Awesome posts on writing fanfic - Look! There is a thing!

02:36 pm - Awesome posts on writing fanfic

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Not reposting, so you'll have to visit the originals:

Seanan loves her some fanfic, yes she does: on transformative works. "I love fanfic for everything it does for writers, and for readers. . . . I want fanfic to thrive forever and forever, and keep producing amazing stuff for me to read." There's much more great analysis; I highly recommend checking it out.


Thoughts on derivative works and filing off the serial numbers. "The thing that excites me creatively with derivative fiction is the challenge of telling a new story set in an existing universe, and making it fit as cleanly into the original universe as possible.

(This post is two years old, copied from an older post, so it's not in reference to the what's-its-name story that everyone's talking about, but she's discussing pros and cons of that sort of thing.)

Also, from the same post: Think about "alternative universe" stories. Whether it's "Hitler won the war" or Star Trek's Mirror Universe, those stories work and are effective entirely because they rely on context. The story you're telling in that alternative universe may well be a cracking good yarn, full of romance and adventure and drama and pathos, with real stakes for fully developed 3-dimensional characters. But any depth and effectiveness that story has relies on the audience's knowledge of the original universe you are diverging from.


Excellent posts, both of them, to be brought out when I run into the "fanfic is a waste of time, why do you bother?" attitude.

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