Thoughts on fan fiction/roleplaying fiction (especially for a new writer)?

[hopewrites]

Re: using pre-built worlds in fiction

I wouldn't say it hinders one's ability to create believable worlds of one's own. The skills it develops are useful when defining one's own world building needs.
No one's going to stand for an emo-vulcan. So when writing in a pre-built world (be it IRL or someone elses) one has to make accute observations about said world. Same for pre-existing characters. IE no one would stand for a Black-Prez-Lincoln ...

These are over the top examples, but my pont is that to do it WELL one has to be as familiar with the pre-existing world as its creator to write effectively in it.
That hardly sounds lazy to me.

 

[JonH]

I think you have to decide what you want to write and why you're writing. That should answer your question. If you want to write stories for pleasure, yours and others, then why not do it through fanfic? If you want to sell your stories, fanfic is probably not the right way to go, except as a stepping stone. Similarly RPG fiction has a limited market.

No one's going to stand for an emo-vulcan . . . . no one would stand for a Black-Prez-Lincoln ...

Dang, Hope! If I had the time, I'd love to write those stories. Admittedly putting them both into a single story would be a true challenge.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I think Fan Fiction is something if you like it, but pointless if your focus is to write your own stuff and/or get published. I wrote a Star Trek story to amuse my kids about 20 years ago. I couldn't otherwise see the point of it.

 

[Laeraneth]

Amusingly, my secondary 'world' of writing that i'm doing (the less serious one) is done partly with the hope that it would be broad and interesting and diverse enough to BE the kind of fantasy world people might want to set stories or roleplay in. (Fanfiction hadn't crossed my mind, but as someone said, roleplaying in someone elses world and fanfic'ing it is essentially the same idea.)

I wouldn't say I think for a second I could ever hope to challenge any of the established settings, but hell, in this interconnected internet age, if I could just end up with a few hundred people going "wow, that's a fun setting, I could SO set a great story in that!" then that would be awesome.

 

[Vladd67]

I think Fan Fiction is something if you like it, but pointless if your focus is to write your own stuff and/or get published. I wrote a Star Trek story to amuse my kids about 20 years ago. I couldn't otherwise see the point of it.

Never seen the Strange New World books
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_Strange_New_Worlds

 

[Susan Boulton]

Some people would class Una McCormack's work as, "fan fiction". She writes both in the Star Trek world and Dr Who. I certainly don't. Her books are some of the best set in these worlds. She began writing, fan fiction and posting it online. Then she was asked, yes asked, to write in the Trek worlds by a major publisher. She is a highly talented writer that creates both her own worlds and pushes the envelope on the so called, "known worlds", of Star Trek and Dr Who.

http://trekcore.com/blog/2013/09/exclusive-una-mccormack-interview/

As for a writer starting off and writing fan fiction, it does your career no harm if you are a good writer, it allows you to learn your craft. Naomi Novik began writing fan fiction.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Novik

People tend to look down their noses at folks that write fan fiction, they shouldn't.

 

[Darkranger85]

I don't see why it should be looked down on whether it gets published or not.

If it's something that you enjoy, do it. Original world or not, it is still writing and it is flexing the creative process, just in a different way than in creating your own world.

Also, a question that I think is worth asking about your original post is, what exactly do you mean by "the development of myself as a writer"?

Do you mean the improvement of your skills as a writer? Or do you mean that you want fanfic to be your goal as far as published works?

If you mean simply "Will it help me become a better writer?" then in my opinion it's a resounding yes. Obviously you would want to do creative things of your own as well, but as it's been pointed out in others replies, it takes a great deal of skill to capture the character and personality of an already established character.

I've seen fan fiction where the writer failed to capture the essence of well known characters on just about every level. It's not as easy as saying. Captain Picard strolled onto the bridge and said "Make it so!"

It takes skill. In some ways, even more skill than writing for one of your own characters.

I myself have thought about writing a Star Trek: Voyager fanfic. It was going to be a complete spoof on the series with the main difference being that the crew is different and they are in a Sovereign class ship instead of an intrepid.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I don't see why it should be looked down on whether it gets published or not.

If it's something that you enjoy, do it. Original world or not, it is still writing and it is flexing the creative process, just in a different way than in creating your own world.

Also, a question that I think is worth asking about your original post is, what exactly do you mean by "the development of myself as a writer"?

Do you mean the improvement of your skills as a writer? Or do you mean that you want fanfic to be your goal as far as published works?

If you mean simply "Will it help me become a better writer?" then in my opinion it's a resounding yes. Obviously you would want to do creative things of your own as well, but as it's been pointed out in others replies, it takes a great deal of skill to capture the character and personality of an already established character.

