Do you remember how people used to regard fanfiction?
Some people still kind of do.
They treated it like it was dirty, childish, embarrassing, and not worth anybody’s time. Looking back, that is almost funny now, because fanfiction had a quiet but powerful rise in the late 90s and early 2000s with sites like FanFiction.Net, which is still around today. Though, let’s be honest, these days it is so covered in ads that you practically need an ad blocker to use it without losing your mind.
A lot of fanfiction writers eventually moved over to AO3, Archive of Our Own, which became one of the biggest homes for fanworks online.
The funny part is that fanfiction has always been more than people gave it credit for. For a lot of writers, fanfiction was where they learned the skills they needed to survive in the writing world. Finishing a story. Meeting deadlines. Handling bad takes. Taking criticism. Figuring out pacing, character voice, dialogue, and all the wonderful little monsters writers have to wrestle when they start thinking about publishing a book.
One example of a writer doing very well after reworking fanfiction into an original universe is E. L. James, also known as Erika Leonard. Fifty Shades of Grey began as Twilight fanfiction before becoming its own book series. In 2012, it became a publishing phenomenon.
Am I personally a fan of the series? No.
But I can appreciate the hard work that goes into writing a book series, even if it is not my thing. That matters. A finished book is still a finished book. The important part is being honest with yourself about where the inspiration came from and doing the work to make the new version stand on its own.
Fanfiction is not a bad thing. It is actually an amazing tool for getting started as a writer. It lets you explore concepts you may never have considered before. It gives you a playground with familiar walls while you learn how to build rooms of your own.
A good example of this kind of writing practice was NaNoWriMo, which stood for National Novel Writing Month. For the uninitiated, the challenge was to write a 50,000-word draft during the month of November. Not everyone finished, but that was never the whole point. The point was trying. The point was learning what it felt like to sit down, show up, and keep writing even when the shiny new idea stopped being shiny.
The official NaNoWriMo organization has shut down now, but the heart of the challenge is still out there. Writers can still use November, or any month, to push themselves toward a draft.
Then there were Big Bang events.
Those were amazing to participate in. They were usually fandom events where writers signed up to write a longer fanfiction, and artists would be assigned to create custom art for those stories. If you did not finish, you did not get the art. That was part of the deal. Writers worked with betas. Artists worked with writers. Everyone had deadlines. Everyone had expectations.
Kind of looks like what the book industry does, right?
Fanfiction communities, especially from the late 90s through the 2010s, were some of the most prolific places for people to learn the skills needed to become authors. That has not really changed. The tools may have shifted. The websites may have changed. Some old communities have faded, and some new ones have taken their place. But the lessons are still there.
How do you finish a story?
How do you keep character voices consistent?
How do you take feedback without falling apart?
How do you write when nobody is paying you, nobody is forcing you, and the only thing pushing you forward is the fact that you care about the story?
That is not childish.
That is practice.
So if you want to write a book but you do not know where to start, start with fanfiction. Start with drabbles. Start with one-shots. Start with characters you already understand and worlds you already love. Learn what makes them work. Learn what makes a story move. Learn what makes readers come back.
Then, when you are ready, start building your own worlds too.
Just start.
Because no one is stopping you. If you write a good story, your audience will find you. They may already be waiting.