I wrote some fanfiction today for the first time in a long-ass time, and so what better topic to discuss in today’s blog post?
I am a pro-fanfiction writer. I know that there are plenty of writers out there who think it’s not…. writerly enough. But I think it’s a fantastic exercise for new and experienced writers. A lot of published authors started out with fanfiction, and not all of them are shitty – I’m thinking particularly of Cassandra Clare, whose brilliantly funny “Very Secret Diaries” of LotR characters were referenced, in something of an easter egg, in her urban fantasy series Mortal Instruments. There are fanfictions out there both longer and better-written than published novels. Fics can easily reach 100 thousand words – as those of us who unwittingly get caught up in one late at night and click out of it with a yawn some time later only to discover the sun is coming up know to our cost.
When you’re working on your voice or trying out a new style, fanfic is a great way to go about it. All the setting and character work is done for you. You get to explore that setting, those characters, and grow your craft without having to start a world from scratch. Your readers know that world too; you don’t need to introduce them. And many fanfic websites give the opportunity for feedback, so you know whether something you’ve tried has worked for the reader.
In case I actually get famous one day, how would I feel about readers writing fanfic about my work, or making fanart? It’d be amazing, I’m all for it. I wouldn’t even mind if you sold the fan-art in the form of prints or t-shirts, so long as I got one too. I wouldn’t mind if you shipped two people who wouldn’t fuck each other in a million years. That’s the great part about fanfiction: it doesn’t need to make sense. In “proper” fiction, you need to have believability. But in fanfic, hey, pairings can be ridiculous if you want them to be. You can explore those relationships between characters in a way that wouldn’t be possible or reasonable in the canon work.
Here’s a confession: I’ve actually done this sort of thing with my own work. Sure, it’s not fanfiction, because it’s my world. But it’s the same sort of exercise, and it’s good fun. Have you ever done that? There’s a scene you want to write, but it has nothing to do with the novel you’re working on. It’s totally out of the timeline, it involves characters that don’t meet or a situation in their lives that happens way before the novel. Perhaps a scene that never would or could happen in the canon setting. So you sit down and write it. It’ll never see print, and in a way that’s kind of a shame, but you get to see these people doing something different, get to explore their characters and how they relate to each other. You get to what if your work. And it’s worth doing.