Why write fanfiction?

What was the very first "original" that you based your fan fiction on?

(For myself, the first fan fiction I ever wrote, coming long before the internet existed, was about the comedy-adventure TV series "Get Smart!"--the _original_ 1960's program of which the new movie is a revisionist version.)
 
Narniabeaver2005 said:
I remember the good old days for nearly ten years ago where I first began to write fics on forums and Fanfiction.net.
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I'm on FF.net. I doubt anyone on here could find my account, though. But I'd like to see someone try to find it. *grin*

Lord of Light said:
And I also know that fanfiction, though it may be fun to write, does not encourage people to read the original books.(For example, I have a friend who won't watch[or read] the LWW or LOTR, yet he watches things like the Matrix and Star Wars, yeah, odd, I know)
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Not to trying to start an argument or anything, but as someone coming straight out of various fandoms, I can assure you that almost everyone who writes fanfiction is not writing for the "nonbelievers". Rather, they are writing for themselves and other fans, as it is kind of pointless trying to get someone to read the original after reading a fanfiction piece. Why? For one, it is possible that the author of the fanfiction might have botched the story up or misinterpreted the contents of the original work. And second, the majority of fanfiction pieces written supposedly take place after the book/movie/game/etc., which could be pretty confusing for the reader if they're not familiar with the original work' characters, world, and storyline.

(Also, why did you bring up your friend watching Star Wars but not Lord of the Rings? It seems like your friend is into the sci-fi genre, not the fantasy one. I didn't understand what you meant when you brought up that example.)

Lord of Light said:
I can understand people wanting to write fanfiction, but seriously...if you have a good writing talent, don't waste it on something that will never get well known(except on a forum ;)) Use that talent and write something that you enjoy, using your own ideas, own nations, creatures, and names(if you can come up with new ones ;)). I don't think talent(for example, I quickly discovered my writing talent and am currently writing a novel) need be used on something so trivial.
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Are you saying...... that writing fanfiction is a waste of talent and it is trivial?
Writing is most certainly not a waste, and though fanfiction might not be viewed by some as an actual style of writing, nevertheless, it can be considered (at the very least) an exercise. I have read extensive fanfiction pieces by highly gifted authors who have come up with very detailed and complex plots, original characters, and settings. They have come up with their own names and ideas. That's some creative stuff right there. And to say that their work will never be known.... That's not true. They are well-known in their own right, and certainly well-respected. Yes, if you've published your own story, judos to you. There is a better chance of more people reading it because it's not confined to a certain TV series, or book title, or whatever. Right? I'd say, are you sure? The book would still be confined to a specific genre, so only certain people will read it anyway.
Ya know?

Okay... I didn't mean to go out on a limb there with the whole big quoted post. Sorry about that! :eek: And I hope I made semi-sense.
 
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Yah, well, it's a way to get fun and most of people do it (including me) because they'd like to see another face of the story, maybe changing the end and even though they're not published, they share it in the web. I haven't done more than two, but I loved writing them. I have this girl who sent me a fan fic of Breaking Dawn, the last book of the Twilight series, and it's amazing, she has an amazing talent and yeah, I'll tell her to use that creativity for her own story but... what if she enjoys it? Uh-uh, I don't think someone should mess with that. I enjoy making videos, for example. And if someone enjoys writing fan fics, what can we do? Obviously, after a while maybe, they will start something on their own. I had to write two fan fics of Narnia :D to realize I could save the details of the story for something else and I started writing Ioren, which is my first story in my own, and I just wrote two more book, a realist one and a fantasy one.
I love reading fan fics, it may be from a secondary character's point of view or it just changes the end... it's something you'll never see published but, if you like it, you'll love reading it.
Like EveningStar said, we're just dancing with the stories of the authors we admire. And it's not money we're after. It's like training, like an exercise, like someone just said.
;)
That's only my opinion, no offense to anyone. :)
 
Well.... I'm kinda undecided on fanfiction. I've read some great pieces of it, but I've also read some really horrible ones. I like reading short, thought-provoking bits of fanfiction that have to deal with the characters' emotions, rather than plot. I hate writing fanfiction. I like roleplaying with characters that aren't my own, but the thought of writing my own story with someone else's characters just makes me uneasy. I like coming up with my own plot, setting, and characters.
 
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The medieval warrior hero Roland, or Orlando, was the subject of Renaissance-era "fan fiction;" that is, he was such a popular character that more and more 16th-or-whichever-it-was-century men kept writing more tales and poems about him, having him still active even as his grandchildren grew to adulthood.
 
For me the standard is how much of him/herself the author of the fanfic puts into the story that makes it original.

You could, at the extreme edge of logic, say that stories about love, piracy, revenge, jealousy, power, and adventure have been done before and that something truly original has to be separate from that. Ok, so I'll write a story about mushrooms growing by the side of a still brook that contemplate the meaning of "perspicacity" until the night of the solar eclipse when they are utterly (and totally accidentally) trodden upon by a hiker named Ronald Canute, Esq.

