Monday, July 15, 2013

Paige's Pages: On Writing FanFiction


Hey guys, sorry I was AWOL last week…I went to San Diego to visit my Grandmother and some of my family. It was tons of fun: I went boogie boarding, ocean swimming, and I spent some quality time with my little second cousins.

 

Anyways, onto the theme this week: FanFiction. What is FanFiction? It’s basically twisting an original work (like Harry Potter or Doctor Who) to make your own version of the story. There are three kinds of FF: Oneshots, Multi-chaptered stories, and collaborations. Oneshots are basically just expanding or re-writing a scene. They’re just one chapter. Multi-chaptered stories usually start from a specific scene and the author of the FF twists the story completely. For example: Bella dies when she jumps off the cliff and Edward meets a new girl…The author expands on that change in scenery. Collaborations are just when two or more authors create a FF together.

 

What is really cool about this is that you know that FF writers are just writing for the heck of it. They’ll never get published, but they don’t care. That is true loyalty to a story. If I ever get published, I can’t wait to see the crazy stuff my fans come up with.

 

However, FF isn’t really filtered out for vulgarity, inappropriateness, or just flat-out BAD writing, so it’s sometimes annoying trying to pick through what you want to read. Sometimes I’ll be trying to find a good quality piece on a scene I really like, but it’s so damn hard. It’s like rummaging through junk mail.

 

So you know what I do when I can’t find anything I want to read? I open my word processor and write it myself. ‘Cause you know, the best way to get anything done is to do it yerself! I really enjoy it too. Right now, I’m writing a ton of Ed Sheeran/Vampire Diaries FF, and I love it! I love the challenge of it, and I like talking to people who enjoy TVD too. It’s also great practice for me. Why? I’ll tell you.

 

Character consistency is important for any medium of writing, but especially in FF because they’re not your characters. If the characters are not consistent, readers will automatically stop reading the FF because it doesn’t feel real to them. In one TVD FanFic, Elena punched her best friend (and she would never do that) so I scoffed and left a review for the author telling them about character consistency. It’s really good practice for those who struggle with character consistency.

 

If there are a lot of people who are willing to read your FF, they will leave reviews, which will help you with your writing. Some of these people are very good writers so they leave good-quality constructive criticism , which helps me a lot (but unfortunately, I’m not insanely popular so I don’t get a ton of reviews). Some people are dorks and just say “Great job, update soon.” -eyeroll-

 

Do you think writing FanFiction helps you with your writing skills?

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