Fan Fiction: Is it a problem?

[game-lover]

I like fanfiction. It's fun to read and a bit fun to write.

But it's mostly a hobby. I don't focus too much on it. I'm rather picky on what I choose to read.

And I'm hard on myself when I write. I started off as a bad culprit for Mary Sues. I had a lot to learn and I'm still learning.

 

[the Dept of Science]

The phrase "first world problem" springs to mind.

For me, I'm not going to read fanfiction when I could be reading Vonnegut, Murakami or Dickens. I know it makes me sound pretentious, but we learn most from reading great works and I think there are better things that I could be doing with my time than reading about Left4Dead zombies getting in love triangles with the survivors.

Fun fact - The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, 14th century, is said to be the world's first example of self-insert fiction.

If someone finds me some fan fiction in epic verse format, I would totally make an exception for that.

 

[imnot]

Im not a fan of fan fiction, most sucks and isn't worth reading.

Spiderses on the other hand!

 

[DarkenedWolfEye]

Personally, I feel like fanfiction is harmless only when it's done well. If fanfiction is extremely poorly written (as, let's be fair here, most of it is) I feel like their lack of effort is going to reflect badly on me and on other people who actually try when their writing fanfiction.
Fanfiction gives us a way to explore someone else's universe through our own lens and our own ideas. I respect it in the same way I respect any art form: If it's done well and with a fair amount of creativity as the medium allows, I love it. If it's done poorly, it needs to die.
That includes My Immortal - I have a physical reaction of disgust just looking at a passage from that horrifyingly written mess. I find I'm in the minority on this.

 

[lion el jhonson]

You act as though cupcakes is creepy but you read romance fanfics about SI on human and elite on human? Ok.

I actually dont find cupcakes that creepy. It just baffles me that someone took the time and effort to make that. If you think about, the writers a troll.

But for the Romance fics you mentioned. Elite on human, it could happen but you have a better chance of winning the lottery. SI on human, if I remember correctly they aren't "zombies" they actually just have super rabies and I have maybe like 2 fics that didn't deal with either witch or hunter characters. So, blue moon, planets aligned and wind blew just right it could happen.

 

[Chairman Miaow]

You act as though cupcakes is creepy but you read romance fanfics about SI on human and elite on human? Ok.

I actually dont find cupcakes that creepy. It just baffles me that someone took the time and effort to make that. If you think about, the writers a troll.

But for the Romance fics you mentioned. Elite on human, it could happen but you have a better chance of winning the lottery. SI on human, if I remember correctly they aren't "zombies" they actually just have super rabies and I have maybe like 2 fics that didn't deal with either witch or hunter characters. So, blue moon, planets aligned and wind blew just right it could happen.

I just can't help but imagine an elite and human trying to kiss with there predator mouths. Horrifying.

 

[Charli]

Good FanFiction is REALLY good readings.

...unfortunately alot of it lies buried beneath tons of bile.
If you want your fix of X-Fandom in written form. You're going to need to bring your shovel and dirt repellant gloves.

But when you find, and read a good one, It can really restore your faith in the written word. Plus make you feel all those warm fuzzles for your interest of choice. Never hurts, either.

A problem? Nope, not if you're a veteren like me and have learned to ignore even the most deceptively written summaries and see them for what they are.

Have a standard, keep to it, only lower it when desperate. And even then default back to standard when this fit of madness has passed.


Some people really develop from writting fan fiction. I see nothing wrong with it as long as...well go see for yourself, there's a clear line between a talented, developing writer and... the others.

Edit: HAHA god I almost forgot about MyImmortal, that thing was doing the rounds of evil when I was a fanfiction reading virgin and by the end I was crying with laughter. People were outright offended by this this thing. Even when I was my own brand of annoying weeaboo, I think I was both gobsmacked and tickled pink by it.
Aahhhh...memories.

 

[ElPatron]

Ctrl + F
"doom"

Really? No results?


Most of the people who write that kind of stuff are just weird. I know. I have met quite a few.

I have no problem with you doing what you want with someone else' characters, but switch the sexual orientation they have on the canon "just because" does not seem to be the best thing to do with your free time.

