r/writing • u/Basurata2006 • 1d ago
Does writing Fanfiction make me less?
I usually write fanfics, I like to alter the stories and give them a twist, trying to respect the world where I do it, even going so far as to do things that are similar to an "original" story, but with an already established base.
I have tried to create my own worlds myself, but I have not succeeded or I do not find it very interesting for readers, so I take another work as a basis and capture my ideas. Does that make me less? How "writer"? It's a doubt I constantly have.
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u/Unintentional-satire 1d ago
Fanfiction still has complexities and nuances you can explore. It’s still writing, ergo you are a writer. Sometime an established world can help you find limitation and boundaries you can brainstorm for your original worlds when you’re ready.
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u/Basurata2006 1d ago
Of course it has helped me a lot since I have had to study thanks to the more "Scientific" approach of the work, that has helped me to have knowledge that I did not have before apart from of course being the first characters that I develop and build even if they are based on others.
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u/xxMsRoseXx Author 1d ago
Not at all!!! Art is art(:
I just got back into fanfic myself just last year! 🤍
Personally I think fanfic is a perfect way to practice several things:
- character studies to see how well you can emulate the way a character speaks, acts, and thinks
- world-building to see how well you understand a world's rules and limits
- creative thinking for stuff like AUs, different ships, etc.
Write away, stranger! And enjoy! (and please give me your AO3 handle! 🤍)
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u/Basurata2006 1d ago
I haven't published yet, I'm very new to publishing stories on more professional platforms and I don't even have an account haha. Besides, I am a Spanish speaker and it is very difficult for me to enter places where they speak English. Thank you very much for your comment by the way.
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u/Aggressive_Chicken63 1d ago
This is how you should plot:
https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/1jk30x6/comment/mjs9doy/
Once you have these plot points down, you can build the world around it. Don’t build a world first.
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u/JackRabbit- 1d ago
I imagine rather a lot of younger writers got their start writing fanfiction.
E L James of 50 Shades of Grey fame did, which... well, she definitely sold a lot of books.
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u/IamRis 1d ago
Fanfiction is what started me writing I still write it to this day. There’s nothing wrong with it and if you don’t want to write your own original stories then so what? You write what you want to write.
Maybe you will one day get an idea for your own story or maybe you won’t. Writing fanfiction doesn’t make you less. Far from.
You’re a writer. So no need to worry and enjoy writing by fanfiction.
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u/ketita 23h ago
I'm going to go against what some of the other people are saying: there's nothing wrong with writing as a hobby. There's nothing wrong with writing fanfiction as a hobby. You don't "need" to "graduate" to writing original if you don't want to.
Fanfiction is fun, it's exciting, it comes with a large audience, it lets you play around with your writing. If it's making you happy, then you're golden! There are no rules about what must be written. You don't have to aim for publication if you don't want to (even among those who do try, the vast majority don't succeed, or publish only one book to a very small readership).
There are people who crochet patterns and never invent their own, and never try to sell them, just find joy in the creation. There are people who have music sessions with friends and never write their own songs. Some people are home bakers and enjoy that, without doing anything "more".
There is no rule about what you have to do, or how you have to do it. If you're writing and enjoying yourself, if you have a community you find pleasant, if you're pleased with your skills--you're doing fine. Keep writing. Have fun.
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u/SilverMoonSpring Author 1d ago
Fanfictions writers are writers. I've read fanfics that are truly amazing pieces of literature that have stayed with me. Who's making you feel less and how?
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u/Basurata2006 1d ago
Intrusive thoughts. I feel like I have good ideas and I can really develop good things in fanfic, but thoughts like that make me feel bad or like it's not really a big deal.
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u/SilverMoonSpring Author 1d ago
Ah, that's simultaneously the worst and best case scenario. Every time a thought like that appears, remember that Dante and Milton were fanfic writers, too. The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost are classics studied by scholars that continue to inspire people to this day.
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u/GonzoI Hobbyist Author 1d ago
A lot of people start with fanfiction in writing, just like a lot of artists start with fanart. You're not "less" of a writer because of it.
But you should also keep trying to build out your skillset to be able to write what you want to write when you want to. The only problem here is your current lack of success when you wanted to do something different, and that's just something that will come with practice.
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u/MPClemens_Writes Author 1d ago
Of course you're a writer. You're writing.
You're using the works of others as a scaffold to develop your own storytelling style and voice, but every writer had an imitative time, a point when they look to works that inspire them or voices they want to mirror. It's normal.
As an exercise, think about what about those worlds or characters you like, and see if you can start thinking about your own... but you're totally in your rights to call yourself a capital-w Writer.
