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Fanfiction?

Doranwen

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Hi, I'm new here, though used to forums and all that. I looked for a better spot for this thread, but it's the most closely related to Books of anything that I could think of, so figured it should go here (if I got it wrong, happy to have it moved!).

For a site all about fanedits, I had to wonder if anyone here was into fan fiction? (They seem rather similar in concept.) I read tons of fanfic before I ever heard of fanedits, and it is still one of my favorite things to read. Given the choice between picking up a favorite book or a favorite fanfic, the fanfic will often win, because there are simply more of them. I've taken to saving them from wherever they are and turning them into e-books to read on my e-reader. While fanfic can be made from anything, I tend to read fic for TV shows, books, and films (in that order of likelihood).

Quick definition in case someone's wondering what it looks like:
A fanfic is a work of fiction set in or involving some sort of creative work (or even real life people and events--that covers most of it). Many fanfics are written to fix perceived errors in the source material (sounds like a fanedit to me!), fill in missing scenes, or extend the story beyond where the source material ends (oh, if only one could generate new scenes as easily in film form!). Some pose what-if questions in alternate versions of the canon's universe, or mix canons together that normally do not meet. Most are in prose format, but there is some poetry, and the occasional . . . odd . . . creation. (I've played an IF game based on the House Hippo PSA, for instance.)

Examples:
Lord of the Rings: one of the best fics for this I've ever read inserts an original character (a young woman) into the Ithilien Rangers, does so plausibly, and then continues to build on the world around her from about the time of the Retreat until months or years after the Ring War is over (and leaves you half in love with the characters) [Captain My Captain by Isabeau of Greenlea, with Blackbow as the prequel]
X-Men: one of the best fic series I've read here creates an in-depth backstory for Scott, then picks up after X2 and writes a more plausible--and imho better--version of X3 [Minisinoo's Special series]
The Pretender: THE fic series to read here is one that picks up right after the TV films leave off, and wraps everything up in one long satisfying finish [MMB's opus starting with Retrospective]


So my question is: does anyone here read or write fanfic, and if so, what fandom/s?

As for me, I read fic for LOTR, The Pretender, Sue Thomas F.B.Eye, Lois & Clark: TNAOS, Women's Murder Club, X-Men, Rizzoli & Isles, Narnia, and smatterings of others.

I've written fic for R&I, SV, X-Men, C-16: FBI, and a handful of other fandoms, mainly for the fanfic exchange Yuletide. I'd say I'm more of a reader than writer, but I do enjoy writing it when I can manage it.
 

Kal-El

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I'm not really sure it is really the same concept.
Fanedits work with the material they have (mostly), while fanfiction creates entire new stories, characters, worlds, universes, etc.
Only the most extreme examples of fanedits could fall under the same banner I suppose :)

Personally I'm not really a fan since most of what I've read wasn't all that good to begin with.
I can see how the internet is a great way to get recognition if you are in fact a gifted writer, but there's a lot of muck out there as well.

I've also taken turns at trying to churn out a novel of my own. I only tried my hand at two different stories, while one of them was set in the Star Wars universe, the other had nothing to do with existing property. God knows where those drafts are. I doubt they're still on my HDD somewhere :p
 

yoshif8tures

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I also don't see the connection. Aside from both using the word "fan". The similarity pretty much stops there.
Fan fiction is creating original content in another author's existing world, whereas fan edits are working with exciting material and not really creating new stuff.
I personally don't like fanfiction, the idea of adding characters to LOTR horrifies me.
 

Doranwen

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There's a good deal of fanfiction, particularly in some fandoms, that simply rewrite the story from different points of view, or that just is introspectives on motivation, etc. But I can see your point as well. Having grown up with fanfiction first, to me the association is much more close, as they're both people playing in someone else's sandbox. Especially considering the likelihood that should someone actually be able to create new scenes (in some magical future where technology is such that we could easily add to films), I suspect there would be a lot of that happening. I think it's more of a "can't" than "won't" for why new scenes are not added to fanedits. If that technology was available, the story might change.

Personally I'm not really a fan since most of what I've read wasn't all that good to begin with.
I can see how the internet is a great way to get recognition if you are in fact a gifted writer, but there's a lot of muck out there as well.

