What is it with people and fanfiction?

[leviathanmisha]

People who write fanfiction do so because they aren't creative enough to come up with their own characters and universe, so they have to piggy back on someone else's work. That's why I don't want to read fanfiction, because if those writers actually had any talent they would be able to come up with their own shit, and possibly attempt to actually publish it.

You really underestimate what it takes to get published.

I've been writing original stories for several years now and continually submitting them to local literary magazines while I work on my History B.A.

Fanfiction is just a hobby that came out of the fact that when I was big into Supernatural, I stopped trusting the writers of the show to actual develop the characters into something that was likable. Truth is, that happens and then fandom decides that they could do a better job and often times, they do. There's a huge fan-generated season seven for Supernatural that blows the actual season seven out of the water by far. It's about 600,000+ words long and it's just gorgeous.

But yeah, getting published isn't as easy as you would think. It's a lot of perseverance that some people just don't have.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

It's because most fanfics I hear about end up being like this, although not as hilariously read:
I did read some good fanfiction that didn't involve re-writing the original story to fit a Mary-Sue, but those are rare.

 

[Angelblaze]

People who write fanfiction do so because they aren't creative enough to come up with their own characters and universe, so they have to piggy back on someone else's work. That's why I don't want to read fanfiction, because if those writers actually had any talent they would be able to come up with their own shit, and possibly attempt to actually publish it.

You really underestimate what it takes to get published.

I've been writing original stories for several years now and continually submitting them to local literary magazines while I work on my History B.A.

Fanfiction is just a hobby that came out of the fact that when I was big into Supernatural, I stopped trusting the writers of the show to actual develop the characters into something that was likable. Truth is, that happens and then fandom decides that they could do a better job and often times, they do. There's a huge fan-generated season seven for Supernatural that blows the actual season seven out of the water by far. It's about 600,000+ words long and it's just gorgeous.

But yeah, getting published isn't as easy as you would think. It's a lot of perseverance that some people just don't have.

There's also fan created sequels. RoTG has a massive following for the fic I posted earlier in the thread to the point of literally having its own active TUMBLR tag - not the entire section of that specific movies fanfiction, but by actual name. It's filled with fanart, ocs, the whole nine yards. For non gay romance fanfiction...check out Youtube and look up the Blazblue soundtrack. For a couple videos you'll find the fans already thinking up content for a future BlazbluexGuiltyGear crossover.





God I hope that happens.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I do it because it's fun, and it's a nice way for me and a buddy to bounce ideas off each other. Sorry if I'm not some literary genius. I'd rather write something I enjoy than try to be artsy or crap like that.

And since Warhammer 40000 invites people to create their own fanfic, I have my own haven. Set in the Dawn of War series between Chaos Rising and Retribution. With Merrick.

 

[Elfgore]

For others I understand how it could be fun, especially if you are the one writing them... but to me they are just... weird.

I've read one and half fanfiction stories. One left me mentally scared for a couple of days, the other impressed me.

The first was a Pokemon fanfic written by what my guess was a twelve year old, based on how poor the diction and plot were in the story. The story revolved around Ash and Dawn getting married. The story starts with Ash proposing and ends with Ash getting shot in a bar fight. Now before you go "Ohhhhhhh! Interesting!" NO! The story was one page. It jumped from proposal, to bar, to guy hitting on dawn at bar, Ash telling him to "fuck off", and Ash getting shot, and Dawn becoming a widow. IN ONE PAGE! It was god awful and I told myself I would never venture to fanfic again... I was wrong.

The next actually was well done with good diction, grammar, and a coherent, if not weird, plot. The story was a mix of the manga, Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou, and the anime Naruto. The story was based in the end anime, my guess at least as I have never watched Naruto, of Naruto but with the events of Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou. So pretty much Naruto replaces the male protagonist of Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou and ends up with a half snake, half woman... person living in his home. She goes on about how she wants to meet the General Naruto and how she heard of his greatness. I stopped about halfway through, because it was quite clear that I needed to watch Naruto to understand half of what was going on. But what I read was actually pretty well done.

