When Life Gives You Lemons... (a defense of fanfiction)

There’s been a lot of talk recently about fanfiction. Some authors have been saying they don’t approve of it, and why their work is off limits. I respect their opinions, but honestly some of the comments are just a little nasty, and seem to misunderstand the point of fanfiction.

My college roommate and I actually bonded over fanfiction. We had been randomly assigned, and didn’t have much contact before coming to college. Just a few emails that managed to completely freak her out, poor thing, when I mentioned my bird alarm clock. For my part, I had initially thought I’d been assigned a guy which had thrown me in a tizzy. This is what happens when you skim emails. I caught the name “Patrick” without noticing that “Hall” right next to it. 

Roomie & me trying on funny hats

We were pretty typical random roommates the first week. We tried to hang out sometimes but often left to do our own thing. In the room, we were incredibly polite to each other. Although we had some similar interests, we didn’t exactly click initially. There was just too much awareness that we were stuck in a room together and didn’t really know the other person. What was appropriate to share? What would super offend the other? It wasn’t until my roommate came back in earlier than expected one day and caught me reading fanfiction that our barriers came down. Here she loved fanfiction too! It was a guilty pleasure we shared, and from there we found more and more shared interests and habits, until we became inseparable and people started to referring to us as a combo package instead of separate individuals.  

I’m more of what one calls a fanfiction lurker. I read TONS of it. Not constantly. I definitely go through cycles, but when I’m getting my fanfiction fix I’ll read for hours straight. To me, fanfiction is the ultimate expression of fan devotion in writing. It shows that somebody loves the world and characters you’ve created so much, that they want more of them. They want a chance to play in the world. If it’s a series that’s over, they want a chance to envision what comes next for the characters. 

Now some of the comments about fanfiction have implicated that fanfiction authors don’t have enough creativity to write their own material, or that it’s a waste of their time to devote so much effort to working with someone else’s creations.

Again, I disagree. Many great fanfiction authors write their own stories as well, and some are working on novels. And sure, some stories are just as long, if not longer, than a typical book. But fanfiction gives authors the opportunity to practice their craft and have fun with it. Writing should be fun. It also is absolutely an art that must be practiced in order for one to excel. If you’re trying to write frequently, and you have a fandom you love, why not combine those things and write new adventures for your favorite characters? It’s a great exercise.

Writing (good) fanfiction is surprisingly tough. You have to stay true to characters that your audience already knows, but you don’t want to fall in the trap of using just a few main traits to define them. You need to think of new ways to describe places, characters, and situations without using the exact same verbiage of the original creator, or the tons of other fanfic authors. It’s like being given a prompt in a writing class. While you’re following certain conventions, it’s up to you to come up with something unique for your story. Unlike a class though, you have so many more people working with the same prompt. How do you represent the fandom you love so much, without being cliché and writing the same thing as everyone else?

Within any fandom you’ll find certain themes that have been done to death. There are also some themes that pop up across genres that have created a language used for the fanfiction world. Familiar words like lemons take on whole new connotations, while new terms like mary sue and mpreg are created.

There are also trends in the writing style of fanfiction. When I first started reading it, way back around 2000, most fanfiction was written in a style with characters performing *actions* or lines and activities described in a play type format. There was a lot of interaction from the author as well. It was fairly frequent to see the author inserted at some point in the story, describing their control over the characters. At that point in time fanfiction was more lighthearted. It allowed people to write and read, while still making fun of itself.

Now fanfiction is both more serious, and less precise. Good fanfiction has evolved into real stories. The author is more removed from the process, although there is still a tendency to have author notes at the beginning or end. Unfortunately, while fanfiction now takes itself more seriously, there has also been an influx of authors with less writing skills. A whole new generation thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to write stories in txt talk or lack even basic punctuation.

The tone of responses has changed as well. Before, fanfiction was not widely known. At this point, it seems like almost everyone has heard of fanfiction, and unfortunately, they are only acquainted with the bad examples. Thus great fanfic writers start to write less and less as they get few constructive comments and far more flames.

I happen to write fanfiction. Not very often, to be sure. Nothing extraordinary. But I find it very calming. When I write fanfiction for some reason I tend to write fluffy, silly pieces. I don’t do that in my own writing. My stories tend to be far more angsty. Fanfiction provides me with a way to write the type of stories that for whatever reason I can’t write with my own characters.

Additionally, I often find myself loving the side characters of a story, movie, or series. Fanfiction lets me get to further explore and get to know characters that get very little screen time. It lets me rationalize their choices and actions, and sometimes reflect on my own life as I often write about characters I identify with. Fanfiction, like any type of writing, is basically another form of therapy.

So before you judge the world of fanfiction, let me ask you, have you ever discussed a movie, book, or tv series? Have you ever spoken to someone about a fandom you love, analyzing plot or motives? Complained that you should have seen more of Snape’s back-story, that Anakin turned evil too quickly, or that X-Men 3… well basically ruined everything about the series? Then you’ve started on the path to fanfiction. The only difference with fanfiction is that the authors have taken the time to write out their own interpretation instead of just discussing it.

Someday if I’m a famous author, it’s totally cool to write fanfiction about my world. My momma taught me young that imitation is the highest form of flattery.