Fanfic has been part of our lives for a while now. Has it changed you at all? I'm not talking about DLP here, which is a community associated with fanfiction but about more than just that. I mean fanfiction itself -- has anything there rubbed off on you?

It's only in the last year or so that I've realised how much fanfiction affected me -- in particular, the type of fanfiction where Harry sets himself this super strict timetable and becomes an enlightenment man over the space of the summer. An expert in multiple and varied fields, not to mention physically fit and socially active.

Of course in real life it's virtually impossible unless you were born an absolute genius or have a superhuman level of self-discipline. But for a number of years I was comparing myself to that standard, trying to do everything at once and, of course, constantly falling short.

I dread to think of the psychological damage I have thanks to that lol. But fortunately I've rather reconciled myself to being human this year and have realised that specialisation is inevitable if you want to be any good at anything. So I've picked a few things and am going to try to stick to them and them alone. It's still more than enough to fill my time.

Any similar experiences?

 

Fanfics where Harry just ups and leaves - whether it's off-the-radar or otherwise - because reasons. Sometimes not even because reasons.

I'm now in Canada. What the hell, Internet?

 

Yes. Not all of it was bad, obviously. Before I started reading fanfiction, I had troubles translating one sentence in english without instantly seeking help of google translate. Now, I can even write my own sentences and they (mostly) make sense now.

I think I also learned to recognize good and bad writing of actual books after a few minutes of reading. This new phenomenon has a bad side, though. For example, I started reading that sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which I read without too many problems). I didn't even make it through first chapter. It reminded me of crack stories in fanfiction so much that I stopped reading. This probably wouldn't have happened if I never knew fanfiction.

I didn't notice any real life effects of fanfiction worth mentioning, though. It's always side effect of knowing english well enough now that I can for example look for learning materials more quickly and prepare for exams more thoroughly.

Off-topic:

You reminded me of one of my favourite quotes:

edit: I meant Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

 

Which sequel? Restaurant at the End of the Universe, or that new one by some other author?

 

How has fanfiction affected me?

I'm a hell of a lot better at writing than I used to be.

I know that flies in the face of many pro author's feelings - GRRM in particular - that playing in someone else's sandbox does you no favours, but I personally think that's bullshit. Practice is practice.

Finding a turn of phrase, getting inside a character's head, coming up with new ideas, world-building, description, dialogue, all are easier and more natural since I started reading and writing and getting feedback on fanfic. Without it, I wouldn't be writing original stuff.

It's also raised my standards in terms of what I'm willing to read. When you buy a book or even grab one from the library, there's a sense that "I've got it, I should read it," no matter how bad it might be.

That imaginary pressure vanishes when the story is free and another one is literally just a click away. In short, it's easier to say, "This sucks."

tl;dr - I'm pickier than I used to be.

 

This is very much the case - fanfic and tvtropes probably share the blame in making me very aware of story structure and plot elements, and I can't help but notice the more egregious tricks used in books, movies, television. This can make some media distracting in how terribly by-the-numbers they end up being which pulls me out of any sense of immersion.

 

It made me take a look at many works (Books, TV Series, Comics) that I wouldn't have glanced at otherwise. It showed me how one can interprete the same character(s)/World/plot very differently. It made me raise my standards for published authors with regards to plots and world building. But most importantly, reading fanfiction has been a lot of fun.

 

I don't read bad fanfiction, because I refuse to read things I know I'll dislike.

As such, my favorites list on ff.net has only 49 fics in the Harry Potter category. These are the 90% of all Harry Potter fics I've ever read, the rest are on DLP in the WBA.

Why?

Well let's just say that I'm a guy who reads the entire plot of the movie on wikipedia before going to the cinema to actually watch it.

So, no, I don't think reading fanfiction has affected me strongly. The opposite is happening: my movie-watching habits are affecting the way I read fanficiton.

Also, I've started using the phrase "It's Magic, I don't have to explain it" more.

 

Concerning my taste in literature, quite a bit.

However on a personal level I admit I find myself influenced in a manner to Taure. Not specifically the perfectionist aspect, but by reading in general and fanfiction in particular I've identified with aspects on protagonists and antagonists alike. Reflections upon your own personality compared to these fictional characters has sometimes been.. illuminating.

I've aimed to change my own personality traits in order to grow as a person. While this could be more common in regards to real life role models in general, my interest in fanfiction and literature has quite often made me find my role models in fictious personalities.

Nothing I regret, so far anyway.

 

I discovered English as an awesome language and started studying it.

On the negative side, when I discovered fanfiction, I stopped reading normal fiction for over two years. I plunged into ff.net, went from fandom to fandom and back, until, after a long while, I learned to appreciate real books again.

Honestly, I don't regret discovering fanfiction, even with the problem mentioned above, but I do feel a bit ashamed sometimes.

 

I agree with others that it helps fine tune your good/bad writing radar. There are some published books I've put back on the shelf after reading a ton of mediocre fanfiction. Eventually you learn that no its not going to get better.
It's also made me a bit of a cheapskate - I'm totally unwilling to pay $8.99 or so for an average book.

 

I have very much a love-hate relationship with fanfiction. For me, fanfiction represents safety, probably because I spent a lot of formative teenage years with it. The HP Universe is so familiar, and the characters are so vivid in my mind, that when I read fanfiction, I very much feel calm and at ease.