But who would read such a story? Mushrooms, I suspect. No one else.
 
Well, any surviving relatives of the famous early Hollywood stuntman Yakima Canute (to whom Indiana Jones owes the spectacular pass-under-the-moving-truck stunt) might read the story, trying to figure out if Ronald was a lost cousin.
 
Your Sister Lila said:
Well.... I'm kinda undecided on fanfiction. I've read some great pieces of it, but I've also read some really horrible ones. I like reading short, thought-provoking bits of fanfiction that have to deal with the characters' emotions, rather than plot. I hate writing fanfiction. I like roleplaying with characters that aren't my own, but the thought of writing my own story with someone else's characters just makes me uneasy. I like coming up with my own plot, setting, and characters.
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I agree, I have read some really horrible ones. I've found, though, that it's generally because the writer is a beginner/young, or English is not their first language. However, I've had my own share of horrid fanfiction stories, so I can't really criticize.
I'm with you on the thought-provoking fanfiction! My favorite style of fanfiction to write is an "introverted"? piece on a character. XD Something about it is just fun (especially if they're someone with a deep history), because it is like musing about the character out loud. XD
I have no problems writing a fanfiction with a plot, although I do enjoy reading it more than writing it. It's seems sort of the same as role-playing to me, though. You're just taking them out to play and putting them back later, complete with a disclaimer and everything. XD

Copperfox said:
The medieval warrior hero Roland, or Orlando, was the subject of Renaissance-era "fan fiction;" that is, he was such a popular character that more and more 16th-or-whichever-it-was-century men kept writing more tales and poems about him, having him still active even as his grandchildren grew to adulthood.
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CF, in a way, could one say that John Milton's English classic Paradise Lose is a giant, epic fanfiction of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy?
 
Sure, loosely speaking. Versions of Greek legend, and of Arthurian legend, and of Russian sagas, went through big variations, yet kept a common thread.
 
Lord of Light said:
I am more than certain I can write a better story on my own than going with another story that has already been written. And I also know that fanfiction, though it may be fun to write, does not encourage people to read the original books.(For example, I have a friend who won't watch[or read] the LWW or LOTR, yet he watches things like the Matrix and Star Wars, yeah, odd, I know) I can understand people wanting to write fanfiction, but seriously...if you have a good writing talent, don't waste it on something that will never get well known(except on a forum ;)) Use that talent and write something that you enjoy, using your own ideas, own nations, creatures, and names(if you can come up with new ones ;)). I don't think talent(for example, I quickly discovered my writing talent and am currently writing a novel) need be used on something so trivial. I write long things in this forum because of my love of writing. Now, I would continue, but I gotta get ready for work.
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OK, my reason for writing Fan Fiction is that, even though I have all these ideas in my head, they can never come out on their own. The only way I've been able to get them out so far is through Fan Fiction, I write it to get used to getting my ideas out on paper, and once I'm used to it I can move on to something bigger, my FF is like practice for me. I can get used to making stories around characters that have already been established so that when I make my own characters (actually I make my own characters in my FF but nonetheless...) I'll be used to it and I won't be making mistakes which will hurt the characters that I want my audience to sympathize with by making them seem strained or making their dialog clunky.

Sometimes FanFics are merely speculations from the author as to what might happen in the future or what would have happened if such and so had happened instead. Things like that are interesting and spark imagination in people. Some fan fictions are extensions of things that have already happened and explain what a character is thinking while something is happening, or some are written from the point of view of a totally new character who was watching from the sidelines. Those kind of stories are just kind of cool and give an insight into what might have been happening during the rest of the story in the background where no one pays attention.

Mainly I think FFs are fun because they spark your imagination and make you think about a story in a way you've never thought about it before, I think for the most part it's just harmless and fun.

please don't just ignore this post, I put some thought into this
 
I didn't ignore your post, G-G! What you said reminded me of Sean Connery's movie "Finding Forrester." That story involves a promising young writer being given a chance to develop his skills in a fashion somewhat like fan-fiction writing. It's a good film.
 
I have never heard of that movie, it sounds interesting.

Thank you for replying, now that I've been acknowledged I won't be so desperate not to be ignored ;)

(and as I'm posting on this thread I'm working on my FF, how ironic... ;))
 
Hmm, perhaps you'd like to write a fanfic that allows Doctor Who to be reunited with Rose? Only, then what would Donna Noble do?
 
What is said in the first post is true, but fan fictions are so much fun to write :) And it's nice being able to practice my writing technique without having to go through the headache of thinking up characters and stuff.
 
Princey said:
What is said in the first post is true, but fan fictions are so much fun to write :) And it's nice being able to practice my writing technique without having to go through the headache of thinking up characters and stuff.
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that's pretty much what I was saying, it's like practice for me.

Copperfox said:
In a way, it's like writing _historical_ fiction. There, also, you have characters ready-made for your use.
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Yes, if you're asking why people write fan fiction it's kind of like asking why people write historical fiction
 
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