Last night I, as the ultra cool & hip librarian that I am, held a program at my library about one of my favorite topics; the world of fan fiction.
Fan fiction, you say? Some of you may be familiar with the concept, others not so much. As I explained to the pair of teenaged girls I ran my PowerPoint presentation for, fan fiction (also written as fanfiction) is basically stories written by fans featuring settings and characters from their favorite TV shows, movies, comics, etc. These stories are done without the authorization of the original work's creators, and are written by fans for fans and not for profit, as it would be illegal to try to profit off them due to copyright laws. It's considered part of fan labor, which is an even broader term describing the wide variety of things fans create to pay tribute to what they're fans of, like art, youtube videos, etc.
Some of the non-geeks among you would perhaps think that all of that sounds like a colossal waste of time. Well, aren't we just a touch cynical, non-geeks who would think that way?
A. As long as you're not holed up in a basement somewhere watching hours of taped shows surrounded by memorabilia you spent your life's savings on and can't remember the last time you saw natural light, there is nothing wrong with being a fan. Period. Most fans are normal, everyday people (Yo!) who happen to feel very passionately about their favorite shows or movies or whatever. And I'd just like to point out that sports fans don't get half as much flak as the people who populate Fan Expo every year. There, I said it. But I digress.
And B. The point I was trying to make by introducing this concept to teens in my catchment area is that fan fiction is a great way to express yourself creatively with something you enjoy and probably think about a lot anyway in terms of 'what if?' scenarios. It's a very inclusive form of writing, as you can, depending on the rules of the site you frequent, write about almost anything about...well, almost anything. Plus you can practice your writing doing it, just in case you decide to try to publish your own original works.
Most authors or creators are fine with this, so long as no one's making money. J.K. Rowling has gone on record saying she supports fans who want to play around with her characters. But there are some authors who are so not okay with it. Anne Rice would be one. Part of me gets that, as writing is such a personal thing, and I don't know how I would feel if people were messing around with what I created. But at the same time, I'm like 'Be flattered you created something that has captured people's imaginations'. But that's one thing to keep in mind if you decide to write fan fiction of your own; be respectful of the author's wishes.
I am not ashamed to say that I've written a couple of stories myself. They're published online, and I've gotten some positive comments on them by a few people, so yay! I write under a pen name, however, just in case you try to look for them yourselves.
So I spent about an hour giving the skinny on what fan fiction entails, and it takes that long at least to go over it all. Terminology, history, rules, regulations. But for this post, I'll just give you a couple of links to follow. Most sites will have rules and terms listed for you to take a look.
Fanfiction.net is my favorite site, and is just about the largest, most popular fan fiction site you can find, where many different fandoms are listed. The site has gotten some flak for choosing quantity over quality, and you do have to be careful looking through it, still I like to think of it as the site for the masses, as you can post almost anything you'd like where most other sites have very strict rules on grammar, spelling and content.
Fiction Alley.org is one of the more famous Harry Potter fan fiction sites, and their strict rules for posting stories pretty much guarantees that you'll find well written works. If you want to post one yourself, however, it gets much more complicated (take a look at their rules for posting and you'll see why).
There's a lot more out there to look at. Again though, be careful, be respectful, and don't send anything to the original authors or creators; they may not support your writing it in the first place and they won't read anything created by fans to protect themselves.
Having said that, happy writing and reading!
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