I've seen fan fiction where the writer failed to capture the essence of well known characters on just about every level. It's not as easy as saying. Captain Picard strolled onto the bridge and said "Make it so!"

It takes skill. In some ways, even more skill than writing for one of your own characters.

I myself have thought about writing a Star Trek: Voyager fanfic. It was going to be a complete spoof on the series with the main difference being that the crew is different and they are in a Sovereign class ship instead of an intrepid.

So here's a question for you: If you're swapping out the entire crew and the ship, why not just write an original work with the same basic premise?

I kinda disagree on some of your points though. While I agree people shouldn't "look down on" fan fiction writers, there is something of a point to that side of the argument. To be clear, I'm talking specifically and only about the "you're not flexing all your writing muscles" bit. Who cares if a fan wants to express themselves artistically in someone else's world? People don't "look down on" painters or digital artists who put out Trek, Wars, or Who artwork, so why should the writers be any different?

But just think about all the stuff you don't have to do writing fan fic that you have to do when creating original work. Some are necessary, some aren't, granted. There's: Creating characters, characterization, establishing conflict, mannerisms, setting, politics, economy, sounds, ship design, tech level, alien species, backstory, on and on and on. All that's left is to put pre-made characters from a pre-made setting into a possibly pre-made conflict. Sure, you still have to write the thing, but the vast majority of the heavy lifting is already done.

Fan fiction can be an amazing gateway into writing original work, absolutely. But be careful, don't kid yourself, it's not the same as writing original work. (Whatever is actually original is an entirely different discussion.)

 

[ginny]

I know of at least one fan fiction author who started with Star Trek fan fiction but had issues with the prime directive and after several nasty arguments with die hard fans started writing their own universe sans the prime directive.

So here's a question for you: If you're swapping out the entire crew and the ship, why not just write an original work with the same basic premise?

I kinda disagree on some of your points though. While I agree people shouldn't "look down on" fan fiction writers, there is something of a point to that side of the argument. To be clear, I'm talking specifically and only about the "you're not flexing all your writing muscles" bit. Who cares if a fan wants to express themselves artistically in someone else's world? People don't "look down on" painters or digital artists who put out Trek, Wars, or Who artwork, so why should the writers be any different?

But just think about all the stuff you don't have to do writing fan fic that you have to do when creating original work. Some are necessary, some aren't, granted. There's: Creating characters, characterization, establishing conflict, mannerisms, setting, politics, economy, sounds, ship design, tech level, alien species, backstory, on and on and on. All that's left is to put pre-made characters from a pre-made setting into a possibly pre-made conflict. Sure, you still have to write the thing, but the vast majority of the heavy lifting is already done.

Fan fiction can be an amazing gateway into writing original work, absolutely. But be careful, don't kid yourself, it's not the same as writing original work. (Whatever is actually original is an entirely different discussion.)

I think it was Robert Heinlein who admitted to taking several characters from contemporary writers to create some of his characters and also using several ideas borrowed from other sources. Since his fiction relied heavily on the message he was trying to deliver, he used the best tools available to get it out there. The problem he had was that often people completely missed what his message was, which is ironic for someone who had learned early the need to convey his meaning in the least wordy and most concise manner. The upside is that he wanted to stimulate minds and start discussions and he certainly started a lot of discussions.

I think fan fiction is often a means of continuing a discussion that was started by the original work and creating a piece as part of a dialogue is not necessarily lazy or uncreative.

 

[Darkranger85]

@fishbowl:

I see the point you are making, but look at it like a real workout.

Is there anything wrong with pushups because they don't work out your abs? No.

I'm in no way saying that it would be a good idea to only write fan fiction. All I'm saying is that its not detrimental and it does indeed work on your writing muscle.

In particular, the ability to capture a particular set of personality traits and mannerisms.

That being said, this is all IMHO.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

@fishbowl:

I see the point you are making, but look at it like a real workout.

Is there anything wrong with pushups because they don't work out your abs? No.

I'm in no way saying that it would be a good idea to only write fan fiction. All I'm saying is that its not detrimental and it does indeed work on your writing muscle.

In particular, the ability to capture a particular set of personality traits and mannerisms.

That being said, this is all IMHO.

But there's not one "writing muscle", there's dozens. Dialogue is different than description, which is different than characterization, which is different than worldbuilding, which is different than plotting, which is different than pacing. On and on. Each of these and others have to be worked on. You can exercise each one, granted, but if you're focusing on one or two at the exclusion of the others, it's like this, really:

Think of this dude as a fan fic writer. Sure, his arms are great (characterization), but look at his legs (worldbuilding). Wildly underdeveloped compared to his arms. To the point where the word "grotesque" is appropriate. So yes, focusing on one exercise to the exclusion of the others is detrimental.

