How Do You Write Fan Fiction?

I think about the characters, and then try to write a credible episode for them (I write "Alias" fics, so it's spy missions). I'll write different missions, different events, interactions they could credibly have shown on the show.

I don't really like ones where it's the characters Jim, but not as we know them (e.g. the Alias characters but back in school), and I don't like cross-fandoms or slash fics. But that's a personal thing.

I've never been able to write fanfic using characters. The only kind I've ever written is using the worlds; I'd have no problem writing original characters set in someone else's world, but knowing the way I feel about -my- characters, I wouldn't really be interested in writing someone else's.

I don't think there's going to be a single answer to your question, though. Too many people have too many ideas about how to do it and what is appropriate that there isn't going to be a consensus on any of it. :)

Are you asking because you think you might try it, or just because you really can't understand why we write it? LIke any other genre, I don't think you should try to write in it just because it's popular, only if you feel drawn to it. If you don't understand, I don't know if anyone can explain; it would be like trying to tell you why I like the kind of music I like if it's not your kind of music.

For me, it usually starts with liking the characters or something about the world, and wanting to build on what's there and add to it. It might be a "what if?" idea where I wonder what would happen if a character was stuck in an unusual situation, or wondering how they would react to certain other characters.

Sometimes people write fanfic to "fix" something they don't like about the original work- if their favorite character gets killed off, or the show gets cancelled in the middle of the story, or the characters don't end up in the romantic relationships the reader was rooting for. You can try to redeem the bad guy, or see what happens if the terribly perfect hero falls to temptation and turns bad. You can also use fanfiction to try to fill in plotholes that show up in the original story!

Some fanfic writers do prefer to build their story within the limits of the original story, as you said. There's a lot you can do without changing the original storyline - like "unseen scenes" that might explain how a character reacted to something in the original story. Those kinds of stories can be more challenging and fun to write because you really have to know the source and think about what might happen in that world. But the other, more random kinds of stories are fun to write too, just to play around with the characters. Some fans like the fictional world but don't want to write about the existing characters, and some like the characters but not the world they live in, so they take what they like and go someplace else with it.

I don't feel guilty at all about writing fanfic, nor about changing things from the original story, although I personally like to build on the existing story in some way. I think it's a great compliment to the creators of the original that people want to spend more time with their characters or visiting their worlds. It's also free advertising for them; I've been hooked on many new fandoms after coming across the characters in fanfiction. I'm not passing the original creators' work off as my own, but I am putting my own imagination and writing skills to work on their material. People do that naturally, in their minds, anyway, if they like something enough to still be thinking about it after they've read or viewed it. Some of us just go to the trouble of writing it down.
For the record, if I should ever manage to publish an original story, I won't feel like I've succeeded until I find people love (or maybe hate) my characters enough to want to write their own stories about them!

well, I've never actually written fanfic (but I'm going to next year) I think that you should start with what you like about the show (or book, movie, etc.) and then make a list of what you don't like. see if you can maximize the first while downplaying the other. if there's a character in the party who is your favorite (but not the leader) then you can change it, it's in your power.

I plan to have my '08 nano be about a fictionaut (exactly what it sounds like) exploring worlds, and among them are the planeteers (but they're grown-up now, and a group of eco-terrorists) and also meeting henry mccoy from "law and order" after he's lost one case too many and become a vigilante.

another thing you can do is take a series that had a good concept, but for one reason or another failed (firefly, for example) and see if you can breathe new life into it. I intend for the planeteers to encounter more realistic villains instead of a group of weirdos who appear to be polluting just for the fun of it.

I hope that helps

I'm just curious about it, both generally and personally. I'd never heard of fan fiction until I was browsing some of the posts on the NaNo forums, and in poking around on the Web, I discovered just how popular it is, so I'm interested in learning more about it. And there have always been movies where I haven't been able to stop thinking about the characters and what happened to them after the ending, but when I think about Hollywood doing a sequel, my gut reaction is, "But they'll RUIN it!" I never really thought about it, but yeah, I guess it boils down to the feeling that only *I* could do it right and have it turn out the way it SHOULD turn out. :-)

It'd be interesting to try to write some of my own, but like I said above, I feel like I'd be stepping on toes. That's why I'm curious as to how other people approach it.

Go for it - write it, even if it's only for your eyes. If you feel you've done a good job by the characters, then share it!

