The result was well-written fiction. I’d say the significant majority of the stuff I encountered when I was fourteen and fifteen used proper spelling and grammar. And a few of the fics were absolutely amazing. Some of the West Wing fan fiction I read was so good that even though I no longer remember the episode, I remember the fanfic.

That being said, I never could get into writing it myself. I think that has more to do with me being repressed about writing than about having any problem with fanfic. Now I’m working on original stuff, and I’m just not interested in fanfic any more, as I’m not really into any fandom. Still, I’m glad I read it, as that was how I learned that ordinary people could be extraordinary writers. I think there’s just something about fanfiction that is inherently more approachable than published works- even as a kid, I didn’t mind just dismissing a fanfic if I thought it was badly written, dull, or untrue in any way.

But now I’ve written my own novel online and I’ve made its back story open content. I would love to have any sort of work be created in that universe.

Let the plot-bunnies multiply.

Is pastiche/mimicry fanfic, where you’re almost-but-not-quite writing in a world of Anne McCaffrey? Some rudimentary world-building changes (griffins, not dragons) does not make for original fiction. In which case, from age 12-14, I was writing fanfiction. I didn’t know that’s what it was called, of course… Huh.

And, is it fanfic if it’s not part of a fandom? I was SO dissatisfied with the ending of some book I don’t even remember the title of (I think it might have had something to with Shelley or Keats, but what? Did the characters just read poetry a lot, or were they poets? I don’t recall) that I rewrote the ending on three sheets of college-ruled notepaper, and then slipped the new (happier) ending inside the library dustjacket so the next person who read it (and noticed the papers) could have a happier experience… (I later did the same thing with Gone with the Wind.)

Of course, I was writing original fiction all along, now that I re-read your actual question, so never mind.

It’s a playground, one I’ve enjoyed dabbling in and still read in regularly. The main reason I’ve stopped writing it is that between a fulltime job and book contracts, my time is far too limited.

I agree with Cecilia, Harry Potter fic is totally like crack.

My roots in fanfic go way back to the early fanzine days in the late 70s, when I was just out of college and attending SF/F cons. For me it was the discovery of NEW STORIES!! set in a world of characters I’d come to love…and of course, the lure of well written K/S wasn’t too shabby, either. ::g::

FYI, I’ve linked to this post in my blog today. (www.chickwriter.com)

To this day, most of the fanfic I read either fixes things I perceive as weaknesses in canon, or allow me to spend more time in a world I love. I wrote fanfic for a while, but (a) it was OMG SO BAD, and (b) it was while I was still trying to work out if I was cut out to be a writer. (The answer: not so much, at least at this point in my life.)

Count me in with Karen Healey above, questioning the ‘training wheels’ idea. Writing fanfic can be a useful way of developing characterisation and plotting skills, as well as finding a personal style, but it doesn’t have to lead to traditional publication within the mainstream. I know lots of fanfic writers who are perfectly happy to self-publish on the internet — offended, even, if asked when they are going to write ‘a real book’. I think it’s because writing as a hobby/for its own sake has been enormously devalued, but that’s another rant.

I’ve also made amazing friends through fandom, and while fandom is not homogenous, I like both the ‘gift economy’ and the by-women-for-women aspects in the parts I have encountered. (Which is not to say that fandom is all sunshine and roses, nor that all fanfic is readable — Sturgeon’s Law definitely applies.)

Fanfic has also taught me so much about story, about subversive responses to text, about writing in general. Badfic developed my nose for infelicities and weaknesses. Betaing for my friends gave me a ’safe space’ to practice editorial skills before I ever needed them in my professional life. In-depth thinking about existing fictional worlds has helped me tighten up the worldbuilding of pro writers.

Fanfic hasn’t been my only teacher. But I would be a much poorer reader without it.

I also agree with Cecilia, in her remarks above, that it’s fun to see how close you can get to a style. I’ve written Veronica Mars fic — I wrote an entire fourth-season episode, and getting the mystery-of-the-week to work in and with the character development, while nailing the voices of these established characters, was fun. I’ve written Buffy fic, and it’s the same there — getting the quirks of the characters and the show’s style is a challenge. I’ve also written L. Frank Baum Oz fic, which is a vastly different style of tone and narration.

All of these things hone craft and skill. In the three years I wrote fic I moved from basic lessons — don’t lose track of your verb tenses — to more advanced ones — how do you show the reader that the character is lying to himself? And the lessons are fast — feedback is immediate, beta readers are decent editors, and everyone will let you know when you screw up. Fanfic is a bit like live theater — your audience is RIGHT THERE, and they will walk out on you.

I use the writing skills I learned in fanfic now, in my own writing. Not least of which is how to gracefully — or at least quietly and internally — accept criticism.

Fanfic is the equivalent of what musicians and visual artists are often encouraged to do, which is imitate the style of others on the way to developing their own. And no one thinks it’s weird or a waste of talent for someone who plays the saxophone or sings or plays the piano, to sit down at a party and play a song that someone else wrote, not for money but just to entertain the people around them or maybe just to please themselves.

