Fanfiction: Good Idea, Bad Idea

Fanfiction is work based on media written by consumers of that media and not the original creators. We can all thank Gene Roddenberry for inspiring the fanboys to create the modern incarnation of fanfiction. I know I'm grateful. If it wasn't for the powerhouse combination of sci-fi fanfiction and the Internet, I would just be a bored housewife.

Good Idea
For me, and for a lot of fanfiction authors I knew, fic was a way to hone our skills. Someone else did the hard work of creating the characters and the universe and the initial stories, we could swoop in and tell more stories and swap those stories with other fans. We could take Character A and learn to write him really, really well, down to his thought processes and dialogue. We could experiment. We could find our own voices. Once we were comfortable writing within the confines of the universe, once we understood the rules and could follow them perfectly, we could break out of that universe and break those rules.

And best of all, we had a built-in audience. We had access to a multitude of people who knew everything there was to know about the universe we were playing in and they weren't afraid to tell us when we fucked it up.

That's why I think fanfiction is a good idea for the new, unpublished, untested writer. I'm not saying that I think fic is the only way to go. I'm just saying that I learned a lot from my time in fandom. I learned how to write good characters and good plot. I learned who people loved and why, who they hated and why, what readers wanted to read. I learned to target my audience. I learned how to give criticism and, more importantly, I learned how to take it. (Back in the early days of my involvement in fandom, "cyberbullying" was called "flaming" and if you sucked, you got flamed. Sometimes you got flamed right out of fandom. Yes, I've been flamed.) I cut my teeth and my skin got thick.

I made friends. Writer friends. Friends who understood the agony of writer's block, the frustration of the fifth round of edits, the angst of balancing sexual tension. Friends who understood why I was up at 3:00 am screaming at my characters to just start listening to me already, I was their God, couldn't they see that? Friends who understood the devastation of a lost muse and the insanity of a million plot bunnies bouncing around inside my head.

Without friends, without people who understand what goes into writing, writers probably stop being socially acceptable schizophrenics and start getting themselves committed to nice white rooms with padded walls.

Bad Idea
Even in the beginning, I was careful. Fanfiction isn't technically legal and some media creators, the copyright holders, don't take kindly to it. Anne Rice is a shining example of what I mean by that. Other creators (an incomplete list can be found here and a more complete one here) have also set explicit policies. As the copyright holders, it is fully within their rights to set policies and pursue legal action against those who violate their rights. I never participated in any fandom forbidden to exist by the creators. (There was no need, as you can see; plenty of talented creators support fanworks.)

It's the tricky legal issues that have me restricting knowledge of my fandom identity to a very small circle of close friends. And this is the crux of my post today.

Trying to bring your fandom fanbase with you when you crossover into publication seems like a very, very bad idea to me. What happens if you rewrite some of the fanwork and use it in an original publication? What happens if you participated in one of the blacklisted fandoms and that information reaches the copyright holder?

What if you were a shady, plagiarizing, scandal-ridden BNF?

The Bottom Line
My Good Idea section is bigger than my Bad Idea section. Overall, I think fanfiction is a good thing. (One day, I hope to write something that inspires the existence of a fandom.) But I think the amateur and the professional should remain as separate as possible. For me, the benefits of bringing your fanbase with you when you make the jump to original publication don't outweigh the cost. I assert this as an award-winning fanfic author.

I was the new kid on the block once before. I found my voice, found my niche, and wrote well-received work once before. I didn't have half of the skills, tools, or confidence I have at my disposal now. It should be easier this time around.