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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