Fan fiction? What is fan fiction?
Fan fiction is usually classified as stories written by fans (hence the name), but set in the world of a published book. Fan fiction allows fans to, I guess fantasize about a book and share that story with others. For example, in a book with a love triangle, a fan might disagree who the main character ends up with. However, with fan fiction, the fan can create his or her own story in the world and make the main character end up falling in love with the other person in the triangle. Sometimes, however, fans will use the world, but not the characters. For instance one fan may write a story set in the same world as Divergent, but create their own character. Some popular fan fiction sites are fanfiction.net and Wattpad (note: Wattpad also has original stories).
Pros
Reading fan fiction is a good way to continue series that are already completed. Some of the most popular fan fics are “what happens next” stories. Stories that readers want to read, but the original author, the one with all the rights, didn’t write. Fan fiction is also good if you love the world and characters, but wish something in the novel didn’t happen. For example the love triangle situation I mentioned earlier.
Cons
No matter how good the writer of the fan fic may be, it is not the real deal. And as all my classmates say “nothing beats the original”. Also usually fan fictions are updated chapter by chapter so there is never a real promise of completion and often there are long waiting times.
What do you think?
Do you read fan fics?
I usually only turn to fanfiction when I am really addicted to a show (I don’t read book or movie FF) and need more of the characters. Most of the time I end up disappointed, but occasionally I come across some really good ones that have great writing and really capture the characters. To narrow everything down I usually only read one-shots or completed stories that are no longer than 20K words.
I have a love/hate relationship with fanfics, but the great ones make it worth it.
I know how you feel. If only everyone on FF was a professional writer (although, that would probably defeat the point of FF)… I like reading one-shots too, especially since you don’t have to worry about whether it will be completed.
Thanks for stopping by Christina! 🙂
The only fanfictions I have really read were Hunger Games ones just because I read the trilogy so quickly that I felt I needed more from that World so i found one of Clove’s back story and one of Annie’s. They were both so good!
I’m glad you have had a positive experience with fanfics. It’s always nice to find good ones.
Thanks for stopping by Scarlett! 🙂
I read many many Buffy the vampire slayer fanfics at a time. There were a lot of badly written fics – you just had to wonder how old the writer was ! But some of them I still remember even though it’s been… what ? 10 years now ? So I guess they’re not all that bad. And when sometimes something bugs you in that show you love, the way a series ends and leaves you a bitter taste of disappointment (I’m thinking a lot about True blood here), it’s an occasion to vent out and right the wrongs !
Sometimes I wish there was an age requirement to write stories on FF (like 12 and above, or something) otherwise a lot of times you just end up a poorly written story, even though the idea behind it was great. But besides those poorly written ones, fanfics can help you cope when things go wrong.
Thanks for stopping by! 😀
[…] Emz investigates fan fiction. […]
I’mma come right out and say that I love fanfiction. I think I’ve probably read tens of thousands of fics and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Fanfic is great. Whenever I’m in a book reading slump, it’s probably because I’d rather be reading fanfiction. I really love that most times I can find just the right tropes that will push my buttons. >.> I have terrible taste in fiction tropes, whether in ~real~ fiction or fanfiction, it doesn’t matter. And chances are I can find fics out there that have just what I want to read. I mean. Sure there are tons of books out there, but hardly any of them are flawfree coffeeshop AUs of my favourite ships. >.>
That said, I generally go to AO3 for more, uh, quality fanfiction. Fanfiction.net is overrun with terrible things and badfic (which, to be fair, I regularly devour because I do after all have terrible taste and enjoy badfic), but there’s some pretty amazing stuff on AO3 and their tagging system is more useful than ffn’s (though curse the people who abuse the AO3 tags by using them like they would on tumblr, thus rendering them useless).
I love reading fan fics too (well, at least some of them), but I have never really heard of AO3 before. I will definitely be checking it out. And I can totally relate to a reading slump caused by fan fiction (but don’t tell any authors). Sometimes I just need more of one series…
Thanks for stopping by Isa! 🙂