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The Truth About Fanfiction by Casey Lawrence

So you want to be a writer. Congratulations! That means you’re a writer. There’s no hard-and-fast rule about what makes a writer a writer. Maybe you write poetry, or blog posts, or novels, or infomercial scripts. Or maybe you write fanfiction.

A lot of people will tell you that fanfiction is not a legitimate form of writing. They’ll say that it’s “cheating,” because you draw inspiration from other people’s work. They’ll say it’s low class writing, because a lot of fanfiction is smutty (or, frankly, gay).

Well I’m here to tell you, fanfiction writers, that you have nothing to be ashamed of! Well, maybe you have other things to be ashamed of. But you should not be ashamed for writing fanfiction.

Fanfic is a gateway drug for many writers. It’s a way to explore ideas, practice writing, develop skills (like plotting, character development, continuity). It’s a place you can go to get instant feedback, boost your confidence, get critiques. It can help you form lasting relationships, from the beta readers to best friends.

Writing fanfiction is, for many writers, not only a stepping stone to writing original fiction (and doing well in the publishing world), but also a valuable experience and asset. Or, you know, fun.

Keep reading

ladykittenfair

Absolutely fantastic, well written and elaborated argument that breaks down how common fanfiction is, how most literature is actually fanfiction, and that writing has inherent value whether or not you’re a professional - aka paid for it.

inquisitorhotpants

(Also, who says people need to write for money? It can just be a fun hobby. If all you ever write is fanfic, that’s okay too. We don’t tell kids in Little League not to bother because they won’t ever go pro. You’re allowed to write fanfic because you like writing fanfic and never make a cent from it. That’s a valid option!)

I am so happy this point was made. I can’t stand the idea that it’s only worth it if you’re going to make money on it.

elysiumwaits

Hey, does anyone have like a really gentle “dark mode” skin for AO3? I’ve tried the one in public skins and it’s almost too much of a contrast, and I don’t have the first clue how to make my own.

meimind-deactivated20191108

do you mean that the text is too stark?

elysiumwaits

Yeah. Black on white hurts my eyes at night, but so does a full white on black.

meimind-deactivated20191108

if this is the type of thing you're looking for I've added the specs below using the skin wizard

it's not perfect (buttons are still bright) but the text itself is low contrast

electricalice

I’ve been working on a couple of ao3 skins, one of which is darker in tone and kinda low-contrasty (but maybe not as low contrast as you want, you can easily replace colors btw) it’s still a work in progress but it’s here:

you find the css to copy and paste here: https://github.com/electricalice/minimal-ao3/blob/master/style-DARK.css

the instruction to install it are here: https://github.com/electricalice/minimal-ao3/blob/master/README.md

if you want the text with less contrast you can copy-paste it in any text editor (yes, notepad works as well, but hey this site also works: https://pinetools.com/find-and-replace) and search and replace (usually ctrl+shift+F, but it might change depending on the software you’re using) the text #eeeeee (including the hashtag) with a darker grey, for example #808080. then you just copy in ao3 the new code!

if you don’t know grey’s hexadecimal numbers you can go here and find them all: https://www.w3schools.com/colors/colors_shades.asp

fozmeadows

on depression and hurt/comfort

here’s the thing about being depressed in real life: it’s lonely and isolating and scary and numbing and there are times when you so badly want someone, anyone to notice, but you can’t bring yourself to tell them what the problem is because then they’ll know, and sometimes there’s other terrible shit you’re dealing with in tandem and sometimes it’s just the depression, but either way, it can easily reach a point where you start wishing something visibly awful would happen to you just so you’d have a reasonable excuse to be feeling as though it already had, like it would somehow be easier to wake up wanting to die if you could blame it on something other than just your brain, if there was a cause, even though you rationally know it doesn’t work like that, that it would only make things worse; and it’s messy and hard and it goes on forever and there’s no simple catharsis, you’re often surrounded by people who don’t understand or whose issues don’t play nicely with yours even though you’re both trying, and you can’t see a reasonable end in sight and you just want to believe that it’s going to get better -

