Optiluiz said:
I'm against the whole concept of fan-fiction, and I think the authors that waste their time on it should concentrate on original works. That having been said, I HAVE read some pretty good fanfics, some even better than the original work.
It seems you know very little about developing creative skills. See, if there's one thing an aspiring artist knows how to do--regardless of their craft--it's draw inspiration from someone else.
Do you know what I have done in just about every SINGLE art class I have taken since I started college? I'm talking 3 drawing classes, painting, jewelrymaking, and computer animation. In each of those classes, I had at LEAST one project where we had to take the work of an old master and use it somehow. Sometimes it was just to draw inspiration, other times we outright copied what they did. In fact, one day in Drawing I, we went to a local art museum and all we did for three hours was draw the pieces in the museum that stood out the most to us. These educational and inspirational copies even have their own special word--pastiche, literally meaning "imitation."
The point of all that copying is to get a feel for what the old masters did to become the "old masters." Redrawing something allows you to become very intimate with it. You become familiar with each and every minute detail, notice angles and patterns, and learn the craft from them in ways you never could have simply by LOOKING at them. It's like the difference between watching somebody drive a car and getting behind the wheel yourself.
As for fanfictions, first of all they just like writing prompts you do in writing classes, in that they are great ways to get started quickly into getting words onto a page. See, the only way to get good at writing is to write. A lot. Practice makes perfect, as they say. Just like with the drawings, does all of your practice have to be from a completely original still-life? Hell no. With drawings, working with something already done gives you a chance to observe someone else's composition and see what you can do with it yourself. So you are not only learning their composition, but yours as well. So with writing, having a jumping off point can get you started quickly and can allow the writer to skip the worries of world and canon development and work on the mechanical aspects of their writing, such as style, structure, character development, and plot (note: plot does not mean story. plot is how the story is revealed to the audience).
Secondly, I'm taking creative writing this year, and my instructor does not discourage writing fanfictions. She cautions us to be aware of copyright laws, of course, but otherwise she's fine with it. She says that some of her best writings have come from writing prompts, and she knows of many people who have had had works published that originally started as writing prompts. Prompts can give you a starting point that you never would have imagined in your wildest dreams. They broaden your perspective, and push your mind beyond what it's comfortable dealing with. You're adapting to a new situation and coming up with unfamiliar solutions, rather than allowing your mind to lead you somewhere you're already comfortable with or feel you already have the answer for. The mind is tricky like that--it loves what is familiar, and does not easily see something from another perspective.
So I'm afraid you've got this all wrong. A writer is not good because their ideas are completely original all the time. I mean really, just how many love stories and tragedies are out there? So no. A writer is good because they can tell a damn good story. It doesn't have to be original, or even terribly complicated. It's all about the presentation.
