What is it with people and fanfiction?

[Hoplon]

Because 95% of everything is shit. book, Film, TV, Video games. you name it, the vast majority of it is dog poo in your eye.

 

[Genocidicles]

I dislike it because it is not canon, so it's a waste of time to read it.

 

[Legion]

As others have said, most of it tends to be awful. But unlike most people I don't see that as a reason to criticise it as an idea. If somebody gains enjoyment out of writing it then that's their business. Personally whenever I come across a work of fiction I really enjoy then I tend to have my own "fan fiction" in my head along the lines of "I wonder what would happen if...?". Some people just like to take it a step further and share it with others.

Personally I don't read it or write it, but I can certainly see the appeal, and at least people are actually doing something creative. It's a hell of a lot better than sitting on a forum moaning about it.

It's kind of sad how many people have responded with "They should write their own stuff instead". It's the same childish logic I once had used when playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero around a friends: "Why pretend to play instruments rather than play real ones". Apart from it being nobodies business, some people do things because they enjoy doing it, not to show off their talent. If somebody enjoys taking a work somebody else created and inventing their own story within that universe then what the hell does it matter?

 

[San Martin]

Eh, there are worse ways to kill time. Besides, I much prefer exploring possibilities within my favorite shows/games/cartoons than trying to make sense of someone else's grand attempt being the next J.R.R. Tolkien or Stephen King.

PLEASE tell me that you have written a Thomas the Tank Engine fanfic?

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Eh, there are worse ways to kill time. Besides, I much prefer exploring possibilities within my favorite shows/games/cartoons than trying to make sense of someone else's grand attempt being the next J.R.R. Tolkien or Stephen King.

PLEASE tell me that you have written a Thomas the Tank Engine fanfic?

No but for what it's worth, one thing I always imagined as a kid was that the Isle of Sodor was the preferred chill out area of Astrotrain (a Decepticon from G1 Transformers), when either he'd had a plan fail on him or the other Decepticons were being dicks to a higher than usual degree.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Fanfiction is fine, create fun stories for characters you like, and that fits the lore. But then there is "fan fiction" which is just an excuse for the care bears to suck off lord vordermont. Its just tacky and has nothing to do with the actual lore or world the characters live in.

 

[Da Orky Man]

Show me a writer who started as a fanfiction writer and then transitioned to legitimate literature and had a decent original book published.

50 Shades of Gray doesn't count.

An yes, you're right, most writers don't just sit down and write a book. They tend to write down hundreds of ideas for characters, settings, etc, and then out of those creations they sometimes pick some that they think would go well together, and begin weaving a narrative. You know why fanfiction doesn't facilitate this kind of writing? Because the largest half of the work, characters and settings, have already been written for them, and if they keep writing nothing but fanfiction they'll never be able to progress to any kind of real writing because they won't know how to construct a believable character or an interesting setting of their own.

Not sure how many started out origianlly with fanfic, but here's a list:

http://www.dailydot.com/culture/10-famous-authors-fanfiction/

Includes Neil Gaiman, Lois McMaster Bujold and Cassandra Clare.

 

[MorphingDragon]

Most fanfiction sucks. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would dispute that.

I'd say that's because most people who think they can write honestly can't. Most writers create horrid, soul-depleting schlock that should simply remain un-written, and when you have a fandom demographic that probably also includes a fair number of young people, the amount of schlock just increases exponentially.

I wish to whatever unholy god people worship I could write stories much better than I do now. I can create the world in which a story could exist fine, but developing the characters and the storyline is just something I struggle with.

 

[TakerFoxx]

There's one guy I used to know that put it best: sometimes you just have a creative itch to scratch, and sometimes that itch involves someone else's characters. If the creator has no problem with it (and a great many don't), then by all means, go for it.

I'm totally cool with that, but if it's all someone can write, surely you can see why my faith in their writing might be diminished?

I don't see why it should be. Some people aren't looking to write some big novel in the future, they just write fanfiction for fun, to "scratch that itch." I've come across a great many excellent fanfics from people who aren't looking to become writers as a career and only do it as a hobby. If something is good, then it's good, whether or not it's a completely original setting.

 

[frizzlebyte]

Most fanfiction sucks. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would dispute that.

I'd say that's because most people who think they can write honestly can't. Most writers create horrid, soul-depleting schlock that should simply remain un-written, and when you have a fandom demographic that probably also includes a fair number of young people, the amount of schlock just increases exponentially.

I wish to whatever unholy god people worship I could write stories much better than I do now. I can create the world in which a story could exist fine, but developing the characters and the storyline is just something I struggle with.

I have almost the exact opposite problem, actually, with a little mix, I suppose. I find inspiration for a story, and can draft one out in my head, but when it comes time to make believable characters to fit said storyline and a world for them to inhabit, I just freeze. This is especially true for my long-form stories, like novels or novellas.

However, I can tell you this much: if you keep at it, and you enjoy it enough to care, you WILL get better. As discouraging as I find it to have a great story in my head and struggle to get it on paper, I HAVE to; it's not really optional for me. So, I keep going back and back until I find a way to make it work.

