Fan Fiction Chapter 1: An Intro to the Artistry

I've had plans to write a post about fan fiction since being invited to join this blog. Now, knowing I can talk about fan fiction for days, I decided to create a series of posts about fan fiction, because that's how long it will take for me to cover the entire topic. Now, let's begin with what exactly fan fiction is...

If you look up the definition of fan fiction it states: a fictional account written by a fan of a show, movie, book, or video game to explore themes and ideas that will not or cannot be explored via the originating medium.

That is more or less true. In reality, there are many different types of fan fiction. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Fan fiction starts out with an idea. For example, as an audience member, sometimes, we don't like the fact that a certain character dies at the end. Then, we get to thinking how that movie could change if that character didn't die. Then maybe, we add a character of our own, which changes the story even more. This is how a fan fiction story is born. For someone who has been addicted to fan fiction for many, many years now, its hard for me to watch a movie or TV show, or read a book without automatically coming up with an idea for a fanfic. For example, this is one of my fan fiction stories for "Stargate: Atlantis" I'm in the middle of...

The Runner Chronicles: Echoes of Blood and Fire
Part 1. Captured during the culling of Sateda, soldier Shay Vallon is made a runner. After seven years, will she be able to accept the death of her world and find peace in the City of the Ancestors, as she learns to live all over again?

This story is the kind where I change the events by adding a character of my own creation.

Though many would not share my opinion, there is a certain artistry to writing good fan fiction. In my many years of reading fan fiction, I have come across many great authors. Writers that are as good as many published authors out there today. Although they may be few and far in between, they are out there. A fan fiction author has to have the talent to capture the world they are writing the same way the original writers were able to. Not have characters make choices that they wouldn't have made in the original story. A good fan fiction is just as entertaining as first story, even if it does add new characters.

A fan fiction has all the same elements that a regular story does. Plot, character, theme, and a beginning, middle and end. So, to make a good fan fiction, an fanfic author has to create all the same elements as any other writer. And like the rest of literary world, there are good fan fiction stories, and there are bad ones. And sometimes, it is very hard to weed out the good ones from all the terribly bad.

Personally, I believe there is something amazingly genius about fan fiction. And surprisingly, I give writing fan fiction a good part of the credit to making me a better writer. It's like practice. I experiment with what works and what doesn't when it comes to character, structure and theme. And there are a couple instances where I have used a character I created in a fan fiction in one of my true original stories.

Now, I'm not the person that you want writing definitions. But I do have to say that the definition I found for fan fiction needs a lot of work. There are so many aspects of what fan fiction truly is, and the brilliance that can be found in its artistry, that it is impossible to explain in a single sentence.

This is as basic of an introduction to fan fiction that I can offer. To most, it will make more sense once I get into the different types of fan fiction that exist...which I will explain in episode 2 of this blog series.