So to sum it up. Most fanfic is total crap written by people who just do it for fun. But then hidden amongst the crap there is a golden piece of work that could actually show some talent for writing from a fan of a show. Also to answer the question, A few bad apples spoiled the bunch.

 

[tilmoph]

I've read a couple good fanfics in my time. I'm reading xcom:second contact now and I rather like it. The other one was some outlaw star thing that covered how gene and jim meet. Bit dark, very good though, can't remember the title for the life of me. And you cannot tell me Thirty H's isn't fucking brilliant! It is beautiful and the universe is better because it exists and Manwithoutabody did a dramatic reading of it.

Why does it picked on so much? Because a.) the crazy, weird ass porn crossovers are simply the most weirdly, train wreck style interesting, so that's the image a lot of people have; b. a lot of it is sub-mediocre drivel, not hilariously bad, not crazy awesome nuts, not good, not even average as far as written stories go, just poorly done, cliche riddled drek. Which means the crazy "Hogwarts castle has sex with a giant squid, like holy shit, the fucking actual building gets tentacle banged by a giant squid" stuff gets the most attention; c. anything from the internet is prime fodder for mockery from the internet. Fanfic, while predating the internet, didn't really become a thing most people were aware of until the internet become commonplace.

 

[Charli]

At least in my eyes, if the writers for fan-fiction were ever truly talented, they'd write their own shit. At least, that's how I see it.

So what writers of TV shows, paid Tie-in books, etc, whom are by definition are paid fan-fiction writers, are completely untalented? Come on, you know better than to paint with a brush that wide and uncompromising surely? Yes it's a sight less difficult, but it should not be snubbed entirely as YOU HAVE NO TALENT FUCK YOU... There's something to be said for someone who can take a concept and write well for it.

Writing takes a level of skill, and writing fan-fiction can actually improve and hone your own skills regarding utilizing literary features without having to go through the headache of developing an entire world. It's still a skill that has uses in society. And hell if someone hadn't gotten it into their head to write fan fiction a number of creations would have just died in their infancy.


People appreciate fan-art quite broadly, and completely ignore the creepy underbelly of a million or more less talented works sitting around all over the internet like weeds. Fan-fiction is much the same. Only it's MUCH harder to distinguish at a first glance what is good and what is terrible. Personal tastes become larger factors as well as the content can be less abstract.

 

[TakerFoxx]

At least in my eyes, if the writers for fanfiction were ever truly talented, they'd write their own shit. At least, that's how I see it.

Show me a writer who started as a fanfiction writer and then transitioned to legitimate literature and had a decent original book published.

50 Shades of Gray doesn't count.

An yes, you're right, most writers don't just sit down and write a book. They tend to write down hundreds of ideas for characters, settings, etc, and then out of those creations they sometimes pick some that they think would go well together, and begin weaving a narrative. You know why fanfiction doesn't facilitate this kind of writing? Because the largest half of the work, characters and settings, have already been written for them, and if they keep writing nothing but fanfiction they'll never be able to progress to any kind of real writing because they won't know how to construct a believable character or an interesting setting of their own.

Mercedes Lackey and (though your mileage may vary) Cassandra Cain. Boom.

Also, Neil Gaiman and Stephen King both have written fanfiction. Plus, there are the hundreds upon hundreds retellings of classics such as Dracula, all the fairy tales, historical figures, and so on and so forth. Hell, a good chunk of Alan Moore's output could be considered fanfiction!

In fact, that's how most screenwriters and comic writers break into the business. They write a script for their favorite show/comic, and the ones good enough to get notice lead to them getting picked up by publishers.

