with fanart.

When I did write, it was back in elementary/middle school (ohdeargod). I did some reading, but not a lot. Just looking at my FFN account makes me want to slam my head into a brick wall. After middle school or so, I completely dropped it. These days I'm too lazy to read things on the internet, other than forum threads. And I usually tend to stay away from fandoms as they make me want to go on a homicidal rage. Which is hypocritical, but it saves my sanity.

And I don't remember any horribly bad fanfiction I ever read. Though I did hear about a Voldemort/Jesus fic somewhere... *barf*

[Wingsrising]

Yeah. If I keep it in my head, I'm spared the necessity of trying to make it good.

[AngharadTy]

I don't really read fanfiction (I've read a few when people linked me to them, because I have that disease where I click on any link that is given to me), but I don't hate it.

My biggest opinion about fanfic is that authors who try to control it are ridiculous. Especially Anne Rice. But I've read quotes from several of them saying that they wish their fans would never do it. A better philosophy would be to ignore it, sheesh, what, is it going to leap into your path and force you to read it, you crazy person. But logic is hard. ;)

[Joey]

I was into it a lot more when I was younger. Mostly kept to pokemon stuff, and most of it was pretty clean. Wrote some of my own pokemon stuff, but it was terrible. Except for my hand written crossover, that one was just hilariously bad. I don't read much of it these days, though every now and then a friend will recommend a gem and I'll enjoy it. And one of these days I think it might be fun to write some new pokemon stuff, and see if it doesn't suck as much as my old stuff.

If anyone wants to read a really good Kingdom Hearts parody, I recommend Those Lacking Spines, on ff.net.

[Rah]

I like continuation fanfics - I really enjoy fluff, and a lot of series will end on a high and I want to see the wedding and the babies xD I read a lot of Gilmore Girls fanfic that shows Lorelai and Luke's post season 7 happiness. The build up to their marriage and all the domestic stuff. I miss the characters so much and there are some really good writers out there that have got the Gilmore Girls style right!

I think the first fanfic I ever read online was a Lizzie and Darcy one which was mainly about her having a baby girl. I love reading about that kind of thing, seeing what names they give the children and if I agree with them, how they handle the rest of the family. I'll still read Lizzie/Darcy fanfics actually, but mostly they're not done very well. (I actually read a really nice wedding night one recently, that wasn't smutty at all and was just really gentle and period specific in writing!)

I've read a lot of Buffy fanfic too - a lot of the published stuff and then stuff online, but I do like it to be canon.

I'm really not one for pairings or things that wouldn't have happened in the show. I fall in love with these shows and I want to continue reading about my loves, not read alternate universes or things that would have never happened! Sometimes when I get frustrated about not being able to find that kind of story that I'm wanting to read, I'll write it myself, but I can't type as quickly as I can think so I'll often just imagine the story as I drift off to sleep just so I can feel creative xD (I actually use this as a method for getting to sleep sometimes, with my 'what happened after the Gilmore Girls finale' story!)

[11th]

I used to write fanfic, and I still do drabbles sometimes. I don't read it anywhere as much as I used to, though. I think that's because it frustrates me. Occasionally, fanfics are more satisfying than the canon itself. I know everyone's had that "AUGH" moment, where their favorite character needlessly dies, or goes evil, or... well, anything.

But the most upsetting thing for me is when you have a very talented writer, who wrote some amazing multi-chapter fanfic... It makes me wonder why they're wasting their time. Some could seriously be turned into awesome novels or short stories. :/

[Rainbow Daydreamer]

(Warning: Dream rants within.)

I'm actually more than a little fed up with the way fanfiction is treated as the Caylis to literature's Isca, the twisted, selfish little sister that we don't talk about in proper company. Most people seem to act as if it's some sort of new internet phenomenon that attracts only talentless writers and doesn't offer any scope for improvement, and as if when we try to say "inspired by canon" what comes out of our mouths is "we don't have any original ideas". When in reality you just have to look at any decent-sized fanfic archive to see that fanfictioneers have tons of original ideas, and many of us are very skilled at expressing them. A couple of my favourite Neopets writers have a better way with words than many published original-fic writers I've read. One was my first ever literary crush, and remains my inspiration for improving my own fanfic to this day.

