Fanfiction's Purpose in the Writing World

"Every writer I know has trouble writing," -Joseph Heller

I've been a writer for fourteen years.

While this specific title wasn't self-proclaimed until about six years ago, and while I haven't made a single cent on my passion, fourteen years to my name is impressive for the blossoming age of seventeen, not to toot my own horn or anything.

Like any human trying anything new, we imitate. As developing children, we learn to speak and walk by watching our parents - we imitate.

This is why fan-fiction is essential for new writers.

Fan-fiction, for all you noobs out there, is fiction written by fans of a particular original work.  Examples being: a fan writing an alternate ending to The Hunger Games series, about a character's untold backstory on Lost, about what happened to Hazel Grace after Gus died and she read his letter - it can be anything, as long as it's related to a fandom.  However, fan-fiction has a notorious reputation on the internet for being extremely and inappropriately sexual, and for having poor grammar and atrocious writing.

Like any young child, I spent a good portion of my free time coloring and drawing pictures.  Except I would create a series of pictures, and characters and plotlines to go along with it.  And even before I was able to pick up a pencil and scratch out any words myself, I was creating stories.  So I would tell my mom what each picture meant and what was happening, and she would write them down and then staple them together.  To this day, they sit in my basement in a huge Tupperware tub - that's how much I wrote.

And my most notable works was a three-part retelling of Cinderella where she was a princess and a secret agent who lived under the stairs of her evil step-family's house with her cat. My most favorite, however, was 'The Incredibles Meet Shark-Boy and Lava-Girl"  where these two bands of supers teamed up to fight the Omnidroid 11.

I kid you not.

Later, however, I began to develop my own stories with my own plot and characters - and while these were loosely based on my childhood obsessions and almost every character had a real life counterpart, fan-fiction was a good part of my writing journey.

This is why I am for writers writing fan-fiction - as long as this is not their only avenue. Admittedly, I still dabble in fan-fiction if I'm in between ideas, my original story isn't doing much for me, or if I just want to get back into the mood of writing.

And even for experienced writers, fan-fiction is good to exercise the writing muscle - to try new things, to perfect a skill, or to just keep you in shape in between projects.

While I would personally hesitate telling people that you're a writer if all you write is fan-fiction, fan-fiction can be constructive to any writer. It's important to remember that  fan-fiction has it's place - and this place is for personal enjoyment and exercising the writing muscle.

Write carefully, fanpeople.

~The WordShaker