By Olivia Merrick
I was eleven when I discovered the universe that is fanfiction. It’s a swirling, mystical genre of stories about any existing piece of media or any real person, all placed into just about any kind of situation you can imagine. There is very little as comforting as the knowledge that when you finish a book you love, because the presence of fanfiction ensures that the world you’ve just read about can continue in small, supportive corners of the internet. When I got back into reading, I was initially surprised by how many books I’ve read started out as fanfiction. Authors like Cassandra Clare, Ali Hazelwood, and E.L. James have shot to the tops of the New York Times bestseller lists by writing books that began as innocuous fanfiction about a variety of different pieces of media. However, the more I thought about it, the more I began to understand that these books are probably more the norm than they are anomalies. I was in a Novel Writing Program for years, and I would be lying if I said that I didn’t start out by writing fanfiction in my notes app when I was twelve. And why wouldn’t I try my hand at a genre that felt realistic for someone like me? Anyone can write fanfiction because the only requirements are that you have an idea of your own and an element of pop culture that you care deeply about. Character traits are predetermined, names are selected, and family and friend dynamics are already built. It's up to you, as the writer, to take these bones and make them your own. When you’re learning how to write creatively, the benefit of these seemingly small elements cannot be understated. Writing fanfiction gives writers the opportunity to find their writing style, develop the way in which they structure and build chains of events, and learn how to craft ever evolving relationships through the voices and attitudes of those with whom they connect most. The more time you spend learning how to write, the more time you get to figure out what it is that you want to write. Some of the block-buster authors of today have best-sellers that started out as fanfiction, but I'm certain that plenty more of them honed their craft and found their passion for storytelling through fanfiction. This can come from writing it, but it can also come from simply reading and engaging with other fanfiction. Being able to connect with fellow readers all over the world who love similar things allows people to find a sense of community in a way that they might not otherwise be able to obtain it. Fanfiction often gets a bad rap for the fact that it involves such intense inspiration from popular media and because it is teenage girls who are usually engaged with it, but I truly believe that the fiction genre would not be what it is without fanfiction. Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series was a cornerstone of turning the young adult fantasy genre into the behemoth it is today, and it started out as Harry Potter fanfiction. Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis, although initially Star Wars fanfiction, led to the introduction of heroines in STEM fields to the mainstream adult romance genre. Hazelwood herself has passionately kept her novel connected to its roots, down to the cover which was meant to directly model the cover of her initial fanfiction version, and one of my favorite authors, Chloe Gong, has explained that her time writing fanfiction led her to the genre she writes in today. To dismiss or tease the validity of fanfiction and its army of growing writers is to misunderstand the importance of it in all fiction writing. The voice it gives lovers of specific parts of pop culture and the platform it gives budding novelists is unparalleled, and critical in continuing to foster a space for fiction novels.
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3/25/2024 06:52:34 pm
Meet me in 7thHeaven, girl;
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January 2024
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