On Fanfiction

A terrible wave of nostalgia hit me recently, so I decided to re-read a fanfiction I had adored in my younger years. Since I've been taking two creative writing classes this semester, this time around I read the story with a much more critical eye. There were some obtuse passages I would have excised here and there, but overall I breathed a sigh of relief in acknowledgement that the story was as good as I remembered. Witty dialogue, a coherent and engaging plot, and two protagonists entangled in a believable love story I could root for wholeheartedly, with no annoying third wheeling love complications that I would make me want to enter the story and bash people's heads in.

In an attempt to procrastinate (and since it was the last stretch of Spring Break, I felt entitled to some leisure reading), I decided to Google for more fanfiction stories revolving around the same pairing. I ended up choosing two to read that seemed fairly popular. (I know, I know, quantity of reviews is not exactly proportional to quality of writing, but that's how I chose them.)

The first one had over a thousand reviews but I couldn't even finish it. Miraculously, I got through around eight chapters before I called it quits. Characterization was very inconsistent--the two leads would bicker like children one moment and then suddenly be filled with moony longing for each other the next. But the tipping point that led me to give up was the premise of the story. The thing about fanfiction is that your story needs to be able to fit seamlessly into the fabric of the original, whether it's the characters' personalities or the location/setting. Unfortunately, the premise of this fanfiction was too unbelievable to belong in the setting of the original story. Let's just said it had to do with two people being forced to raise a magically conjured baby. Anyways, it was not very well-written either, and in the end I decided I didn't really give a flying duck whether or not they became a happy family.

The second one was actually good until the last three or so chapters. At first, I was weirded out by how this author characterized the male lead -- he was much more cold, regal and badass in my childhood favorite fanfiction, whereas in this one he was kind of... cocky and smirky. He ended up being okay though. The spunky female lead from the original story has always been one of my favorite book characters EVER, and this was no exception for this fanfiction... until the last three chapters of this story when she suddenly became a wishy-washy manipulative bitch, almost as bad as the villainous ex-girlfriend who'd been harassing the couple for all of the story. Characterization inconsistencies.... UGH. Once she started being all emotionally manipulative, I dropped that chick like it's hot.

I had a conversation with someone a few weeks ago about fanfiction and its reputation for being awful writing. The truth is, there IS a lot of bad fanfiction out there. Case in point -- out of three stories I read these past few days -- I would only willingly reread the first (my childhood favorite), despite the fact that all of these stories have at least hundreds of reviews, which suggests that there are definitely people out there who love them. Part of the bad rep also comes from things like 50 Shades of Grey becoming a best-seller (which I will get to in another post.... I swear).

But there is good stuff out there. It just takes some effort to unearth them.

If there hadn't been that massive Fictionpress exodus, I would actually be curious to go back and re-read some of my childhood favorites (e.g. Against All Odds, Interrogame, etc.) and see how they hold up with me today...