Fan Fiction: The Training Wheels of Writing

Some of my high school writing notebooks

“Hey, Cat, what’re you writing?”

These words literally made my heart race and my face flush in high school. Because how do you explain fan fiction to someone who doesn’t know what fan fiction is? Or knows and thinks fan fiction is bizarre? Well, guess what, I did a whole presentation on fan fiction in university. And apparently it’s really not that uncommon a hobby.

I want to tell you I wrote my first fan fiction when I was about fifteen years old, but I think that would be a lie. I’m pretty sure I started writing fan fiction when I was all of twelve years old and exaggerating a dream I had about meeting Aaron Carter. Yeah, that’s weird, it’s ok for you to say it.
Actually, the idea of any fan fiction based on any celebrity is kind of creepy isn’t it? You’re not going to offend me, because I totally understand why someone would think that. There were times where I’d stop in the middle of writing a scene and ask myself what I was doing.

But here’s the kicker: I view every character in a fanfic as fictional. Not everyone does. Some people write exactly how they think said celebrity might act. I can’t. For me that feels like crossing a boundary. I pull elements from their personalities, but I create the rest.

I have always liked writing stories. Probably since grade 2 when my teacher told me I was a good creative writer. I was told the same throughout my schooling – even from the ever critical English teacher at my high school who wouldn’t let you handwrite in anything but blue pen. “Caitlin-“ he actually always called me by my last name, but anyway... “Caitlin, you’re a good creative writer. But that’s the problem. I need you to write an essay about the Mayans so I can give you an ‘A’. Stop using all these whimsical words you don’t need!” You’re the best. Mr. B! I refrained from the whimsical words in university essays!

So I always liked to write, but that’s where I found myself stuck. Ideas, but I could never picture characters. How do you create a person that doesn’t exist? I mean, in reality it takes nine months to grow an actual human! And even then some people never discover who they actually are. (I will make another post about developing an original character from the ground up).

I turned to the internet for help. I found fan fiction. There are all kinds of terms and types of fan fiction. If you were in the mood to read some Star Trek/Star Wars crossover it existed. Disappointed that your favourite TV show or movie didn’t land on the happy ending you wanted? Someone probably wrote the happy version on the internet. Wish your favourite artists would get married? There’s probably a fan fic about that too.

So as someone who couldn’t create a character, I adopted the idea of using my favourite bands in a plot. I didn’t have to imagine what they’d look like, and I had the bare basics of a personality mapped out. Training wheels I called it.

Fan fiction to me is training wheels for individuals who want to write original works but are struggling in one or more departments of making it a reality. Say you’re struggling with creating a fantasy world. You could borrow the setting of Narnia, Wonderland, or even MCR’s ‘Battery City’ or ‘The Black Parade’. Maybe you’re like me and didn’t know how to create your own characters. You could try taking your favourite movie character and creating a backstory for them (a whole slew of us always wanted to know more about Jack Mercer from ‘Four Brothers’, so we discussed it. It became an ongoing joke whether or not that kid would wear shorts in the summer or fully commit to emo-wear).

And so fan fiction became a stomping ground for me. I read a lot of it, I wrote a lot of it, and now if you were to ask me to go back and read my first fanfic you’d have to prevent me from holding a lit match to it. That’s how much my writing has improved.

The last fan fiction I wrote had me worried near the end. It was supposed to feature one of my favourite guitarists. And of course everyone who was reading it was also a fan of said guitarist and wanted the story to mainly feature him. By the end I felt like I was hardly writing any scenes with fan fiction characters. Somehow I came to the point where I would rather write scenes with just my original characters.

So, I’m done with fan fiction. The training wheels are scrapped, I don’t need them anymore. I’ve got Lizzie, Daphne, Gloria, Nikki, Jesse, Nathan, Aaron (not Carter, I swear) and a whole brigade of other characters who I somehow created from scratch and are far more important to me than any of the fan fiction characters I’ve written in the past. That’s not to say full original content is easy to write, because it’s a whole new struggle. It’s just now I know I’m capable of it.

Fan fiction taught me more about writing than any professor in university could. It taught me:

- that everyone starts somewhere.
- that some of the best authors aren’t published yet.
- that imagination has no boundaries.
- that grammar is important, but not THAT important.
- that good writing shows and doesn’t tell.
- that all five of your senses must be incorporated into a scene.
- that a character’s appearance isn’t all about how their hair is styled or what clothes they’re wearing.
- that everything has an audience.
- that monologue openings are overdone.
- that giving the plot away in the first three chapters of your story out of panic won’t keep your readers intrigued.
- that creating an original character isn’t too far off from creating a fan fiction character. Characters are bits and pieces of all the people you know in life meshed together into someone “new”.

I think the people that criticize fan fiction belong under two categories: 1. People who have never read a good fan fiction and 2. Creators who feel threatened by people writing fan fiction featuring their work.

Some famous authors have even commented on their support for fan fiction: Neil Gaiman, J.K. Rowling, S.E. Hinton... S.E. Hinton even writes ‘Supernatural’ fan fiction. So, you know, that’s gold, Ponyboy.

--Because it’s fun to step into someone else’s playground for a while. Harry Potter fans who miss the books can create new characters in the setting of Hogwarts and explore it even further. Think of all the Neverland adaptations you have heard of!

Sometimes a fan fiction can be turned into a film. The most famous example is probably ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ (probably not the best piece of literature out there and I’d place bets that far better fanfic stories have been written, but alas, this one is known) which started off as a ‘Twilight’ fan fiction. Admittedly I have never read ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, but I imagine this author probably adopted characters from ‘Twilight’ and placed them is what is known as an AU in the fan fiction community, which means ‘Alternative Universe’. It means taking characters out of the world in which they reside and placing them in an entirely different place/plot. Like Harry Potter being an average hipster boy living in the middle of New York and making a living by working at a café. No Hogwarts or magic of any kind. Unless a Vanilla Latte is your kind of magic.

I have fan fiction to credit for most of my progress as a writer. Not only did my descriptive narrative and character development improve, but it also allowed me to connect with other writers around the world. It gave me a creative outlet and built up my confidence to share my thoughts, opinions and ideas through writing.

So let’s jump back a second.

“Hey, Cat, what’re you writing?”

2007 Cat: “Well, today I might be writing about a girl named Daphne Taylor who seeks after a troublesome clique in her school and has her reputation altered. Or this could be the story my friend and I are writing about a band that crashes into a deserted island and is completely useless at everything, but still has their wit. This might be the story I’m working on about a single father who recounts the milestone events of raising his daughter from infant to adult. Could even be about Gwen Marrington and her feelings when her best friend admits he’s in love with her. Very friend zone. Very cliché. In the future I’m going to write a story about a Greaser named Sunny. I’ll write about a musician who is travelling home for the holidays – ‘Jack Frost’ will be its working title. When I’m 23 years old I will start what could be my last fan fiction. It’ll be about a girl named Lizzie Silver who befriends a grief-stricken ghost and an optimistic boy named Jesse. She’ll learn that the littlest moments in life are the big picture. It will be the most significant fanfic I’ve written. Thanks for asking what I’m writing today.”

Yeah, maybe it’s kind of weird. I know. But take heed, there sure are a lot of us fanfic weirdos out there.

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