Fanfiction - Your thoughts

[TheYellowCellPhone]

It can be good, but it has a great tendency to not be good.

It does exist, but you really wonder why it should exist.

You wonder why any people would try to emulate another person's story, and then you see that it is strikingly popular.

It can be deep and insightful, but that's just not what you want.

It's usually sloppy and always in need of an editor, then you see those who are better at editing that it's pretty presentable.

It's usually short and oft unfinished, then sometimes there are ones that don't give up the ship.

Heh. I can't talk down on it because there are always exceptions to the broad flaws. Hell, that is the entire description of why people read fanfics: There is always a good in the group of bads. It just depends on so freaking many factors (how much you like the base material, the audience the fandom attracts, the author, the focus of the stories and canon connections, general writing elements) that it really is a bigoted decree that all fanfiction is bad.

If you don't like fanfiction, obviously, you don't want the base source to be expanded on or you just haven't found the correct author. All fanfiction communities suffer by being a grand potpourri of genres written by a grand potpourri of editorless wordsmiths. The comedies are mixed with the fluff, which is mixed with the epics, which is mixed with the OCs, which is mixed with the world-building, which is mixed with the prequels. And the writers - who the fuck is going to stop them from butchering mingling genres besides their own sense?

Sometimes it's worth it.

 

[Gottesstrafe]

I will say It simply.

95% is complete worthless crap stupid or just plain weird.
2% is pandering that everyone will praise.
and only about 3% of it is actually good.

A bit pessimistic, don't you think? I would wager that at least 3/5's of that 95% are comedy gold by virtue of being unintentionally hilarious in their own right or as riffing fodder. Take for example:

Half-Life: Full Life Consequences


Fifty Shades of Grey


My Immortal

​

Spoiler: And if we're not going to limit ourselves purely to literary fan fiction...

 

[Draken Steel]

I was always quite dismissive of it, but really got into it recently. Actually spent the last 2 months pretty much just chain reading harry potter fanfic. Can usually weed out the really bad stories quite quickly, tho in one case sticking with it payed off (was neat watching the writer slowly get better as the story progressed). That said I am reading jsut for enjoyment, I'm sure English class fans can point out how much "better" the big name books/stuff they read in class are, but all that matters to me is if I like the story and characters.

The HP fanfic is nice because the sheer volume of it (over 600k stories on ff net) means its relativly easy to find writers you like and stories that suit your taste (personally I'm big on stories like Robst work, or grey harry)

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I can't comment much since I try to avoid fanfiction like the plague. Mainly because a lot of the stuff I've heard about took the source material and ran it through a proverbial wood chipper. Which incidentally is what much of the various fanbases get upset at guys like Micheal Bay for doing. Funny that.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

I used to be in the "all fanfiction is complete shit" group, and while I can still safely say most of it is pure garbage...when it's good, it's GOOD. Well worth drudging through the mire to find some of the gems, if you ask me.

 

[lacktheknack]

I generally don't like reading it, because I don't trust fans to write as good of works as the originals.

There are two exceptions: My Immortal and HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

<quote=HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, Chapter 5>The inquisitors were torturing Harry.

First, Ignatius used the rock.

Then Billy asked Harry if he wanted to read his BDSM blog. Harry was so surprised that his pants flew right off. He was wearing women's underpants.

The inquisitors were wearing them, too.

They realized that they were all men of the lord.

That one is kind of wonderful. I even have it recorded in Microsoft Sam voice.

 

[TIMESWORDSMAN]

I dabble in Mass Effect fan fiction, but I've never written anything worth putting online. But I am a writer, I write because I like writing, and the Mass Effect universe is like play dough to me, colorful and pleasantly textured but malleable enough to make what I want out of it.

On the subject of published FF, I've had good times and bad times, and ironically the bad times were usually the good times. Have you read the works of Squirrelking?

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

I like it >.>
I mostly go through recommendations so I don't come across too much crap, mostly get exposed to pretty decent to pretty damn good stories.

I haven't read one in a while, I kinda burned out on them after I went one year of doing nothing but reading fanfics (I was too broke for books).

I tried getting back into reading them but the ones that were in progress when I started haven't been updated in years and most other ones I've tried to find on my own have been utter shit so I'm kinda meh.

Edit: I also used to write some Star Wars fanfiction. I tried to keep it as true to the Universe as possible. It was original character but it was just something kinda for fun and it wasn't supposed to have any impact on the greater Star Wars Universe.

Buuuut the other people I was writing it with decided to God mod and wrecked everything up so I said "Screw this" and haven't touched it again.

 

[lunavixen]

I will say It simply.

95% is complete worthless crap stupid or just plain weird.
2% is pandering that everyone will praise.
and only about 3% of it is actually good.

Yeah, I'd say those statistics are about right, i both read and write it, and you have to wade through a massive ocean of crap to find the gems, it also depends on the fandom, as some fandoms have better stories than others. As a writer, one thing i can't stand is SI (self insert) at any time and OC (Original characters) when there is really no room for them in some of the stories you see them in.

 

[Ferisar]

Honestly, I only want to write fanfiction or read fanfiction when the universe in question is set up for it. Think 40k. Vast fantasy space with trillions of perspectives and countless worlds. Almost anything you make up can be more or less integrated assuming it isn't too out there.

If it's, like... Fanservicefiction, then... ehhh. I mean, more power to them for writing it as long as someone is reading it, but I'd prefer to steer away from it.

Also, the whole idea brings up the point of fanfiction being a very lazy outlet for creativity, because the setting is an established one.

