I am aware I have died on this hill before but people who really strenuously argue that fanfic isn't "real writing" drive me insane. what do you meeeaaaaannn. besides the fact that any attempt to define "real art" vs "fake art" is inherently reactionary, it just doesn't make any sense. it's Writing. people Write it. what the fuck are you talking about.

"it's totally self-indulgent with no standards for quality and criticism is borderline not allowed"

are you like. aware of the concept of hobbies? if someone regularly posted pictures of their hobbyist knitting projects on their blog, it would be considered rude to drop in with "criticism." that's still a real art form.

"most of it is really bad"

I cannot stress enough how much perceived quality is not a valid metric for determining what is and isn't art

"it's just porn"

I'm going to kill you

"it's full of unchecked misogyny, racism, queerphobia, etc"

I have some really bad news about every artistic medium ever

"you didn't put in the work of making your own world/characters, you just copied someone else's"

tv shows with writers' rooms. ghost writers. franchises where different works are written by different people. adaptations and retellings. sorry guys I guess none of these are real writing anymore.

There is an endemic problem in spinoff novels or cross-media properties like comics, where you'll get a very talented author recruited whose work is generally excellent, and everyone's excited, but then it turns out they don't know how to write fanfiction.

And the result is that the spinoff is really bad. Because the author completely fails to capture the vocal cadence or behavior or motivations of someone else's characters, the narrative tone of the series...they try too hard to the point of making in-universe references feel stilted and unnatural, or do WAY too much exposition about things that shouldn't need to be explained at this level of barrier-of-entry.

The ability to be a chameleon, to figure out and match the "feel" of characters and a world you didn't create, is a learned skill.

People have written a lot of touchy-feely pieces on this subject but I thought I’d get right to the heart of the matter

[The artist, putting a simple cake next to a much fancier one: “Aw man, that guy’s cake is way better than mine.” The Audience, gleefully holding up a knife and fork “HOLY SHIT! TWO CAKES!”]

additions from the og artist (credit)

“Holy shit two cakes,” I mutter to myself as I do fucking anything these days, this post was a godsend

If you're a creator and you needed to hear this today:

You have no idea how many people lurk on your work. No idea how many times people go back to revisit your work. How big they smile when they simply think about your work. How fast their heart beats, how excited they get when they see that you posted something.

People are shy with their feedback. Sometimes it’s because they’re simply shy. Other times it’s because they assume you already know how great and talented you are. Could be both.

My point is, even if you barely have any likes or reblogs, don’t get discouraged. You have a lot of silent fans, but they are still your fans. Keep on creating. Because there is always someone out there who will love what you have made.

me as a writer: Oh no I can’t write that, somebody else already has

me as a reader: hell yes give me all the fics about this one scenario. The more the merrier

This one is so hard to accept. Reblogging to knock that into my brain.

Me as a writer: I feel like I’m repeating myself, I’ve already used that theme, I’ve already written that kink, that other character uses that speech pattern so this one in another fandom can’t, I feel like I’m writing predictable things, is this different enough from that other thing I wrote, are people filling out bingo cards by my work? :sobbing:

Me as a reader: oh hell yeah this hit the spot exactly, I hope this writer has written 20 more just like it

As one friend said when I felt I was reusing a theme too much, nobody ever says, Did Agatha Christie write about murder again?

I actually laughed out loud at the last one. A very good point.

“I love this, I hope there isn’t anything else out there like it!” Said no one ever

Sometimes you just really need other people to point out the obvious to you! Thanks, guys.

I remember being in a tiny fandom and reading every story a particular writer had written in that fandom, and then every other story they had written for good measure. Probably around 30-35 stories in all.

In every single story they wrote, one of the main characters either had, acquired, or considered adopting or buying a Bedlington Terrier. Always that one type of dog.

I never got tired of it. By about story 7 I was reading along thinking ‘when is the little lamb dog going to show up?’ and it didn’t even blip my weirdness radar.

Do your thing over and over again, friend.

…. I guess I’ll do the thing

My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.

Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?

What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?

Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.

— Francesca Coppa, “Introduction to The Dwarf’s Tale,” The Fanfiction Reader (via francescacoppa)

Someone put it into words. I gotta sit down

The rest of the thread is here.

tl;dr: Don’t monetize AO3, kids.  You won’t like what happens next.

read this thread. this is by far the most concise explanation of a lot of different issues that i’ve seen in fandom spaces in a while. cosigning both the linked thread and the thread about aus/uk/can law that’s linked in-thread.

AHDHXHEBSG TWITTER WRITERS DID WHAT NOW???? AND PEOPLE PAID THEM????

If someone has never taken a class that includes copyright law, they may not know this stuff, so I don’t necessarily blame random people for not knowing what copyright is, but like… maybe just maybe it’s something that should be taught????

Just another reminder, because this always drives me crazy, but even if monetizing your fic was 100% unambiguously legal and protected, AO3 would still not let you do it because AO3 was founded and is supported by people like me who want a fandom community that is completely divested from making money off of fic.

