I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes a story good for fanfic. I know theres hundreds of answers but I'm interested in what the writers who hang out on the porch have to say.
For example, I think Scum Villian has produced some of the most consistently interesting fic I've ever seen from a fandom and I think that has to do with all the things left open by the narrative. Yuri on Ice on the other hand seems kinda weak as a jumping off point for fic. People have done great stuff with it but theres so much less meat there. Scum villian is not far behind yoi on fic count whilst being so much less well known. I can kinda understand why but struggle to articulate my thoughts. Is it about the content of the work? Interest levels in the work over time? A clear jumping off point that everyone wants to write their take on a la Winter soldier? Hype generation from a large fandom? I know it depends but again, I'd love some porch thoughts, especially from people who've been around longer than me.
It should have some interesting hooks but not be too good, and especially not too good at actual prose or other intimidating matters of craft. Delightful but a bit crap is often better at inspiring people than artistic perfection is.
It should have some things left open-ended and/or some plot holes that need explaining and/or a mildly dissatisfying ending. A terrible ending just turns people off, but if canon is too perfect and too complete, that doesn't invite more fic in the canon universe, and it might not even leave any emotional territory you want to cover in an AU.
It helps for the canon material itself to be long and serialized with some breaks for people to speculate and make fanworks. If it's closed, it helps if it's long enough and being introduced to new fans at a pace that ensures a stream of people making their way through it. (This is as opposed to everyone marathoning some 6-episode Netflix thing the same weekend, talking excitedly for a week, then moving on.) Lack of serialization can be somewhat made up for by related works from the same author/studio/whatever or by adaptations coming out and reigniting interest in the canon.
As for SVSSS, a long trickle of new-to-Chinese-media fans keep getting into The Untamed and then into the official translations of MXTX's novels. Some end up funding SVSSS more to their taste and stick around there. The people who just generally like c-novels probably read it years ago and may have contributed to the early fic, but they're also less starved for content, even reading in English, than someone who's just reading official translations. Isekai with some humor that grows a serious plot isn't rare, but SVSSS is Baby's First to a lot of people, and that makes it exciting and somewhere to stick around (as opposed to deciding you like the genre and getting distracted by other instances of it, leaving no time to write fic).
It does help if a canon is well known, but it mostly helps if it's easily accessible and has word of mouth in the right communities. SVSSS isn't that obscure, and The Untamed is not obscure at all.
Most fic fandoms aren't about side randos. However, in a sufficiently big fandom, you will get camps interested in the tennis team from the rival school or whomever. SVSSS has a setting that's new to many of its readers and some side characters who get explored just enough to make people want more. It's also, canonically, an isekai into a bad book, so writing fic is easier than for a serious wuxia story set in actual Chinese history whose author did a lot of research. If you fuck up the magic elements, oh well, bad world building in the original book! And there's no history to fuck up.
SVSSS has Liu Qingge, the hot, pining guy who ends up alone. It has the side ship who are more hilariously terrible and less sweet than the leads if you're into that. It has the fujoshi writing horny RPF in world. It has Yue Qingyuan and his tragic backstory.
I wouldn't say any of this is particularly unusual in the context of novels in this genre, whether this exact genre or the non-isekai ones it's riffing off of, but it's new to a lot of the audience and, new or otherwise, this particular book is easy to hear of and easy to get in English.
People like fandoms where something is happening. Even if a canon gives them fannish feelings, they're more likely to write fic if other people are already writing fic. Not every fan, but it's common. So a trend towards lots of fic or no fic tends to be self-perpetuating to a degree.
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