Seanan loves her some fanfic, yes she does: on transformative works.

Have I mentioned yet this year that I love you? That's in a totally non-scary, non-creepy way, btw.

"...A lot of fanfic authors go on to become professional authors..."

I SQUEEE'd with delight when I found out (from an essay in a NESFA press book) that Lois McMaster Bujold got her start writing "Star Trek" fic, and that the genesis for Cordelia and Aral Vorkosigan was a fic with a Federation captain and a Klingon. :-)

"Fanfic can change the way you think about a story... I have never had a piece of fanfic change my opinion of a story negatively, I have had pieces of fanfic make me look at the original work in a new, and much more open-minded, way..."

Damn straight. I can think of at *least* five fandoms where, after starting with a negative view of the source material or canon characters, I read fic by authors I'd liked in other fandoms and ended up at least somewhat favorably inclined to the source. (Going from "That show SUCKS and its main character is a jerk" to "I wish {fanfic author} wrote their scripts 'cause I actually LIKE {main character} now"...) Because of fanfic, I've watched and re-watched the source material, bought DVDs, and even attended conventions.

I refer to "watching" because I tend to look for fic mostly for TV/movie 'verses. I think that's 'cause the visual medium, what's allowed to be shown on film, and the 1- or 2-hour script limits leave a lot more "holes" and missing back-story, character-development, etc., which can be filled by good fic. And sometimes shows/movies that're severely flawed actually work BETTER for fanfic. ("I'm going to re-write that episode so {main character} *isn't* a jerk, or so we discover that he's reacting that way because of {severe past trauma/tragedy}.") In general, if a book were flawed enough that I was having to re-write it n my head, or fill in "missing scenes" to fanwank the plot-holes... I'd be dropping it and moving on to read something I liked better.

And if a particular fanfic theme/concept is SO "squicky" to a reader that it WOULD make them say "ew, I'm never reading/watching the source material"... WHY IN HELL READ IT? Seriously, dude, are you SO hard up for reading material with the WHOLE Effin' Internet out there that you'll take the time to read something that's hateful to you and will make you hate something you used to like? Even more proof, then, that Some People Are Idiots.

"...it's entirely possible that I will unofficially find out about your epic Toby/Tybalt Candyland slash party..."

*snerk!!!* ...and I'm sure, now, that somewhere a fan is busily composing that "...threeway with the Luidaeg on the top of Candy Mountain..." (ROTFLs a bit at the mental image).

On another note: ILU <3 <3 <3 and hope things are better after the mean messages from those Nasty Entitled People (whose collective Karma sucks so much that they deserve to be reincarnated as slugs and dropped in a salt lick). Take care, and THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for all the fun stories you write, and will write in the future.

*cautiously* That's the I-can't-know-about-fic-of-my-WRITING clause, right? Not the I-can't-know-about-fic-of-my-anything-including-songs? *twitches*

I caught this post a little late, but I LOVE IT SO MUCH! I did my own version of this a short while ago in response to an article I saw in TIME magazine. Its so refreshing to hear a published author's perspective on it.

Nice piece! Now can we read the Josie/VM story? ;-)

I'm not a writer either of fanfic or original fiction... but I love reading. But as much as I love reading published books that other people wanted to market and sell and have some awesome (I assume) author make money from it... I don't get to almost ever read stories that resonate with me and my life, my relationships, my thoughts and feelings and issues. As with anyone, I want to see myself on screen and in pages and fanfiction is really the only place where that happens with variety, creativity and with all the breadth that people being different with different lives and issues and motivations and so on demands.

I loved your post and your stance on it too :)

I'm deeply in love with a community and culture where the desire is to create and to expand and to transform and to engage, think, rework and remix things. Nothing stays the same, nothing is static and that means that exponentially the delight and potential just grows... there's never a lack of stories or points of view to be explored after all.

Came here by way of a fellow fanficcer, and just wanted to tell you this post totally rocks.

I also write "real" fic (puh-leeze, people)...and while I'm still working toward the publication thing (my writing partner and I are still in the paper-the-walls-with-rejections-albeit-HELPFUL-rejections phase)...I really, really do NOT want to know about any fanfic that happens based on what I've written, b/c I do not want to shut anyone down. I am a happy fanficcer, and sometimes I write the same concepts, plots, or themes (or all of the above) repeatedly, an endless exploration of issues. But it always serves its purpose, which is to make me happy; often it even seems to make other nice folks happy too. So it's all good in my book.

And through ff I too have gained a greater appreciation of source material, such as The Silmarillion and the non-hobbity parts of LOTR. To me, that's one of the most priceless aspects of the field.

Thanks for a thought-filled and thought-provoking post.

Cheers,
Febobe

Terribly late to the party, but I'd just like to say that after seeing your "girls there is nothing wrong with you" post on Metaquotes (by the way, I may have gotten happy sniffles while reading that thing <3), reading through your LJ for more interesting things you've said, and seeing this, I really like you as a person and am definitely going to check out a few of your books to see if I've also got a new favorite author. Well, I was going to do that already, but you are extra special awesome right here so you also get happiness that there's another author who likes fanfic.

