her

I'm sure that in my childhood years I wrote many stories, crafted many tales. But the first one that really meant something to me was the Luke Hemmings short story fanfiction. If you're unfamiliar, Luke Hemmings is the lead singer of the pop-rock band 5 Seconds of Summer. And if you're unfamiliar with the term or the inner-workings of fanfiction, well, then, maybe this article isn't for you. Fanfiction has always been (and will likely always be) a staple in fandom culture, but I feel like it had a true resurgence in the early 2010s, specifically 2013-2016, years that some affectionately don The Tumblr Era. One Direction were at the peak of their fame, YouTube was forming into an entirely new beast, and K-pop was on the rise. The opportunity for fandom and fanfiction was greater than ever. So, as a young teen obsessed with both One Direction and 5 Seconds of Summer, I thought I would try my hand as a writer on the infamous app/website Wattpad.

The genesis of my Wattpad time started with the story 'her'. 'her' is told from the point of view of Luke Hemmings in the format of an essay he's writing for school. The topic of the essay is love, and he decides to write about his experience with love and the girl he loves, referred to as 'her'. The chapters are each section of his essay, each named after a quality that led him to fall in love with 'her'. The chapters are as follows: her eyes, her laugh, her determination, her outlook, her childishness, her confidence, her pout, her strength, her comfort, her. The epilogue of the story concludes with an email from Luke to his teacher years later filling her in on his life now.

The chapters are little anecdotes from the time in this relationship, and the whole vibe is just short, sweet fluffyness. Although I'm a more accomplished writer now with a different style, I'm still very proud of this project. I think fanfiction as a whole sparked my love and passion for writing, and I stand by it being an amazing gateway for young writers.

The story today has over 60,000 reads, many kind comments, and has been translated on Wattpad by other authors into over 10 languages. I wrote a sequel to the story, which garnered 7,000 reads, as well as five other unrelated stories that had varying degrees of success. But it isn't the mild success of the stories that made me want to continue writing. Even if a story only had one comment, if that comment was positive, it fueled my love for writing Seeing that something I created could brighten someone's day, or someone could care enough about the narrative I crafted to want more chapters, made me feel important. It made me realize that writing was something I loved and could share with others to love it, too. Storytelling was something I was good at.

Fanfiction writing in particular became a release. I could escape into imaginative stories and new worlds with celebrities who felt familiar and comfortable to me. Fanfiction gets a bad rap these days due to the odder side of it, including fetishes and exclusively sexual content or shipping real-life people together who are uncomfortable with the idea. But I reminisce on my fanfiction writing days with a fondness in my heart.

Although I no longer write fanfiction, I keep the spirit of it going with other works of mine. The process and the era will always be thanked for their role in my writing journey. I now have several novels in progress and hope to make a career out of writing little stories. And no matter if thousands or just one sweet soul reads my work, I will attribute the success to her and remember those original kind commenters who helped to make my love into a lifestyle. So, thank you, Luke Hemmings, for having nothing to do with me or my life, yet somehow being the catalyst of it all.