Why can’t writing be like that? I feel like a lot of the time that’s what I’m doing in fanfic. I’m standing on the street corner with my saxophone, playing the standards, but I’m playing them in my style, and if people stop and listen, that’s awesome.

Some of them have even left a dollar in my tip jar from time to time. The “real gig” is still playing at weddings or in the orchestra or whatever else professional musicians may do–in my case writing the romance novels and submitting to anthologies and doing my baseball columns, etc–but that doesn’t make it wrong or take away the fun of actually writing the fanfic.

I have little doubt that when/if I fall into a dearth of deadlines at some point (when Magic U is done) that I’ll write more of it, too. Just because it is fun, and writing is my art, I like expressing it, I like keeping those muscles in shape, and I like to PLAY.

I assume you’re kidding. But just in case you’re serious. “Fanfic” dates back to the 1930s when it meant fiction written by a fan. It started to be used with its current meaning in the 1960s.

That said, personally, I really don’t approve of the so-called “real person” stories. The stuff I wrote was many years ago and very harmless and it was only for me–a big difference, as I see it. I wasn’t publishing it on the internet. My sister told me last year about some fanfic she saw about a famous singer, and it was ridiculous, disgusting, and downright creepy. Encounters in backstage dressing rooms with fans, kidnapped by and impregnanting aliens, etc.

I think fanfic about fictional characters is one thing, and if done right it can be really fun. But writing and publishing on the internet about real people who are still alive and very much in the public eye? Not cool at all, in my opinion. I sure wouldn’t want anyone writing about me that way.

It’s unlikely to make you any money, and it has a close relationship with at least one work created by others, and tie-in novels and superhero comics aside, almost all of it is self-published, and I think people devalue it because of that. But it’s real writing, really being written, and even the most derivative, unimaginative piece of fic includes original thought and effort from the fic writer. And the best of it is *really great*, and *free*.

The first fanfic I wrote was what they now call RPS, Real Person Stories. I paired up friends of mine with the teen idols they loved, in romantic erotic stories. Is it any wonder I turned out to write the stuff I do?

I was writing and selling fiction professionally for years and years before I got into Harry Potter fanfic. I had done a few stories as parodies for kicks earlier in my career (I still read the Batgirl/Catwoman story at cons sometimes) but in 2003-2004 my writing career was in something of a slump. I had a manuscript not sell, there was lots of depressing news in publishing at the time, and I was burnt out on writing for erotica anthologies after the 50th sale or so to those markets.

Then I discovered that Harry Potter fanfic is LIKE CRACK. Both writing and reading it. And the fandom is so huge, write any little Harry/Draco ditty and on Livejournal tons of people would give me feedback! Feedback, from readers? THAT was the real crack. I was so used to writing in isolation and maybe 1-3 years after working on something getting fanmail back (since it takes so long for books to get into print in the traditional manner). Suddenly here were all these squeeing adoring fangirls who really buoyed me.

I also took it as a sandbox where I could play with style. I was writing FOR FUN not work, so I could take chances, play with the tense, the point of view, pace of plot, lengths of stories that aren’t salable, etc. etc. It’s how I learned to write romance, come to think of it.

Now I would still be writing it except I’m too busy writing contracted books! Not in a slump any more.

I’ll be coming out of the closet about it at Azkatraz, a big Harry Potter convention next month in San Fran. I will be teaching a workshop on how the skillz one learns participating in fanfic actively are applicable to a career as a professional writer.

Meanwhile, the list of published and wildly successful authors who wrote fanfic in recent years is growing longer and longer…

And wow, this comment was way longer than I thought it would be.

As a fanfic writer — which I also had never been until very recently — I go through brief but intense periods of obsession with a particular set of characters, and then I go off to write about characters of my own for a while.

I have actually become a big proponent of fanfic for the apprentice writer; my own fic was the first (non-work-related) writing I’d shown anyone for years and years and years, and it was the unbelievable ego boost of having people read it and engage with it, along with the other apprentice writers I met as a result, that put me on the road to taking writing seriously again. It’s informative and humbling to look back at the first (rather awful) things I posted and see how much I progressed in a variety of ways over the course of the next few stories. And because plot has always been my main problem as a writer, writing fanfic has been very useful as a discipline: the characters exist, the setting exists, everyone reading is familiar with them, so there is no excuse not to get to grips with making the plot work, and no way I’m going to hold the reader’s attention if I don’t succeed…

And it’s fun to write stories about characters I love. I loooove getting inside characters’ heads and making them do stuff. And I like exploring all the romantic pairings that the writers never do. (*cough*Shay/Tally*cough*)

And, I admit it, I love the fanfic lingo. (”I read an AU badfic with an OC slash ship, but the OC was a major Gary Stu and the characters were completely OOC. And it was totally PWP.”)

Your friend is correct there’s some brilliant fanfic. I disagree with your suggestion that it’s difficult to write a character you didn’t create. If that was true than the majority of television—where writers are almost always writing characters who aren’t their creation—would not work. Same for films that are adaptations.

There’s fanfic that is way better than the original creator’s work. I would point you to links but those original creators are still alive and would have me killed if they knew I thought some of the fanfic is better than what they write.