Fanfiction - Your thoughts

[Ishal]

Honestly I never even considered reading them or writing them until MLP.

I view it as I view my taste in anime, I enjoy what I enjoy and that usually happens to be pretty niche. Lots of it is bad, but some is good and even great at times. I just think you need to be careful where you go if you want to get into it. Great thing about MLP and other large communities is there is a lot to choose from, so if you are genuinely interested you'll find something you like.

Some of the stuff I've read there is imo better than a lot of wank several of my friends read. The fact that its fan fiction doesn't take away from that in the slightest. Good writing is good writing.

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

Eh, I mainly read and also write Naruto fanfiction (TRIVIA: Naruto is the second most popular fanfic property in the world after Harry Potter) and have read some really good stories, such as Time and Again/Here and Now, RED, Medicinal Lullaby and Candlelight. Since I think the Naruto manga itself has kind of jumped the shark but I still find the characters and setting interesting, I look to fanfiction to try and tell stories better than what the original author can. Of course, most of it is really, REALLY bad. A lot is written by people who simply can't write properly, some by people who can at least use functional spelling and grammar but can't tell a compelling story without warping the characters horribly out of character and writing really stupid, contrived shit. Much as I like the idea of fanfiction doing things better than the original author can, I don't like it when things are just changed for the hell of it (one Naruto fic I started reading arbitrarily made Kushina into a demon princess so Naruto could be half-demon with a codependant relationship to his father just because). I don't mind it when people make changes to the backstory (I've done it myself in fact) but they have to try and keep things consistant with the setting. I'm not fond of full-blown alternate universe fics.

Eh, on the off chance that anyone's interested in reading my stories, there's my first one-shot 'The Dream Wedding [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8933977/1/The-Dream-Wedding]' and my ongoing epic 'Naruto: the Secret Songs of the Ninja [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8944611/1/Naruto-The-Secret-Songs-of-the-Ninja]' (shameless plug).

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I wrote some when I was a kid...they're up on fanfiction.net still.

It fills me with both shame and sorrow to go back and read that drek.

As for fanfiction as a whole? It's fine. There are extremes on any end of the good/bad/creepy/ohgodwhy/sexy/toosexy/ohgodwhyisthisconsideredsexy/tentacles spectrums, which is to be expected and frankly keeps things interesting.

Just don't go in to this sort of thing expecting the reincarnation of Hemingway to be the one behind the keyboard, busily clicking away at a Twilight X Celestia X Human X Billy Goat fic.

 

[Darth_Payn]

The theory is sound, but I take issue with most of the actual product, i.e. it sucks. I myself have a rough idea for a Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex fanfic that ISN'T porn and seeks to feel like part of that world. Think of it like a prequel to Deus Ex as well.

 

[trouble_gum]

My immediate, flippant reaction is: "Fanfiction? It's all poorly written, grammatically painful, badly formatted dross and 95% is about either the author's fave character and/or the author's Mary Sue self-insert having sex with with each other/the author's other favourite character."

But then, Laurell K. Hamilton and John Norman made literary careers out of publishing novels like that. And I loved Clear Skies to bits. Not written fanfic, it's machinima, but it's fanfic nonetheless.

Clearly, enough people write fanfiction that some of it has to be good. However, the noise:signal is a little too high for me to take the time to sift through, and too many of the chosen settings leave me cold. Most popular anime. MLP. New Star Wars stuff (i.e anything related to the prequels / Clone Wars / Kevin J. Anderson). Harry Potter. Current 40K lore.
I can see why someone would write fiction in a setting (popular or otherwise) that they know and love. I did it when I was still playing tabletop 40K regularly (1995/6). But I'm less supporting of fanfic that uses the major characters. I can see it for when something has been cancelled or ended prematurely (Firefly, for example), but too much fanfic that's focused on the majors in a universe tends to be bad. Often with author self-inserts that either interact significantly with those major characters or major events in a significant way. Or they're used/written in a way that flies in the face of established canon.

Now, you can write fanfic that features major characters and isn't terrible. There were a fair few SW:EU stories published in Bantam collections that were basically fanfic (I think a couple were actually culled from entries to West End Games magazine. I could be wrong.) and written from the perspectives of minor characters. But 9/10 times, fanfic with major players/events tends to be centred on inserting its author in there in some wish-fulfillment manner.

All in all, fan fiction isn't something I make a habit of reading, for reasons outlined above.

 

[Estarc]

My opinion in a general sense is that if reading or writing (or both) fanfiction makes someone happy, what right does anyone else have to degrade their hobby?

