Ramble – Fanfiction: Yay or Nay?

When you hear people talk about fanfiction, most people immediately think of After or Fifty Shades of Gray or other angsty Twilight stories.

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But is all fanfiction that awful?

Some of it can be blatant rip offs, but some of it can be absolutely wonderful.

I’ve dabbled in fanfiction writing myself and I really enjoyed it. It helped me to have a muse. Sure, I wasn’t making up my own worlds and usually only made up my own main character but it was just so much damn FUN. I also hadn’t written anything but emails for 7+ years and it was a nice way to ease back into it.

I think you end up in iffy territory if the author of the fanfiction ends up monetizing it in some way or another. Other than that, I think it’s a perfectly acceptable form of self-expression.

Now, what about writing fanfics about real people? Is it weird or unacceptable in a way that writing it about book characters isn’t? Again, I think it’s the same thing. A type of self-expression where someone is using the character that this celebrity puts out. It’s very unlikely that the way the author is depicting the person is how they really are. And other than the very minimal risk of the actual person stumbling across it (see Boyinaband video where he reads his own fanfictions) is it any different than writing it about a book or show character?

I guess it would make a huge difference if the person has stated that they’re uncomfortable with it. I know members of the Game Grumps, Danny and Arin, have talked about how it doesn’t bother them. This is kind of why I don’t feel so guilty reading stories about Dan Avidan.

When I was writing some fanfics, I ran into a bit of a moral dilemma where I was writing a romance story about a guy that I knew had a girlfriend. I stopped writing it and picked it up again when they split up. When he started dating someone again, I took it down and refused to finish it. It felt weird writing a romance about someone who was in a very real and very serious relationship.

What are your thoughts on it? Do you find fanfictions are weird? Or are they just a way to practice writing?

As a final note, scroll down to see some absolutely wonderful stories that I have run across during my years of reading. And maybe a link to one that I wrote …

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