Fan Fiction vs. Original Fiction: Ultimate Death Battle! (Or just some ways they're different...) · 6:22am Sep 30th, 2014
Many fanfic authors write plan on someday writing original fiction (you know, one of these days.) As such, several people have asked me about the writing of original fiction and/or filing off the serial numbers of a fanfic, and how that differs from writing a fanfic.
Let me explain why people would ask me that, for those who don’t know. I’ve written a novel, and contracted it to a small press publisher. The publisher is currently having some issues (which is the downside of small presses), so I have no idea when this will see the light of day, but I apparently wrote something that at least one person who reads books enjoyed. So… I guess I know how to do this.
(I will totally admit that there are other people around here who have more experience with writing original fiction. If they have opinions, you should listen to them.)
First of all, I don’t consider fanfiction lesser than original fiction. It’s also not easier. However, both kinds of writing have aspects that are easier than the other… so in the end, they’re just different.
There are a few major areas where original fiction is different from fanfiction, things that are pretty inherent to writing in one of the genres, and a few minor things that tend to be different between them just because of how fanfic is published and who reads it.
When you’re writing original fiction, the very first difference you’re going to run into is world building.
Maybe.
Some pro writers think it’s lazy that fanfic writers don’t have to build their own world, which every author of original fiction has to do… if they’re writing sci-fi or fantasy. Seriously, this isn’t that big a handicap unless you plan to go into those genres, and even if you do you’re no worse off than you would be if you started with stories set in the real world. Anyone who sets their writing in the real world is doing less world building than writing MLP fanfic.
That being said, if you are planning to write sci-fi or fantasy, MLP isn’t going to give you much practice on where to start from unless you’re using a totally original AU. What it can do is give you practice on fitting ideas into a setting so that they feel right together. If you want to work at that, writing some stories set in a less-detailed part of Equestria, and trying to make them match up with the show or another fic universe would let you get some feedback on how you’re doing.
In terms of filing off the serial numbers, this is arguably the hard part: creating a world that contains the parts of Equestria that you need for your plot and characters, makes sense, and is far enough from being Equestria to not get you sued if you sell it.
Character creation is a bit different. It’s true, fanfiction doesn’t give you much practice there either, and that’s one that you’re pretty much going to have to get good at. Making OCs is one way to do that, but at the same time OCs in pony fanfic generally have to be made to fit in with Equestria and the other characters-- you can’t have an OC with a rainbow mane who wants to be a Wonderbolt (not without commenting on Rainbow Dash, at least.)
Which brings me to the biggest difference between original fiction and fanfic: In original fiction, everything is open, the whole time.
A lot of people see this as a problem when staring at the blank page: It’s easier to start with some guidlines then look at nothing and try to be awesome. And it’s true, it’s a lot harder to invent a world that all makes sense than it is to modify an existing one, and it’s harder to pull together character traits and backstory that make sense when your options for what might feel right are “everything humans and/or aliens have ever been or could be” rather than “traits that are pony-like and how they could appear in Equestria.”
However, in my experience that’s just a steep price of entry. Once you have a world and some characters, the fact that you made them up becomes a huge benefit and makes life so much easier. Because now that you have a kind of outline, you can change the setting, characters, or anything else as much as you want, whenever you want.
Look at it this way, if you decide halfway through planning your fanfic (or worse, halfway through writing it) that this would really work better if Applejack was a pegasus, and her parents were alive, and she was near Manehattan rather than Ponyville… you’re probably out of luck. Even as an AU, unless that was really important to the story, it would probably come across as random changes that would be hard to sell people on.
But in original fiction, you can totally do that. Any time it would be better for your plot or theme if a setting was slightly different, or a character could do something that’s not in their character to do, you can change things. Yes, you have to keep them internally consistent-- if you change the setting, it has to be changed through the whole story. If the character is going to do something that seems OOC, they have to be changed so it’s no longer OOC. But you have that option. And that can make your story better; details can fit together more perfectly, character actions can be more easily explained, and all of your characters can be designed to be easy for you to write.
