From 1998 – 2018 I wrote Hey Arnold! fanfiction.
Yes, that’s 20 years of stories about a kid with a football-shaped head.
Do I regret it? Not at all– in fact, I attribute my years of writing about the 90s nicktoon to be a stepping stone into my writing habits and style today.
But with that experience comes the wisdom to counsel fledgling writers who are seduced by the near boundless possibilities of fanfiction: PLEASE RECONSIDER.
As someone who’s written her fair share of fanfiction, I can go on record to say the pursuit is a waste of time, and here’s why:
People Don’t Respect Fanfiction
I’ve read some amazing fanfiction, both in my community of Hey Arnold! lovers and beyond. I’ve read pieces that elevate its source material and are arguably better than some published books on the market.
With so many amazing unofficial options to choose from, it’s easy to forget that a lot of the fanfiction out there isn’t very good. In fact, it’s really quite bad. A lot of it is written by teenage girls that use the medium to live out their self-insertion fantasies. Why do you think so many of these stories take place in a high school setting?
Even the best of the best gets lumped in with the dreck and colour people’s perception of fanfiction as a whole.
My advice is to start yourself out on the right foot. Write original content. There’s nothing fun in being guilty by association of low quality work, simply by merit of writing fanfiction.
Forget About Selling Your Story
I assume most people who start writing fanfiction do it for the love of their fandom and not for any financial gain. But at some point the writer may wish to profit from their ideas.
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that goal is a pipe dream. Most authors, artists, and show creators will begrudgingly accept the existence of fanfiction (with the exception of Anne Rice). But the second money is brought into the equation, be prepared to be bombarded with lawsuits and accusations of theft of intellectual property.
To circumvent this, you could change the core elements of your story so that they only bear a passing resemblance to the source material (such as what E.J. James did when she altered her Twilight fanfiction to create the bestselling series Fifty Shades of Grey). But if you’re going to go that extra step, you might as well start with an original concept and use your fandom as the inspiration.
NO ONE CARES
So you’ve written a 50,000 speculative sci-fi AU piece around the show Gilmore Girls? Great! Good luck finding people to actually read the thing. Sure, you can find a captivated readership amongst your peers online, or maybe on a Gilmore Girls Facebook fan group, but no one outside the fandom will care.
Fanfiction limits the appeal of your story and narrows your audience, whereas an original story has virtually limitless possibilities to whom it may potentially cater.
FANON DOES NOT REPLACE CANON
I learned this the hard way. For years I wanted a proper conclusion to Hey Arnold! when the show was canceled on a cliffhanger. Dissatisfied with the lack of closure, I and many other heartbroken fans took to the Internet with our own versions of how the series should have ended.
Well, fast-forward to 2017, and Hey Arnold! gets greenlit for The Jungle Movie, the ending fans had all been waiting for. I watched the television movie and felt…underwhelmed.
While it did tie up a lot of loose ends from the show, it did so in a very pat manner that did little in the way of creativity or capturing the spirit of the original cartoon.
Also, in the span of a mere two hours, YEARS of artwork and fiction created by fans who hungered for a conclusion suddenly found their efforts rendered obsolete. Fanworks are no match in the face of official canon, and it can be disenchanting to build up a moment with your writer’s eye only for it to turn out completely different.
I’m happy the The Jungle Movie was finally made, but in that moment I realized my love for crafting stories could not and should not be confined to someone else’s creation.
Therefore, I say to aspiring fanfiction writers: you’ll only set yourself up for heartache if you write something that defies canon. Better to be an original and strike your own path and narrative.
Fanfiction Promotes Poor Habits in Writers
The biggest appeal in posting fanfiction online is the instant gratification it affords the writer. A person can have an idea in her head by breakfast, write and post it online by lunch, and by dinnertime bask in the validation of likes and comments her creation produced.
However, this is not how the writing process goes in the world of traditional publishing. A person may be so eager to get their work out in the public that they neglect the oh-so-crucial step of editing. The result is a wall of text, a myriad of typos and grammatical and spelling errors, a babbling stream of consciousness with little consistency, or some other egregious offences that can afflict the written word.
Yes, it’s true that the writer could just as easily go back and correct all the mistakes after publishing, but it goes against proper practice of presenting your best foot forward to potential readers, especially to an publisher or literary agent who is deliberating the acceptance of your manuscript. An unfinished, messy first attempt will find its way into the trash heap, so it’s important to get it right (or as close to right as possible) the first time.
Also, if a person is writing an ongoing fanfiction with chapters, the feedback they get may influence the progression of the story.
“I really like that!” or “Please update soon!” can put unnecessary pressure on a writer to not write for themselves, but to please the fans and to satisfy that addictive urge for validation. Like an influencer that sells out her fans on inferior products in the name of the almighty dollar, fanfiction writers run the risk of selling out their integrity by going against the story they had intended to tell.
Write to Your Heart’s Content(?)
Yes, despite all my naysaying to the contrary, I won’t explicitly condemn fanfiction. Every writer has to start somewhere. Your time could be better spent penning the next Great American novel or even the next fashionable YA sci-fi romance, but the fact is any writing is good writing, so long as it encourages a consistent habit.
So write that Incredibles 2 crack fic (no, really - I’ve been dying for a good Voyd/Elastigirl story 😁). Malcolm Gladwell says it takes 10,000 hours to really master something. If most of that time is devoted to fanfiction, at least you’ll have fun during the grind.
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