Just writing fan fic is like always skipping leg day.

Don't be this guy! Don't skip leg day!

 

[Darkranger85]

Yes, I agree. Which is why I said:

@fishbowl:
I'm in no way saying that it would be a good idea to only write fan fiction. All I'm saying is that its not detrimental and it does indeed work on your writing muscle.

True, I did say "writing muscle" in the singular, but the more important part of my statement was the beginning that states that it wouldn't be a good idea to only write fan fic.

 

[Michael Colton]

Also, a question that I think is worth asking about your original post is, what exactly do you mean by "the development of myself as a writer"?

Do you mean the improvement of your skills as a writer? Or do you mean that you want fanfic to be your goal as far as published works?

Yes, I was referring to my skill as a writer. I am brand new to writing, so developing my skill and avoiding developing bad habits are my primary concerns at this point.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

You've done non-fiction though?

 

[hopewrites]

To be clear, I'm talking specifically and only about the "you're not flexing all your writing muscles" bit. Who cares if a fan wants to express themselves artistically in someone else's world? People don't "look down on" painters or digital artists who put out Trek, Wars, or Who artwork, so why should the writers be any different?

But just think about all the stuff you don't have to do writing fan fic that you have to do when creating original work. Some are necessary, some aren't, granted. There's: Creating characters, characterization, establishing conflict, mannerisms, setting, politics, economy, sounds, ship design, tech level, alien species, backstory, on and on and on. All that's left is to put pre-made characters from a pre-made setting into a possibly pre-made conflict. Sure, you still have to write the thing, but the vast majority of the heavy lifting is already done.

Fan fiction can be an amazing gateway into writing original work, absolutely. But be careful, don't kid yourself, it's not the same as writing original work. (Whatever is actually original is an entirely different discussion.)

I agree with you to a point but vehemently disagree with the statement that is apparently being made that FanFic is cut and paste. What I agree is that it wouldnt mater what art form you were using, true fans will eviscerate bad photoshoping work on what they love.

I disagree with the statement that ALL FanFic is "just placing pre-made characters into pre-made worlds dealing with pre-established conflicts." Anyone who writes FanFic like that is going to have their head bitten off.
Since I felt that was not what was behind discussed in this thread, since what I understood to be under question here was HOW FanFic and its pseudo-sibling Roll Play worked to build writing skills; I ASSUMED that bad cut and past of characters was not on the table.

I argue that one does have to think about and deal with and therefor GROW in the areas you listed; characterization, mannerizims, back story, tech ect... because one must understand these things within their established world (fictional or not) to write them well.

Next people will be saying that writing from reality is too easy. There's no world building there. To which I say "HA!" Sure you dont have to play god and create the universe and write the laws of physics, but you better ******* understand them and not bend the **** out of them or people with pull your work to shreds and stone you out of town. (Ok not really. Maybe.)
Writing from any of the pre-established worlds be they Harry Potter, Middle Earth, Who, or this thing we call reality and are all stuck living in for the present... its the same amount of work to get it right.

I think fan fiction is often a means of continuing a discussion that was started by the original work and creating a piece as part of a dialogue is not necessarily lazy or uncreative.

This! This is what good FanFic (or an RP set in someone else' world) is. (Emphasis added)

Yes, I was referring to my skill as a writer. I am brand new to writing, so developing my skill and avoiding developing bad habits are my primary concerns at this point.

I highly doubt you would develop bad habits from such practices. As I said above, it did not occur to me that cutting and pasting was on your "try this out and see if it works for me" list.
What I understood you to be asking was that if you spent time studying a beloved work and took the love you had for it and built understanding of the universe it was in (not just the parts of the world you are shown on the page, but the whole of its history and creation as though you were a resident there and living in it) and then used those skills to write something fun and thought provoking; would it forward you as a writer over all.
If that is your question my answer is "yes" provided you go forward with the plan and understanding that you will take it all further.

But then I always tell people to plan to go forward further than they are talking about. For me, if you are not progressing your are regressing and might as well be dead.

 

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I'm not saying fanfic is write-by-numbers. Not at all. I'm not saying fanfic is objectively easy, rather that it's subjectively easier than original fiction in certain respects.

