Samhain Publishing

The heart-warming article I planned involving Shakespeare, Twelfth Night and a tanker of pina coladas sailed out the window the minute Rachel Caine squee-ed: “Did you hear … Methos is BACK in the new Highlander movie? WOOOOOOOOOO!”

Rachel, who writes fan fiction under the handle “Julie Fortune”, and I think we met ten years ago in a fanfic group for Highlander, the Series, even if we can’t remember each other’s name in the group. So you sort of expect these things to crop up in the middle of our online conversations. But she wasn’t the only one. Fannish threads have been exploding all over—on lists, on loops, on the phone, in person. Another writer friend even proposed forcing several big-name authors to attend fan fiction school to learn how to write.

“Why stop there?” I asked. “What about the political pundits, sports figures and assorted ne’er-do-wells who receive gazillion dollar advances for the books they don’t write? We could chain them to their keyboards, like those monkeys who were supposed to reproduce Shakespeare. Only we wouldn’t let go until they each hammered out a million words of Harry Potter fic to the exacting standards of ten feuding groups of Snape ‘shippers.”

I was still snickering at the prospect when I went to bed that night. Big mistake. My subconscious has a strange sense of humor. It fills my nights with ideas not fully processed during the day, and it wasn’t about to let the subject of fan fiction rest.

My dream self was in for a real work-out. After avoiding certain death at the hands of various Highlander swordsmen (not Methos, unfortunately, or this dream might’ve ended very differently) I ducked down a shadowy hallway. Thin light leaked around the edges of a door about three-quarters of the way to infinity. As I approached, I heard moans and a dreadful clatter, like clanking…keys? Heart in my mouth, I pushed open the door.

The room was enormous and grimy, like a government office where the cleaning crews never wipe the soot off the vents. Rows and rows of cramped desks ran as far as the eye could see. At each desk sat a frazzled writer or celebrity madly drumming fingers on a keyboard too narrow for their shoulders. Fear glazed their eyes, and I decided I was very glad the scene come without the Smell-o-vision option. Dark “Vs” of sweat trailed under their arms and down their chests.

The young John Cleese silly-walked between the rows bellowing: “Stop lollygagging! I see you lollygagging there, and I won’t have it! You must write faster. Our Mr. Snape is in the hall with your beta readers, and they want more!”

At which point, women of all ages, shapes and descriptions filed into the room. There were only two constants in their appearance—they sported the Hogwarts winter uniform, they had curly hair hanging almost to their waists, and they all wore glasses.

Um, there were only three constants in their appearance… (Who let the Spanish Inquisition in here? If this isn’t a dream sequence, I’m in real trouble.)

I woke the next morning to find I had sleep-walked to the not-so-comfy chair in front of my own tiny keyboard. But I wasn’t sweating out my blog any more. I’d come to a seasonally appropriate, blog-related epiphany.

Writing fan fiction helped me be a better writer. More than serving as a useful apprenticeship for writing original stories, it gave me friendships, contacts and an understanding of publishing at the most basic level. And it’s payback time—er, time to give back. So without more ado (or at least not very Much Ado) I give you the top twenty things I learned about writing while writing as a fan.

Everything Important I Know About Writing I Learned from Writing Fan Fiction

1. No matter how well you write your story, no matter how well you craft your prose, no matter how many glowing reviews you get, somebody will always zing you on your facts (known as canon in the fanfic trade). Nine times out of ten, they’ll be wrong too.

2. Always thank your critics, especially when they get their facts wrong. They’ll stay up nights wondering what you’re up to.

3. No two readers ever read the same story, even when they’re reading the same words.

4. No two readers ever want the same story to end the same way.

5. Some people don’t like slash, male/male, BDSM or menage. Some people like it way too much.

6. It’s okay to write yourself into the plot, as long as you give yourself a different hair style, age, gender or change the color of your eyes to something really cool. Your friends will recognize you, but being your friends, they won’t say anything. Much.

7. If you write a friend into a story they will love you forever and ever…until they’re no longer your friend, and insist you write them out.

8. Once you post something to a web site it’s published—no ifs, ands or buts. This applies to whatever you post—stories, recipes or the details of your private life. Even if you take delete or change it, a record will remain somewhere on the ‘Net. And it will still count as published.

9. Never write a character so strong it takes kryptonite to give them a hangnail. If you aren’t worried about them, your readers won’t be either.

10. All it takes is a little imagination to turn any character from any universe into a vampire.

11. The same applies to turning any character into a sex symbol, including the crab from The Little Mermaid. (You think I’m kidding?)

12. Exit the chat room as soon as anyone reaches for their flamethrower. Afterwards, deny you saw the fight. When the smoke settles, everybody involved will want to pretend it never happened. Let them. (See Number 2, above.)

13. Everybody acts like an idiot every now and then, even you. Get over it. Get over yourself.

14. Facts, however you define them (series canon, extrapolations from scientific theory, fantasy tropes or the mundane details of real life) are your friend. They spackle a plot hole faster than Qwik-krete.

15. The more obscure the cross-over fic (a fan fiction story combining two or more different fan universes—Highlander, Harry Potter and Monty Python, for example) the funnier it is—for all three people who get the jokes. The rest of your readers will be left scratching their heads…and criticizing your use of canon.

16. The cyber-freak you slammed on the loop is the person you most want to meet in real life.

17. Every writer needs a compliment every now and then.

18. Fans always want more of a good thing.

19. If you’re in this for the money, you’re in the wrong business.

And the absolute, primo, most important thing I learned from writing fan fiction:

No matter how far-fetched the idea, no matter how leaden your style or how badly you spell, if the fans love your characters they’ll love your story.

But they’ll still criticize the way you use of canon.