As for me, I do both: I write my own stuff (have done so for years, both short stories and attempted novels) and also write fanfiction. Why? Because it's fun. Plus, like that guy you mentioned said, it makes for good practice. Even the most talented writers have a hundred writing mistakes they need to make and learn from, and fanfiction is a great place to get them out of the way. Besides, simply because you're using preexisting characters and settings doesn't negate creativity. The best fics I've read are the ones that managed to capture the characters personalities and expand on them, taking them places and exploring themes that the original work couldn't and, in some cases, actually managing to become better than the original.

And while I'll freely acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of fanfiction is absolute crap, even moreso than published stuff, there are enough gems out there to justify its existence.

There's one guy I used to know that put it best: sometimes you just have a creative itch to scratch, and sometimes that itch involves someone else's characters. If the creator has no problem with it (and a great many don't), then by all means, go for it.

 

[Reaper195]

Heh, Hannibal. Wish the show was slightly better though. Felt too much like a generic cop show with a fucked up main character.

OT, I'm half and half about fanfiction. If it's badly written and created simply to insert the author into random situations with the main characters of whatever they're fanfictioning over, or just to change the relationships of characters around....I don't see the point. It's like all the people coming up with different endings for Mass Effect 3 (That indoctrination theory? Pisses me off so much how hard some people believe/hold on to it) because they didn't like it.

On the other hand, and I've dabbled in it a bit when I was younger, there are those who write well (This is a major, to be honest. No one wants to read something that's written badly) who have original characters, original situations, only they take place in a set universe. I once wrote a short story of a few Marines from Halo being stuck on a ship that had engine troubles that was boarded by Covenant. No relation to any of the Halo games or books aside from being in the same universe.

As for crossovers...again, half and half. If it's characters from Harry Potter fucking characters from Twilight...stop writing. Forever. But I did read one on fanfiction.net years ago that was a crossover of CSI with Hitman. Namely, the CSI guys (Vegas team, Grissom era) trying to track down 47 after he finishes a hit in a casino. It was incredibly well written, and could almost have claimed to be official if it wasn't for the obvious crossover.

 

[Zetatrain]

People who write fanfiction do so because they aren't creative enough to come up with their own characters and universe, so they have to piggy back on someone else's work. That's why I don't want to read fanfiction, because if those writers actually had any talent they would be able to come up with their own shit, and possibly attempt to actually publish it.

If that's the case then what is your stance on sequels, prequels, reboots, or anything that is part of an existing IP/Franchise that wasn't worked on by the IP's original creator(s)?

 

[thepyrethatburns]

2 thoughts:

1) I did some myself when I was involved with the 2002 Gamefaqs Character Battle contest. By the time I did a story for it, it had gone way beyond the initial concept into what became known as the Porta Dei story. The only restriction on the story was Gamefaqs restrictions and that the story had to follow the results of the contest. For my part, I wrote Mega Man vs Tommy Vercetti and, in it, I focused on the idea of what would happen if a robot who always registered damage as mere data now had free will and actually felt pain. Looking at it from a fanfiction point of view, it was questionable. While there was the battle, it was more of a vehicle for me to explore some thoughts on artificial intelligence as well as the events of the previous matches. However, overall, I think the Porta Dei was actually a good story.

In some ways, I think Fanfiction.net has actually been harmful to the fanfiction community. Previously, if you wanted to write fanfiction, you were largely writing it for yourself in a manner not unlike what people now do with NaNoWriMo. When you're doing it for yourself, you're going to put a lot of time and effort in and you will eventually make your own universe. I wrote a long Robotech/Rifts/a few other influences fiction back when people still used typewriters. Another example is:

http://www.b5-dark-mirror.co.uk/

Which is very similar to what DC did in the Elseworlds story: The Nail (except much longer). Read that and tell me that the author didn't make his own setting.