I guess I wouldn't be so ticked off if there wasn't a visible double-standard based on time. If you write a thought-provoking tale based on imagery, characters and themes from a traditional Japanese fairytale, it's literature and you're "allowed" to be a Real Writer. If you write a thought-provoking tale based on imagery, characters and themes from Miyazaki's anime worlds, it's fanfiction and you're automatically demoted to talentless wannabe in many people's eyes. If you write a moving romance that changes the way people look at Dante Alighieri and Beatrice, it's a beautiful historical novel. If you write a moving romance that changes the way people look at two celebrated entertainers of the modern day, it's the lowest form of fanfic, RPF. Creative reimagining of Alice in Wonderland? Literature (or film). Creative reimagining of Harry Potter? "What a waste of potential talent".

I've heard people defend their prejudice against fanfic, and the idea that it's not "real writing", with the idea that there's such a lot of bad fanfic out there, much of it written by teenagers. Well, no kidding. Of course there is. Bad writers exist, and are going to write, regardless of subject matter and genre. Inexperienced teenagers are going to write bad novellas. Do people really think any of this is new? Dismissing brilliant fanfic because of the awkward slash romances written by 13-year-old girls is like dismissing Shakespeare because of the existence of William McGonagall. It makes no sense whatsoever.

That's why I get annoyed when I see great writing being dismissed even by its creator as "just fanfic, not real writing". Aagh, stop supporting the opposition already! If you write, own it. Be proud of it. Let's stop with this "guilty secret" nonsense. We are WRITERS. Deal with it.

For my part, my McKittrick Ros phase was mostly played out in the Digimon fandom, which I eventually left in dissatisfaction at the drama being caused by the shipping wars going on at the time. I wrote some rather awful romance/adventure fics (Sorato/Taichi/Takari or Taiora/Jyoumi/Takari for the most part), which were mostly just an excuse for me to worship my teenage crush, Matt Ishida, and write him into interesting situations (fluffy romance? Agonising moral dilemmas? All looks like fanservice from here!) and didn't get as much constructive critique as would probably have been good for me. When I drifted into Neopets fic at the age of about eighteen, my skill level jumped quite drastically as I strove to match my new favourite authors. I've also written a bit of Pokémon fic, under the name of Mouse Tourmaline, and a couple of "pseudo-RPFs" about the other Neopets-related forums I frequent. Some finished, some not. I haven't really been interested in romance fics, either the reading or the writing of, since my high-school days -- I have a feeling I was never really interested in it to begin with, and I only read it then because I lacked experience of actual human relationships.

Someday I want to go back and rewrite my old Digifics properly, exploring the possibilities of the universe and maybe even writing Matt in character this time, but there's the problem that my memories have faded in the meantime. I have no job at the moment and I doubt my parents would accept my justifying the purchase of the entire first series of a kids' anime as "research".

[Wingsrising]

Well, I think there are (at least) three issues with fanfic:

1) Although there's still a lot of drek that gets published, the fact that published novels have to go through a selection and editing process means that a lot of the really, REALLY bad drek gets filtered out and/or improved before publishing. (Let's face it, stuff that's not edited is almost NEVER going to be as good as stuff that's been gone over by a good editor!) So the hit-to-miss ratio is higher in traditionally published fiction than in fanfic.

2) There's simply LESS published standard fiction than fanfic, meaning that for people with limited amounts of time, there's simply less mass of literature to sort through.

In combination, 1 and 2 mean that if you only have a limited amount of time to read and want to get straight to the really good stuff, that's easier to do with traditionally published fiction than with self-published fanfic.

3) It's much, much easier to actually get paid for writing your original ideas than to get paid for writing fanfic. If you want to be a writer professionally, fanfic isn't the way to do it. Every "how to get your Star Trek novel published" interview I've ever seen says, "Write non-Star Trek stuff. Then get an agent. Then we'll look at your Star Trek novel.:

For me, it's also just that there's only so much Buffy or Star Trek or Harry Potter or what-have-you I want in my life before I want something new and different, not just more takes on the Potterverse. But that's just me personally!

[Kari]

Oh, I've been into fanfiction since I joined the internet back in 2001. FF.net (.com back then) was the second site I found after Neopets. I wrote a lot bad things and really didn't get that they were bad, but hey, I was 12.

I still read things today, usually after I get into a new fandom I go see if there's anything worth reading. Usually there's not. I have...two or three users on my alert list that are writing pretty good stuff. I wanted to do a Sailor Moon rewrite recently, but I think I'll just let that live in my head along with my original stories that I can't write.