Most of my own fics have been things that could fall before, after or during the game I write fanfiction for. One is an exception, since I am rewriting the game with a past event not happening.

I don't feel guilty about writing these, it gives fans stuff they would have wanted, and a good writer will write something that can possibly have happened.

A good way to get started on ideas is to take a favorite fandom of yours and think about what you would like to have seen that was missing. You could also take a favorite scene and write it from someone else's point of view. You can also delve into backstory and expanding on what was told about it. Or you could go the route of wondering what would happen if they made a different choice at one point.

And also some fandoms will have communities or contests that are really fun. I entered one that had five prompts you could write on, which were basically themes that your fics had to cover.

Another nice thing about fanfiction is that you will have readers if you post your work.

I've only ever attempted fanfiction twice - one was for this year's nano, and the other was something I was working on before.

I don't really like to write AU, though I did a short 2000W story awhile ago that took place in a completely Alternate Universe, and the MC was an Original Character. Well actually, the MC was an OC i'd used before, in original stories rather than fanfic. In that one, I put 2 characters from Veronica Mars (both dead) in a world with my dead MC, but I didn't name names - they were just identified by the manner in which they died.

My first attempt at fanfic was/is a multi-chapter (12 in total, though it's not finished) piece that takes place after the series ends, so when the characters from VM are in their 2nd year at uni. I'm staying as close to canon as possible (with a lovely beta to nudge me in the right direction when I start to veer off too far from course).

My fic for nano was from the POV of a character who, although she was a main character in Season 1, was dead before the series actually started. In that one, I had a lot of fun coming up with a back story, but i tried not to deviate from canon there either - any facts there were available, I used. Some of it was from my own imagination, but anywthing that was mentioned or elaborated upon on the show, i stuck to.

i saw the title and just went "huh? what do you mean?"

i guess, i've never stopped and wondered how-
i just do.

it comes naturally.
you do it cause otherwise they'll claw their way out of your head.

it usually starts with the original source. you're watching an episode of the x-files, by example. and you find yourself wondering
"what if.... mulder saw the future and wanted to change it?" and you start thinking about it, about the ramifications.

or maybe it's something fluffy and silly, like they're in a case and ,i don't know, fall into a mud pit and before continuing go hom to change. and you start imagining what happened then.
you pick up a piece of paper and a pen and start writing it. you've watched the show so many times you know how they generally talk and behave.

when i first started, i wrote a couple of silly, completely OOC, fluffy one-shots.
and i was scared of messing with canon, too.

like, i'd do something that seemed to fit canon and i'd ship whoever i was allowed to ship.

as i grew older and had more experience, my writing improved and i stopped caring so much about canon.
you care in order to write the characters well, but there are many gaps in info, so it's fun to play with them.

this day, i ship whomever i like, by example. and i don't pay that close attention to canon anymore.

and no, i never, ever felt any sort of guilt. not for writing fic, or reading it or imagining stuff or anything.
it never felt like i was doing anything wrong.
this day, i dl most of my shows since i can't get them here, and i just don't really get worked up over that.

i think it's kind of an honour. that someones cares enough.

kinda like someone leaving a review to your fic.

After doing NaNo2007, my literary arteries became unclogged. I hadn't written anything in MONTHS and even dropped out of my critique group. NaNoWriMo put the fun back in writing for me.

In my NaNo "novel" (I use the term loosely ha ha ha), I wrote a scene with some X-men in it b/c I've quit reading "real" books lately and just read old Marvel comics. I read to escape, not to better my mind. Even so, the mutant stuff hits close to home for me as I try to accept a severly handicapped grandchild.

Sooooooo .... I enjoyed toying with the characters so much that I found myself scribbling on the backs of appointment notices as I waited for the child to finish with physical therapy or whatever. I picked the favorite aspects of different incarnations of "Nightcrawler" from the X-men, sliced and diced and stuck 'em in the mental mixer and I am still churning out really rotten fanfic even now.

Havin' a blast.