 

[Xdeser2]

I dont have a problem with the concept...

but most of it either tends to be REALLY badly written, or just straight up porn :/

When you find the odd good fanfic, however, it tends to be at least entertaining enough to read through a few pages.

 

[Dangit2019]

Never read any myself (with the exception of that horrid Harry Potter vampire story), but my view on it has been that while limiting yourself to a universe is a bit self restricting, if you have a good story to tell with the universe, by all means tell it.

And to my fellow mlp fans, STOP SHIPPING DAMMIT.

 

[mbarker]

I think Fan fiction is great. It is great if it is well written, the characters and their behaviors are written in the spirit of the original material, the story is relevant and not just a rocks off romance, the story doesn't involve the writer in anyway, no crossing of worlds, don't break the forth wall and it is regularly posted or properly concluded.

Too bad that only describes about three percent of the fan fiction out there.

On a side note practice makes perfect so just keep pumping it out.

 

[Stryc9]

Some of it's really good, some of it's quite horrible based on content and subject matter and some of it's bad because of poor editing. I read a bit now and again when I find something that might be interesting. I really miss Topless Robot's Fan Fiction Friday segment where they would take one really terrible fanfic a week and tear it to shreds. When Rob Bricken the editor at TR went to work for io9 they tried to continue it but way too many people complained about how mean it was to the authors of the fanfics that were singled out and they ended it.

Captcha: trolololol Indeed.

 

[TheBeatlesProject]

I like fanfiction honestly but when it becomes too disgusting or hyper sexual is when I cease to enjoy it. Fanfiction offers adventures between characters in a franchise that the actual cannon never touches or never will and that's all in good fun to see how these unexplored relations work out.

 

[Charli]

There exists good fanfiction. Therefore I will take the sewage plant that surrounds it for that one beautiful flower.

I've commented on this topic before. Good Fan fiction is good like fan art. People LOVE fan art, fiction CAN BE just as good. It's simply taken a long route to establish itself since creating an intitial impact on a reader is harder than someone who is immediately confronted by an image. One takes longer than the other. To guage a good fanficton I often have to spend 15mins to half an hour reading before I can make a choice to continue or abandon ship.

There are millions upon millions of terrible fan art pieces on deviantart, the good ones praised and shared all around the internet, if art is allowed that right, then fiction and writing deserves that same treatment.

 

[Reaper195]

I'm not really sure what to think of fanfiction. Because you get a lot of decent writers uploading their stories to Fanfiction.net. You then also have decent writers getting their works published. Like the Halo books, or Mass Effect books. Where does one draw the line between fanfiction and...not...fanfiction? Does it simply come down to whether it's a licensed product?

 

[Extra-Ordinary]

What everybody else so far has said, there's some good stuff but it can be pretty hard to find.
Luckily you can tell you're reading a bad or a good fic pretty early on so you can decide whether or not you should keep going.
I had the fortune of my very first fic being pretty good, so now I have a pretty positive outlook on fics. I assume it's good until I'm proven wrong.

 

[Darken12]

I've been around the fan fiction block for a while now. It's great practice for writing and critical literary skills.

I never did have much success, since I've actively fought against the prevalent heteronormativity, misogyny and rape culture endemic in romance/erotica (which is usually by and for women, even when it's M/M), but I've always preferred having a clean conscience (to know I never fetishised rape) than being famous for something utterly reprehensible.

I did get some mild notoriety for a really explicit M/M/M fic last year. Felt immensely proud. It's still strictly minor leagues (even within fan fiction), but when I could rarely break 500 hits per story, slight notoriety is better than the alternative.

 

[cojo965]

[sub][sub]I tried looking for decent Fairy Tail fanfics, if I see the words NaLu one more goddamn time...[/sub][/sub]

[sub]I know the feeling man, I know the feeling. Seriously, only ~5 frequent pairings for Ichigo.[/sub]

I generally put people into 1 of 5 categories regarding FanFiction-

1. They frequent the site, and would be honest if someone asked them if they did.
2. They frequent the site, but would lie about it if someone asked them if they did.
3. They have been there a couple times, but it was't their cup of tea.
4. They haven't been there yet.
5. They haven't been there, and being a close-minded bigot never will.

I would put myself in the second category. Usually when you tell people, they look at you funny and their mind gets thrown in the gutter.

Another thing,(and i don't know if this is just with Bleachor not), but what's with all of the Yaoi!?!?[footnote]Japanese for Male X Male stories[/footnote] Seriously, probably around [sup]1[/sup]/[sub]2[/sub] -- [sup]3[/sup]/[sub]4[/sub] of all FF's ive seen have been Yaoi.

EDIT: Also recently read a good FF. Was a Bleach and Code Geass crossover (Soul Chess) that did a damn good job at staying true (initially) to the established stories of both, and did an exceptional job of merging the stories. Plus being at (currently) 1.75 million words, yes million, it kept me occupied for quite a while; still is actually with updates every couple days.

Dude if you think the written shit is bad, it's nothing compared to fanart that pulls that crap. For example, looking through Deviantart for cool Slenderman art, you find that him and fellow Creepypasta Jeff the Killer get paired up more than you would think, namely zero. Speaking of which if that wasn't creepy enough imagery, fans take it to the next level in the form of pairing Jeff up with his implied dead brother. I know the ending is left up to the reader whether he could do it but it doesn't change the fact that the brother is dead, you know why? Because Jeff killed his mom and dad, why would he have such an abrupt change of heart?