However, then Fanfiction.net came along and the majority of it started becoming about the "likes" which brings me to:

2) The current state of fanfiction is pretty much like Ctrl-Alt-Del. (Critical Miss put this in mind). Even the most rabid critic could probably find strips that they like out of the collection if they were willing to look. However, for the most part, it's hit the point where it is "uncool" to admit that you like it so people tend to just go with the majority opinion that it sucks whether they've ever read a strip or not. It's the same thing with fanfiction. It's acquired such a reputation that it's reputation far overshadows any actual merit or lack thereof with the stories when it comes to discussing fanfiction.

 

[Generalsexbad]

At least in my eyes, if the writers for fan-fiction were ever truly talented, they'd write their own shit.

The words of an uneducated loser. Would you call Homer uneducated? How about Shakespeare? My gosh, people. At least try to be more than the stereotype of people that don't know a thing about literature and storytelling.

This is exactly how I feel. Fanfiction doesn't just mean erotica Harry Potter stories where Dumbledore licks Harry's nutsac. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet wasn't his original story. And I think Fanfiction is a good starting off point for writers because you'll learn plot execution and character voice. Stephen King has said that he thinks a mistake young writers make is the fact that they jump head first into writing their novel when they clearly aren't ready for it. In Stephen Kings book "On Writing" he urges beginning writers to master the short story first, and personally I think Fanfiction is good practice before tacking on the short story, then you can start working on the novel.

It's probably why so many writers fail. They spend years making a novel when they arn't anywhere near ready and then the novel ends up being crap, and then they just give up.

 

[joshuaayt]

I like fanfiction because it's a love-letter to the author. "I am so enamoured with your world that I am going to make a reason to stay in it."

Once a story is out there, the characters the author wrote and the characters you interpret from what they wrote become different entities, and it's awesome that there's a popular outlet for this.

 

[alithanar8]

Just an observation here but "lord of the land of fire" is a fanfic author I tend to like and he put out a novel "The (sort of) Dark Mage".

Also the Harry Potter fanfic Sunset over Britain and its sequel Sunrise over Britain, written by the amazing authors Bob and Alyx, is one of the best examples of literature I have ever seen, I highly recommend it to everyone (I believe its better then the canon book 6 and 7 but that is my personal opinion)

 

[bigfatcarp93]

But fuck General Sprinkles dude. There's a special place in hell for that guy.

Who the hell is that?

OT: For every nine shitty Naruto fics churned out by fourteen year olds, there's one really good DC 'Verse fic.

Good fanfiction exists, it just takes diligence and patience to find.

 

[solemnwar]

People who write fanfiction do so because they aren't creative enough to come up with their own characters and universe, so they have to piggy back on someone else's work. That's why I don't want to read fanfiction, because if those writers actually had any talent they would be able to come up with their own shit, and possibly attempt to actually publish it.

There's something to be said about writing within the confines of someone else's "rules". When I was in junior high ("middle school" for some, I suppose) we had a writing exercise where we were to imagine that we had a fixed camera situated somewhere that you could not move, so all the action in your short story had to stay confined to a single place.

Activities like that actually help you GROW as an author, as it can take you out of your comfort zone and make you think outside the box. Similar to the writing exercise I mentioned, fanfiction writers have to work within a set of rules (unless they're just writing silly fics for the giggles, which have their own appeal, not gonna lie) that are not their own, and that can actually be quite difficult.

And like other people have said, there are authors paid to write what basically amount to "fanfiction"- writing stories/movies/whatever based on pre-existing works, such as the Star Trek and Star Wars novels. Hell the comics industry is pretty much this, with original creators dead or not dealing with their creations anymore, with hundreds of different writers having touched the more popular characters.

I have read some VERY talented fanfictions, and some of the authors have written their own things (usually posted in free-to-read websites like livejournal, deviantArt, etc). It's a hobby, and a fun one. Besides, original ideas aren't necessarily going to be GOOD. It's just that, unlike fanfiction, there are publishers in the way of the "bad" stuff, so of course you're not going to be seeing it. For every "good" novel that's published, a publisher has probably rejected 100 more, some of which were probably still "good", but were figured to not be profitable. Even the "good" novels go through tons of rewriting to make them sellable. Although because of the internet and self-publishing and the like the "bad" stuff probably has a freer reign than it used to.