You seem to be focusing on the ways all fiction are similar and claiming that because the writer should be internally consistent that it doesn't make any difference if one writer creates their setting from whole cloth or if another uses a pre-established setting. That's simply wrong. All fiction needs to be internally consistent (unless the purpose in to not be), that doesn't make creating a setting easy. Yes, setting a piece in modern day New York is easier than inventing a secondary world. Why? Because you can shorthand so many aspects of the setting. You don't need to explain that Americans are rude, nor what a car or truck are, or how they look or sound. A skyscraper is a known quantity that you don't need to describe because your reader already knows what they are as a type. If the details of this skyscraper are important you'd need to describe it. Otherwise you have a convenient shorthand for thousands to millions of objects and details for your setting.

Here's a line of prose, what can you tell about the setting from this?

"The small green shuttle shook as it cut through the atmosphere."

Not much. We're in the future. In space above a planet or planetoid. Spacecraft exist. Likely something's piloting the craft. And for whatever reason that this ship is descending into this atmosphere is important.

Here's the same line with one word changed, what can you tell about the setting from this?

"The small Klingon shuttle shook as it cut through the atmosphere."

Only several million words of backstory, setting info, politics, species info, tech level, generation long animosities, and thousands of other details of worldbuilding.

My line that you quoted wasn't meant to mean write-by-numbers. Rather that by placing a piece of fiction in an established setting you have a shortcut, that shorthand I mentioned above, to get details in the reader's mind. With original work you have to work harder to set up the conflict and backstory of why two species are in conflict.

With a pre-established setting you can just say "The Cardassians and the Bajorans were fighting again", or "America is at war with Iraq" and that carries a lot of information. Not so with an original setting. If I write "The Slighs and the Djarians were fighting again" it's all but meaningless until I do the work of worldbuilding to establish who those species are and why they're fighting again.

That's really all I'm saying. That, because of the above, you don't work a few writing muscles when you write fanfic. That's it. Not better, not worse. You're just skipping a vital part of writing in an original setting. A part that you can't afford to neglect if you want to go on to write original works, much less publish them.

 

[hopewrites]

I continue to disagree with you, but that is because of a standard I have that I see is not actually standard.

Hand a 10year old Jane Austin and they will (if they Read it read it, not just look at all the words in order) understand much of the world she writes in, more so than some other works written at the same time. Why? Because Jane was a better writer who understood humanity better and so her characters stand the test of time? Perhaps a lot of that may be true, but there was something else she did well. And that was put the reader into the setting/characters head ect by assuming that she had to put him there. She did not take for granted that her readers would know everything about what she wrote. I've never been anywhere in Enland, and (untill I came here) knew only the stereo types (without really trusting them) that I had been exposed to. Yet when I read Austin I can see the great houses as they were when she wrote about them. Smell the airs, taste the waters, enjoy the people...

Many forum members here will ask about certain geographical areas to get little details right. I'm certainly not going to try and short-hand an area I know nothing about by slapping some stereo types on the page and calling it good. What I hear you arguing is that FanFic writers do this for this their work simply because they can.

I havent read enough FanFic to say this is or is not so. If it is so, it is sloppy writing. But sloppy writing that could apply to a writer of any style and is not the soul prerogative of FanFic writers. The phrase "the New York summer sun" is just as descriptive to me as "the Zarconian summer sun" or "the Galfarstan ecliptic glare" because I have never been to New York in the summer and only know what I hear about it.

My point is not that writing FanFic or RP will endow a writer with every possible advantage... My point is that the disadvantages presented are ones writers should be weary of in any genre, not just the ones apparently infamous for them.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I'd rather spend time inventing my own worlds and Characters. But Fan Fic is a valid short cut to writing a story faster. I think more advantageous for a short story as for it the time overhead to "invent" a world + characters is high compared to a 100K+ Novel. Perhaps this is also why established authors often use "existing worlds" from their novels for later short stories or extend short stories to become a "world" (Foundation Trilogy and later additions).

Here's a line of prose, what can you tell about the setting from this?

"The small green shuttle shook as it cut through the atmosphere."

Not much. We're in the future. In space above a planet or planetoid. Spacecraft exist. Likely something's piloting the craft. And for whatever reason that this ship is descending into this atmosphere is important.
Here's the same line with one word changed, what can you tell about the setting from this?

"The small Klingon shuttle shook as it cut through the atmosphere."

Only several million words of backstory, setting info, politics, species info, tech level, generation long animosities, and thousands of other details of worldbuilding.

"NASA's shuttle shook as it cut through the atmosphere."
This is why Terry Pratchett's Discworld works so well. He triggers the memories of things you do know well. It's MUCH harder to invent an "Interstellar" or Planetary culture from scratch with no references. Which is why most Fantasy which is on Mediaeval "Earth alike planets" smuggles in all the things we are familiar with.

