I’m a fanfic writer?

Why am I always outing myself on this blog? This time I’m writing about something not related specifically to anime or manga but rather about something, I do as a hobby even though I suck at it. Ladies and gentlemen, today I’m outing myself as someone who has written fanfiction before!

I want to write about fanfiction because I feel like a lot of the time people don’t understand why fanfiction exists and frankly, I sometimes ask myself the very same question. Then I remember the times I’ve been so frustrated with a story or the characters that I’ve wanted nothing more than to write some changes. I suddenly understood. Most of the time I simply have an idea for a story or a certain concept in mind but I can’t seem to write my very own characters in this very setting. That’s why I write fanfiction (rarely) and I assume that a lot of other people feel the same way. The main reason why I don’t write a lot of fanfiction is that I struggle with expressing myself the way I want to and I enjoy reading more than writing my own stories. There, I said it! I enjoy reading fanfiction. Now, most people either think of very cringy love stories (sometimes I like these as well, haha) or about dirty, smutty erotica but my favorite genres are slice of life stories and modern alternative universes. I don’t mind reading sexual content unless it’s poorly written. It shouldn’t be too descriptive either but other than that I love reading other people’s stories about characters I love. 

I’m posting this on my anime-related blog because as most of you have probably guessed by now I read fanfiction about anime and manga characters. I don’t care about real people lol. I’m a shipper and I need my fluff! Most of the time, I only get the right amount of fluff, angst, and emotional drama in fanfiction. Anime tends to be about romance or doesn’t include many romantic elements that I like and so, I’m happy that people write amazing stories about these characters themselves. Fanfiction has the power to either create something beautiful that maybe even better than the original work or it can mess things up and ruin the plot. Either way, I think that there’s nothing wrong with writing fanfiction as long as it’s fun and not harmful.

Some fanfiction writers use them as a stepping stone to becoming authors who publish their original work. I know, I know, Fifty Shades of Grey is not a good example but at least it was popular? Anyway, my point is that some of the fanfiction writers are very talented! They use beautiful characterization and invent a nice plot with twists and turns. Sometimes they even manage to make some tropes (like the sexy teacher or the being forced to live together trope) work and it turns out to be quite fun. Basic ideas can be highly entertaining if the writing is good and sometimes, fanfiction manages to create something that the original works can’t and shouldn’t do. Fanfiction is all about what the fans want! Therefore, it shouldn’t necessarily be done in the original work because even amongst the fans everyone has different preferences and ideas. When I look at fanfiction I search for the stuff that I enjoy and often discover new perspectives along the way. On the other hand, when there are ideas or pairings that I do not enjoy at all I just avoid reading that story. It’s pretty simple but I like how easy fanfiction works me.

The downside of it all is that there is a lot of bad writing on fanfiction and I mean god awful writing. And the less popular the anime or manga and the smaller the fandom, it is incredibly difficult to find the kind of stories that you are looking for. In that case, I force myself to write the kind of fanfiction that I’d want to read. That doesn’t mean my writing style is good or anything and I don’t know how to English but I’m left with no other choice! The reason why I started writing was that I simply couldn’t find the content that I was looking for. I continued to write because it was more fun than I thought and I like practicing my writing. Since English isn’t my native language I need to practice a lot to improve and thanks to studying journalism I can even use writing to improve my studies as well.

Please, try to encourage the writers that create stories you like because writing can be very time consuming and quite frankly, frustrating when you have to deal with writer’s block. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about! Writer’s block has been my worst enemy for several years now. Every time I read a nice comment or get a kudos I feel so happy and like my hard work has been validated. That doesn’t mean that you should not give constructive criticism when you notice flaws or writing issues. A writer needs criticism to learn and improve their writing. The keyword here is constructive criticism. Saying that someone’s writing sucks or is bad doesn’t help. Tell them exactly what bothered you and give them advice on what they can do to do a better job in the future. I don’t think that writing good fanfiction is easy and whether you like reading fanfiction or not I do not think that it is fair to judge people who enjoy writing and reading stories with pre-constructed characters in them.

I wanted to make this post because I noticed that I often feel ashamed for enjoying fanfiction but honestly, I still enjoy it. It’s some kind of guilty pleasure that I seem to have. I know that there is a lot of incredibly awful fanfiction out there but there are also some hidden masterpieces that are written exceptionally well. Please, try not to judge too quickly! I know this post may seem a bit random but it was important to me to talk about this anyway! 

As always thank you so much for reading and I hope that I’ll see you again soon!

Patsie