Sooo I guess tl;dr don't paint things with such a general brush.

 

[MorphingDragon]

I'm less worried about fanfiction than I am with Fanart.

 

[Agayek]

I've read a couple good fanfics in my time. I'm reading xcom:second contact now and I rather like it.

+1 I approve.

And totally not because I write that.

OT: The reason Fanfiction has such a poor reputation is two-fold.

1) Most of it is shit. There's no way around that. Sturgeon's Law (which states that 90% of everything is crap) is in full effect. It's exacerbated with fanfics though, because there is no inherent quality control like one would find with published works. When working with a publisher, authors are expected/required to proofread their work and ensure it meets a minimum standard of quality. Fanfics don't have that. Anyone who can put a word on paper can publish a fanfic, with no penalties or ramifications if that word is completely nonsensical. As such, there are a LOT more fanfics published and the ratio of quality to shit is horrendously skewed.

2) Finding the good ones is counter-intuitive and annoying. Barring an obscene amount of luck, it takes at least some degree of familiarity with the websites (or even better, friends/forums to mine for recommendations) to find any worth reading. Most of the fanfic sites do not have an actual rating system, and the ones that do are obscure and/or hard to use, and so the good ones get lost in the tide of shit that gets put out every day.

Neither of these problems are going to go away any time soon, and so neither is the stereotype. There's really not a whole lot anyone can do about it.

 

[TheLogicalGamer]

Oh yes... I have been waiting to use this...

NINETY PERCENT OF EVERYTHING IS CRAP!

For every excellent piece of Fanfiction that takes a established setting and uses it wisely, expanding upon and in rare cases recrafting a narrative in a way that compliments the original... you have 9 copies of Rule 34 Evidence.

For example, we have X-COM: Second Contact. Which is really awesome, and manages to fuse together XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Mass Effect without leaving visible seams where things were welded together. It is one of the gems. But then you have the other 9/10ths of fanfiction which make people scream "YOU BLEW IT UP!!! YOU BASTARDS!" at the top of their lungs, while on their knees, in the rain for dramatic reasons.

In general the Good fan-fiction sticks to established rules of the setting, works within the confines of existing charicterization, and any changes to characters can be explained logically based on their backstory and events in the fan-fic. Sadly... most fans don't do that. They write... well see Draco in Leather Pants on TV Tropes (I'm not linking it, go find it yourself... and ruin your life in the process. Hopefully this disclaimer will hold enough of you off that I won't be held responsible. Oh and if you do fall for this, go look at Schmuck Bait too).

Also most good Fan-Fic I see are Crossovers for some reason. Say throwing the Normandy into the Halo universe and seeing what happens... yeah thats a thing. I don't remember its name. Or dropping the Dragonborn into Thedas after slaying Alduin and having him work with the Gray Wardens (Archdemon, meet Dovahkiin, Born Dragon Hunter). Or having a X-COM!Humanity run into the Quarrians first. Or having Harry Dresden and Commander Shepard swap places after Changes (DO NOT READ THAT ONE UNLESS YOU HAVE READ CHANGES. Spoilers abound ye mortals. [See Shmuck Bait again])

Of course there is some good in-universe. Dragon Age: Crown of Thorns is one example... because it takes time to throw its characters into plot holes that the game left open, and then patch them up.

Also, Mass Effect fanfics that take the existing endings and RUN with them instead of trying to "Fix" them also work out beautifully. Just having someone think through how Shepard's life would go after killing off the Reapers in Destroy, or try to work in the headspace of God Emperor of Space Shepard in Control, or even just following EDI after Synthesis is fun. If its done well, and respectfully of the main storyline.

And... I'm preaching again. Gorramit.