Fanfiction is a type of fictional writing that is based on the work of another. It is the result of a fan using the same characters, setting, and/or plot that was created by someone else to develop an original story.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not all about sex.
Fanfiction comes in many forms but it is always a demonstration of a fan’s wonder and excitement for a world and its characters, an answer to their own looming “what if”.
It’s simply not possible to make money directly from writing and selling fanfiction, at least, not legally. With copyrights in place, many wonder why anyone would even bother taking the time and effort to craft something that can never earn them anything in return. What these people don’t understand is the concept of doing things simply for enjoyment, or rather, they don’t understand how people could simply enjoy writing as much as we do.
I got into a conversation about this with my sister a while back. She’s an avid reader but has never been interested in fanfiction. She was among the vast population who believed it to just be a bunch of smutty “porn without a plot” ship fics written by middle schoolers. While I can’t deny that those do exist, they certainly do not make up the majority of this type of fiction.
Fanfiction comes in a wide variety of genres from fluffy romance to angsty battles. Most people who write fanfiction write it for the purpose of exploring their favorite characters in more depth. Whether it be wanting to see a villain redemption, a main character with a tragic backstory falling into a crippling panic attack (showing a vulnerability we don’t get in canon), or even just two characters getting together who were never given the chance in canon. Original published stories only have so much room to give the audience details about the characters’ relationships, mindsets, and actions in certain situations. They have to stick to traditional plot structure and rules in order to make an unquestionably engaging story that will be taken seriously and sell.
Fanfiction doesn’t have those limitations.
Especially when it comes to fanfiction, there is an audience for everything which means that we can write anything and we’ll have an audience. The only thing people have to lose in reading our stories is their time which means that when we put our work out there on the right platforms, people will see it and people will like it. The same cannot be said for original published work that usually requires people to pay money to read it. With all this said, this is why fanfiction writers love writing fanfiction so much. We can write anything we want, absolutely anything without any worry for strict deadlines, loss of income, or a bad reputation.
When writing under a pseudonym, nothing matters.
Try as I might, I can’t exactly explain the feeling of absolute excitement, a need fulfilled, when I write a scene I’d been mulling over since inspiration struck in the middle of an episode of Mairimashita! Iruma-kun or Boku no Hero. It’s like this festering bone-deep itch that refuses to go away until I open up Google Docs. In posting it I get to share that excitement with my readers, geeking out with them in the comment section and forming that sense of community.
Online, we have no shame. It’s easy to find other people in our fandoms and it’s easy to find other people who love fanfiction as much as we do but in real life it’s nearly impossible. I can list on one hand the number of people I’ve been able to find and connect with in real life over shared fandoms and fanfiction. Three, in fact. All of them entirely coincidental and none of them writers themselves. The only reason I was able to find them at all was due to the fact that I’ve become much less reserved over my love for fanfiction in recent years. Because I’ve been more vocal about it, more people have opened up in return.
The truth of it is that due to the bad rap fanfiction has, most people are embarrassed to admit that they read it, let alone write it. It’s as though fanfiction doesn’t count as “real writing” even though I have read more than my fair share of fics of quality and length to rival Tolkein’s finest. It’s an unfortunate reality that we’ve come to live with. But we shouldn’t be ashamed to do what we love. We shouldn’t be forced to hide our passions in the shadows while avid book readers and novelists get to spout it to the world while being praised for their wisdom and effort. After all, we all love stories. That’s what really matters here, isn’t it?
As an avid fanfiction writer, my goal is to share the joy of it with anyone who wants it. Writing fanfiction is many times easier than writing original work as most of the initial creativity and development is already done for you. Because of this, it should be a more common practice. But whether you’re here because you’re completely new to the world of fanfiction or you simply want to get better at it, I hope you’ll find what you’re looking for.
I wish you luck.