In my own novel, between the time I thought it up and the time it was finished, I changed the genre from high fantasy to historic-ish AU fantasy, the setting changed from a kingdom to a modern style city, and several character got backstory and motivation overhauls and sometimes changed “sides” as a result. And if anyone ever gets to read the darn novel, they will have no idea that I did those things.
The other aspect of this, and another thing that makes original fiction somewhat easier, is that as long as your character and setting are consistent, there is no OOC and there are no canon related mistakes in original fiction. Fanfiction requires a unique skill, the ability to look at a character in one medium and transfer them in a recognizable way to another. This is neither required nor particularly useful for original fiction writers, though there’s a bit of good to be had in practicing consistent characterization (making sure the character feels the same through the whole story.) But in general, being able to write a show character in character is one of the less useful parts of fanfiction.
Finally, my personal nemesis-- first chapters in original fiction.
I have to admit here that writing the first chapter or two of an original novel is the most awkward and annoying writing I’ve ever done. I don’t know if it’s the same for other people, but I tend to talk about this like it should be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
The reason for my hatred is that introducing characters and setting is haaaaard for me. Personally, I’ve never had trouble with inventing characters and setting, like fic ideas I could make up five plots with interesting, multidimensional characters and unique settings every day (okay, a lot of them involve a lesbian tomboy… but the rest of the characters are different, I swear!) However, introducing those characters, giving people enough information to know what they look like and how they’re interesting, letting people know details of the setting without an exposition dump, setting the scene with all the physical and emotional components that entails… and doing it all so people don’t notice you’re doing it makes my eye twitch.
It’s so much easier to be able to write “Rainbow Dash sat at a table in Sugarcube Corner.” and have everyone get the right picture. Sooo much easier.
Those are the big things I’ve noticed, and like I said at the start they’re a grab bag of things that are easier in fanfiction and things that are easier in original fiction. And, frankly, most of them are things you don’t even notice you’re doing, with practice.
There are a few more differences that have to do with minor aspects of how fanfiction and original fiction are usually published, but they aren’t inherent to writing it:
Fanfiction comes with a built in audience. There’s a good chance that no matter what you write about Rainbow Dash, there are at least a few people out there who will give it a chance. This is not true of most original fiction.
Fanfiction offers instant gratification in terms of audience reactions. Press a button and in hours you’ll see if they liked it, hated it, or ignored it. In original fiction, usually that involves getting published somewhere, which can take anywhere from months to years to never. Epublishing is an option, but not a really easy one, so you’re basically going to get more feedback faster with fanfic.
Fanfiction is often published a chapter at a time, which can increase opportunities for instant gratification, but ties your hands in terms of tweaking the plot as you go along or find holes. Since original fiction usually isn’t published until it’s complete, it can be viewed as a whole and adjusted before anyone sees it.
It’s hard to get people to read your original fiction for you, including prereading. I suspect most original fiction is submitted to publishers with less prereading than most of my friends use on their pony fanfic. On the other hand, original fiction will be edited and formatted by professionals before it’s published.
Fanfiction is free and you don’t have to have a physical copy, and readers are willing to read things they otherwise might not. Basically, the difference between Fallout: Equestria and an original fiction version of the same thing is that people will give Fallout: Equestria’s 600k a shot. This is the same reason why people will read dozens of fanfics that have more or less the same plot, or forgive errors in fic that they wouldn’t in a published book, or read things they wouldn’t want around their house like 800,000 word ponysex epics.
Fanfic readers are either more entitled, or more vocal towards authors about their entitlement in terms of your story elements. There are several well known subjects about which certain groups of fans like to challenge authors (including choice of ships/inclusion of shipping, and the presence or lack thereof of Spike.) This rarely happens to original fiction authors, if only because there are a lot fewer fans of their story elements (it did famously happen to J.K Rowling when it became obvious that the Harry Potter series was going to be Harry/Ginny and not Harry/Hermione (Harmony). The Harmonians threw an enormous fit. But for most authors who don’t have the force of fandom behind them, they can write how they want.)