I find that whenever real life gets tough (finals week, end of a relationship, transitional period, etc.) I'm drawn back to DLP and fanfiction because it represents the 'known' and the 'comfortable'.

On the flipside, I feel guilty about all the time I've sinked into it. Remember Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule for building expertise? I've easily sunk twice that much into fanfiction, and with very little to show for it than occasionally knowing the answers to HP questions during bar trivia.

It's hard to say whether the overall psychological impact is positive or negative. I suppose that remains to be seen.

 

If you achieve more or less what you want to achieve in life despite the distraction, then I'd say probably positive.

 

Hmm... Definitely an interesting idea for a thread. One I haven't really thought on much, but now realise it applies to me rather well.

I think that the biggest impact fanfiction has had on me is my love of tinkering. I've always loved to create, build, deconstruct and rebuild anew, but before fanfiction this was mainly something I did with physical things. Lego, K'NEX, ripping up old electronics to see what's inside. Hell, sometimes I just play with random stuff I find to get a sense of it's properties. What happens when I twist it this way? What happens if I knead it for a while? How many unique shapes can these moving parts make? That sort of thing.

After fanfiction I realised that ideas could be tinkered with. After a while I decided that they should be tinkered with.

This is not always a good thing. On the one hand, I found things like Math and Physics came much easier because I was always exploring my understanding of them. It even helped me socially in that I became obsessed with trying to see things from the perspective of others. Other times I am shockingly insubordinate for very little reason. I'll challenge existing rules and systems without fully understanding them. I loathe stagnation. I am bothered by people who make no attempt to self reflect or improve. I over analyze and I sometimes worry over nothing.

On the whole, I still think it was a net positive for me. I can work on my shortcomings while promoting the lessons I've learned. Much of the effects of fanfiction were probably an extension of my existing traits, yet I think I've studied and enjoyed things I would not have without the idea that I could play with a concept. I would have been less interested in History if Alternate History was not such a compelling idea to me. Art would never have grabbed me if I did not enjoy reinterpreting it. I imagine that long after I've stopped reading fanfiction I'll still be obsessed with the question What If I Changed This?

 

Just going to take a moment to second all of this. Writing is like just about any other skill: you have to practice it to get good at it.

 

Fanfiction saw me through some pretty rough phases in my life. I'd say my life has been better because of it. It did change my reading habits I'll admit and I'm still not sure if that's a good thing, but I won't change a thing.

 

I started to learn to write bash scripts (I think), so I could write a script to download stories from FFN. I only read offline copies of FFN stories. I go to FFN just to review, fave or follow stories.

 

My truck got smashed up pretty bad a few weeks ago when I lost control in bad weather, once I got to my aunt and uncles place and stopped shaking I started looking through my favorite fanfic's for something to take my mind off of everything and found that Santi had updated his story. It helped me get back under control because it was something I knew I wanted to read and it was new, so I could kind of dive in and shut off the rest of my mind for a little while. I guess that would count for this thread right?
What I'm trying to say, I think, is that fanfiction gives me something to dive into when I need to get away for a bit, and this was just an extreme example.

 

To expand a bit on my previous post, I would also say that writing fanfiction can help you develop one of those underappreciated by really necessary skills for being a writer: actually sitting down and writing. One thing I've discovered since I've really gotten into writing is that tons there are far, far more people who have ideas for stories than there are people who actually have the self-discipline to actually sit down and [/i]write.[/i]

Writing a novel-length story takes a ton of time and a real commitment to your craft. Any scan through the DLP library will reveal tons of stories that had a real promising opening, but never got past a few opening chapters. Sometimes that's because the author just ran out of ideas or had other things come up, but I think that more often it was a case of the writer just running out of steam once they realized how massive of a project they'd taken on.

That's another reason I find the idea that fanfiction stifles authors a bit specious. The only big difference between fanfiction and fully original work is how much raw creativity it takes from the author. However, I've seen a lot of people with creative ideas who lack to willpower to sit down and write a full-length story.

 

100% agreed.

Another point is that when you try yourself at original fiction, you can, at first, get very overwhelmed by the amount of stuff you have to think of - setting, characters, plot, and more - which can quickly lead to quitting because it seems such a daunting task.

With fanfiction - if you start out at least - some of that falls away for most. You take care of an original plot and play with already existing characters and settings. That helps you to develop strength in that area without having the nagging feeling that all your characters suck and so on. From there it goes on to playing around and tweaking characters, and eventually the setting or everything at once. It's a learning process made slightly easier because some of the heavy-lifting is already done for you. Later on you can always increase the difficulty if you want to.

That's, in my opinion, something very valuable. If a writer already knows all of this when s/he starts a story, then that's fine (or when they learn better that way). If not, fanfiction becomes a good training exercise. It's also heaps of fun and you can find great communities through it.

Feedback is another point. When writing a novel you're on your own for the most part, I believe. That's not bad, but it's also intimidating. For a total newcomer, the possibility of an immediate response to something just written is great.

All the feedback I've gotten from comments and posts here and even on ff.net has accelerated my learning quite a bit. Something that would be very different had I not shown my stories to anyone until completion. I still have a shit-ton to learn, but should I ever finish an original novel on my own, I know that all the skills I needed for it came from sinking hours upon hours into writing fanfiction.

So, even though I won't find any of those people here on DLP, a fat Fuck You to every fanfiction hater out there.