Lol oh yes, I agree with you there! There's a lot of dross to the gems. Having spent enough time sifting through the piles, I can fairly easily tell when a prospective gem is in front of me, but many people don't want to deal with it; fair enough. I think it's worth it, for my part, as the good stories that I have read are truly very very good, and in some cases surpass the quality of the original canon. (Especially if the original canon is known for creating contradictions and plotholes and questions without answers.) In some canons, such as The Pretender, the ending leaves everyone just hanging, which is the utmost in exasperation. My mind has to have some sort of ending that wraps things up properly, which is why I am so grateful to writers like MMB who come up with realistic endings that fit with the rest of canon.

I personally don't like fanfiction, the idea of adding characters to LOTR horrifies me.

*nod* I know some people like that; can't abide the thought of tweaking the original canon. And to some extent, I was like that. I think it would have been truly awful had it been someone trying to add on to the Fellowship or something (there were enough self-inserts along those lines in the early days of LOTR fanfic to be truly wince-worthy, and the movies only made it worse with all the teen girls going nuts over Orlando Bloom). However, this fanfic adds a character who could feasibly fit into the world as Tolkien wrote it without changing things as written in the books, and through her eyes and story, you see more of the Elves, and particularly of Faramir and Imrahil and Imrahil's children. I thought it was excellently well-done.
 

addiesin

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Almost all fanfiction I've read has been poorly written, either riddled with grammar problems, or completely missing the tone or style of the source material, have shoe-horned in unexpected sexually deviant acts between characters, or display questionable logic in some way. And the fanfiction writers I've come across have been far more interested in being praised than in honest discussion or criticism of their work. As such, I've been turned off from the whole realm of fanfiction and see it as kind of "for kids". No offense to you if you've had different experiences.

That said, I've read some things that fans have written that have been amazing, though none specifically come to mind at the moment. I find the concept of fan generated material interesting, especially when talking about franchises that have spanned generations like Star Wars, Doctor Who, Batman, etc, because the people making the content now were once simply fans themselves.

I am curious, how do you find material you're relatively interested in and consider to meet your creative standards?
 

Garp

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I've read some decent Star Wars fanfic. Notable ones, off the top of my head, include the Lars prior to receiving Luke; Leia's early years on Alderaan; Mara Jade at Jabba's palace; and Luke & Han scouting Mustafar between Ep IV & V. Does take some digging to find well-written ones, though.

Somewhat connected, I also enjoy Star Wars fan-made audio dramas/short stories. Again, a bit of a hit or miss affair, but high-quality ones do exist and are worth seeking out.
 

RollWave

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fanediting is a natural technological succession to fanfiction and those that don't see any connection other than the letters in the words are being silly. I've found that the simplest way to describe fanediting to friends is "it's like fanfiction, but making a movie instead of a book", and anybody familiar with fanfiction goes "oh, ok, I get it, cool".

yoshif8tures said:
Fan fiction is creating original content in another author's existing world, whereas fan edits are working with exciting material and not really creating new stuff.

I strongly disagree with this. It's very disingenuous to claim that just because a small fanfix doesn't reshoot scenes with new actors that their end product isn't "new".

You wouldn't say that when a chef comes up with a dish that their recipe isn't new just because they use the same ingredients as every other chef. The process, amounts, and presentation all combine to have a major impact on the end product, not just the source material.

It's not only radical fanmixes that employ a level of creativity to produce a truly new product. And even if nothing is added to a fanedit that was never there before (which is actually quite rare, even small edits generally add new sound, frames, animations, something), the material is still presented in a new way in order to provide a different viewing experience.

Further, even if the point were conceded that fanfiction creates vs fanedits edit - it's not clear that this is even a relevant or important characteristic in this context. For example, they both provide a new experience inspired by the original. Often star the same characters. Often showcase some of the same events. Sometimes in new ways or from different perspectives, or with different endings or implications, with the only significant difference being the chosen media.
 

Kal-El

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The only relatable media I like is fan films. Star Wars fan films often go to great lengths to make their final product look very slick. But I steer clear of fanfiction because that's not always idiot (quality) proof.
 

Garp

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The problem I have with many fan films, though, is that many seem very lightsaber-duel-heavy, and light on narrative. One I enjoyed that tried something different was 'Conspiracy'. Not the slickest looking fan film, granted, but an interesting idea.
 

