New Writers Should Start with Fan Fiction
They say practice makes perfect, but how can a writer practice?
Wouldn't novel writing be much easier if everything was already done for you?
Characters' names and descriptions are all done and taken care of.
The setting has already been established through previous works so only minor details are needed to ground the character into the scene.
Readers already coming into the story know the full background of what they're getting into.
Fanfiction is the best place to start as a new writer.
If you've spent any time on the internet or have ventured anywhere near Tumblr then you know exactly what fanfiction is.
If you haven't you're missing out on technology's greatest creation.
Say you've fallen in love with the characters from the novel and you consume everything you can about it. You've read the books, you've seen the movies, but it's not quite enough.
After rereading the same story over and over, you still love it, but you're looking for something new.
Enter: Fanfiction.
Fanfiction gives readers the chance to spend more time with the characters they fell in love with, but see them in new and different ways.
Maybe the main character falls in love with something else, or battle with challenges that weren't in the original story. Maybe the races and sexual orientation of the character change to help readers feel more at home. Maybe characters that met their death in these novels are suddenly brought back and given new chance.
Fanfiction opens up a whole new world where everything can be as the reader wants it to be.
Before you go off and say those who write fanfiction are not true writers, stop for a moment, and take look at history and all the great writers that have ever been.
Think of Shakespeare.
Just in case you didn't know it. The most established fanfiction writer is in fact Shakespeare himself, including his most famous story of Romeo and Juliet.
Shakespeare's principal source for the plot was The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562), a long narrative poem by the English poet Arthur Brooke, who had based his poem on a French translation of a tale by the Italian Matteo Bandello.
Fanfiction is sometimes just what makes the literary world go round.
Well that all sound great for readers, but how is this good for writers?
Well someone has to write it!
Sites such as:
All are websites dedicated to readers and writers that want to bring new lives to these stories in an open, welcoming, free space.
With characters and a backstory that are already written writers can practice the other important aspects of writing a story such as
- Story Pacing
- Dialogue
- Receiving Feedback and Brushing off Criticism
- Find Inspiration for a New Work
Authors have been inspired by other works of fiction for as long as fiction has been around.
The best example of this recently is the Fifty Shades of Grey series written by E.L. James. This was originally Fanfiction based on…
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.
Do you know what Twilight is based on?
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
Inspiration has to come from somewhere. Humans are great writers, but that doesn't mean all of our ideas come out of thin air. Someone thought of it before and we are just inventing a new way to do it.
It won't hurt to try.
Give rewriting a scene from your favorite book, that you wish had ended differently, a chance and put your imagination and writing skills to the test.
Through writing, fanfiction writers can practice their story writing before going full steam ahead into their own original story, characters, and setting.
Practice makes perfect and fanfiction is the best way for a new writer to practice.
Write, write some more, and then don't stop.
With love,
B.K. xo
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About the Creator
Elise L. Blake
Elise is a full-time writing coach and novelist. Blake is a recent college graduate from Southern New Hampshire University where she earned her BA in Creative Writing.
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Comments (1)
I started with fan fiction too