How Fanfic Started It All

I’m Back and Why I Don’t Write Horror Why Do We Love Zombies?

How Fanfic Started It All

I’ve never understood the vehement dislike some people exhibit toward fanfiction. Speaking as a writer, I’d be thrilled to discover fanfiction of my work, and marvel that I managed to get that popular. And I’m sure that sounds naive and foolish to the many (like 1 or 2 maybe) veteran, published writers reading this.

On the one hand, I understand the fear; losing control of my characters, my worlds. Possibly ending up in court over copyright breaches if things get out of hand. That terrifies me.

But on the other hand, I guess I can’t have an issue with fanfiction because that’s how I started out.

I was around ten or eleven, and my favorite books were the Fudge books by Judy Blume. I wrote a messy little story about the characters, even adding pictures I cut out of my highlights magazines. I pasted it all into a little handmade book, stapled the pages together and glowed with pride over my creation.

I wanted to tell stories, and at first it was easier to use characters that already had names and problems. Those baby steps did me a world of good. For another ten years or so, I played around with several different fandoms, branching out now and then to create some original work. At first, those original characters lived in my fanfic, then they found their own worlds and stories.

Digging deeper into those new worlds, I found places my muse wanted to play in. Something it could build on without any worry about the foundation already laid. Here was untouched land, ready for seeding, excavating, for doing whatever I wanted with it.

At first, it scared me. I hated my characters, and I worried my settings were trite or just plain stupid. I went back to fanfic several times, to hear positive feedback and get the boost of confidence I needed.

Eventually, I was ready to share my original work, tentatively at first. I grew bolder with those first glowing critiques (friends and family, of course). I shied a little when the first negative feedback hit me, but I soon realized it didn’t hurt that much. And it helped. My writing improved and I learned by leaps and bounds what worked and what didn’t. I came to love revising my stories, because I could take pleasure in making them better.

Suddenly, I realized, I was a writer. Even more surprisingly, I had been for a long time; since I was ten years old, telling the stories I wanted to tell. With pre-made characters at first, then my own. I look fondly back on it, and I still have that first ratty little book. And I still have all my fanfics, tucked away in a file on my desktop.

They were my start, and I love them for that.

If you write fanfic, know first and foremost, that I support you, for whatever that’s worth. Now, if you’re hoping or even already starting to make the leap into original fiction, I know someone who’s willing to help. A writer colleague of mine named Jessica Steiner is working on a course to help fanfiction authors make the shift to original fiction, and right now she needs help figuring out what to put in the course.

Follow this link: Fanfiction to Original Fiction Survey and answer ten simple questions. The survey closes on Sunday, October 20th, so make sure you get in there in time. Then keep an eye on Jessica’s blog so you know what to do to get the course when she releases it.

Word by word, we create our worlds.