TV's Frink

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I can't find the time to watch real movies or read real books, why would I waste any time on fake ones? ;)
 

Vultural

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Hello, Doranwen, and welcome to the site, by the way.
Others have commented before, so I will not add to what has already been mentioned.
A more targeted forum board for your queries would be -

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/

There are threads on numerous topics, including where you can share your work.
As on here, the members there are helpful and will read your work - if you choose to share - and offer constructive advice.
Explore the FanEdit site, as well.
There are untold riches and you may find something that "speaks to you."

Again, thank for you for registering here.
 

Doranwen

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addiesin said:
I am curious, how do you find material you're relatively interested in and consider to meet your creative standards?

Well, it first depends on the canon, and on the hosting site. Fanfiction.net, for instance, is known to be full of junk, so the percentage of good fic to bad is much smaller. Archive of Our Own, while starting to have a growing number of bad fic, is still more likely to have high quality stuff. However, one has to take the canon into it--some canons are highly represented on AO3 but not on ff.n and vice versa. Fanfic based on highly popular films or TV shows will have a high percentage of bad fic due to the vast number of teens writing who don't have a clue what they're doing (and are more in it for the praise, as you said). Fanfic based on books that get assigned in school classes will still have a (smaller) number of not-so-great fics. Fanfics of obscure books, if you can find them, are more likely to be good quality.

And if wading through isn't a problem, as it is not for me, the biggest clue are the summaries. Spelling goof? Forget about it. "Your" instead of "you're" or vice versa? Don't even look at it. Major grammar error, such as incomprehensible sentence? Big warning sign there. I'm also pretty good at scanning the first para and being able to tell based on the sentence structure, even if they got their summary looking good. The number of fics which manage to get all the mechanics right while failing on the plot and details are extremely slim. Usually if they get the plot/details wrong, they're also not so concerned about getting spelling right either, lol, and that makes it easy to spot them.

Anyway, I save the really good stuff for later, so I can re-read to my heart's content and recommend to people as it comes up.

Vultural said:
As on here, the members there are helpful and will read your work - if you choose to share - and offer constructive advice.

Thanks for the recommendation. I should note that I didn't intend to post here to ask for advice on my writing, mostly because I don't do a lot of it and when I do I usually have betas from the Yuletide IRC channel who do a pretty good job at picking for story flow, spotting detail issues, etc. I was more curious to see who here was into fanfic, because I saw it as related to fanediting and thought there might be some overlap. So far it's been an interesting conversation! I didn't have time last night to poke around the boards entirely, but will continue to do so, as I've seen a few fascinating fanedits and am currently watching the Kerr edits of the LOTR films. Thanks for the welcome! :)
 

Gaith

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Aye, welcome! I don't recall if this board has ever really had this conversation before, and I'm one of the longest-active members. So, cheers! :)

I really dig the idea of fan fiction. And really, who's to say what's "fan fiction" and what's just plain fiction? Is Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy not fan fiction, though it is fiction written by a Star Wars fan, because Lucasfilm made it an official product? What about Nicholas Meyer's wonderful Sherlock Holmes novels? The King Arthur stories that introduced all that Grail stuff? The New Testament? Personal memoirs? And the upsides to prose fan fiction, as opposed to fan edits or fan films, are obvious: no limitations! Little to no material costs! Go wild!

... In practice, however, writing good (see what I did there?) is hard. Really hard. And whereas you can gaze upon and listen to your favorite characters/actors while fan editing, writing is also a solitary and often lonely pursuit. And, thanks to the infinite interactivity and distraction of computers, unless you have a typewriter and a scanner or something, it's also darn tough to get in a artistic-level concentrated groove while typing.


Except, maybe, if you've got a Hemingwrite. Plz someone give me a Hemingwrite asap, thanks.


I once wrote some sixty-pages of a theoretical Weird Science remake screenplay a few years ago, but once I did so, I felt like I'd written all I'd felt the urge to put down, even though the story hadn't yet entered third-act territory. And even if I did have a Hemingwrite, I doubt I'd write fanfic per se. (Heck, I've never even finished that one original adult short story I began some two years ago now, which I've already written most of, the third act and epilogue included. It's just missing some more post-intro exposition and, er, scene-setting.)

