Writing Blog Number 2

20240302 Some Fan Fiction Negatives

Some Fan Fiction Negatives

Yesterday I used a formal essay to explain the positive aspects of the writing of fan fiction. Today I am taking my notes from what people in my class said in our discussion of fan fiction as part of the subject. These are the negatives as we saw them.

1) Two of the basics of fiction writing are not learnt - world-building and character development. By taking a world already established by another author, and basing characters upon those already created or taking characters from those works means these fiction fundamentals just do not develop in fan fiction works.

2) Even when using the characters of others, the nuances of those characters are generally not utilised. They are reduced to their dominant actions and anything else is discarded. Or, in the case of erotic fan fiction, the characters are changed completely, just the names remain.

3) In yesterday's post, I mentioned the supportive community. However, that same support often means the minutiae of writing - technical aspects, etc. - are not strengthened in a weaker writer. There is a difference between supportive and just praising everything, and too often the fan fiction community goes for the latter.

4) Writers who write predominantly in the fan fiction sphere tend to see some of the same errors or pre-existing characters or worlds appear in other, non-fan-fiction works.

5) This is very niche, but there is a horrid sub-culture of CP in erotic fan fiction.

6) fan fiction writers, while they might be readers, read in a very narrow field of interest, so are not exposed to other writing styles and ideas, which limits what they can write about.

This has come from me and my fellow students. There are negatives - as there are in anything - but also positives (see yesterday's essay).

In 2022 I was asked to write an essay for a local journal about fan fiction, based on the essay I had done for university. It was rejected, and I later found out that they wanted a complete hammering of fan fic, nothing positive at all. Well, I couldn't do that.

Anyway, the essay is here (and, yes, I admit to writing fan fic...):

Some Thoughts On Fan-Fiction  (13+) A personal essay on fanfic, around 1500 words. My opinion. #2272613 by s