It's much easier to write fiction with a real historic or contemporary earth background, and so as we are so familiar with Star Trek / Star Wars etc a "fan fic" could be a mediaeval or contemporary Earth detective / Romance / Thriller / War /Spy story simply set in the pre-created universe. Fan Fic lets you try your hand at a plot / dialogue / writing style without the additional overhead of inventing characters or a background Universe / World. Your own from scratch world / characters do have to be very much better than Star Trek (especially for Science) to complement and not detract from the story. Of course the better the story is told (the plot isn't always so important, there are many popular successful books in the past I am amazed to realise are purely separate events stitched together with hardly any plot) the less important the depth of Characters and the "World" is.

My current WIP had a 1995 contemporary Earth in the part of Prologue I wrote in 1995. So first I transposed that to an imaginary Earth like planet. That didn't work. It would have worked if it had been a planet well known in "fan fic", this was because the main character is from Earth and transposing that killed all the required cultural comparisons between her new Alien residence and her familiarity with Earth history and culture. So there were two solutions, one would have been to turn it into fan fic. The other would be to have set it very distant in our "real Earth" future. Neither of those suited my intent, so I simply removed most of the Prologue and made it Chapter 1 with all the items that seemed fine in 1995 but odd today removed. Hopefully the Earth scenes will still seem contemporary now in 50 years (by removing details). Why couldn't it have remained frozen in 1995? Because we didn't get visited by a giant Starship. There is no chance of a Stealth visit when your ship is over 16km long, has a massive Ion Drive and you "wink" into existence about 17 light days from Earth travelling initially at 0.5C (due to "Jump Drive" of unspecified mechanism) and quite obviously with a massive propulsion system (probably visible exhaust even at that distance on binoculars!) as a comet would have fixed orbit. So the trick of the Earth scenes at the start is to write it so no matter when it's read it seems like next week. The Fan Fic would have been easier. However the astute reader will decide from other allusions of the main character that she must have finished college in early 1990s and thus the Ch1 must be about 1995. Which will be fine as by then you'll be too sucked in to worry about having somehow missed the Starship in the news nearly 20 years ago.

This was the year that the Internet entered public consciousness and also the year it was completely privatized and the United States Government no longer funded it with public money - in April 1995 the NSFNET was retired. America Online and Prodigy offered access to the World Wide Web system for the first time this year, releasing browsers that made it easily accessible to the general public.

Actually I'd used email since 1987 (Prestel & BBS from 1980) and I'm sure I had Dialup Internet and a Mosaic Browser for WWW before Windows 95 was released. It was 1995 I first created a web site though. In my original 1994 or 1995 text the Aliens were slurping information via the Internet, but using "gopher". However I had designed a hyper text based User Interface in 1989, nothing to do with Web Sites because though Internet existed as Arpanet/Bitnet then Tim Berners Lee only proposed the HTTP based hypertext used for WWW in 1989 and the 1st version public was 1991 or 1992. I worked doing Telecoms HW and programming 1983 to 1988 and then on a pocket Information gadget (R&D manager and lead designer) 1988 to 1990. I wrote extensively about Project Xanadu in several papers 1987 In 1986 or 1987 I demonstrated a Data Flow GUI based program code allowing top down decomposition graphically by hyperlink. This used a modified version of Futurenet CAE Schematic Capture. I made a presentation at University of Limerick (which was still the National Institute for Higher Education, Limerick then, like a posh Polytech)

No mention of visiting Starships here

 

[ZombieWife]

I really don't agree that you'll be cutting yourself out of world-building. I mean, it's possible, sure. Some people just want to play in another person's world, but rarely does that world stay the same once they're done. Furthermore, many fanfic writers I know expand the world--especially if that aspect of the universe/setting has not been fully developed in canon material.

Also, some of us (RAISES HAND) builds the world first. I have maps, descriptions, my gods, mythology. It's like a mini "Guide to ZombieWife's world." Then I write in that world. I still have to describe my world and how it works. A good FF writer will have to do the same.

A good number won't, I'm sure. They'll skip some of it, but I have know quite a few FF writers who do partake in world-building.

Also keep in mind that we're not writing Tolkien-esque world-building anymore. It's very quick, fast-paced, and efficient. Look at GRRM's work. He world-builds or scene-builds usually in the first paragraph if every chapter. Here we are, overlooking a river. Fifty years ago, Robert Baratheon fought that Targaryen guy down there. 2 sentences later, we're done.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I'd rather not. I read a book of short Stories and Game of Thrones before there was ever talk of TV. No more G RR Martin for me.