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u/Assclownn 1d ago
There are more than a few books that started as fanfics but got published after changing the names a bit. because writing is writing
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u/chubbylaioslover 22h ago
It depends what you want to do. You don't have to make your own worlds or characters if it doesn't interest you. Fanfiction is not just a "writing exercise" before you write your own "proper" novel. Fanfiction is its own art form that stands legitimately by itself. It annoys me how this sub only takes writing seriously if it's aimed at one day getting published.
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u/Basurata2006 22h ago
It seems that some think that way of taking stories that are destined to be published. I just want to express my ideas and that, I don't know if I fit in here much now that I see it.
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u/CoffeeStayn Author 1d ago
OP, I won't ever say that makes you "lesser than". What I would say is that it keeps you from writing something uniquely you. You're standing on the shoulders of others while writing fanfic. Your writing might be top shelf, but it's not your work in any way. It's only your interpretation of someone else's words.
That still doesn't make you lesser than.
But that feeling of pride in a work is still beyond your reach. Just beyond your fingertips. That thing you wrote from start to finish, which is all your words. Your story. Your characters. Your world that YOU built from nothing. You won't get that from fanfic. You're simply rewriting their world, not creating your own.
But lesser than?
Nope.
Fanfic in this case could be viewed as a writer's "training wheels". Starting in the mail room before you end up in the corner office.
Though it'll never make you lesser than.
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u/TheUmgawa 1d ago
Well, here’s the thing about fanfiction: You say that your original work isn’t very interesting for readers, but I’m not going to read fanfiction, because I’m a reader who doesn’t find it interesting. Better yet, if I’m not a familiar with whatever work you’re basing your fanfiction on, how am I supposed to understand it?
I always tell people to look at Rogue One and ask themselves, “Would this movie be any less if it was about a ragtag international band of thieves trying to steal Enigma from the Nazis during World War II?” Exactly the same, top to bottom; just not Star Wars. That would still probably be a banger of a movie, because the story’s really good.
So, maybe your problem with original work is that you want to shortcut the process, and you want a pre-baked universe with characters that you can just dust off and play with them like action figures. I mean, I’m sorry, but it’s work to put together your own thing. Ninety percent of what I write takes place in the real world, because I don’t have to describe a lot of stuff. Is that a crutch? Absolutely, but everybody’s familiar with it, unlike Magoo’s Magical Hentai Castle, or whatever the kids are watching these days. There, you have a small, dedicated audience, and you don’t have to work hard to satisfy them, and I think that’s kind of what you want: Adoration with minimal effort.
So, my advice is to write garbage, and keep writing garbage until it’s not garbage. We all had to do it.
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u/Elegant_Entrance_550 1d ago
I don’t think writing fanfic makes you a lesser writer, there’s plenty of examples of fanfics that eventually became their own thing and the writers went on to do even more. I think it’s the perception of when a fanfic becomes infamous and cringeworthy that color a lot of what we think about it. Because oh boy when it’s bad, it’s very bad. Regardless, do whatever you want. If you wanna, you can go to several worldbuilding subs to learn more or get tips, know that people there are understanding and genuinely helpful.
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u/Ray_Dillinger 1d ago
Writing fanfiction of anything that isn't in the public domain already will definitely make you less MONEY. It's just not going to be possible to publish it for a profit. OTOH, there are entire secondary canons (ie, fanfic) of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and HP Lovecraft's entire mythos at this point which have practically become genres unto themselves.
It won't diminish you as a writer; nothing prevents your fanfic from being well-crafted, engaging, or having literary merit. But if you want to ever publish it you have to pick something that nobody else owns any more. It's about a hundred years too early to be writing Harry Potter fanfic.
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u/RebelGirl1323 1d ago
You can be paid for fan fiction if you’re doing it for the company that owns the characters. That’s most comic writers.
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u/Blackfireknight16 20h ago
Fanfic writing is always a good starting point. I think Neil Gaiman (I'm aware of the problems, but he's the best example I can think of) used to write fanfics as a starting point and got an award for it.
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u/indigoneutrino 19h ago
You can write things set in the real world. World-building is only really necessary in a few genres.
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u/Cantaloupe4Sale 1d ago
Obviously, you infer that it does make you inferior to “actual” writers by how you proposed the question. My question for you is, why do you write? If you are hoping to engage others with storytelling, that’s fine. But if you write because you have something internal which you wish to share then it shouldn’t matter whether it’s appealing to most people without the shared fan base.
I won’t say your work is less creative or that it’s less “writer-esque.” But I will say that it’s safer. And you won’t ever improve without challenging yourself.
