This is just a quick post in response to a question someone asked me the other day: does fan fiction count as writing?

Well, of course it does. If you are putting words down, then it is writing.

I think there used to be some stigma attached to being a fanfic writer – in many ways there still is – but I think that is becoming less of an issue. People quickly start to dismantle their prejudices once someone starts making money from something, and in the emerging world of self publishing and the internet in general, some very well known (and rich) authors have started out in fanfic forums. Many of them have even used it to build their initial fan base.

You can see why. There are actually many advantages to writing fan fiction when you are starting out. You have a ready built audience, often in the niche pairing you want to write in. I’m not going to lie, there is a monumental amount of really, really bad fanfic out there, but there is also some quality writing. And to write good fan fiction you have to be good at all the basics: character, plot and suspension of disbelief. Not to mention spelling and grammar. If you don’t know how to do that well, it doesn’t matter how great your plot twist is, you’ll turn readers off.

Working with characters that are already pre-defined have advantages and disadvantages. Firstly, your audience doesn’t need everything spelling out for them, because it is already someone they know and presumably love. However, you have to either get that character spot on or give really compelling reasons as to why you are writing them differently. Either forces you to really think about being a better writer.

The same goes for plot. Often, in order to do something original with the characters, you have to send them off down a different route to that chosen by their creators. Often, that route was chosen for a very good reason – it was the best route for the characters to go. For some slash pairings, it’s actually not the best route, but the networks have always had a very strong influence on this issue. Slash fanfic was some of the earliest, simply for that reason. Xena and Buffy were the trail blazers here in at least heading off in the right direction on the show, but others still haven’t caught up (not naming any names, but I can think of one Fairytale based show out there that has a natural opening there which I suspect the House of Mouse is not letting them go through).

Of course, all of this is irrelevant if you’re writing PWP, because if that’s what people are looking for, smut ratings are all that count anyway. And I’m not going to give any advice here on how to get the experience for that writing…