Now that the matter is brought up, though, I guess I am somewhat surprised that, in our Kindle age, no one free fanfic has really made a big online splash. (I'm aware of but not counting Fifty Shades of Grey here, as it didn't gain widespread notoriety until after its overt Twilight elements were removed.) Indeed, the only specific one I can actually think of is that one Harry Potter epic that's all about philosophy and physics and stuff, and I'm not exactly in a hurry to read that. But I can name a handful of fan films or series, so I really don't know why some non-parodic fanfic ebook hasn't yet taken our corners of the 'net by storm. (No doubt bionic bob will soon chime in to this thread with a recommendation or three. :)) Heck, I at one point suggested that the best possible PT edit would be a radical page-one rewrite of the whole thing in fanfic form. No matter how well-written, no offense, I don't see a Rizzoli & Isles fic getting that kind of attention; the base IP would probably have to be as famous and widely-loved as, well, LotR or something. Maybe I'll check out that "Captain My Captain" story - but isn't there a missing comma there?

And, if I ever win a hundred million dollars in the lottery, I'd love to write and commission drawings for, say, a new Tintin book, or some heavily-inspired-thereof work. :-D
 

Doranwen

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Gaith said:
Now that the matter is brought up, though, I guess I am somewhat surprised that, in our Kindle age, no one free fanfic has really made a big online splash.

I am actually not surprised, and I believe that's because of the nature of the written word as opposed to visual/auditory media. The latter grabs one's attention more easily, is more widely accepted--hey, there are whole wide swaths of people in the US who simply do not read anything if they don't have to. Yet they will happily go see the latest film. I think that has a great impact on the level of interest there is in fanfic outside of the niche of writers and readers.

This is, of course, possibly independent of the level of knowledge of fanfiction vs. fanedits. Most people, as far as I'm aware, don't know anything about either one. (My family wouldn't have heard of fanfic if it weren't for me, and I don't think any of them have ever heard of fanedits; sadly they're not into the sort of films that have them so I doubt I'll get them to see one.) Alas!

Maybe I'll check out that "Captain My Captain" story - but isn't there a missing comma there?

Hee, I feel like there should be a comma in there too; not sure why the author left it out. It's not like her writing is full of errors or anything, either! Maybe a stylistic thing. Anyway, she did warn everyone that it improves, writing-wise, as it goes along, but I felt it was pretty darn good from the get-go. And above all, I feel that a good fanfic should grab the reader emotionally, and it did that masterfully. There's one section where the character says she had the urge to weep, and I did too. The whole way the scene was set up, you felt every emotion, were totally into it. Of course, that could just be me. :) But the fact that I could get into it to that degree, meant it was possible to do so with that fic, whether a particular person finds it as enjoyable or not. And that, I think, makes it one of the better ones out there. I'd like to think I'm not easily entertained by poor quality writing!

Anyway, I should link you to the master TOC page for the writings of Isabeau of Greenlea and her friend Altariel--they worked in the same 'verse, so to speak. You'll find a fic from one referencing an event that happens in a fic by the other; it's seamless and amazing. It's rare to find that level of teamwork.
So here 'tis: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matthew.adams1/personal/tolkienfiction.htm
The other (less organized, but with a few more fics on it) listing for Isabeau of Greenlea is here: http://www.tolkienfanfiction.com/Author_Profile.php?AUid=4
Hope you enjoy! :) (If I erred by linking the fic, let me know, but I don't think there's an issue with that.)
 

Vultural

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As far as I know H P Lovecraft used to encourage other writers to contribute to his Mythos.
That was where many young writers cut their teeth.

FanEdit does not suffer from grammar police.
And few here will dismiss fan fiction as fake fiction.
For most, this will be a new door.
Many members are not native English speakers, and tense errors and syntax problems are tolerated.
What is valued is what you bring to the discussion, or a new perspective.
Don't worry about that Oxford comma, Doranwen.
 

Gaith

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Linking to fanfics here is fine, as is linking to fan films, for that matter. :)


Doranwen said:
I am actually not surprised, and I believe that's because of the nature of the written word as opposed to visual/auditory media. The latter grabs one's attention more easily, is more widely accepted--hey, there are whole wide swaths of people in the US who simply do not read anything if they don't have to. Yet they will happily go see the latest film. I think that has a great impact on the level of interest there is in fanfic outside of the niche of writers and readers.
Well, sure, I'm definitely not surprised breakout fanfics aren't a regular thing. But the form has been around about as long as common 'net usage, so I am still kinda surprised there hasn't even been one.