and here’s the thing about hurt/comfort in fanfiction: it takes all that fear and pain and loneliness you’re feeling IRL and channels it into characters you care about, characters who always pull through against all odds, characters whose stories you can control, characters whose lovers or friends or parents can tell them the things you wish that someone had said to you, and you know from the outset that even when they’re bloody and crying, it’s going to get better for them, that they’re going to be good to each other and fix each other and listen and understand, because that’s what those stories are for, it’s what they do, and whether you’re the one writing them or reading them, they speak to that place in you that hurts, they show you it can get better, they tell you it’s not your fault, they let you feel all the grief in your life in a way that’s safe, cathartic, hopeful, because the story brings you through the darkness and out the other side -

because ultimately, hurt/comfort isn’t just about the characters. it’s about us being hurt and needing comfort, too.

comfort-questing

I! Found! The! Post! Again!

lookee here, it’s this grad-school crow in a nutshell

cataffer

How have you seen into my SOUL

ineffablegame

posting something new on ao3 like

viinnttaaggee

You’re busy doubting yourself while so many people are intimidated by your potential

theliteraryarchitect-deactivate

WRITERS

mindfulmountaineer-deactivated2

To any of my artists out there, writers, painters, sketchers, musicians, and everyone in between, don’t think your work is nothing. There are people out there who enjoy it.

kiwi

TOO MUCH EMPHASIS ON THE STRUGGLE OF ART, LETS CELEBRATE THE FUN AND JOY AND ENDLESS FULFILMENT THAT ARTISTS EXPERIENCE IN BRINGING PIECES OF THEMSELVES TO LIFE IN THEIR WORKS

SPEAK TO YOUR ART AND LISTEN WHEN IT SPEAKS BACK, IT IS AN EXTENSION OF YOU! LOVE GOES INTO CREATION AND IT WILL RETURN AND RETURN AND RETURN THAT FEELING!

ART IS FUNDAMENTALLY ABOUT LOVE!!!!

YEAH BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

prince-opossum

woah calm down

kiwi

NO!!!!! DEATH TO INDIFFERENCE, THE ENEMY OF CREATIVITY

FEEL PASSION + MAKE ART 4EVER

rivalwrites

I think the best piece of character design advice I ever received was actually from a band leadership camp I attended in june of 2017.

the speaker there gave lots of advice for leaders—obviously, it was a leadership camp—but his saying about personality flaws struck me as useful for writers too.

he said to us all “your curses are your blessings and your blessings are your curses” and went on to explain how because he was such a great speaker, it made him a terrible listener. he could give speeches for hours on end and inspire thousands of people, but as soon as someone wanted to talk to him one on one or vent to him, he struggled with it.

he had us write down our greatest weakness and relate it to our biggest strength (mine being that I am far too emotional, but I’m gentle with others because I can understand their emotions), and the whole time people are sharing theirs, my mind was running wild with all my characters and their flaws.

previously, I had added flaws as an after thought, as in “this character seems too perfect. how can I make them not-like-that?” but that’s not how people or personalities work. for every human alive, their flaws and their strengths are directly related to each other. you can’t have one without the other.

is your character strong-willed? that can easily turn into stubbornness. is your character compassionate? maybe they give too many chances. are they loyal? then they’ll destroy the world for the people they love.

it works the other way around too: maybe your villain only hates the protagonist’s people because they love their own and just have a twisted sense of how to protect them. maybe your antagonist is arrogant, but they’ll be confident in everything they do.

tl;dr “your curses are your blessings, and your blessings are your curses” there is no such thing as a character flaw, just a strength that has been stretched too far.

mareebrittenford

This is such a fabulous flip side of what I’ve always known about villians. That their biggest weakness is that they always assume their own motivations are the motives of others.

bookishdiplodocus

Such a good tip for writing realistic characters.

ariaste

by Alexandra Rowland It’s 2019, and fanfic is Cool Now, Actually. In fact, it’s always been cool, but now people get to say so out loud.

