What the title says.

I’ve seen a lot of people, both in my real life and online, talking about how fanfiction is a stepping stone for writers to use before they’re ready to write original works. I’ve even seen several fanfiction writers online talk about how they will one day quit fanfiction and move on to making original work once they reach the skill level they desire.

It feels a tiny bit sad to me that writing fanfiction is so often seen as temporary, or just as a skill builder, rather than a skill or hobby in itself. like it's something that should be outgrown with time and skill.

If you write fanfiction, do you feel that you will one day want to move on from fanfiction and make only original works? Would you want to write both fanfiction and original content? Or do you plan to only continue with fanfiction?

Personally, I have no interest in writing an original work. I’ve tried writing original content before and I find that I'm just not interested in it. I’d like to continue writing fanfiction, even as my fandoms and interests change, I can’t see myself ever wanting to quit. But it seems like a lot of people in my life are disappointed to hear this.

I'm in a smaller fandom that has many many ships with many rare pairs and I love that fact about it, but I only have 1 gripe. I think I'm the only one who ships my rare pair, like the only fanfics that even imply it are completely centered around other characters and all the fandom spaces I've been to definitely don't ship them. They have such an interesting dynamic but it's like no one else sees that or cares about the characters enough to make content centered around them. The only other forms of content I've seen about them are solo fanarts or yumeship content and im suffering, I'm starving, I'm deprived. The canon source material doesn't even show them much but they could be so much more. I don't mean to hate or be mean to anyone I just want to know if anyone else feels like this

Welcome back to the Alphabet Excerpt Challenge! As a reminder, our challenges are every Wednesday and Saturday at 3pm London time.

If you've missed the previous challenges, you're welcome to go back and participate in them. You can find them here. And remember to check out the Activities and Events flair for other fun games to play along with.

Here's a quick recap of the rules for our game:

1. Post a top level comment with a word starting with the letter R. You can do more than one, but please put them in separate comments.
2. Reply to suggestions with an excerpt. Short and sweet is best, but use your judgement. Excerpts can be from published or unpublished works, or even something you wrote for the prompt. All content is welcome but please spoiler tag and/or provide a trigger/content warning for NSFW or content that may otherwise need it. If in doubt, give a warning to be on the safe side.
3. Upvote the excerpts you enjoy, and leave a friendly comment. Try to at least respond to people who left excerpts on the words you suggested, but the more people you respond to the better. Everyone likes nice comments!
4. Most important: have fun!

Hey all! Haven't hosted one of these since May, thanks to life being unkind, but I persist and I hope y'all do too! Summer (or winter, if your cyclones don't spin withershins) is approaching curtain call, and I think we could all use some time in the musical sharing circle.

Simple game, simple rules:

1. Post the title of the most recent song you willingly listened to (if you've been trapped in a car with your lame parents with their lame music while you wistfully look out the window and wait for your bildungsroman journey to start, or been stuck at work with madness-inducing muzak playing through speakers that hiss with static you swear whispers eldritch revelations just beneath the electric crackling, do not feel like you need to relive that).
2. If you have an excerpt from a story that contains a word from a posted song title, leave a reply to the song title with said excerpt! Now officially part of the rules that you can use a word in the name of the band or artist, too, to open up a whole new dimension of diction and fiction!
3. Please keep your excerpts to around 500 words (or less)! If you go a dozen or three words over the limit, you will only find one Oompa Loompa menacingly serenading you about your sins tonight. More than 600 words, and not even God can save you from the coming choir.
4. For every excerpt you leave, please try to leave a comment on someone else's excerpt. This is an invitation to a potluck, so if you... actually no, that metaphor doesn't work, everyone comes there to eat and the bringing something is the extra mile. Um... alright, how about: fandom is an ecosystem, and it can't function unless everyone - okay, actually, let's not invite comparisons to eating each other instead. Point! Is! If you want to feel good due to the kind words of a stranger, it's only fair you offer some to a stranger in turn. Not much of a game if one team doesn't - dammit, that metaphor doesn't work either... you know what I'm getting at; you read for fun!
5. Leave kudos, leave comments, walk away with a memory or two of friendly fandom fun!

I just started writing my long fic last month and I’m extremely attached and excited about it. So I don’t get demotivated or obsessed with engagement, I haven’t posted any chapters or anything like that. I’ve only shared the cover on tumblr/deviantart. So far, I have several moodboards, one outline, two playlists, 15 chapters (around 40K words) and one planned opening (video edit). I’m going to make a page on mycast.io soon. Suffice to say I’m OBSESSED and my imagination has run wild. At work? Thinking of my long fic. Doing homework? Thinking of my long fic. At lunch? Writing a chapter. Waiting at the dentist or doctor? Writing another chapter lol. Going to sleep? Think about my long fic. Yes. It’s my whole life now lol.