I've read some AWESOME fanfic about Nightcrawler, but mine isn't ever gonna be that good. Still I'm enjoying spending time with the people in my head (so much more fun than the real ones we deal with, no?), living vicariously thru my Original Character. I mean, at my stage of life I can't have beer wars in a hot tub, but good ol' Elise can! I can let her have all kinds of fun and never feel like she has to have sex, which seems to be de rigeur in real comics. (Hmmm... in that way, we are similar... jk)

My hubby is now used to me burbling on, quoting him lines from my stupid stuff... typical conversation:
ME: Honey, guess what Elise told her daughter?
DH: Uh, what?
ME: She said, "Sweetie, if you have the choice, always marry a man with a tail!" {*switches to maniacal laughter until her sides hurt*} Isn't that funny?
DH: Yeah. Really good. {He thinks, "I'm glad she's enjoying herself. Now if she'd just cook dinner..."}
ME: And did I tell you I decided to send him back to Germany? And, like, she can't act upset or stuff because ...... {ad infinitum until I realize he is back off in Hubbyland}

Some folks are strict traditionalists and will not write in alternate universes, which can be really fun, you know like how everybody (self included) wants to write a novel about people on the Titanic only make it where it fits all the actual historical facts. I am way more cavalier b/c I am doing this PURELY FOR FUN, not to exercise my writing skills or impress anyone. And b/c I am lazy and because I write to escape, not to work.

Sorry the answer is so long. I originally came on the forum to see if I could find any WriMos who wrote Nightcrawler fanfic, then got distracted by this thread.

Before I ever wrote a single word of any story or made up a character, my sister and I were roleplaying (although we didn't know what it was at that point) with the characters from our favorite shows. We imagined all manner of scenereos (What would happen if the characters from this show met the characters from that show? as an example). This was our first attempt at telling stories and it was before either of us had any idea how to make up a character of our own. Admittedly, we were all of ten years old, so the characters were seldom consistant or completely in-character.

In any case, the trend continued and we started inserting made-up, original characters into the stories/role-plays with the characters from our favorite shows. When we began writing them down... well, that's fanfiction.

Now, for the most part, I write only with my own original characters. However, I've still got a few fanfiction ideas floating around. I can honestly say that there is no guilt involved when I say, "What would happen if Ryoma met these two, maybe played some tennis with them?" I've never felt strange doing it, although I do make a conserted effort to keep the characters true to their original portrayal. I don't plan to publish the stories or profit off them. I might show them to someone else that I know likes the show. For the most part, though, they're mental exercises that live on my harddrive and never see the light of day. I seldom even finish them.

My best friend and I totally did that too. We actually started writing down our horrible Mary-Sue adventures when we were twelve. We actually managed to create a unifying plot thread with a magic remote control that put us into our favorite shows.

I always say I've been creating fanfic since I was 3 and writing fanfic since I was 10. However, I wasn't *good* at writing fanfic until I was about 19. I'm 25 now and there are still some things I haven't gotten the hang of. Plot structure is the biggie. I tend to write vignettes and ficlets that don't really have a plot because they're about a single event. The last two 15K+ fics I wrote, which had actual honest-to-God plots, weren't really that good.

The fandoms I write in are not really that tolerant of original characters. In fact, I know a *lot* of people who won't read a story if it has an original character in it. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the reviews for one of my fics, in which people really wanted to know what happened to the two female original characters after they "left the screen", so to speak. Some readers actually connected to those characters more than to the two canon characters. I was floored. The whole story is less than 2K words and the girls only appear in the first third of the story, but that was enough for some readers to get attached to them.

i just think about what interests me about the world of the fandom. i don't usually write about canon events or even necessarily main characters, as long as i expand* the world a little more**.

*occasionally collapse.
**occasionally a lot more.

Pretty much the only thing you do is take the characters from a book, movie, or tv show. Then you write a story with them as the main characters.
There are tons of writing sites dedicated to fanfiction, like fanfiction.net.

Question: How do I write fan fiction?

Answer: I just do.

I write fanfiction because I want to change something...or add to something...or explore an alternate possibility or expand upon a cancelled show. All my fanfiction can be found here http://www.fanfiction.net/~anjirika and I've written a grand total of 49 stories ranging from 81,941 words to 224 words. They encompass stories from Stargate: Atlantis, Stargate: SG-1, Pirates of the Caribbean, Sailor Moon, Studio 60, 4400, StarTrek: Voyager, StarTrek: Enterprise, Misc. Books, Power Rangers, Enchanted, and Class of the Titans.

I wrote them because the characters are a part of my psyche and I hear their voices in my head. Thus, I write. Plus- writing fanfiction is a lot more relaxing then writing an original story because with fanfiction you don't have to care about it being the BEST story that you've EVER writen because it's more for fun.

But then again...that's just me.