I have a new essay up!!!! Cha boi got to talk about all the reasons why fanfic is awesome and worthwhile and beautiful, go check it out <3

girlbookwrm

listen. l i s t e n. LISTEN. *read this essay* Some highlights:

- “Respectable is the very last thing that fanfiction should ever be.” you’re RIGHT and you SHOULD say it

- “It’s a door of the world flung wide open with a neon billboard saying, “Welcome to the infinite free buffet!” and there’s nothing but food as far as the eye can see—every possible kind of every possible quality. If there’s something you’ve been longing for years to eat, you can find it. You can, possibly for the first time in your life, not just be fed but be nourished.” Don’t mind me I shall be over here. CASUALLY W E E P I N G

- “I have a collection of metaphors and arguments that I have amassed over the years to explain to a skeptical and patronizing boy why Fanfiction Is Cool Actually, but all of them do the genre a disservice to some degree.” THIS IS A WHOLE ASS FANDOM MOOD. An Incomplete List of Metaphors i have used to describe fanfiction: - a laboratory full of Smoke and Explosions and Excited Scientists - like going back in time and telling stories around the campfire with no stakes except entertaining yourself - Academia, but Feral - the only viable way to have a conversation with media on any kind of equal footing

AND SPEAKING OF THAT:

- “It is a sandbox, open for anyone to come in and play, and build castles, and kick other people’s castles down, and learn and grow as writers, as critics, as people. It is a living, breathing conversation with both itself and with the professional canon.” SO YOU SEE WHAT I’M SAYING.

AND ANOTHER THING WORTH NOTING:

The longer I live, the more profic friends I have, and the more I have seen those profic friends come back to fandom, or come to fandom for the first time. And they come to realize how special fandom is.

Fanfiction is nothing more or less than the distilled core of Why We Write: it is the freedom to explore ideas, and friends to explore them with. I don’t need respectability or a metaphor to justify that shit.

kahuna-burger

“Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of by the folk.”

— Henry Jenkins (Director of media studies at MIT)

LOVE THIS.

(via flootzavut)

katherynefromphilly

me: *flips desk*

I need this mounted on a plaque.

gnatsattack

I know discourse is the word of choice in fandom nowadays but I kind of wish we would have stuck with “fandom wank” because it carries the implication that the anger involved culminated into effectively nothing and that the act was wholeheartedly masturbatory in nature rather than for any greater cause.

berlynn-wohl

I saw this post about an hour after I saw a post that said, essentially, “There should be a word for that thing where [exactly describes ‘squeeing’].”

I feel like the time has come to produce something like this:

transformativeworks

citrus

naknaknakadile

@vergess

vergess

Squee: The noise you make when something is so good that all you can really do is squeak or squeal. A high pitched sound of delight, often accomanied by hugging yourself or others.

Squick: A fic/art/concept/topic that is repellent to you, so you reject association with it and instead retreat to your personal comfortable spaces- all the while remembering that someone else’s comfort is not your own.

YKINMKATO: Also called “kink tomato.” Abbreviation meaning “your kink is not my kink, and that’s okay.” Used to explain why you are rejecting art or fic brought to you by someone else. A solid mantra to recall instead of sending flames in people’s comments

Flames: The comment equivalent of anon hate.

AMV: “animated music video” or “anime music video.” Often, this is stylized to fit a specific fandom, such as a “PMV” (pony music video) in my little pony. May also be referred to as a lyricstuck.

Filk: Combination of the words “film” and “folk,” this is a music genre, to which “fan songs” and “fan parody covers” belong. If you don’t really understand what this means, take a quick listen to American Pie, then compare Weird Al Yankovic’s Saga Begins

BNF: Big name fan. You know that one person who is just so fuckign popular in your fandom? Their art is always on your dash, everyone knows their fics? Being spoken to directly by them is basically being noticed by everyone ever’s senpai? That’s what these people are called.