I mean, a decent writer can come up with his own characters. Right?

 

[waj9876]

If there's one thing you can't say about My Immortal, is that it's unoriginal.

Well, I am a fanfiction writer. I've written a few one-shots and have only one on-going fanfiction going on at this time. It's not even at fanfiction.net. And I see nothing wrong with what I read and do. It doesn't hurt the author in any way, and only shows people like it enough to write about it.

Now if someone is just writing down exactly what happens in what the fanfiction is based on with no change whatsoever, it stops being fanfiction. And even then, if said person isn't getting money for it, why should it matter?

 

[Charli]

I have no problem with you doing what you want with someone else' characters, but switch the sexual orientation they have on the canon "just because" does not seem to be the best thing to do with your free time.

Good fanfiction I find don't even touch upon romance or pairings (or if they do stay with the cannon and let it affect the plot very loosely) Good Fanfiction is an expansion of the story and people who write just to play around with sexual orientation and bizzarre plots 'just because they want to get off to that stuff are... well odd, to me'.

Being very a very unsexual person myself I tend to stay far away from the romance section as the majority is just "AMG I PAIR x-CHARACTER with y-CHARACTER and they have hot luvins!".


...Really that's not all it is. I swear, some of it is really creative, and keeping characters IN-character with the original tone and intent of the (whatever it is book/movie/anime/game etc) and then expanding the world and story believably is quite difficult, and even well written ones I abandon half way if I think; "Nope this is going off in an unrealistic tangent now.".

There's some Gems in there, but you've go to be willing to dig for them, and I am TOTALLY understanding if you're put off by the scary hormone driven writers that lurk in there. Truly. Some things are not worth that time and effort... Some of us just like to read and have run out of books/articles/magazines and are poor.

 

[Necroid_Neko]

I think people who write badly-written fanfiction should keep it to themselves (I'm certainly not going to share mine!). If it's well written, expands on an interesting principle or is the kind of thing that people would be interested then by all means publish it to the internet. I've never really had a problem with it since I avoid it like the plague.

OP, those are some...interesting choices in romantic pairings, may I ask what interests you in eg the zombies of L4D on females romance/action? It just seems terribly unusual to me :S

 

[MrShowerHead]

I like the idea of fan fiction, and I like some fan fiction. I don't read much of it as I can rarely find one which I would be interested in and which is not terrible. Many people see fanfiction as an opportunity to write their own "Mary Sue" -stories, when in my opinion fanfiction should be used to expand on the universe the original work established.

Also, without the concept of fanfiction we would not have this.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4719325/1/My_Immortal_REPOST

Actual story starts in chapter two.

Oh God, not this again! I've read that twice already, isn't that enough!?

I even tried the drinking game (Drink everything the word "black" + some other rules I don't remember) I quitted after half a chapter. It was too much.

Anyway, I recommend using this. Helped me to get through it twice.

 

[Xanthious]

Holy hell! I was going to post an off handed remark about Sonichu here and post a pic but that lead me to losing an hour plus of my life at the CWCki. I hope you are happy OP. I hope you are happy!

 

[Itsthefuzz]

I dislike all sorts of fan fiction, so I guess yes I would say it is a problem. The romantic stuff is usually gross and I find most people who enjoy it tend to creep me out a little bit. The non romantic stuff I generally find never seems to have the same style as the source material and there fore makes me have a lot less enjoyment reading it. I had a thought once where if I ever made a good story for game/book/show/whatever and I had a fan following I would ask them to kindly not make fanfiction of it. I probably won't ever have that happen though, I'm not a story writer kind of guy.

 

[Trivun]

I don't often read fanfiction, unless it's been recommended to me. Usually comedy stuff, or the stuff a friend of mine comes out with (which he hasn't updated for at least a year, so yeah...). I don't see fanfic as a problem really, personally I write it as a hobby, but I also write my own stuff with my own stories, characters, worlds and so on. I'm simply a regular writer who also writes fanfiction. It can be good practice, as a matter of fact, especially for younger writers still learning their trade. Of course, that means the vast majority of the stuff is a load of crap, but still, some good does come out of it. The writer of the Mortal Engines series, for example - a very successful and popular series for young adults - started her career writing Harry Potter fanfics online. So there you go...

