I mentioned in my About section how I have written fanfiction stories but my procrastination often gets the best of me. Hey going from my notebooks and random pieces of scrap paper to typing on the computer is a lot of work lol. Sometimes I just run out of time to type them (until now I have been a school student and have always had more important things to do than write).
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Now I know what you're thinking, "if you want to write you'll make time to write" and "writing has to be the most important thing to you" well although I love writing, getting that degree had to take precedence, #sorrynotsorry lol. The other side to that is that now that I'm graduated, I suppose I have run out of excuses for not writing...
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So let's start at the beginning...what is fanfiction? Fanfiction is regular people writing stories using characters or elements that have already been published. Basically any book you've read, movie or TV show you've seen, you can use their characters and put them in a new plot, or throw in your own character with the original ones and see what happens, or (and this is my personal favorite) change the story ending and/or relationships!!! To me, this is the most fun because let's be honest, how many of us really love all the pairings the author used?
As you can see, shipping is the name for character relationships. The cool thing with fanfiction is that you have the choice of sticking with the canon (more on that later) pairings, putting your made up character with your favorite character from the story, or putting the characters you loved that never got together together at last!
Examples from Harry Potter:
Example A: canon pairing = Harry and Ginny
Example B: made-up pairing = Harry and Mary Sue
Example C: non-canon pairing = Harry and Hermione
A popular choice for writers is to put characters together who have a rough history together, possibly enemies throughout school?
Example from Harry Potter:
Bad boy Draco being paired or shipped with golden good girl Hermione
Writers usually base the whole story around this unexpected relationship developing or come up with a back story of the bad guy reforming his old ways/becoming a better person with good person's help/realizing they have loved each other all this time but have been hiding their true feelings for one reason or another.
Examples from Harry Potter:
Example A: canon pairing = Harry and Ginny
Example B: made-up pairing = Harry and Mary Sue
Example C: non-canon pairing = Harry and Hermione
A popular choice for writers is to put characters together who have a rough history together, possibly enemies throughout school?
Example from Harry Potter:
Bad boy Draco being paired or shipped with golden good girl Hermione
Writers usually base the whole story around this unexpected relationship developing or come up with a back story of the bad guy reforming his old ways/becoming a better person with good person's help/realizing they have loved each other all this time but have been hiding their true feelings for one reason or another.
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People tend to get very, VERY possessive and protective over their ships, so far as to put down other ships. There are often rivals such as Romione versus Dramione. And another thing, those dreaded ship names. A ship name is usually a portmanteau of the names of the characters. Examples from Harry Potter:
Example A: Romione = Ron & Hermione
Example B: Dramione = Draco & Hermione
Example C: Hinny = Harry & Ginny
Example D: Nuna = Neville & Luna
But you get the picture, and these names and names of couples all over fan fiction are portmanteaus (side note: when looking up the official name for these blended names I remembered my name too is a portmanteau! Calisa = Calvin & Lisa)
Example A: Romione = Ron & Hermione
Example B: Dramione = Draco & Hermione
Example C: Hinny = Harry & Ginny
Example D: Nuna = Neville & Luna
But you get the picture, and these names and names of couples all over fan fiction are portmanteaus (side note: when looking up the official name for these blended names I remembered my name too is a portmanteau! Calisa = Calvin & Lisa)
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Now back to this canon nonsense lol. Canon is another word for the original work. All fanfiction has to take at least some elements from canon to make it a fanfiction. So taking a popular reason for people to start fanfiction writing, let's say you absolutely loved this book or movie but hated the ending. You would keep the canon elements you were okay with and change the rest.
Examples:
Example A: Allegiant (last book in Divergent series) = the story would be canon up until the big climax (not spoiling it for anyone) and then the aftermath would be different
Example B: Harry Potter (did you expect anything less?) = the whole story would have taken place but many fanfiction writers like to use EWE (Epilogue? What Epilogue) meaning that their story includes everything that Harry and his friends went through up until the Battle of Hogwarts but after that, it is completely up to the author to determine how the characters end up.
Examples:
Example A: Allegiant (last book in Divergent series) = the story would be canon up until the big climax (not spoiling it for anyone) and then the aftermath would be different
Example B: Harry Potter (did you expect anything less?) = the whole story would have taken place but many fanfiction writers like to use EWE (Epilogue? What Epilogue) meaning that their story includes everything that Harry and his friends went through up until the Battle of Hogwarts but after that, it is completely up to the author to determine how the characters end up.
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As a fanfiction writer, the best thing you can do is read fanfiction! Same goes for any kind of writing. It can be as simple as checking out the competition or searching for inspiration or ideas. With fanfiction in particular, you need to be careful not to steal someone's idea to the t with only changing a few details. (authors tend to not like that) As an avid fanfiction reader myself, I can tell you that you absolutely get inspired reading fics. I read fics based on what I enjoy at the moment (when I watched wrestling, I read wrestling fanfics, when I start watching a Disney or Nickelodeon show, I may look at a few fics about it). When you find a fandom you love and are very interested in, sometimes you unknowingly set expectations for the stories you intend to read but get disappointed when you can't find what you are looking for. Examples from Harry Potter:
Example A: I had a love for the Dramione pairing/fandom so I would put in the filters on Fanfiction.net and read the stories that sounded interesting. Since I read so many, I found myself thinking "I hope I find one that has this" but sometimes I just couldn't find that story. What does this tell me? That I need to write it!
Example B: Sometimes you read a story about a different pairing or see a Google image of a pairing and are tempted to read about them. For instance I talked to a friend who loved the Harry X Hermione pairing (which I used to love but forgot about) and I got convinced to start reading that pairing. However since Harry and Hermione both had plenty of stories as a part of other couples, those other characters had new couples which brought tons of new ideas into my head. Most of these secondary couples since they were usually with Harry or Hermione, did not have many stories written about them so what does that say? There needs to be more stories about them and I can write them!
Example A: I had a love for the Dramione pairing/fandom so I would put in the filters on Fanfiction.net and read the stories that sounded interesting. Since I read so many, I found myself thinking "I hope I find one that has this" but sometimes I just couldn't find that story. What does this tell me? That I need to write it!
Example B: Sometimes you read a story about a different pairing or see a Google image of a pairing and are tempted to read about them. For instance I talked to a friend who loved the Harry X Hermione pairing (which I used to love but forgot about) and I got convinced to start reading that pairing. However since Harry and Hermione both had plenty of stories as a part of other couples, those other characters had new couples which brought tons of new ideas into my head. Most of these secondary couples since they were usually with Harry or Hermione, did not have many stories written about them so what does that say? There needs to be more stories about them and I can write them!
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You can literally find fanfiction about almost anything you enjoy; books, TV shows, movies, comics, some video games, apparently boy bands (don't ask I read something that mentioned 1D fics), and there are even crossovers. Fanfiction is very expressive because it is your chance as a fan to show off your ideas based on the original work that you loved; remember imitation is the biggest form of flattery. Personally, I read way more than I write but I have so many ideas that I would love to see on my computer screen that people just haven't thought of. This is why I can't give up, and even though I haven't updated my story in months (maybe a year I'm not currently sure lol) I'm going to because I started a story that I felt should be shared. And even though I have ideas that I feel like writing before updating my already published story, it's okay because writing is writing and stories have a right to be shared.
In summary: if you've got something to say, a story to tell based off of something you saw or read, go for it! The world (the fanfiction world at least) deserves to hear it! :)