In a personal sense, I enjoy reading it, though my standards for quality are high. I think anyone who sticks with fanfiction for any length of time will eventually demand a high level of quality from what they read, and thankfully there are writers out there that can meet the highest benchmarks. Finding their stories however, is damned hard, which is why fanfiction communities are so valuable, since everyone can share the good stories they have managed to stumble across.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I tolerate, hell probably even enjoy the 99% because the 1% can be amazing and awesome.

It's also a wonderful way to waste some time before going to sleep, so Angry Birds but with less effort

 

[That Guy Ya Know]

Never used to read it but maybe a year ago I discovered it could actually be good. I don't bother sifting through all the crap though. I let other people do that and just read what people I trust recommend. Right now I'm in the middle of read HP and the D20 which is possibly one of the best things I've ever read.

 

[AlbertoDeSanta]

I wrote one once. I've read a few. But, none are really any good. There's a few that have been good, but you really need to trudge through the massive sea of feces to find the golden gems. And even then, it's just easier to find a new series. So, I'm negative towards it. Even though my fanfiction was considered 'good' by most of it's readers, I was incredibly dissapointed by it, so I stopped after Chapter 8.

TL;DR: It can be good, but most of it is shit.

 

[Gypsyssilver]

I would like to hear people's various opinions on fanfictions stories.

85% of them are pure garbage.

They tend to be poorly written, with atrocious grammar and spelling. There is little character development (they're barely even one-dimensional). The execrable 'plot' is often the worst part - you can actually feel your IQ decreasing point-by-point with each story you read. Not that you'll read the whole story, of course. It only takes a paragraph or two for you to discover what they are.

10% of them are actually quite good - you'd pay money for them if you saw them in a bookstore. You love reading them, and look for others like them.

5% of them are so incredibly well-written that you realise they're actually better than the source material. You can't believe that you found such an amazing story - you've hit the literary jackpot, and you didn't have to pay any money for the experience. You realise you'd plough through any amount of purple prose and Mary Sues if it meant you could read another story like that.

I've read a lot of garbage in my time. But I've also found some real gems - and because of those I'll keep hunting for more. Like a rat hitting a lever for a randomly-distributed pellet.

It keeps me humble. ^_^

 

[Talaris]

I've read one or two, but never really got into it. Besides the fact that a lot of it is bad, I dislike the fact that the stories don't follow official continuity, somehow I just get this feeling that it's fake, even if it's well written. As a fan of Star Wars, even some comics that get Dark Horse permission to be printed, but aren't canon, start to disinterest me as there's a voice in my head telling me this never happened in the fictional setting that I care about. I know it means I miss out, but that's the way it is.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I pretty much loathe most fanfic in general (the only ones I do like is it's well written and it is almost canon like) but hey since I don't like it, I don't need to read it otherwise I end up being a troll.

 

[Entitled]

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.

I'd say more than 90% of self-insert fics, with the author as the main character, are... less than sterling.

BUT, 95% of it is total crap, and I don't have the patience to sift through it all to find the good stuff most of the time.

I tolerate, hell probably even enjoy the 99% because the 1% can be amazing and awesome.

85% of them are pure garbage.

I bet at least 89% of the people making up random statistics about how much of it is garbage don't have a big enough reference pool to measure that.


But seriously, now. The first problem with fanfiction is, that while much of it is garbage (as with anything else, obviously), this fact about it got infamously well-known, even among people who are NOT in the habit of indiscriminately browsing though all the "latest stories" pages of fanfiction.net (who would be the most hardcore fanfiction fans), just vaguely aware of it's existence.

If you are casually interested in high fantasy literature, the first things you will bump into are Lord of The Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, and Wheel of Time. If you are mildly curious about strategy games, you will first meet Starcraft, and Total War.

Yet if you are slightly knowledgeable about fanfics, the first ones you hear about will be My Immortal and Cupcakes, NOT Methods of Rationality and Fallout: Equestria. It's like those who *could* advertise the good ones and dismiss the bad ones, are intentionally giving a bad reputation to the medium by doing it the other way around.

I guess it's because fanfics are already so fandom-specific, they don't really have a chance to be respected outside of the fandom to begin with. Fallout Equestria is absolutely amazing, but only assuming that you can take ponies seriously. Even plenty of shipping fics are well-written, but only interesting if you happen to care about that particular relationship.

 

[xeyra]

I read fanfic in my favorite fandoms (quite a lot sometimes) and I've found quite a few gems that actually are as well or even better written than published novels. Some of them can even be read as original novels, considering the propensity in fanfiction to Alternate Universes that hold barely a similarity to the fandom in question.

