I've never been much of a reader or a writer of FanFiction, but I recently decided to write a story based on some of my ideas regarding Lost. I feel that there are still a lot of stories to be told and questions to be answered.
Not only that, but it's a jolly good writing exercise and saves having to come up with my own set of mundane and stereotypical characters, so I can concentrate on the craft of actually writing scenes and forming a plot.
Have any of you guys tried your hand at Fanfiction? Do you care to share it with us?
And do you read other people's work on sites like www.fanfiction.net ?
Oh, I adore fanfiction. Not the good, serious kind, though. I prefer the so bad it's hilarious flavor, e.g. My Immortal and Half-Life: Full Life Consequences. But in terms of serious works, I don't have a particularly high respect for fanfiction in general. While it is easier to have characters, setting, and backstory already developed, that doesn't stop the majority of fanfic authors from failing miserably at writing a story. Most non-satirical fan fictions I've read were written by people who either had strongly different opinions about the show and its characters than the creators did or are incapable of dramatic writing.
I definitely won't write off your fanfiction because a) you're a good writer, and b) there's no way you could fuck with my heart any worse than Cuse and Lindelof did. Stupid season 5...
I've only read a few pieces of fan fiction, and never written any. The only universe I've ever really wanted to step into would be the Firefly one, and even then I wouldn't use any of the show characters. I much rather create my own stuff.
As for people who write fan fiction, it can certainly be easier, but I see a lot of writers never really break out of it, and never make work that they can completely call their own.
I'm not a fan. The signal-to-noise ratio is too low.
Fanfiction can be lots of fun. And once you have mastered fanfiction then you can advance to the more complex art of creating fangames!
I personally think there's so little good fan-fiction because it's HARD writing for pre-established settings and characters.
The writers of your favourite TV show or movie have been intimately involved in the story's conception, they're privy to all sorts of background details about the characters to aid their writing than a viewer can only guess at. It's probably why most fanfic authors just forget about accurately recreating the characters and just stick them in leather pants.
I'm positive there's good stuff out there. And with video games showing what a useful tool for making ideas last it can be to get the fans to create their own derivative content (and with Star Trek seemingly being in on this secret since the beginning) and with recent technological trends decreasing the gap between viewers and creators; I wouldn't be surprised if old, unrespected fan-fiction's in for a bit of a golden age.
But I don't read it.
Sorry. I don't have the mental strength...