{"id":1215,"date":"2021-01-17T22:10:19","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T03:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/?p=1215"},"modified":"2021-01-18T14:04:47","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T19:04:47","slug":"fanfic-im-all-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/fanfic-im-all-for-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Fanfic: I’m All for It"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Image by Roanne Copin from Pixabay<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So. Fanfic. It\u2019s a divisive topic, to put it mildly. As I write this, Twitter is going at it over fanfic with a ferocity usually reserved for topics like abortion or gun control. I guess we\u2019re all tired of fighting over Trump and QAnon and the Capitol and masks and the other ghastly delights of 2020 and 2021.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a fun fact about me: Some of the earliest stuff I wrote\u00a0was Star Wars fanfic. And it was Mary Sue fanfic to boot. Princess Leia was in my stories\u00a0but kind of elbowed aside so I could go have fun adventures with Luke, Han, Chewie, and the gang.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why the nine-year-old\u00a0me thought there could be only one girl in the story is a disturbing question I\u2019ll have to unpack some other time.\u00a0Back when\u00a0I read Harry Potter fanfic regularly, I noticed some young female writers tended to make Hermione a dreadful mean girl and have their self-insert MCs insult her straight out of the story so they\u2019d get Harry, Ron, and Draco all to themselves. It would seem this kind of thinking\u00a0is still an issue. Hmmm.<\/p>\n

(Another reason I find fanfic interesting: It can provide a snapshot of where people\u2019s heads are at, and not always in a good\u00a0way.)<\/p>\n

Basically I\u2019m pro-fanfic, as a writer and as a soon-to-be debut author. I haven\u2019t written a whole lot of it myself, but back in the days before I knew J.K. Rowling was a transphobic bigot, I read Harry Potter fanfic to pass the waiting time between the books. And Doctor Who fanfic kept me happy in the long period between the original show and the reboot.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Honestly, I don\u2019t see why people get so upset about it. Don\u2019t like it? That’s fine. Don\u2019t write it or read it. If someone wants to try their hand at storytelling in a familiar universe, what\u2019s the harm as long as they aren\u2019t selling it? Yes, a lot of fanfic\u00a0isn’t well-written at all. So what? It’s not like you slapped down money to read it.\u00a0\u00a0And some of its authors\u00a0might realize they actually enjoy what they\u2019re doing and start taking the time to learn how to write their own stuff well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I know some authors have been crystal clear that they don\u2019t want anyone writing fanfic of their work; their story has been told the way they want to tell it and they don\u2019t feel kindly towards anyone who tries telling it another way. It feels intrusive, like a criticism of their storytelling or someone invading their property. And that\u2019s valid. I\u2019m certainly not going to tell\u00a0any other authors how they should feel about that.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But if someone were to want to write fanfic of Tidepool<\/i> or any of my future novels? Go right ahead. As far as I\u2019m concerned, if a reader has engaged with my fictional world enough that they want to tell more stories with those characters or play What if this happened instead?<\/em> That means I\u2019ve done my job as an author. I take it as a big compliment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And it’s how I got my start as a writer. Who am I to tell anyone else they can’t?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So. Fanfic. It\u2019s a divisive topic, to put it mildly. As I write this, Twitter is going at it over…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,4],"tags":[80,5],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1215"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1219,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1215\/revisions\/1219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicolewillson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}