Sure, there's a lot of garbage, but that's why I tend to stick to recs lists and the such, which are often great ways to separate the good from the crap.

 

[Playful Pony]

I don't really read fan fiction... I can enjoy reading some original work by amateurs, many of them are pretty talented or can at least cook up an interesting and fun story. I tried to find an amateur writer for a while, because I wanted to draw a comic but I can't write for shit! I can handle the drawing part, but I can't cook up funny jokes, interesting story lines or amazing universes. For all my so-called "creativity" I'm not much good at original content! X3 The one person I did find got scared away because I draw furries, and he didn't want to write a story where the characters are anthro animals. Don't see the problem, Disney has gotten away with it for a lifetime!

 

[someonehairy-ish]

It depends. If you're writing purely for enjoyment, then of course there's nothing wrong with writing fanfiction. That said, it doesn't really lend itself well to learning character or world building skills, because all your settings and characters are there already. So if you intend to become a good writer you should do a good proportion of entirely original stuff.

I personally don't tend to ever read fanfiction. I've heard there's some good stuff, and that's probably true, but everything I've actually seen seemed horribly amateurish.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

I'd say more than 90% of self-insert fics, with the author as the main character, are... less than sterling.

I bet at least 89% of the people making up random statistics about how much of it is garbage don't have a big enough reference pool to measure that.

I stand by my statement. I read a lot of fanfiction, and I have found some decent self-insert ones. But then, for every one good self-insert I see, I see nine... terrible, horrible things that will never be scrubbed from my memory.
Bloody hell, I love fanfiction. I'm a fanfic fanatic. I've read more fanfics in words total than books in the last two years I'd say. Speaking of, I should check to see if I have any new chapter update alerts...
Edit: Also, I read Fallout Equestria. Read it before I even watched any MLP. I enjoyed the hell out of it. But then, I love to see a high word count, and coupled with good writing...

 

[Entitled]

I personally think that it's shameful that fanfiction as a concept even needs to exist as a separate thing from "proper writing".

Basing your art on that of others before you, is normal. This is how creativity works. And this is still how it is being done today, except that now we have this huge mess called "IP", so it has to happen through corporate-sanctioned franchise-building (Star Wars, The Avengers), through public domain (Wicked, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The Litle Mermaid), and through imitating plots and styles instead of character names (the zombie genre, the modern military shooter genre).

It's already pretty disgusting how you can put a new spin on zombies, you can become a billionaire and praised as the successor of Romero, yet if you would go and try to put a new spin on hobbits, you would be treated as if you just tried to rob ideas from Tolkien's grave, and persecuted by law, just because "hobbit" just happens to be a copyrightable word.

This is the reason why art can't evolve naturally, as we criminalize certain brands of creativity while grant others the monopoly over them.

 

[Entitled]

I stand by my statement. I read a lot of fanfiction, and I have found some decent self-insert ones. But then, for every one good self-insert I see, I see nine... terrible, horrible things that will never be scrubbed from my memory.
Bloody hell, I love fanfiction. I'm a fanfic fanatic. I've read more fanfics in words total than books in the last two years I'd say. Speaking of, I should check to see if I have any new chapter update alerts...

I'm not really questioning your accuracy, just the reason behind the need to bring attention to that particular fact.

My point was exactly that while the ratio is likely (by Sturegon's law), it's strange that the only people who would truly have experience with it are so busy confirming that. It's just weird, how I could look at the title of the thread, and already predict that it will be full of people describing exactly how much fanfiction is crap (either defensively or hostilely).

I'm a pretty big anime fan, I watch ractically every show in the season, yet I never feel the urge to talk to non-fans about exactly how many shows are worthless trash. And based on anime threads around here, neither do most other fans.

This seems to be backwards with fanfic fandoms, for some reason.

 

[Katherine Kerensky]

-Snip-

Well, the thread is titled "Fanfiction - Your thoughts". I stated my thoughts and experiences. I love fanfiction. I have no life, so I can practically read it every day, and proofread every day (Today is meant to be an art practice day, so I don't need to, but I could still proofread a couple of chapters). However, I do see a lot of bad fanfiction swamping the good stuff. Of course, it's normally easy to avoid the bad stuff, if you know what to look out for.
As much as I'd love to come into the thread to do nothing but praise fanficion in totality, I can't do so, because I know it has a lot of, as I said in my first post, "less than sterling" stuff. Like pretty much every form of media.
Maybe we go off about how much bad stuff there is in fanfiction, because we're proud of ourselves when we do manage to find something really good, despite what, shall we say, society, tells us about that particular area of media.