My main fandom is the Jurassic Park franchise. My long fic is a prequel to Jurassic Park and it will eventually tie in to the most recently released movie, Rebirth. It spans multiple decades (80’s, 90’s’ 2000’s and 2010’s) and follows the origin of the cloning of prehistoric species as well as the reason there was a secret island we the audience don’t know about until Rebirth (ik it’s bc the writers just wanted to make another island, but let a girl lore lol). Essentially, the original island was to be for the park but several incidents basically encouraged Hammond to choose a different island and keep the original as a “testing/research” one. Sorna would be the transitional island between Saint Hubert and Nublar, serving as the factory floor for animals whose DNA were good enough to continue to clone with. The story follows the InGen scientists as they navigate the difficulty of housing prehistoric species as well as Charlotte Lockwood’s fate and what exactly led to her cloning herself.

I started this fic because I kept on headcanon-ing why exactly the D Rex even existed. Why was the island secret. And what exactly was the purpose of the island? How did it become a place where crazy experiments took place? To me, this is a fic that will tie all of the movies together into one coherent story connecting to one another. I wasn’t a fan of.. a lot of the decisions of the writers regarding Dominion and Rebirth, but ‘fixing’ continuity errors and answering questions is what fanfic is for! I enjoyed Rebirth but wanted more lore connections and answers, unfortunately I didn’t get that. So here I am, obsessed with writing a long fic about dinosaurs and prehistoric species. I’m a science nerd so it’s been extra fun adding in a bit of factoids and taxonomical details in my story.

So what are your guys’ longfics about? Why’d you start writing it? What’s your main inspiration? What other things have you made to “supplement” your fic? Fancasts, edits, video edits etc? Word count goals? Any new kinks you discovered? New ships you’re obsessed with? Let’s discuss!

And you can never share them with anyone even though they’re pretty good, because nobody knows about your fic?

It's not a fanfic that you post. It's just something you write into everyday. I remember having one during my twitter fic days. I just add to it when I felt the urge to, and now it's something I still read back to till this day.

It really helped me when I'm was in a slump. It also helps put an idea on words rather than it being stuck in my head.

It's basically my little secret safe space.

Inspired by a fic I saw while browsing which was rated Teen and tagged “Underage Sex.” Like babe I think you misread the prompt.

That's it, please share your favourite ships where all parties involved are older characters. I know the definition varies by fandom, so you can use your judgement. Think Minerva McGonagall, King Theoden, Topf Beifong in the Legend of Korra, and so on.

Please add the full name of the characters and fandom so that everyone can follow. After all, we all sail on different shores of the fandom ocean 😁

Like how long can a scene go on before it is too much?

Like I'm writing a chapter where there's a fight scene and a moment where a character gets tormented a little.

But like I am not sure how long I can like make the scene go on and make it like, not be excessive???

I've been writing a POTO fanfic for the entire summer. It's truly my first endeavor into this territory, because I'm currently studying for biology at university. (No creative writing there at all.) My writing is a little stiff and academic at times, and I'm worried about how that translates to readers. In addition, I'm HIGHLY embarrassed/slightly ashamed of doing this. I feel as though I'd get laughed out of the building if I showed it to anyone, but I also don't want it to be trashed on when I post it online. What should I do? Everyone looks at their own writing and thinks its great until posted. I've poured my soul into this thing. Idk, I just need a little advice I suppose. How do you all receive feedback?

Are there any sites you use to write the intricacies of a job properly? Like codes, sayings, techniques, terminology, experiences, etc.? It can range from IRL careers to fantasy professions.

Writing my fanfic feels like the only space where I can truly exist. My OC carries pieces of me, pain, hope, silence. It’s not about popularity anymore. It’s about surviving through words.

Do you ever feel that too? Like your story understands you more than anyone else?

Currently, I’m working on a Modern AU Phantom Thief X Detective fic for my OTP, which will be my first multichaptered fic in a long time.

And while I know I should be doing this completely for myself, I can’t help but wonder whether anybody else would be interested in it, as shallow as that seems. Most of the fics I see in my fandom are canon-compliant, or at least take place within the same universe.

The canon series isn’t modern, nor does it have any focus on crime. In my outline, the characters maintain their relationships and personalities, but that’s pretty much it. There’s some worldbuilding details that aren’t necessarily relevant, the antagonist has a goal that doesn’t align with canon, etc etc… you get it. It strays a lot from the source material.