Doranwen said:
Anyway, I should link you to the master TOC page for the writings of Isabeau of Greenlea and her friend Altariel--they worked in the same 'verse, so to speak. You'll find a fic from one referencing an event that happens in a fic by the other; it's seamless and amazing. It's rare to find that level of teamwork.
So here 'tis: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/matthew.adams1/personal/tolkienfiction.htm
Daaaaammmmnnn, that's a lot of stories! What order is one supposed to read in? What's the internal chronology? And where are the Kindle-friendly versions? I have a personal Open Office template I use to make PDFs of stuff I want to read offline, but while there are of course worse things, I'm not exactly burning to copy and paste all 53 "Captain My Captain" chapters one by one. If authors can't be bothered to make Kindle-tailored PDFs of their work with handsome formatting and maybe even an illustration or two, I guess I'm not surprised that none have really broken out after all. ;-)
 

bionicbob

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Gaith said:
But I can name a handful of fan films or series, so I really don't know why some non-parodic fanfic ebook hasn't yet taken our corners of the 'net by storm. (No doubt bionic bob will soon chime in to this thread with a recommendation or three. :))

I have read very little fan fiction. I used to read ATLANTIS DSV, but this was more for the incredible photoshop elements that accompanied the web series. I think it may even be still online if one is curious, as the world building was very ambitious.

But yes, in the new age of Kindle and self-online publishing, the line between fan fiction and legitmate fiction is definitely becoming more blurred. Particularly in the genre of HOMAGE novels (though these have been around for ages... Lin Carter, Philip Jose Farmer, Nicholas Meyer).... what prevents these from being considered fan fiction? A very entertaining series is Infinite Horizons by Wayne Reinagel, which reimagines classic pulp heroes like Doc Savage, the Shadow, the Spider, etc in a shared universe.... but honestly, is this not just another form of fan fiction?

And of course, the next step above written fan fiction is of course fan web series..... there are numerous on the web that continue the adventures of many famous characters.... they vary in quality and content. I am most familiar with the many Star Trek fan series out there.... and some are definitely better than others. HIDDEN FRONTIER boasts some the best writing and expanded universe concepts on any Trek web series and yet often is dismissed because of its lower production values, inexperienced actors and gay/lesbian content. Then you have the other end of the spectrum like Star Trek Phase II or Star Trek Continues which uses professional production teams, writers/actors with a long historical connection to various Trek tv series but is dismissed as fan fiction because it is not sanctioned by the Studio.

Then there is another side of the coin.... for years, Lucasfilm sort of unofficially acknowledged that the expanded universe Star Wars novels were sort of canon.... until they decided to make more movies.... so now, all those novels hardcore fan devoted so much time to collecting, reading, debating, analyzing, etc... are now worthless.... in essence, they are now all FAN FICTION.

It is an interesting discussion. For me, it just comes down to this.... a good story is a good story, regardless of it's format.
As for what is canon.... uhg.... that is a whole different debate.... lol
 

Doranwen

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Gaith said:
Daaaaammmmnnn, that's a lot of stories! What order is one supposed to read in? What's the internal chronology? And where are the Kindle-friendly versions? I have a personal Open Office template I use to make PDFs of stuff I want to read offline, but while there are of course worse things, I'm not exactly burning to copy and paste all 53 "Captain My Captain" chapters one by one. If authors can't be bothered to make Kindle-tailored PDFs of their work with handsome formatting and maybe even an illustration or two, I guess I'm not surprised that none have really broken out after all. ;-)

Hee, that IS a lot of stories. As for internal chronology, I've just constructed one that I think is accurate, but it doesn't have all of Altariel's fics in there yet, just where they directly touched on Isabeau's chars. Don't have them all in Kindle-friendly versions yet, though. I'm working on that, however! My e-reader handles HTML fine so I haven't had fits with it, but what I recommend you try is getting a little program called Fanfiction Downloader. It'll take links from major fanfic and render it in the format you want (Kindle, for your case), just by dropping the links into it. For that site, however, where a good dozen of the fics are, and which I suspect the downloader program would not know what to do with . . . yeah, I'd better just do the epub creation I was going to. At least with those, you can dump into Calibre and have them flipped into the format you want pretty easily. If you're truly interested, I'll boot that up in my priority list (if it's just me, I've not had it high up). I find Sigil is an easy program to work in (for creating epubs), so I do that now and then with sites that don't have friendly formats. (Gives me a good excuse to fix any spelling goofs the authors missed--there are a couple sprinkled in CMC, though few and far between.)

