Great stories don’t make great fanfics?

[ylldre]

I’ve read tons of fanfics since I was a teenager. Like, I’ve read one fanfic with more than 1 million word count. And I’ve read soo many fanfics I know horrifying tags to avoid. It’s an instant and predictable guilty pleasure of mine when I need something relaxing without putting effort to committing to new characters or worldbuildings. But I’ve noticed that great stories(movies/books/comics) don’t make great fanfictions on their own. Maybe because there’s nothing to add? There’s no disappointments to soothe? No Non-Canon pairings to flesh out with your headcanon? Great stories make a great AU for bad stories. Like, there’s a lot of au in the teenwolf fandom. And it’s great to explore because the series is just…bad. I’ve never even watched past episode 2 of teenwolf but I liked to lurk in teenwolf fandom because there are so many talented writers there it’s fun. Tell me what you think!

[darthmongoose]

I think a lot of the time, what gets fanfic is less dependent on the quality of the thing or how compelling the story was, and more on whether it has a number of compelling characters with interesting interpersonal bonds, especially if those characters are in the roughly 15-30 age range and so easy for the most common age group who write fanfics (around 14-25 year olds) to relate to or see as aspirational.

The perfect fic recipe is when a series has multiple young adult characters with big personalities and the possibility of shipping them or exploring romances. It doesn't even matter too much if the original story and setting was a bit plain, or the story reached its logical conclusion, because AU fanfic writers will just drop all the characters into a coffee shop, or a high school, or The Purge or something and explore that scenario with them.

[ylldre]

That’s a great point. I’ve also suspected the age when the writers enjoyed the series they write fanfics for is somewhat a clue. Like, there’s a lot of writers in their 40/50 that write Harry Potter fanfics. I even suspect the majority of them are atleast in their 30s. And it shows in the story they write; mostly the characters are aged up and dealing with domesticity/ marriage prospect, kids, government etc. It’s kind of shocking to know when fanfics readers mostly teenagers and young adults. Maybe because they grow up with the series haha. And some are using it as an exercise for their own novel I think.

[darthmongoose]

With Harry Potter, it's probably worth remembering that if you were around the same age as Harry was when the early books were coming out, like I was, you'd now be in your late thirties, like I am. Plus I think a lot of the younger end of the fandom have dropped out due to lacklustre recent movie releases and Rowling's transphobia, leading to it being an ageing fandom.

You can get fandoms that continue to get fic and stuff for decades, but a really big fandom is usually one that's a currently ongoing or recent release that appeals to a teens and early twenties demographic. As the fans get older and busier and interest dies, the fandom doesn't tend to completely vanish, but unless a new release introduces new people and makes it relevant again to teens and young adults, it won't see that level of popularity it once had.

[cherrystark]

Fan fiction in of itself is a broad category. Historically, a lot of classic literature was inspired by other works and by today's definitions would be considered "fan fiction". With modern fan fiction, I think it becomes muddy because 1. people assume it's bad because it's largely read and written by young women and 2. it all follows the same script.

I don't go on Tumblr as much anymore, but when I am in the mood for fan fiction, I go to Wattpad. The script for fan fiction books is all the same, chapters on his favorite pictures of you, your favorite pics of him, break ups, make ups, exes, period care. It's the same thing over and over. It's not compelling reading to have fifteen chapters of how a Marvel hero would react to your period.

Great stories make a great AU for bad stories.

I only think it's bad if the writer doesn't know what they are doing. I read an Avengers college AU where the Y/N and Steve Rogers were going to get married for cheaper tuition. They were just friends so the marriage was a total sham but they ended up falling in love for real by their wedding. It was totally sweet. If the author decided to rename all the characters and publish it as a regular book, you would never know that it was fan fiction.

AUs and a lot of self-insert fan fiction tend to be bad because they're flat stories with no depth. I noticed that a lot of younger and newer writers don't know how to explore things like theme or character motivation so fan fiction tends to be more formulaic like how every flower shop au seems to be the same. Like I said above, when the author knows what they are doing, the fiction can be chef's kiss good

[TheLemmaLlama]

Are you saying that great stories aren't very conducive to having great fanfics written about them, or that if a great original story was a fanfiction, it wouldn't be very good?

'Cos I don't think I agree with the former. I've personally only ever read fanfics of media I enjoyed immensely

Like yeah, maybe there are no disappointments to soothe, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to add! Great stories can simultaneously give you a satisfying conclusion while also setting your mind ablaze with further possibilities. A great story knows what to leave out, to focus on building up a main, important bit without being distracted by the other interesting ideas on the side ... because that's the fandom's job

[panpanwuvmgau]

I think even great stories can inspire the creation of great fanfics. I've written and read my fair share of fanfiction and at least in my experience, great fanfictions don't solely rely on the quality (or lack of quality) of the referenced source material. It relies on the imagination and storytelling skills of fanfiction writers who are inspired to write such works.

I believe source materials with plots that had been properly wrapped up at the end of the movie/book/comics can still inspire writers to create good fanfiction works. No matter how satisfied an author is at how they ended a work, there will always be fans who will think of better ways to end it. That thought inspires fanfiction works. That said, the quantity and quality of fanfiction works of a movie/book/comic may be affected by the level of popularity or exposure it has, and the demographics of the audience it caters to.

Before I share my thoughts further, I think it's important to define what we mean by "great" fanfiction because quality is subjective. For me, great fanfiction feels like it could be an installment to the source material. It usually features characters that are not OOC or if they happen to feature such characters, they manage to make it work using a good storyline. It doesn't have a cliche or overly predictable plot; and it has good narrative flow and construction.

Level of popularity - I've seen movies/books/comics with relatable, compelling, and inspiring characters and plots but have limited number of fanfiction works (and "great" fanfiction works). It's usually because it's not as widely popular as other movies/books/comics. This reduces the number of writers that it might be able to inspire to create fanfictions, in turn reducing the probability of finding quality works. The availability of a fandom that can demand fanfiction works also impacts the availability of published fanfiction. Knowing that there are people interested in sharing head canons, AUs, and alternate endings can boost a fanfiction writer's confidence to share their work.

Audience Demographics - Based on the fanfictions I've read, source materials that cater to a wide array of age brackets are likely to have more fanfiction works (and more "great" ones too). Writers who create my definition of "great" fanfiction are usually those who are fairly experienced in writing, confident and creative enough to think out-of-the-box storylines, and are capable of exhibiting good basic writing skills. There are young authors who can demonstrate this, but majority of the authors of "great" fanfiction I've seen are those who have more life and writing experience. They're not just good authors because of their age. They are good authors because they had honed their skills and imagination far longer than most aspiring young authors, who are just starting to create their first stories through fanfiction. Source materials that can cater to the interest of many experienced authors are more likely to have "great" fanfiction.

I'm not saying that a source material with a small fandom doesn't have "great" fanfiction. There are definitely less popular source materials with quality fanfiction out there. It's just that based on my experience in the field, the probability of finding "great" fanfiction is higher when the source material is popular enough to reach a wider audience especially a big enough, active, and supportive fandom that clamors for fanfiction works.