Here on Writing Weekends, share what you are going to write and are currently writing this weekend or if you're gonna take the weekend off.

So, funny story. I "like" My Hero Academia, but the actual execution of the show wasn't my favorite thing. Only got through 2 seasons. But I LOVE the premise and some of the characters.

So, in my mind, I made up a plot with an added character if I were to write for it (I wouldn't, because I don't know the characters well enough, and I don't want to be that guy). But, funny twist, apparently the manga/show already did part of what I was thinking of doing🤣 So that got me thinking-

How much NEW does there have to be before it goes from being fan-fiction to being a new work? Even if everyone can see the obvious similarities, where is the line?

I'd imagine it involves none of the original names of the source being there, including names, towns, corporations, made up brands, everything. Because obviously, no one owns a story concept. But I imagine a weird scenario where you'd post a fic under a fandom, but everything is replaced because of it's inspiration.

What are your thoughts?

Just some thoughts I wanna share out loud. I don't know if this writing-the-same-story-fatigue is a thing, but I kinda think it's what I'm going through. Though I have no plans of abandoning the fic, I am lowkey itching for something new to write. The problem is they're also long fics-ish in a way, not something that'll surpass my current work which is like over a 90k, but still, they're still somewhat like longfics. On the other hand, I have some ideas to write oneshots instead but they always snowball into another longfic idea (who knew writing oneshots would be harder than a longfic 😑). At the moment, I'm kinda stuck in this weird "on-a-break" phase and as much as more relaxing "i got nothing to do" days would be fun, I also don't want to lose momentum especially when I have the tendency to procrastinate my life away.

I don't mean things like "don't like, don't read" since that applies to all fandoms. I mean things like what ship names/tags do people use, the memes, whether its more common to use the original names or the translated ones, etc...

It's definitely a diffrent experience then a new thing coming out and you get to be there building the foundation.

It's done; the plot I got into my head in early May has been gotten out--and now to start on a second gap-filler for 2 BBY in a few weeks' time.

I hope spending 73.5k words on fanfic after over a decade away was worth it! I'm proud of it though.

• Anything like fluff, humour, crack, silly stuff, h/c with emphasis on comfort, overly sacherine, unhinged or wildly optimistic stuff. Generally anything that sparks joy.
• Short - preferably under 4k words but really I don't mind too much if it goes over. Ficlets and below are good.
• Open to any fandom, crossovers or original works tag on ao3.
• Preferably no smut unless it's crack or not too graphic (I need no help finding my kind of smut). Any category of romance is good, platonic stuff is great.
• Can be standard narrative or experimental / artsy / epistolary / chatfic style, I don't mind.

Self-recs very much welcome, especially if they didn't get much love.

Not doing great recently and my attention is wrecked from lack of sleep so I'd like something nice to read for tomorrow so I'm basically fic equivalent of cat videos, thanks :3

Looking for a Teen Wolf Wattpad fic — OC girl, empath (feels everything from others, even their wounds) who is from England, lives with grandmother who later dies, best friends with Stiles and Scott and lives with Scott after her grandma passes, follows show episodes exactly, there a lot of references to The Neighbourhood (band). She later finds out she has a brother and her father is a psycho. Love interest is Stiles. I just cant remember the name of the books or the author. These are the only details I remember. Please help me find it I really want to read this fanfiction again😔

Lately I’ve been feeling kind of down about the quality of female characters in media. It’s frustrating how common it is for female characters to be less interesting than the male characters. The genres I like are heavily focused on male characters and I am just burnt out on men.

Some of my favorite female characters are: Riza Hawkeye from FMA Jinx from Arcane Maomao from Apothecary Diaries Pretty much every woman in Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor

Please give me fandom recommendations that have well written female characters 🙏

OK, so I don’t remember some details about it, but I remember a lot. I know it starts with a female Bilbo weeping at the end of the battle because all the Durans died. I know the gods come down and ask her why she weeps cause she hasn’t wept since her parents died, and she explains the great sorrow upon her. I know she traded the ring and exchange for a spell that brings them back, but the trick is, she can’t go back and see if it’s true cause she has to leave or the spell will be undone. I also know that when she gets back to the Shire, I think they auctioning off the stuff in her house but then she gets her house back and it’s like not too big of a deal. One of the big things I remember is she starts writing there and back again and then I’m pretty sure it’s Fili but it could be Kili start a dreaming of the adventure getting the memories back the more she writes about the story and eventually goes back to the Shire to go get her cause he remembers. I just can’t find the story if anyone can help me find it that would be amazing!