Fan fiction? No Thanks.

Apr 19

I hate fan fiction now. I didn’t used to feel this way. While I was never a huge fan, it has taken over and has contributed to the pornification of modern literature. The trash that has oozed out of it like diarrhea (Romantasy) has absolutely ruined traditional science fiction and fantasy. My last outing to Powell’s bookstore was a sad affair. They completely took down the room devoted to speculative fiction and now there is maybe only a bookshelf for that, while everything in the science fiction and fantasy section has been engulfed by romantasy. I’ve had to go looking for a new book store to find a decent selection of science fiction and fantasy books. Perhaps the first books to create the romantasy genre are good books ( I haven’t read them but I’m willing to say that the best in the subgenre are probably pretty good) but the subgenre as a whole has created problems for true science fiction and fantasy. For that reason alone, I have no desire to read them. Hilary Lane, author of The Blue Prince, a fantasy serial novel, has thoughts on this issue and I agree with her. You can watch and listen to her thoughts on the issue here.

The biggest reason why I have always had an issue with it is the laziness of the writers who create it. A true writer uses her own mind, her own ideas and creativity to create her own stories. That is the work of a true writer. When you look at some popular books that were directly derived from fan faction off another original work, in most cases they are poorly written, shallow, trash versions of that original work. Fan fiction, from my observations being in the author/writer space is a big contributor to plagiarism. There were quite a few scandals over this in the early aughts. I still remember them and it seemed, unfortunately, that the miscreants largely, got away with this dishonest, even dare I say, criminal behavior. There were even some who stole someone else’s popular fan fiction and published it as their own! Shameful!

Rarely do I come out this directly against anything but for the poisoning of the reading community and of speculative fiction I think it demands this firmness and directness; this trash is encroaching on everything! If a writer can’t or won’t create their own stories perhaps they shouldn’t write at all. Some have claimed that writing fan fiction is like riding a bicycle with training wheels. I say writing fan fiction is like a riding a bicycle with training wheels THAT YOU STOLE FROM ANOTHER KID! Ride your own damned bike! Making up your own story from scratch is exercise for your brain. It forces you to stretch and use your own imagination. It forces you to think deeply and expansively.

I don’t believe you can ever truly improve as a writer when you remain in the golden cage of working within someone else’s world. To me it’s laziness, a shortcut to writing without having to do the hard work of world building, development of themes and development of characters by the writer, nor does it help a writer learn how to plot out a story structure from beginning to end. After all, the writer never takes the training wheels off, so to speak. This is all difficult work and pre-created characters, pre- existing worlds and plots that the fan fic writer relies on never forces her to create stories out of whole cloth, which is the very essence of story making and story telling. This is not the same thing as being inspired by someone else’s work, which all creative people benefit from and use. Fan fiction is built on training wheels and crutches that aren’t even yours. The originality of a story that comes from your own brain is not there. If you’ve learned to divorce yourself from someone else’s world and made the leap to create your own original work, that’s a very good thing. But the danger is that you won’t make the leap. Or can’t make the leap.

There is a second reason. I hate porn and as far as I’m concerned there is no good reason for its existence. Men have long been derided for accessing it. Women have flown under the radar because of how we process sensual information. Much of what passes for fan fiction today is simply porn, full stop. It’s vile and it is harmful to the reader/user. But that is a post for another day.