One of the best ways I've found to write well is to be conservative, and let details flow naturally from the storyline. Unless there is a need to dump all the detail about someone in one paragraph on the first and second pages, just let those details drip out a little at a time. And use dialogue often, rather than exposition, to let those details out. Doing that forces you to keep the conversation natural, while also letting slip some pertinent details, and the overall effect is a more natural and intriguing scene, that makes the reader want to find out more.

EDIT: And read like your life depended on it. And watch movies and TV shows. The more stories yo see and read, the better you will understand what makes a particular story successful or unsuccessful. I tend to think visually, so watching TV shows and how the characters interact with each other tend s to give me a better understanding of how to make it work in a book.

One of my hallmarks, apparently, is to use long strings of dialogue to build a scene, which seems to have come from watching TV and movies, or at least thinking in terms of the characters instead of the overall scene. I've had more than one person tell me that reading my stories is like watching a movie, because a ton of the world-building happens during the dialogue.

 

[Something Amyss]

Yes, but the difference is that shitty books don't tend to get published quite as often as shitty fanfiction.

I would attest that benefits my point, however. Insisting on a certain level of quality then saying yuo have to troll through it, admittedly because of the high level of crap (and then no standards) kind of demonstrates a serious flaw with the genre.

However, I've always found the "you have to dig for it" argument to be a bit facile to begin with.

To some people, the thrill of the chase may be sufficient to offset the obvious downsides, but for most people it's just turning entertainment into a chore. I know there's good rap out there, for example, but I'm not enamoured enough in the genre to go dig for the true awesome underground guys. At this point, you're trying to rule by exception, and it just doesn't work. You specifically are both offering a rule of exception while trying to indicate a fair ratio of good to bad. That just doesn't work.

Incidentally, the publishing market has literally busted open and made it easy to publish. Indie authors of questionable quality are selling well on Amazon's Kindle service, for example, because of the availability of the service. And I can still find good independent authors without much effort. I think that undercuts your point a little.

 

[Generalsexbad]

Most fanfiction sucks. You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who would dispute that.

I'd say that's because most people who think they can write honestly can't. Most writers create horrid, soul-depleting schlock that should simply remain un-written, and when you have a fandom demographic that probably also includes a fair number of young people, the amount of schlock just increases exponentially.

I wish to whatever unholy god people worship I could write stories much better than I do now. I can create the world in which a story could exist fine, but developing the characters and the storyline is just something I struggle with.

I have almost the exact opposite problem, actually, with a little mix, I suppose. I find inspiration for a story, and can draft one out in my head, but when it comes time to make believable characters to fit said storyline and a world for them to inhabit, I just freeze. This is especially true for my long-form stories, like novels or novellas.

However, I can tell you this much: if you keep at it, and you enjoy it enough to care, you WILL get better. As discouraging as I find it to have a great story in my head and struggle to get it on paper, I HAVE to; it's not really optional for me. So, I keep going back and back until I find a way to make it work.

One of the best ways I've found to write well is to be conservative, and let details flow naturally from the storyline. Unless there is a need to dump all the detail about someone in one paragraph on the first and second pages, just let those details drip out a little at a time. And use dialogue often, rather than exposition, to let those details out. Doing that forces you to keep the conversation natural, while also letting slip some pertinent details, and the overall effect is a more natural and intriguing scene, that makes the reader want to find out more.

EDIT: And read like your life depended on it. And watch movies and TV shows. The more stories yo see and read, the better you will understand what makes a particular story successful or unsuccessful. I tend to think visually, so watching TV shows and how the characters interact with each other tend s to give me a better understanding of how to make it work in a book.

One of my hallmarks, apparently, is to use long strings of dialogue to build a scene, which seems to have come from watching TV and movies, or at least thinking in terms of the characters instead of the overall scene. I've had more than one person tell me that reading my stories is like watching a movie, because a ton of the world-building happens during the dialogue.

I don't see how watching TV or movies is beneficial to writing. Okay. I understand you can perhaps draw ideas and inspiration from a really compelling episode of Law and Order or something, but they are completely different medians. I've never heard an author who is worth a damn say "you know what you need to do to become a better writer? Watch lots of TV and movies, kids" In fact I recall many of them stating in writing conferences I've watched say that you'd do best to get rid of your TV all together.

You may very well be a more competent writer than I am (I have no way of knowing) but if your stories are just basically long segments of dialog with little to none written narrative or detail, than I think you're confusing which medium you're attempting, and should write screen plays instead of novels. Fiction writing is completely narrative immersion, I can usually tell if a book has nothing going for it if I open it and find just long drawn out conversations and little detail. I don't understand how you can have a complex plot or a immersive setting using just dialogue. It's just not possible. What novel have you read that has influenced you to use dialogue as a tool to build your world? I can't think of any book I read that did that. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. I dunno. But it seems you've watched tons of movies and read very little books.

Stephen King has said that he is influence by movies, and he is the most predominant writer from the start of the movie era so to speak, but he says the influence has just made him very visual in his details, not convinced him in building plot and worlds through dialogue.