Since a fair few people have said how they found new works or liked ones they didn't before through reading fanfic, I'd like to add a different but still sort of the same story to that: I grew to like a work through writing fanfic of it, specifically a crossover between it and the toyline that came before it. Having to research the Hero Factory world to make the story accurate, with the open mind that comes from 'I need to see EVERYTHING here and know about it, every little detail matters even if I think it's stupid', really helped with getting over my 'grrrr, Lego cancelled Bionicle and made this new, less awesome ripoff spiritual successor to replace it' opinion of the whole thing.

...I missed this post because I'm not on LJ as much as I'd like to be... and found it googling for Quentin/Raj, which I shipped before Ashes of Honor and has now been moved to the status of OTP.

LOL

Thanks for your take on this. I've written a lot of fan fiction, mostly based on "Farscape", a fabulous space opera from the late 90s, early 00s...anyway, I've always written but fan fiction gave me more confidence, and certainly more readers than I'd have gotten otherwise. I do think it's helped my approach to writing and networking.

I just found this post through someone's link, and there isn't a word in it that I disagree with. (Admitting I know little about the relationship between published authors and their fanfic "transformers", but what you say about that makes perfect sense to this recovering lawyer.)

I came to fanfic writing late in life, and by accident. I declared that I wanted to be a writer when I was five years old, but as I got older the inhibitions set in and I became afraid to let others see the "inside of my head". Then one day I was cruising Star Trek: Voyager websites on my lunch hour (I had become addicted, with my daughter) and discovered this thing called fan fiction. I started reading on the beach during my holidays, and by the end of the summer I decided that this could be the -- as you put it -- "safe place" to try. I bought myself a Mac (aka "Preciousss"), and started writing during a weekend on business travel.

My first Star Trek story, "Choices", picked up the day Voyager came home (which enabled me to be canon consistent, but with freedom to roam -- my perfect world). My husband still talks about the day I pushed the "submit" button and posted it on fanfiction.net. The first review came on two hours later, and I have never looked back. I'm up to 40 stories now, several of novel length. Some work in some of the things I have encountered in my professional life (human trafficking, post-conflict resolution/war crimes, the responsibility to protect civilian populations, the right to refuse orders); others range from screwball comedy and "exploration of moments" to pure farce. And yes, I just did my first cross-over: Hawkeye/James Bond ("Second Mouse", on AO3). Complete with illustrations -- what a ball. The whole thing is a fantastic training ground to try out styles, voices, plotting, narrative structure, dialogue patterns, etc etc.

I am happy to call myself a writer now, still "only" of fan fiction, but with plans for a commercial novel gelling in my head. It's what I will do when I retire (not so very far off) and ... I can't wait.

So ... yeah. Agree with everything you said, and thank you for saying it!

One of my yardsticks for knowing whether I have Made It willbe if someone writes fanfic about my stuff. Obviously I can't know more than that it exists, but knowing that will be enough. Good fics or bad, I will be thrilled. (Also, if a certain pair of characters who would NEVER actually bang each other isn't slashed in awful ways, I will be hugely disappointed in the internet.)

I just think that a lot of settings and characters are too much FUN not to explore, even if it's not all canonical. I also think that before copyright (which is a good thing, don't get me wrong), this was how people interacted with stories. They aren't passive about it. They're actively involved in the story, and that's wonderful.

And YES to the writing practice! I didn't even realize how much writing practice I was getting with character consistency and voice and description and so forth when writing things like my silly Super Mario stories as a teenager. (And even worldbuilding--I tried to come up with a viable biological background for Mushroom People. Science!) Much of the skills I have as a writer come from that early practice.

IN CONCLUSION, hooray for fanfic! You've probably read this all before, but I had to say it again because, well, this time it's me saying it. Adding my voice and all that.

I love reading fanfic even though i don't care to write. I think it's interesting because I've seen people who will say fanfic is gross, but then use other worlds from books and movies for their d&d games. I'm like don't you realize you've already got an interactive fanfic going on here. Lately i really love when people write them for computer games who's worlds and characters i want to see more of even after i finish the game.

Written up my own thoughts on this subject over here: Seanan McGuire on fanfic - Safe for Seanan to read, contains no story elements. Basically going over Seanan's points here and applying them to myself.

It's not really a one-way thing, either. Plenty of people go from writing fanfic to writing original fiction, but I also know a handful of published authors who STILL write fanfic every once in a while. Heck, I've been writing my own works for five or six years now and only been writing fanfic since November, but you know what? I've gotten better. A LOT better. Fanfic has allowed me to use pre-established characters and focus on specific points in their relationship - the falling in love, the sex, the antagonism, the sibling rivalries - and write those over and over, without having to flesh out the characters and the world first. And getting a lot of kudos on my latest fanfic piece is a nice balm to counterbalance rejections from agents and editors :-P