Hi readers and writerly friends!

This week in current faves, we’re discussing fanfic and more specifically, why fanfiction is great for teaching writers excellent writing skills. This is something very near and dear to my heart because my ongoing fantasy series got its start as a World of Warcraft fanfiction when I was only eight years old. Whew! I just put that fact out on the internet and there’s no coming back from that. Oh well, moving on. 😂

Fanfiction is often frowned upon because its derivative and typically written by younger writers for younger audiences. However, while the former claim is true, the latter is just a misconception about fanfiction because many adults write fan fiction as well. Snobby literature buffs like to look down at fanfiction writers and readers alike because its not original and is usually cringey. And while for the most part, there is a lot of cringey fanfiction on the internet, there is also a lot we can learn from it as writers. Keep reading to learn more about how fanfiction can effectively teach writers to write original content competently.

Fanfiction writers just get character. This might be the single most important element of writing because the characters are the windows through which the reader experiences the story and how he or she connects with the people around which the story takes place. Something that fanfiction writers do especially well is character consistency. Since they’re writing from source material rather than conjuring up their own original characters, fanfiction writers have to be able to accurately and consistently emulate character canon. Fanfiction writers must understand the characters and be able to organically portray them in  a way that is believable and acceptable to their readers. This means, for a fanfiction to be believable, accurate, and just good quality, the writer must effectively capture the essence of the characters about which they are writing.

Most fanfiction readers find themselves on the derivative side of literature simply because they’ve fallen in love with characters and they just can’t get enough of them from the source material. So, where do they go? You got it—fanfiction websites, so they can experience more adventures, emotions, scenarios and more with the characters they love. The story doesn’t end just because the book does. Fanfiction writers expand on pre-existing stories, forever immortalizing and breathing new life into age-old beloved characters and tales.

On a similar note, fanfic writers that create fanon characters (reimagined versions of preexisting characters) are essentially already creating their own characters with a few details derived from the source material. These missing details and experiences that are not present on the page/screen require writers to approach their stories with a sense of originality and a very specific lens through which they can invent new pieces to the story that weren’t there before. Likewise, depending on the POV, some stories require a lot of creativity to write fanfictions for, because the POV is very narrow, such as with singular first-person narrators.

Fanfiction writers must understand the rules and systems of a story’s world/setting. For example, if a writer wanted to cover J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter or Gillian Shields’ Immortals series, they would have to know the way magic and other systems work, like the back of their hand. They’d have to know all the inner workings of the magical world, how non-magic users view said magical world, the laws set in place (if any), and any other important details that go along with deeply fleshed out fictional worlds. This is even more difficult for the more obscure worlds where authors have done very little worldbuilding and the fanfiction writer must invent their own systems to fit against the backdrop of the source material author’s original setting. Just like with character development, fanfic writers must really understand the setting to make for a rich, believable story that is as convincing or possibly even more convincing than the source material. 

The best stories perfectly balance intricate, complex, layered dense worlds with intricate, complex, layered, dense characters. And the same is true for fanfiction. Fanfiction writers must be able to provide an organic, believable interaction between dynamic characters and their equally dynamic world.

Fanfiction writers must interweave juicy, compelling tropes into their stories. Fanfiction writers are particularly keen on determining what tropes readers want to read and which tropes provoke, deep, visceral reactions from their readers. Fanfiction writers know exactly what their readers want to read more of because the writers are fans themselves. This is something particularly unique to fanfiction writing and it’s that the writers are painfully and constantly aware of what is missing from the source material because they are consumers of it as much as their readers are.

Fanfiction writers have each other’s backs. On a side note, the fanfiction community is one of, if not the single best writing community when it comes to inter-community constructive criticism. Fanfiction writers know the struggle of writing hundreds of hours’ worth of content only for people on the internet to come to their stories and comment something like “fanfiction isn’t even real writing” or to point out how many errors there are throughout the work. Not only do fanfiction writers understand this pain, but they are incredibly generous with their constructive feedback because they’re all in the same boat. I’ve seen tons of fanfiction critique groups and positive critiques in the comments of ongoing fanfiction stories. Due to the nature of the internet and fanfiction as a genre, readers are more likely to leave a helpful, positive comment for writers because they are far more accessible.

Fanfiction is an excellent way to practice writing. Fanfiction writers via community engagement, constructive critiques, drafting, revising, and self-editing, and ultimately practicing their writing skills get a pretty good grasp of their strengths and weaknesses as a writer. Likewise, fanfiction writers learn how to be vulnerable with their writing, how to keep writing regularly, and how to be strong, confident writers due to the (typical) positive reinforcement that comes from the fanfiction community. Of course, not everyone who writes fanfiction wants to be a professional writer—many people just write fanfiction for the fun of it.

Fanfiction allows writers to experiment. At its core, fanfiction is all about fun and play. Writing fanfiction allows fans and writers to enjoy the never-before-seen/heard stories from their favorite characters and worlds. It’s a way for writers to play around with different stories, tropes, voices, POVs, settings, characters, and other storytelling elements to create transformative works. The fanfiction writing process is meant to encourage experimentation with the source material and can be therapeutic and inspiring as well. In many cases, alternate universes, crossovers, fanon characters, and original interpretations of preexisting works are in fact original works on their own because what started out as fanfiction evolved into an original piece of writing, with only a few remaining non-original details (such as names.) At this point, writers are just creating original works with archetypes that are universal. And the same goes for remixes and pastiches where the writer is essentially creating a retelling of a story, which forces them to practice writing with different voices, POV’s, and with different styles.

Fanfiction can be very useful for aspiring writers because it teaches them many vital writing skills, it forces them to be vulnerable with their writing, it inspires them to employ the constructive feedback from their readers, and requires them to become very familiar with the source material after which they’re writing. It’s a really, REALLY fantastic way for budding writers to dip their toes into it and for amateur and seasoned writers alike to practice their craft in an increasingly safer writing space. While it’s still kind of frowned upon for people to write fanfiction (for very lame reasons, I might add) its been really cool to see the shift in public opinion of the hobby and artform. I always recommend new writers to try fanfiction because it takes the pressure off of them to come up with everything from scratch so they can just focus on the writing.

And that’s it for my take on fanfiction and how I think its incredibly useful to writers. What do you think of fanfiction? Have you ever read or written fanfiction? What do you think about the community and public opinion of fanfiction as a genre? Let me know in the comments below and if you enjoyed this blog post, consider signing up for my newsletter here!

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Thumbnail photo by Adrienne Andersen.

—Payton