I understand if what you essentially write are comedies that you're story would have a lot of dialogue. But other than that, you should be focusing on the actions of your characters and supplying enough details to explain why there doing those said actions.

P.S: I didn't write this long response to be all like "I'm smart and you're dumb" I'm just really into the craft of writing and enjoy discussing it.

 

[Entitled]

Yes, but the difference is that shitty books don't tend to get published quite as often as shitty fanfiction.

I would attest that benefits my point, however. Insisting on a certain level of quality then saying yuo have to troll through it, admittedly because of the high level of crap (and then no standards) kind of demonstrates a serious flaw with the genre.

I know there's good rap out there, for example, but I'm not enamoured enough in the genre to go dig for the true awesome underground guys.

The thing is, good fanfiction writers are not really quite underground, especially not compared to bad fanfiction.

1. Get into the fandom of a work that you really love
2. Start noticing that people with similar tastes to yours tend to be obsessing over certain fanfics.
3. Read those.

It's basically the same guidelines as with selecting good books, it's not any conscious effort of "digging" that you have to do, but basic common sense.

Maybe the average published novel is better than the average fanfiction. But that doesn't matter, because you are not supposed to randomly start browsing the "latest published" section of a fanfic site any more than you are supposed to walk into a bookstore and pick the first book at your hand regardless of genre, reputation, blurb pitch, or other first impressions.

If the most popular, and most commonly praised fanfictions are as good as the most popular and most commonly praised novels, then the only people who need to care about the size f the mountains of crap that they are built on, are critics, and conisseurs, and OCD people, who need to read everything.

 

[Entitled]

I'd be more charitable towards it, but honestly, if you aspire to be a writer legitimately, create your own characters and setting.

Tell that to Alan Moore (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead), Margaret Atwood (Penelopeiad), Jean Rhys (The Wide Sargasso Sea), or Joss Whedon ('Most comics and movies he did).

 

[frizzlebyte]

SNIP

Well, note that I did say to "read like your life depended on it," so...yeah.

And by "long strings," I didn't mean to imply that that's all the story is, just given equal narrative weight with exposition, so I tend to use a lot of dialogue when it's called for. It's a little hard to explain without seeing it.

And as for TV shows and movies being beneficial to writing, the point I was essentially trying to make was that consuming stories through different kinds of media helps one to be a better storyteller, which is just as important as being a great writer. Just look at Dan Brown: the man would never be called a "great writer," but he sure knows how to tell a story, and I admire him for that.

Because movies and TV shows are written to be heard (much like theatre plays), rather than read, it can help you to get an ear for natural dialogue, which you can then adapt for reading, since what *sounds* nice would almost certainly not work on paper. On the other hand, reading is the only way to become a better *writer*, so of course you have to read tons of books, from as many genres as you can, to understand what makes for good (and bad) writing.

Ernest Hemingway's heavy use of dialogue is one of my influences, and he, of course, popularized the notion of "show, don't tell," and the iceberg theory. Heavy use of dialogue, provided that dialogue is your strength (and apparently it is mine), can reveal as much about your characters as a page of exposition can, because a character's interaction with other characters often reveals a lot about how they approach the world without you, the writer, explicitly stating it.

I guess my point is that everyone's style of writing is different, and what works for one person (and what that person enjoys reading) may not work for another person. That doesn't mean that different styles of writing are wrong. I tend to like novels written in the Maximal style, a la Neal Stephenson, but I could never actually write one in that style, because it isn't *me*, if that makes sense.

And I have actually suspected that my style of writing is well-suited to screenplays. The problem is that, once the script is out of your hands, you have zero control over it, and Hollywood regularly rewrites scripts with little to no input from the original writer, which is how a competent script can be butchered into a mass-market piece of crap. It is also how a bad script can be honed into a good one, but I'm not sure I've seen a ton of those.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

People who write fanfiction do so because they aren't creative enough to come up with their own characters and universe, so they have to piggy back on someone else's work. That's why I don't want to read fanfiction, because if those writers actually had any talent they would be able to come up with their own shit, and possibly attempt to actually publish it.

I write fanfiction and I'm actually working on my unique work.


thanks for the over-generalization I guess?

Then maybe you should stop writing fanfiction and work on your unique work.

I've actually known quite a few people who say that they write fanfiction to practice for when they write their own novels. Out of the few who actually started writing I have yet to meet one who finished their book, or even got more than half way done.

So...good luck I guess.

I've got a few original novels finished that you can buy from Amazon Kindle and another few on the way. I've also got a couple of hundred thousand words of fan-fiction you can peruse if you want. Oh and like a million words of stories I haven't finished editing yet. (Yes, I counted. I have over 1.5 million words including fanfiction, about 1.3 million without)

I write fanfiction to blow off steam when I want to write but have complete imagination block for my original work, and then a lot of the time I take the ideas and characterisations I formulated in the fan-fiction and put it into the writing.

So yeah, please stop generalising, not everyone who writes fanfiction is completely unoriginal.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

My biggest problem with fan fiction is the hypocrisy. People will decry things like Micheal Bay's Transformers, but will go write fan fiction that butchers their franchise of choice way worse than Micheal Bay could ever hope to do.