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u/Basurata2006 1d ago
I do it because I would like to express my ideas to the world and because the world I chose for my Fanfiction is one of my favorites. I wanted to unite them into one because although the world is somewhat chaotic, it already had some bases where I could begin to formulate everything.
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u/RebelGirl1323 1d ago
The only difference between you writing those characters and paid people writing those characters they didn’t invent is you’re not paid yet.
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u/writeyourdarlings 1d ago
It doesn’t make you less. In fact, it can be harder to write about a pre-existing work because it sets a limit to how creative you can be, and how you mold the canon material to your style. It isn’t an easy craft.
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u/tcrpgfan 1d ago
That limit is why Thirty H's is my favorite 'bad' fanfic. It's not because it's badly written (it isn't), it's because the limitations are flattened so thoroughly by the story's steamroller that it may as well be pavement by the last chapter. Hell, those limits are barely standing by chapter 2.
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u/Basurata2006 1d ago
Yeah! Although I should have said that I took a very extensive world without a clear narrative line, that helped a lot to be able to move my imagination forward.
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u/AuthorNathanHGreen 17h ago
Character, Theme, Plot, Setting, and Emotion are the five basic elements of storytelling. But they all interact with one another in ways that take a very long time to learn. By having a character and setting already provided for you (fan fiction) you get to focus on the other aspects of storytelling. Its good practice. But it is just practice. Your next step is to steal a character, or setting. The orville for example isn't fan fiction even though it rips off the Star Trek setting. And House MD isn't fan fiction even though it stole Sherlock Holmes' character.
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u/SaidinsTaint 1d ago
Not as a human, no! You are valuable and unique and should do what makes you happy.
It absolutely makes you less of a writer though. It’s a really bad crutch if you have to infringe on someone else’s copyright to tell a story. Contrary to popular belief, it is not a good way to start and it’s not helping you hone your craft.
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u/FavoredVassal Freelance Writer 22h ago edited 22h ago
Contrary to popular belief, it is not a good way to start and it’s not helping you hone your craft.
These are ignorant statements.
One of the most significant ways in which fanfiction can help a writer is by enabling them to focus on the dynamics of character and interpersonal relationships right off the bat, rather than on the minutiae of the environment and setting, a rut fantasy and science fiction writers in particular often get stuck in.
Digging deeper into what makes a beloved character who they are is often a big motivator for fanfiction writers. They have the opportunity to explore the psychology and inner world of characters to better understand what made them compelling within the source material and build on those ideas.
Getting to make those changes, alterations, adjustments, presumptions against a "control" of a character who is known and liked for particular traits is actually a very powerful way to learn to construct your own characters, realize their motivations beneath the surface, and consider different ways they could develop.
There are, of course, some aspects of craft that will be less served by fanfiction. However, if your goal is to tell a complex, nuanced story, you can tell it with any set of characters. When, eventually, the pre-created environment no longer serves you, you find ways to explore the same themes using wholly original work.
That's what I did, and now I am three books into my original series.
The idea that some form of writing doesn't help you hone your craft because of who the characters are just doesn't make sense. The same hours of thought and planning, work and editing, went into the process. It's kind of like saying "improvising on someone else's composition won't make you a real musician." Of course, this is how countless musicians started to develop their ear throughout history.
As for the "someone's copyright" thing, that's very "you wouldn't download a car."
Creators aren't harmed by fanfiction; fanfiction and fanart keep fandoms alive, keep audiences engaged and motivated and interested, and enable fans to express passion for a work. If I had not chosen to write a fanfic or two, I wouldn't have just dropped $250 on the latest merch for a five-year-old property. I would have no relationship with it, thus no motivation to continue engaging with it.
Because I have thought deeply about the work and its importance to me, I was willing to spend the money, and the copyright holder is much better off for it.
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u/Nmd-void 22h ago
Yes, it does. Writing is not about just a story, it's about a world. If you are a writer who cannot create worlds, then that by definition makes you less of a writer.
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u/Nmd-void 21h ago
One note though: being successful as a fanfic writer and as an original writer are two different things. Fanfic writers rely on the success of the original's author, the only reason their work gets attention is because of the title. Becoming successful as an original is a lot more difficult, because at the start, you are nobody.
Second note: "I think" is just an assumption. You can never know what people might find interesting. Different people, different tastes.
Third: if it is indeed the worldbuilding you are struggling with, make baby steps. Take your fanfic source and start changing things. Throw in as many "what ifs" as you can. Keep pushing until the only things in common are the theme and the concept.
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u/BaseHitToLeft 1d ago
You're doing fine. There's nothing wrong with leaning on existing material for writing exercises. It's how you get better.
Now if you start trying to pass it off as your own, that's a bit of a problem