author_by_night | (no subject) (Reply)

Five Reasons

1. It's completely natural for me. When I was five, I'd make my Mom play Strawberry Shortcake with me - and would be very specific about character. Nothing changed until I got much older; until I was about thirteen, I'd play with dolls - only instead of them being Ken, Barbie and Midge, their names were Logan, Dawn and Mallory. I'd also act stuff out, as though I was in a play, only I'd be more than one person.

Then I started writing about them. I gave it a try with Full House, and it worked. In 7th and 8th grades, I wrote about book characters we'd read in class. By 8th, I was writing fanfic, and by 9th grade, I was in the HP fandom. (And I definitely had ideas I "acted out" before then - no, I'm not insane, a lot of writers do this).

So, yes, fanfic has always been an impulse.

2. I love to speculate. Writing has always been a way of speculating, of "what ifs" and "I wonder ifs".

3. I love to think about what could be, even when I know JKR doesn't intend it. Its unlikely that Umbridge and Olive Hornby are the same person, but it was fun to write. And it's fun to give Remus a little sister, even though I have a feeling he's an only child. It is sometimes all in the fun.

4. It helps me write original stuff. Being made to learn about someone's characters helps me write my own; I realized that I need to decide what I want to be clear to the reader.

5. Fanfic is a wonderful community. We wank, we bicker, we have ship wars, we have miscommunications. But at the end of the day, if one of us has lost a child, has found out a child is sick, or is in a crisis and needs immediate attention, there's always someone there. And we have a strong identity between one another; fic writers, no matter how different, always seem to have something in common besides the fandom.

Five refutations (Statements people have made about fanfic/fanfic writers, and my countering of them).

1. Fanfic is plagarism. It can be; but as long as you don't go around saying "I wrote the books", it's not. And while not crediting stuff you've used is plagarism, crediting isn't.

2. Fanfic writers think themselves mightier than the writers. Not so. Oh, yes, there are some like that, but the majority of us feel very relieved that we're even allowed to write fanfic. And if someone thinks they are better... I say "so what"? As long as they're not selling their work or anything, it's an opinion. Opinions aren't illegal.

3. Fanfic writers are fangirls. Well, some of us are. Got a problem with that? Besides, half the time, "fangirling" isn't serious. Not to mention all the guy fanficwriters out there.

4. The Harry Potter books are PG; PG-13 and above is an insult, and makes it impossible for parents to leave seven year olds unmonitored. Yes, it does, but that's not my fault. I have a right to enjoy the books too, and to enjoy fanfiction. I won't deny that it's hard - I wouldn't even let my four and six year old cousins look up "Scooby Doo" on google alone. But there are ways to research safe sites. And as I stated before - don't blame us.

5. Fanfic writers aren't real writers. I read that from someone who is the scriptwriter of a tv show, and could easily have said "writing a tv show is nowhere near as good as writing a book." But I didn't, because that's not true. There's different forms of writing.

And that is the rant of the day from yours truly.