Self Pub Saga Part 3 - A Defense of Fanfiction

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Let's go back in time to 2006. I am a rejected actress and a rejected author (see all that here). I have lost people close to me and I have no idea what to do with myself. I drown my sorrows in cheap DVD sets of TV shows from the bargain bin. That's when I stumbled on a certain show that had me passionately shipping a certain couple and a certain outcome. Neither happened and I won't go into the angsty whining I did. I'm sure you've been there.

The point is that I started writing what I would like to see happen. And there were a lot of people who wanted the same thing. It was addictive. Not only did I have a built-in readership who wanted to read what little old me was writing. But I could jump right into the action, whether of the investigative or violent variety, or the smutty. There was no exposition needed, since no one reads a fic without already knowing the characters. And there were comments and reviews that were always so complimentary.

The thing about fic is that, if people don't like it, they usually click away rather than leave a nasty comment. Anyone who trolls fic is usually booted from the forum or community quickly because most of us know the guts it takes to put our writing out there, even under a pseudonym.  Between the praise and the "please post more soon" and the camaraderie, I was hooked.

It also just so happened that those stories were smutty. As much as I shied away from the smutty bits in my rejected original works, I embraced it here.

I found out I was pretty good at smut, at making it seem different each time, at only inserting a sex scene when it had a reason to exist. I think the fact that I was writing for an audience, always thinking of what they might think of how I'm serving the characters, helped me judge when the smut was serving the story or was just there for titillation. I had eyes on me and I learned.

Also, with the fact that my real name had no risk in this, I branched out. I wrote things that were more horror-based, action-based, dark stuff, crack!fic, all in the safety of my fandom. I just felt very free to play around in a way I might not with the pressure of "will this be successful?" We'd do events and request fics and just always stretch our writing muscles.

I think fic is a valuable training ground,  great way to grow as a writer. I know that there are some authors or showrunners who frown on fic or who can even be litigious about people playing with their characters. But I think, once a work enters into fandom, part of it belongs to the audience. And much like a cover song or a meme, people like to leave their stamp on things in a public way. It's done out of love for the characters and the world they live in, even if it's also born out of that frustration of not getting what you want.

For me, it's almost like someone writing a spec fic for a TV show, except without being kept within the boundaries of the show's style. The fic author develops their own style of writing, slowly but surely until, at least for me and some of my close friends, they're ready to branch out and take what they learned on the road. The show I wrote for is long gone, but I made friends who are now professional writers and editors thanks to fandom and fic. And we encourage each other to write, check each others' work, and build each other up when we're blocked.

There is a downside, of course, and it's that fic can be hard to escape. You get addicted to the easy high of comments and kudos and the safety of the nest is hard to leave. It's hard to get up the confidence to put that work in front of virtual strangers or *gasp* expect to be paid. Who the hell am I to be paid for this? I'm just some girl who writes smutty fics. Do I really think my own characters and my own world can be as interesting as ones written by a team of professionals and played by charismatic actors?

Well, I don't know. But I'm still going to try. The point is that fanfic is a safe training ground, an encouraging environment in which to grow as a writer, and I would have put away my idea of writing for good if fic hadn't helped me out. So it's a good thing my show had such a crappy ending!

To be continued in...

Self Pub Saga Part 3: How Many Drafts Does It Take?!