In Support Of Fan Fiction

The easiest, and cheapest, writing lessons you could ever take come in the form of something many writers believe is the lowest form of writing: fan fiction. As someone who began telling stories as soon as I could speak, discovering this mode of art allowed me to explore another’s writing, learning character, setting, time, mood, and many other factors in storytelling. Without fan fiction, I most likely would not have ended up being the writer I am today.

It allows for experimentation.

It allows for learning how another creator creates, inspiring your creations to become those more of your own. When you learn how to write their characters, their setting, and all of the laws of the universe or universes they created, that’s when you’ll be able to tie together your own work, create your own people in your own world with your own mind.

It’s not even the mode of copying. Copying someone’s work is much different than the medium fan fiction allows. Instead of copying, you bring someone else’s characters alive in situations you build in your own mind, allowing yourself to learn from someone else without having to earn a degree from it. 

In a way, receiving likes, comments, and follows from fellow fan fiction writers and readers is like receiving grades. Getting that feedback not only feels good, but also gives you an idea of how to evolve as an artist. 

I started writing fan fiction when I was nine years old, which, as a thirty-one-year-old, was about twenty-two years ago. The medium taught me how people’s minds work, on top of teaching me what rules to follow and not to follow when it comes to building your own universe. 

As a child, I was completely wide-eyed when it came to writing horror. My father gave me my first computer when I was seven years old as a way to support my first medium of any art. When I was eight years old, I was starting to learn how to craft novels, starting with a novella I’d titled, The City Of The Forgotten. It was terrible. Everyone’s work when they’re that young is terrible. But, it was my first finished work, and even though it’s lost in the ether, having written a novella when I was that young led into my first works of fan fiction.

When I began that venture, it occurred to me that the most difficult part was understanding what made characters tic. As someone who is very good at overdoing everything I try to achieve or begin, it made sense to start building character profiles that I could go over. The more I made them of already fictional characters, the more I was able to build my own characters. Then, I got into setting sheets, planning each chapter, and all of those things that make short stories and novels possible.

The Inimitable Duo, also known as More Child-Work Crap, was completed when I was about nine. This book, that goodness, was also lost in the ether. But, I do remember the best way to learn how to write a multi-chapter work was to actualize multiple chapters by experimenting with fan fiction. 

The more you focus on someone else’s work, the more you can come to understand your own. 

Being able to experiment with work that wasn’t mine, and gain feedback on whatever I was doing, allowed me to grow as an artist. It also made creating my own work less scary because I’d already had practice learning how to write with fan fiction.

Now that I’m older, and am able to focus more on my own work, I’m grateful for this medium to have learned so much from. Sometimes, I’ll still sit and pour through favorite works, gaining inspiration for my own work, just as I had before. It’s also excellent to use as a way to get out of writer’s block. 

There are so many reasons why fan fiction isn’t just excellent to learn from, but is also excellent for freeing your mind when you’re stuck. A lot of the time, writing a page is the most difficult part of creation. Teaching yourself how to give your own work care and love can be learned from creating fan work for your favorite fandoms. 

Plus, if you force yourself to work when you’re stuck, if you create fan work instead, your own work will be unaffected and you’ll still have written something, something everyday.

I hope these words find you either inspired, or understanding that fan fiction does have its place in the world of writing. If not, maybe reading some of my original work under the page, BookWorm, will inspire you.