I refer to myself, of course.
Sometimes when I talk to avid literature students, the topic of fanfiction would inadvertedly pop out. Then, comes the wave of comments from the nay-sayers.
"It's not original."
"It's stupid, why would people want to use characters of others and not make their own?"
"Fanfiction is full of writers who can't write."
To top the cake with icing, along came "Fifty Shades of Grey", which is a hit and miss with the world. Hit, for people who want face-value trashy entertainment. Miss, for (hipster) people who insist that Fifty Shades of Grey was a literary abomination. If you want my opinion, it's over here. The annoying thing is, even though I do defend the quality of fanfiction, I cannot deny that there are fanfiction out there that are not worth one's time.
What would be my usual response? I would say along the lines of "Yeah, most of them are bad. But there are some stories out there that are absolute gems."
Don't get me wrong, my fanfic writer friends, in case you are now doubting my perception of your stories. When I say bad fanfics, I really mean, BAD fanfics. I'm talking about fics that are filled with absolute randomness, incoherence, horrible sentence structure and spelling... Things like that. I'm not referring to fics where characters are out of character or the story plot escalates too quickly. I'm talking about fics that make no grammatical sense at all.
Stories that have issues like out of character, escalation, fluff and Mary-Sues, those can be easily refined and improved. My stories are full of nonsense too. Sometimes I am proud of my writing. Sometimes I want to burn them and never write again. However, slowly and surely, we fanfic writers are improving. As long as we keep writing, and we have a heart to learn and observe, we WILL improve.
To those people who think fanfiction is a whole horde of trash, please go to a fanfiction website, and dedicate yourself one hour. All will not be in vain. It's like going to a thrift shop sometimes. You spend 80% of your time going through weird, incoherent, dubious-looking fics, and the other 20% you will be gushing at how amazing that fanfic is at painting a picture, how emotional you felt with this character, how awesome it would be if you could write like that, and so on.
Regardless of how bad or good the fic is, the existence of a fanfic is the highest compliment anyone could ever pay to the author... on some level. No one would bother to meddle a story that meant nothing to them. Of course, I'm saying this as a fanfic writer. Maybe when I become a legit writer (IF that day comes), I may think differently. Although it would be such a tragedy for me to think so.
I say to you again. Fanfiction is NOT just a whole horde of trash. Despite what the public say, I believe that there is value in fanfiction that not many sees.
I have met many fanfic writers who wrote beautifully. People who will make me emotional just with their words. I know many fanfic writers who, like me, share a big passion for writing, and would do all they can to improve themselves day by day. That's why the community is worth staying, even if it's just for a bit longer.
Anyway, to end this post, it all came about because I was in the car with a bunch of friends, and then I was talking to someone (who knew about my fanfiction writing) about how Meia from Days of Exile was of a particular personality. And another person was curious.
"I am actually a closet fanfiction writer," I said to her with an embarrassed look on my face, though she could not see because it was dark.
"Oh..." She trailed off and I was ready to let it go but then she said, "That's quite cool. I'm a closet writer myself too."
:D Imagine that! Finding a fellow closet writer. She writes non-fiction, but hey, I don't care! I found a fellow closet writer! So we talked and all, and she showed some interest in reading my fics, but now that I'm back home, my panic is setting back in again. My writing is so childish, and so superficial...
Maybe I won't send her my fanfiction link so quickly. *hides in a shell*