Also, if anyone fancies reading it, here's the Halo fanfic I wrote (final chapter still pending), along with a supplementary piece that I wrote as a teaser for the final chapter (but I'd recommend you read the supplementary piece first...):

Main Story - Memories - http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6535664/1/Memories
Supplementary work - Conversations from WHITE FLAG - http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7774866/1/Conversations_from_WHITE_FLAG

 

[Da Orky Man]

The phrase "first world problem" springs to mind.

For me, I'm not going to read fanfiction when I could be reading Vonnegut, Murakami or Dickens. I know it makes me sound pretentious, but we learn most from reading great works and I think there are better things that I could be doing with my time than reading about Left4Dead zombies getting in love triangles with the survivors.

Fun fact - The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, 14th century, is said to be the world's first example of self-insert fiction.

If someone finds me some fan fiction in epic verse format, I would totally make an exception for that.

http://kasuto.net/poetry.php?main=poetry/imprisioning_war.html&top=poetry/bongo_bill_menu.html

A fanfic, written as an epic poem, of Zelda. Whatever setting, whatever style, there's a fic for that.

 

[ElPatron]

There's some Gems in there, but you've go to be willing to dig for them, and I am TOTALLY understanding if you're put off by the scary hormone driven writers that lurk in there. Truly. Some things are not worth that time and effort... Some of us just like to read and have run out of books/articles/magazines and are poor.

The problem is that those resources could be easily used in original stories.

I like cyberpunk a lot. I would be thrilled to find more stories by people who took a shot and creating their own universe. Because I am not going to read Ghost in The Shell and Blade Runner fanfics just to get my fix.

So the question is "Is it a problem?". If the question is "Does it affect you?" my answer would be that while sometimes we are bound to trip on fanfiction, it is easily avoided 99% of the time and does not affect me directly.

Is it a problem? Somewhat. But in a very low scale.

- Like I mentioned, new stories could be developed
- It's inflating egos.

http://www.amazon.com/Krissy-Alexis-Philippi/dp/145674299X

Apparently who can write "good" fanfiction (read: skipped trough the bad comments and just read the good ones) can try to get their original novel published, and if it's too bad for any editor, ask for parent's money to publish it.

It would be more productive if people focused on writing on their own instead of playing around with Twilight and then jumping into the "real deal".

Seriously, I would love to write and post my own original fiction, but I respect writing to much to actually do something. It's not for everyone.

But again, those problems are in a very low scale. It's obviously not comparable to war, hunger, human rights violations, etc.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I don't have a problem with it. I'd like to see more authors invent original settings as I think that encourages more growth of writing skill by forcing them to come up with settings and characters but I don't think its anything negative. Some fanfic is bad yes, but honestly most of the stuff writing on the internet is bad, don't blame fanfic for allowing poor writers to post there stupid ideas online.

 

[nightwolf667]

Fanfiction is a place where young writers can go to experiment with story building and already established characters, it's less intimidating than going out and writing original fiction. Of course it's going to be bad, 98% of published fiction is bad and those writers had to go through the publishing process. Mary Sues are probably more common in fanfiction because the authors are young. Everyone who starts writing writes Mary Sues, so I don't particularly care about it. I will say that readers and writers in general have gotten worse about being able to identify them. Still, there are also a great many published authors who never get past writing Mary Sue, they just get better at hiding her/him.

For example: Twilight, the Hunger Games, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer all have Mary Sue protagonists. All with varying degrees of stupidity attached.

It's also a way for fans to connect to the series and express their love for it. It may be a little weird and creepy sometimes (most of the time), but it's an expression of how much the setting and characters fascinate their imaginations. There's nothing wrong with that.

Wincest is still gross though.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

As the occasional fan fiction writer (under a different name) I cannot say I have a problem with most fan fictions. Yes, a lot are romances but some create very interesting stories within the universe. There's always the option to stop reading.