Yes, this. Lots of fanworks on AO3 are unambiguously legal. Fics based on Shakespeare plays and fairy tales and Greek mythology and The Great Gatsby and your original character from your D&D game are not violations of copyright, because no copyright applies to those things.

AO3 still doesn’t let you monetize those things on the site, because we don’t want the site to be commercial! Because that’s not what it’s for!

It’s not there for you (generic you) to make money off the efforts of the people who build and maintain the site for free! We aren’t getting paid for the work we do to give you a nice site to use, just like you aren’t getting paid for the work you do to create whatever art you share there. Because fandom is supposed to be a community where we share with each other, and therefore we all benefit.

The deal is, we give you a free, stable, safe platform to host your works. In exchange, you get a site that isn’t covered in ads and tip jars and links to gofundme and “read the next chapter at my patreon”. You get one goddamn place on the internet that isn’t trying to make money off you. And we will defend that space and keep it non-commercial.

Women can write m/m. Men can write f/f. Asexuals can write filthy smut. Lesbians and gay men can write m/f. It's all arbitrary anyway. Who give a shit.

"Oh but they don't have an experience of-" I don't have any experience committing or solving murders either but that's still mostly what I read and write about.

Writing is a process that often undergoes heavy edits… that includes responding to feedback. 

I had no idea this post would resonate with so many people. I let my vitriol surrounding several comments I received on a recent update get to me and it spilled out into .gif form and it’s now morphed into the most widely shared thing I’ve ever posted. So many comments and tags have said things along the lines of, “This was why I quit writing” or “This is why I hate writing fanfic.” And that’s soul crushing to hear, but I can relate. 

But while there are some crappy and entitled readers, there are also many brilliant ones and I’m so grateful for them. The huge response to this post made me go back and skim through the comments on my old stories, and comments like the one below are about half the reason some of those stories got finished, even if it was months later. 

Comments like these are so rare, but when they do come up, they leave me staring at my computer screen, drumming my fingers on the keyboard, struggling to convey my feelings about how their words have touched my heart. These are the comments that take the longest amount of time to respond to and the ones that cause me to wear out my backspace key the fastest. 

It’s easy to complain, but it’s literally just as easy to praise, so I just wanted to take a moment to recognize all those dear and dedicated readers who have propped me up when I wanted to quit. Readers like you are why I keep writing, and why I even feel honored to do it on rare occasion. 

And fellow writers, keep your heads up if you can. :) 

The first type of comment breaks my heart, both as a writer and a reader. It’s why I’ve been tempted to quit a few times, in the rare moment when I’ve gotten them.

The second type is seriously the best and I try to leave comments, even short positive ones, for almost every fic I read and enjoy.

current fan creation landscape is kinda like if you went to a party with a homemade cake and everyone takes a slice and silently thumbs up at you with no attempt to start a conversation except for occasionally some guy sits in the corner with a tape recorder critiquing the cake as though he was a restaurant critic and another guy is handing the cake to an uber driver like "yeah i need you to find a restaurant that makes cake like this so i can have more of it" and the only person that's talked to you in 30 minutes is a very sweet little guy who was like "hey i liked your cake" and then ran away apologizing for bothering you the moment you said thank you.

someone brought a cake analysis robot to feed the cake into to determine the exact ingredients and supposedly it can spit out the exact same cake. and if you're like dude. what. then they're like well if it bothers you you should have made more cake. i'm hungry and i deserve cake. and you're like dude we're at a party.

Three months later you find out that fifty people locked themselves in a room to discuss how much they loved your cake and how they wished you made more. None of them ever told you.

My favorite thing about fanfic authors is they can identify any gap in a canon timeline where characters are offscreen and exploit the ever living fuck out of it

They see a time skip of any length and go

Angst fics can help people come to terms with their own grief, begin healing, or give people that good cry that they need.

Smut fics can help people affirm and accept their sexuality. It can help them explore their sexuality in a safe way. They can also just be fun, and having fun is a drastically undervalued way to improve your mental health.

Dark fics can help people face their fears or process their trauma. It can make them feel safer and more secure. It can help them find their courage.

Fluff fics can give people rest and respite and comfort. It can give them hope that soft places exist and that maybe there is one out there for them. It can bring up their mood, which, if they have depression, can be a life saver.

And every fic people write makes someone feel less alone.

Point being, just because a particular thing doesn’t serve you, doesn’t mean it lacks value.

This is not to say that we have to consume all fic uncritically. Of course not. It is just to say that entire “genres” aren’t trash or lacking value just because they don’t serve you.

This part:

Point being, just because a particular thing doesn’t serve you, doesn’t mean it lacks value.

Could you reblog this if you enjoy seeing your writer friends ramble about their wips on your dash?

The devil works hard but fanfic authors work harder 🖤🖤 take a gold star ⭐, an optional forehead kiss 😘, and a mandatory glass of water💧 you all deserve the world