How I feel about fan fiction.

I saw this quote on tumblr that says everything:

“Fan fiction is making teenagers better writers and better satirists, and allowing them to explore sexuality in a way decided by them rather than dictated by the entertainment industry. A purity ring doesn’t carry much meaning when Ron Weasley is pulling it off with his teeth.”

source

The whole article is good, but that quote specifically is really important.

I'm not going to talk about what makes good fan fiction, or who writes terrible fan fiction, because that's not the point. Everyone was a terrible writer at one point, and nobody starts off writing beautiful national award-winning prose. The aim is to get better, and I think writing fan fiction and posting it online in places like Mibba or WordPress or Fanfiction.net or (my personal favourite) Archive of Our Own.

When you write fan fiction, you're writing about something you already like, and when you're young and new to writing, coming up with an entirely original story with your own characters, setting, plot, etc. can be a bit daunting. I'm not saying it can't be done, but fan fiction seems to introduce a lot of young people (especially girls) to writing. This is a great thing. When you write a fan work, you're still coming up with your own ideas and concepts. Often times, you're writing about what you want to happen in a book, movie, etc. A good thing about posting this stuff online is that other people will read it and give feedback, and the more popular the fandom, it's likely you'll have more readers.

Now what the article is talking about is that writing fan fiction allows teenagers to explore their own sexualities. In case you haven't noticed, teenage girls are the biggest targets for cruel jokes, relentless criticism and abuse from society. Everything they do is scrutinized. If they like something, they're obsessive fangirls. If they don't like something, they're brats and drama queens. They're never taken seriously. They're sexualized and objectified to a disgusting degree, and then they're made to feel insecure about all of these things. The way the media portrays women's sexuality is abhorrently inaccurate and harmful to anybody young and easily influenced. Writing helps girls break away from this.

"But if anything, most fan fiction is a rejection of Rihanna and EL James's leather-bound version of sexuality. When most teenagers are faced with the miserable advice of sex education (put a condom on a carrot, use a mirror to look at your bits), or the miserable version of sexuality in porn, fan fiction offers a more honest way to engage with relationships and sex."

I really hate it when people blindly criticize those who write fan fiction. It is an important outlet for young people to explore and develop themselves on. All the cliche story lines and the corny dialogue doesn't matter, because the hope is that one day, everyone will become better writers.