Fanfiction: Good for practice, but is it ok to want to make money off of it?

NOTE: This is a topic I have some opinions on, and they may or may not be unfavorable. If you are a fanfiction writer/reader/both who cannot handle negative opinions, please click out of this post. This is just a post about my relationship with fanfiction, and while I have stuff to say, I also have to add that I am not an expert when it comes to fanfiction, or any writing.

But I feel like a more open discussion should be had, and as I've said in my about page for this blog, this place is an outlet for me.

So, I want to start off by talking about how I first found out that there was a whole community of fanfiction writers out in the internet's world.

It sounds dumb, but even though I knew what fanfiction was, I didn't realize that people shared it, and people really enjoyed reading it. I guess I always thought of it as something that to be like a guilty pleasure, not something you'd want to make a career out of.

In the past, I will admit that I really hated it. My first book, although it was semi-original, a lot of the ideas came from tv shows like Pretty Little Liars, and books I'd loved and felt a connection towards. And when I self-published, I kept insisting that that book was original.

But to be honest, it was more like fanfiction.

And after having several people tell me that, followed by a snide comment or two about how it wasn't original, this hatred started brewing inside me. I didn't want to be associated with fanfiction.

The positive result was that as of right now, I can confidently say that I really love coming up with original ideas. I no longer take scenes and ideas from tv or books. The concepts I create are all my own. Yes, I feel inspired by books and tv shows.

But I don't really feel comfortable creating something that seems to be-to me at least-a lazy twist to another idea that's been done before. And that's where my dislike for fanfiction takes over again. I feel a bitter taste in my mouth, and a sinking feeling in my stomach just writing this, but I think fanfiction is a little bit of a lazy version of writing.

Yes, you can use it for practice. And that's great! I'm sure it'll help with world building and stuff. But how can you say that you want to make money off of something when you haven't even taken the time to craft the world or the character arcs? It's like you printed a free resource off a website, and you use it for your stories.

You have made no effort to think about something like a plot that doesn't involve the typical cliches, and you've taken someone else's idea that-yes, they've shared with the world-but they would've slogged over it, given up things to get where they are as a writer, and you've just pulled the rug out from underneath them and laughing, you've taken their characters and their worlds and tried to say that you've done to work to call your writing original.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree. I don't think this is fair at all. It's a load of crap, and if you do that. And lazy. So very lazy.

And yeah, you could write a scene or a book that you'd classify as fanfiction, but... so what?

Until you've written something that truly came from your head, you can't call yourself a writer. That is all I'm saying.

Now, if I were to come across someone who said they wrote fanfiction, I guess I'd show mild interest.

"What about?"

As in, fanfiction about what?

And then if they told me, I'd ask-only if I felt like they wouldn't react negatively if they'd tried to write anything that wasn't fanfiction.

But that would be where my questions stopped, because I think that if you can write fanfiction, you are a writer, and if you're a writer, you're more capable than you might think of creating original ideas.

I get it if your original writing stemmed from years of fanfiction writing. I also get it if you have that community who writes fanfiction like you, and they're encouraging like a writerly community.

But I am not a part of that community, and I will never ever want to be.

And I will not apologize for that. So that's me.

What about you? Do you write fanfiction, or have any thoughts about it? Leave it in the comments below!

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