This week: Fan Fiction - Is It Worth Writing? Edited by: NaNoKit  
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Authors of fan fiction know that their work will never be published. Is it, then, still worth writing?
This week's Action/Adventure Newsletter is all about fan fiction - the good and the bad.
NaNoKit
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When I was a teenager I spent far too much time writing truly terrible stories about my favourite characters. Back then, I didn’t know that what I wrote was fan fiction – I had never heard of the term – but that’s what it was. I eventually moved on to create my own worlds, inhabited by characters of my own imagination, and it wasn’t until recently that I thought any more of those tales written by people who love a book, or a series, or a movie so much that they want to add to the story. On the Internet, you can bump into anything. Which isn’t always a good thing, but you may end up pleasantly surprised.
I can’t quite remember why, but a while ago I did one of my checks to see if there’s any news of George R. R. Martin’s The Winds of Winter. Hope springs eternal, I suppose. From there, I looked up something related to his A Song of Ice and Fire series (of which The Winds of Winter will be a part), and stumbled upon a website where people post stories set in Martin’s universe. These being strange times I figured I’d have a look and quickly discovered that these stories mostly center around the idea of getting together the authors’ favourite characters. I have learned that this is called shipping, no doubt from the word ‘relationship’. The first couple of stories I glanced at were not at all impressive. If they’d posted on Writing.Com, and I were to review them, it would have taken me a very long time indeed to say all that I wanted to say. Or, I would have simply closed the page, as I did on that website. I nearly closed the site altogether, but decided to try one more piece, and that one turned out be the online equivalent to a page-turner. It was creative, entertaining, touching… the author had put real effort into staying true to the original author’s characters and universe, whilst adding an enjoyable layer of their own imagination. That experience led me to visiting that author again, and bookmarking a second work that they’ve written into the same universe. I hope that I will enjoy it as much as I did that first piece.
As an adult, I haven’t considered using other people’s characters. There are plenty of characters bouncing around my head, wanting to be written about, without my having an internal urge to write different endings or adventures for those who strolled into my life through someone else’s pages. That’s not to say that I have always been satisfied with the ending of certain books, or movies, or TV series. I’ll readily confess that I did not like the ending of the Game of Thrones TV series. Much of the final season made me mutter about inconsistencies, and how I felt that my favourite character had been dumbed down, and how stuff fell flat… I felt that there wasn’t a proper pay-off for the time and the emotions that I had invested in the story, and that naturally led to my pondering on what would make for a good conclusion. That is what writers of fan fiction do, I suppose – they get inspired by those what ifs and create an alternative ending.
I wonder what the original creators think when people write fan fiction based on their works. If I were to ever write something that inspired others to that extent, I think that I would feel quite flattered. So long as those works showed respect for my creations. When I scrolled through the list of stories some of the descriptions hinted at some rather creepy content, and I wouldn’t feel too thrilled if that’s what my work inspired in others!
Fan fiction, then, can be a good thing. The younger me learned the basics of writing dreaming up stories about much-loved characters. Today, some people write very readable pieces set in well-loved worlds. No doubt, they have fun writing them, and those who wished for different adventures and different endings to books, TV series and movies may just find such content online, and it may leave them with a smile. I don’t think I will be adding to the genre anytime soon, but I think it has its place. They are, clearly, stories written purely for the joy of it, as works of fan fiction will obviously never be published.
If you’ve ever thought about writing fan fiction, I say go for it. As long as it’s respectful, there is no harm done. I don’t think I will be writing in the genre anytime soon, but you never know. One day, perhaps… In the meanwhile, I live in hope that the conclusion to A Song of Ice and Fire will make up for that of Game of Thrones. As said, hope springs eternal.
NaNoKit
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Action/Adventure: April 29, 2020 Issue [#10148]
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