As for pasting all 53 chapters of CMC one by one . . . I did that years ago--into a Word doc, where I formatted it in 6 pt font and printed! Still have in a binder somewhere, lol. Ah, the good ol' days . . .


bionicbob said:
It is an interesting discussion. For me, it just comes down to this.... a good story is a good story, regardless of it's format.
As for what is canon.... uhg.... that is a whole different debate.... lol

Lol, yes, indeed. And I totally agree, a good story is a good story. And I have found SO many good stories in written format that make me laugh, weep, smile . . . I guess I just love to share the things that touch me, with anyone else who would appreciate them.
 

TomH1138

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Fun topic!

Whether or not fan fiction is like fan edits or not doesn't really matter to me. I think it's worth discussing, regardless. And, I suppose, both are ways for the audience to interact with the material.

The Internet has both helped and hurt the world of fan fiction. On the one hand, it's much easier to get one's work out there than it used to be, and there's no longer the cost associated with having to print up fanzines. On the other hand, since anybody can put anything out there that they want, there's a lot more garbage to sift through. There is good stuff out there, but it's a lot harder to find.

When there was someone editing a fanzine, the editor could clean up the punctuation / spelling / grammar, as well as address any continuity issues. And, frankly, they could just make sure that the stories were good -- well-written executions of solid ideas, with the characters all sounding and acting like they should. But now the floodgates are open for anything and everything.

For instance, I once read a Quantum Leap fanzine called A Matter of Time. All of the stories were solid, and the one written by the editor herself (Julie Barrett) was good enough that it could have been officially published. Most of the QL fanfic I've read online, though, has been atrocious. The characters are written inconsistently, the dialogue is awful, there are huge lapses in logic, the internal rules of the show's universe are regularly ignored, etc.

(Not to mention that a lot of fic for any fandom is just the author imagining themselves in pornographic situations with one of the characters, with no regard for actually telling a story.)

Not to say that one shouldn't look for any fanfic if one is interested, or that there's no validity to this literary subgenre at all. I'm just observing what may be the reason for so many people on this forum to have a low opinion of it. :)

There are bad fan edits, too, but that's why FE.org makes every edit go through a stringent quality analysis. They're doing the work that fanzine editors used to do.

In college, I wrote a round robin Sliders fanfic with some friends. It could technically be a called a Mary Sue story, since all of us were writing characters based off of ourselves. The difference, though, was that all our characters were the main characters, and the characters on the series didn't really come into it (except for a brief crossover). In other words, we used the basic premise and mythology of the show, but wrote our own characters within those stories.

There was some really awful stuff in there, but when it worked, it worked really well. I discovered my love of writing fiction, and I got some popularity and acclaim. This was the beginning of a road that led me to try to make a career in Hollywood (with no luck). In the years since the story ended, I've tried multiple times to get something like that round robin started again (also with no luck). It remains the most satisfying writing experience of my life so far.

I think that one of the reasons I started gravitating towards fan editing is because it was more structured and harder to break the rules of the fictional universe, and therefore it's easier to make things that feel like they fit. For instance, some of the worst stuff in our Sliders fanfic was when some writers just shoved a bunch of Star Wars stuff in there, and when I shoved some Spider-Man stuff in there. Fan edits forces a person to stick with things of a similar type. (Or, if you do break the rules, there had better be a good reason for it, and the editor had better be able to make it look really good.)

But I've always left myself open to the idea of reading more fanfic, if I could find more good stuff. As with fan edits, sometimes the fans have better ideas than the people who actually own the property. :)
 

Vultural

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TomH1138 said:
The Internet has both helped and hurt the world of fan fiction. On the one hand, it's much easier to get one's work out there than it used to be, and there's no longer the cost associated with having to print up fanzines. On the other hand, since anybody can put anything out there that they want, there's a lot more garbage to sift through. There is good stuff out there, but it's a lot harder to find. When there was someone editing a fanzine, the editor could clean up the punctuation / spelling / grammar, as well as address any continuity issues. And, frankly, they could just make sure that the stories were good -- well-written executions of solid ideas, with the characters all sounding and acting like they should. But now the floodgates are open for anything and everything.
User generated content, with few if any gatekeepers. Editors are few and far between, and I have no doubts it can be soul destroying to proof stories written in txt spk. No profit in words, either. Plus, literature may have reached a tipping point a few years ago with more writers than readers. Also attenuated concentration means short, simple lines over extended prose. Shifting gears, I think fan fiction is closer to fan films than fan edits.
 
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