Why Write Fanfiction?

~by Shadowfax_Pip

Why write fanfiction? What is the appeal of using someone else’s characters and storylines? Wouldn’t it be more rewarding to write your own original story?

These questions assail the writers of FF, and sometimes even dissuade young writers from writing FF or even their own stories because they feel that it isn’t ‘original’ enough. This is not the case. Fanfiction is an excellent way to begin writing because you can modify a storyline to fit your specifications. Originality does not mean that everything a person writes has to be their own.

But back to the original question: why write fanfiction? Well, for me it is a bit of a release from the pressures of daily life, my medication to ease out of life’s grind. For others, it is a grand passion: writing these stories is a creative outlet in which to impress their ideas and thoughts, and a way to get to know better a character whom they understand to be a friend. And, for some, it is an escape. Nothing is so appealing as the lofty vistas of another world, and though they cannot reach it they can dream.

Another question is: why use another person’s background and characters? Wouldn’t it be more rewarding to invent your own story?

The idea of inventing an original story is very appealing, but such an undertaking can involve a whole lifetime and still not be finished. Just look at J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis. Both spent nearly their whole lives working on their greatest works, and still were not finished when they died.

However, perhaps it is even more appealing to ‘meet’ someone you are attempting to know and go off on a grand adventure with them And putting that grand adventure against a background you know well is even better, for (from a writer’s point of view) it ensures the thorough feel that a story should have.

Perhaps something that gets a critic’s dander up is the all-too-common presence of the Mary-sue. The Mary-sue abounds in fanfictions, unfortunately, and although it gives the writer pleasure to see themselves scoring it big with a character or circumstance they can control, other people usually don’t care to read such predictable adventures. The sheer ratio of Mary-sues as opposed to good fanfiction is probably what provokes the critics to disliking fanfiction.

This is just my take on fanfiction as a whole, and I’m not sure if I’ve been very thorough on this subject, but I hope I’ve helped to defend it somewhat.