DL:DR; Not unliked the teal deer (tl;dr, or “too long, didn’t read”), DLDR means “don’t like? Don’t read!” It’s a reminder that you are under no obligation, ever, to expose yourself to uncomfortable (or, squicky), or potentially harmful (or, triggering), material. Not ever. If you don’t actively like something? It’s not worth your time. Skip it.

Gen: or “genfic” “genart” etc. Fan works which contain no or very little romantic content. Often these are styled after the canon material, and may be called “episodic” ro “slice of life” in addition.

Lemon: Work containing strong pornographic elements

Lime, or Citrus: Work containing mild or implicit pornographic elements

Sockpuppeting: The surprisingly common scenario of someone making a bunch of fake accounts/sideblogs to send themselves reviews or hate, to try to increase views or drama surrounding a work. The accounts they make are called Sockpuppets.

WAFF: Warm and fluffy feelings. A genre of fic that exists just to be therapeutically sweet. Nowadays, usually just called “fluffy.”

Schmoop: Take WAFF and somehow make it even more syrupy. You’ll know it when you see it.

Whump: Imagine if you will, a hurt-comfort fic. The comfort might be considered WAFF. The hurt? That’s the whump.

Wapanese: When white autors pepper their anime fanfic with random, tonally inappropriate japanese words.

Anthropomorfic: Nowadays we just call these “humanstuck” or “humanized AU.”

Wank: Wildly disproportionate drama that crops up because someone wrote/drew/did something that someone else didn’t like. Seriously, I cannot begin to express the fiascos that have come about from all this. Just… Just go look at this.

Plot bunny: Story ideas that you probably won’t ever actually deal with, but that multiply entirely out of control, creating huge worlds in your head that you’re probably not going to write. But hey! You might! And until then they make great sideblogs/askblogs/tumblr posts.

Casefic: Fanfics that try to create an episode-like feel for procedural and crime dramas, moster of the week shows, etc.

Jossed: When popular fan theories and fanon are addressed in the canon of a series, and whoops, turns out we were all very, very wrong.

Kripked: When popular fan theories and fanon are addressed in the canon of a show and, hot damn, we fucking called it.

Secret Masters: The people who run the websites/ communities/etc that we all do our fanning on. Less relevant now that we have things like tumblr, but when everyone had to run their own archival and social sites for each fandom, it was more important to pay our respects to the strange and powerful beings that brought us all together and gave us our fannish homes. Think the staff of AO3, for example.

Bashing: When a writer purposefully writes a specific character as a horrible, horrible person so that they can throw them out of the storyline, usually to allow their OTP to get together without trouble. Distinct from fridging in that it doesn’t require the character to die, but rather to be such a screaming harpy that they get rightfully removed from the main characters’ lives for being an abusive hell beast. Generally, a type of character hate. Be wary of people who bash women, queer people, and POC with consistency: they are not safe to be around.

ryttu3k

‘Squick’ also has an alternate horrible meaning for Harry Potter fans who were in fandom a while back. Dear god.

callmearcturus

Drabble: A fic that is EXACTLY 100 words. Often used as a creative exercise in telling a story in a very small constraint.

Ficlet: Fic that clocks in somewhere between 100 to 2.5K words.

Crossover: A piece of media in which two or more source materials are treated as the same universe. Characters from Fandom A can meet characters from Fandom B. (The Doctor Goes To Hogwarts And Meet Harry Potter!)

Fusion: A fusion takes the characters of one source material and *surplants* them into another universe entirely. Characters from Fandom A cannot meet characters from Fandom B. (Dave Strider is part of an Inception team!)

TPTB: The Powers That Be. Almost always redundantly referred to as “the TPTB.” A collective term for showrunners, actors, producers, writers, et al, anyone who is part of the team that creates the source material.

YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary. A shorthand way of saying “this is how I see it/have experienced it though I realize others might have a different perspective.”

Tinhatting: Often used in RPF fandoms, the situation where some fans are convinced two celebrities are in a relationship but its being kept a secret.