Fan Fiction – The Good

This is the first of three articles, all about the phenomena that is Fan Fiction.

Until a couple of months ago, I was dead set against Fan Fiction. But my mind has changed a little recently, which is why I have decided to start out on a good foot when it comes to this mini-series of articles.

First of all, I suppose it would be best to give an indication of what the subject matter actually is. Well, Fan Fiction is basically “Stories written by fans within the universe of their fandom.” So all the stories that people have written about their favourite LOTR characters, or Harry Potter characters are all classed as Fan Fiction. We’ll be going through the negative aspects of this ‘genre’ at a later date, but for now, I’ve been allowed to partially emerge from my usual cynical and critical self and actually write nice things for a whole article.

So, onto the positive points of Fan Fiction.

First of all, Fan Fiction allows people to write within the set parameters of an established world. There are no purple sparkly dragons in the world of Narnia, for example…but there are plenty of other races and characters to play with in order to exercise ones’ writing abilities. This ‘safe environment’ for writing means that the creators of Fan Fiction don’t feel so overwhelmed by choices of environments and rules. The sources of Fan Fiction (that is, already-established works) act as a sort of sandbox within a definitive container. If one novel or series can inspire other people to have a creative outlet, then surely it’s a good thing?

A point which is rather similar to the one above is the fact that there are of course instances where people deviate from the ‘canon’ of a world, but in and of itself this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. (See? I can be a nice critic when I want to be). This non-canon approach is a very loose form of Fan Fiction, but it still falls under the same category of writing. It enables a sort of imaginative curiosity, whilst still being grounded (however lightly) within a boundary of rules. So essentially, Fan Fiction may be a medium for allowing a writer to develop their skills to the stage where they feel comfortable and confident enough to try out new, original settings on their own. Think of it as a form of ‘training wheel’, if you will.

Imagine this, dear reader. You’re reading through a story online, and you get that itch in the back of your brain which is telling you that you recognise some of the names. Then it hits you that you’re reading (and thoroughly enjoying) the one genre of literature that you swore you’d never go near with a barge pole. This situation is exactly what happened to me when I found myself completely immersed in a piece of ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ Fan Fiction. For a start, I promised myself to never, ever get involved with both of those things. Fan Fiction and Star Trek. (Not that I have anything against Star Trek of course, but there’s a certain boundary of Sci-Fi nerd that I never wanted to cross). But I’m sitting here a few months later, having just asked for and received a few of the series DVD box sets for Christmas. I suppose my point here (yes dear reader, I do have one. Thank you for bearing with me), is that well written Fan Fiction can introduce a reader to the original world. Whether that be a different book series or something from the screen.

Something I wasn’t going to mention, but now the thought is lodged in my head and refuses to move like two stickle-bricks gaffer taped together…is the fact that whilst it isn’t prose, forum-based RPing on different subjects (such as Harry Potter, Pern, etc) are also technically Fan Fiction. After all, it’s still writing within the parameters of an established world, even if it is a collaborative effort between many people. Having been a forum RPer for a number of years now, I suppose that my efforts to stay away from Fan Fiction haven’t been nearly as successful as I thought.

Serves me right for not wanting to give it a chance in the first place, I guess.

3 Responses to “Fan Fiction – The Good”

1. Armanda Lamaack says:

   February 19, 2010 at 8:44 pm

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2. Fan Fiction – The Bad- Inspired-Quill says:

   February 22, 2010 at 3:29 pm

   [...] we’ve already gone through the [good] points of Fan Fiction, and this is where I’m now allowed to briefly discuss a number of bad [...]
3. R. Popla says:

   March 17, 2010 at 6:50 pm

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