Does anyone else get the impression there’s a certain personality type that is drawn to writing and reading fan fiction? Do you think both the authors and the readers of fan fiction consist mostly of the same group of people?
Sure: it’s written by people who love the fandom, and is read by people who love the fandom. There’s a lot of overlap between writers and readers of it, though there are readers who don’t try to write it. There also are probably writers who don’t read it, but are content to write their own versions in a vacuum.
But the same can be said of any form of fiction – poetry, science fiction, mysteries, etc. Fan fiction and poetry have a greater overlap, but it’s a given that a writer working in a genre reads within that genre, if only to see how it can be done.
I think you’re being far too kind here. There’s a difference between a writer who is striving for professional excellence, even if they have work to do to get to the first rung of the ladder, and those who self-consciously write “fan fiction” on a fan-to-fan basis.
I mean, no one writing slash fic is aiming for the pages of F&SF or the The New Yorker or anything that isn’t the 21st century equivalent of mimeographed. Stop pointing at Stephanie Meyer.
As I remember, Lois McMaster Bujold started writing fanfic … she was writing Star Trek as I remember - I would have to dig through the archives of her email bunch, though I suppose you could head over to Baen’s Bar, make an account and hit the Bujold forum and ask yourself.
And bluntly put, there are fanfic writers out there that can put out stories better than the source author [Janet Evanovich has some killer fanfic writers in her fandom, so does Bujold, and there are other on both AO3 and Fanfic.net.]
Well, those writing fan fiction are still striving to write as best they can. And it’s sometimes used as a jumping off point for pro writers. IIRC, Melinda Snodgrass started out with fan fiction, and Joel Rosenberg started out writing Dungeons and Dragons fiction (though he quickly sold it professionally).
It’s one way to start out and learn how to write. Whether you can sell professionally all depends on many things and writing fan fiction can be one way to do it.
I think the issue with fanfiction as a beginning writer is that you have the characterizations beforehand. But a good writer can add new characters and get practice with that.
I personally don’t think all fanfiction is written by fans. Their are a bunch of trolls out there who seem determined to ruin whatever franchise their writing about.
I never considered this possibility as being widespread. As a rare fanfic reader, I’m disturbed but not sure I can disagree. :o
The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is indifference.
If you really, truly weren’t a fan of something, you wouldn’t write troll fics about it. You’d briefly become aware of it and then forget about it within the following day, if not sooner. People who write troll fics have a bizarre fascination with something that they have to express in some fashion, within the limits of their personalities and the constraints of their intellects, both of which must bind on them immensely.
Anyway, the whole notion of “fanfic” is somewhat arbitrary. If you write a novel set in Middle Earth starring Bilbo Baggins, it’s fanfic; if you rename it to The Living Lands and call the protagonist Ryle Ventrue, it’s a completely original work of high fantasy. Quality doesn’t enter into it.
Other pros who started out with fanfiction include Peter David, Diane Duane, Melanie Rawn, and P.N. Elrod. There are more. I have several of Melanie Rawn’s Star Wars fics - and they’re much better by far (both sequels and prequels) than the offical works.
There is a lot of very bad fanfic out there, but there’s also a lot of very good fanfic out there. Finding it can be a chore; both AO3 and Fanfiction.net, the two largest archives, are basically cesspits. Finding the gems can be difficult and require some patience. Word-of-mouth from fan to fan is usually the most effective way.
Mmmmm…don’t get me wrong, there’s some bad stuff on AO3, but IME the quality/WTF ratio is much higher over there.
They’ve done surveys - the author age on AO3 skews much older, and therefore more likely to be older, better, more practiced authors, vs the many, many authors trying to write erotica/romance on FF.net who have never so much as kissed anyone.
I absolutely understand that, in order to be good at writing, you have to get all the bad writing out…but I don’t necessarily want to read it, and there’s just more of it on FF.net.
Also the website is way better, more attractive, and easier to navigate and filter on AO3.