The Fanfiction Post

Why Adelynne Decided to Start Writing Fanfiction Again: Nikki IMed this to me a few days ago, but I hadn’t gotten a chance to say anything about it. It’s a really good article, especially this part:

Writing original worlds is, by nature, a lonely exercise. Even collaboration is difficult because the characters are yours. You’ve thought of them, built up an image in your head. In your mind’s eye is a background far more detailed than will ever make it on the page. And there is always the danger that someone will take your beautiful creation and turn it into something you consider the absolute antithesis.

Fanfiction holds no such conundrum. The characters don’t belong to you. You didn’t create them, and you are not entitled to be their keeper. You borrow them for a while, play and share nicely, and put them back on the shelf for others when you’re done. And best of all, there is that community present so that you can show people and say “look what I made them do!”

That’s how I feel about fanfiction, and why it has still held something of an allure for me for the past few years, even though I haven’t been very active in that time. I have tried to set up a system wherein the original writing could have these same traits… the community, the ‘look what I did’, the ‘it’s your turn’... but so far haven’t been successful.

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