Most of those things can be made more or less important, depending on what subjects you write about, your writing methods, and how much you really care about it. But they are things that can make a difference between how your original fiction is written and received and how your fanfic is.
So, if you’re planning on writing that Great American Novel (even more impressive if you’re not American) these are some things to keep in mind that might be better or worse or different, when you start on it.
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Minette Walters started her writing career writing love stories with extremely hard rules (no alcohol, all the female protagonists had to be virgins, their love interest s hade to be widowers (there were more, but I can't remember those)). She improved herself by learning how to write something interesting that still fit the rules. Since fanfic-writing sort of works the same way, wouldn't that implement that writing a lot of fanfic would make you a better writer in general?
Sorry, I am not sure if it relevant to your blog, but the thought stroke me as I read it.
An interesting blog post but I would disagree with anything to do with a physical product. I haven't bothered with physical media be it movies, books, or music in a long time. I still consume plenty of paid (e)books after donating my entire physical collection to the library as I hadn't bothered opening them for quite some time and had even begun to repurchase them in e-format.
You are right about the paid part though. Trying things for free makes the barrier to my e-reader much lower for any free stories be they pony or otherwise. I typically find new books by association, be it authors recommending other authors or wiki links from existing story/author pages.
Of course. Anything you practice at you'll improve yourself on.
2495515
I don't think that sort of thing makes you a better writer. What it does is make stories easier to write... I think I said it somewhere in there, but having a set of restrictions makes it easier to think of something creative then being faced with nothing but a blank page. It gives you something to build from.
However, when stories are easier to write, you write more of them, and that makes you a better writer.
2495516
The physical product barrier primarily accounts for the amount and type of porn people are willing to read... where if they had to have a copy sitting around their house they'd be less likely to get themselves hundreds of thousands of words of lesbian erotica.
That being said, e-publishing is making original fiction more like the fan fiction model in terms of marketing, I agree.
2495525
I would love to have volumes upon volumes of lesbian hoers erotica.
What's your original work?
Very well said. And I think this avenue of discussion also segues nicely into the role of fanfiction as a useful building block for soon-to-be-published authors and why it's worth pursuing and pushing on in the face of social stigma, even from entrenched writers - the ones who've made it - who decry and criticize its existence from on high. I mean, we all start from somewhere and we all draw inspiration from the things that affect us. Plus, you toed the line in one paragraph already.
Woop. HMS Pumpkin Pie and Harmony are the same thing: Harry/Hermione. I can't remember what Harry/Ginny was, but Hermione/Ron was The Good Ship, and both canon ships were subsumed into OBWHF (One Big Weasley Happy Family.) Ah, yes--I remember them days. I also remember that it sort of passed me by, since I could see that this was where Rowling was going, and that she was and is the sort of writer who does not change her plans because fans do or don't like something.
The time gap in academic nonfiction is even bigger. It took thirteen years between my starting to write my only book and getting it published, and two more years before I saw any reviews at all. You almost need some instant gratification to help counterbalance that.
I will note that there is one other interesting difference that an actual physical novel holds versus a story on the internet, and that is that you can't just click away.
When you read a book, you've committed to doing something. There's nothing else immediately there that you can access. As a result, novels actually can start very differently from how any sort of internet fiction can (and that includes short stories on the internet, like the ones at The New Yorker or on Tor) because the hook doesn't have to be quite as immediate. If the cover and the back of your book convinces someone to buy it, then they're going to feel obligated to read it to a degree not found in your typical free-on-the-internet story.
Look at the first chapter of Redwall or a similar book; why did I keep reading this book? Because it was a book. But if it was just some random thing on the internet, I might have been more likely to wander off because the hook wasn't very strong at all at the start.
This is not true of all books, and you can see some books - The Eye of the World and A Game of Thrones - where we have a sort of "James Bond prologue" or pre-credits sequence focusing on characters other than the main protagonists in order to thrust us into a more interesting situation to grab and hook the reader.
But there are a lot of books which have been fairly widely read which simply don't have super strong introductions.
2495515
Restrictions breed creativity, as they say. And this sort of thing can definitely help you write in some cases by preventing you from taking shortcuts; alcohol is a very lazy way to get characters together.
The problem, however, is that it can also lead you to not confront new problems, and thus rely on extant solutions. This is bad, as it can lead to them being crutches and you not coming up with new solutions organically.
Writing fanfiction can either be an example of writing with constraints (which can help you improve your writing, as the constraints are things you need to work around and the world and its flavor are things you need to stay in tune with) or it can be an example of using crutches, where you use pre-existing characters, situations, and events in order to avoid having to do those things yourself.
Writing with constraints can definitely improve your ability to write via gainful practice, but writing with crutches can make it harder for you to improve because you're being lazy and avoiding doing important things.
2495549
Is the physical part of physical novel important or is it the novel part? I do agree that a novel is quite different than a short story, but with how prevalent ebooks are now I don't know how much having separate physical book matters.
As an aside into my complete love of efficiency (ebooks
) when I first saw Star Trek: Next Generation in the 90s and saw data pads I instantly wanted one to replace my books. I was truly thrilled when what was then science fiction became current technology.
2495545
Oops! Fixed that.
2495571
It is two things.
First off, its physical nature makes a difference; on FIMFiction, if I want to see another story, it is a click away. With a novel, I'd have to go boot up my computer to do something else; that's a lot more work. Ergo, I'm more likely to keep with the novel.
Secondly, I think that the sunk cost fallacy applies to some extent as well; basically, I went to all the trouble of acquiring this object, now I'd better make use of it or else that time/effort is wasted.
2495545
Ironically, apparently JK Rowling changed her mind on that pairing as well.
I'm sure her billion dollars will comfort her, though.
I never was really "into" Harry Potter, though I was one of the trolls who, when the 7th book came out, went through it and looked for spoiler stuff. And of course, everyone had posted all the real death spoilers by the time I got there (in the form of X dies with a shot of the page) so I, being the youthful wag that I was, grabbed the page where Harry "dies" and posted that, immediately resulting in people complaining that I was lying because he comes back to life.
Alas, I think the only people who were actually there were the trolls, as everyone who actually cared had the good sense to avoid the internet after Snape killed Dumbledore.
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2495525
Sirs and Madams. I am sorry to start an argument like this being quite a stranger to you and I am afraid in English not the best sort.
However, my point is this. Wheter writing fanfic is a crutch or constraint lies very much in your attitude towards writing. If you want to write an adventure story, you probably write about Dash or AJ. Some battles, some arguments, some love. Perfectly readable, pretty good, and it goes about 13 a dozen of them. But lets say you choose to write about Pinkie? And you still want to write that epic adventure. Make her an epic fighter, show her in emotional settings that will give you the feels, now THAT's a challenge, but is possible. And when you've accomplished that, then I'd say you are one heck of a writer.
It's a matter of choice, if you choose it to be a crutch, then its a crutch. If you choose it to be an constraint, then it is a good as any.
For me, by the way, it is definetely a crutch. I am a lazy writer.
You discuss world building in writing your own original fiction. So how does that compare to doing something in n epaned universe?
2495672 Too bad that so few people who repeat that story actually read the full interview, because that's not what she said, not to mention that she subsequently published a story with Ron, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny in it as characters, and she didn't change a thing about their relationships. Gosh, wonder what relative weight to give an author's speculation in an interview and a subsequent canon publication?
Rowling's not a billionaire anymore, by the way. Forbes dropped her from the billionaire's list because she gave so much to charity that she no longer qualifies.