Fanfic Pet Hates

[Fire_on_High]

I like that idea. I can see maybe asking during the first week or so, when it's still hard to find a copy. After that? Read it yourself, lazybones. Picking up a book won't kill you.

[DGoddess]

I'm fascinated by this. Until fairly recently, I didn't know that fan-fiction was written about anything other than Star Trek.

I'm assuming that it's the self-publication of bad fanfiction that bothers you all, as opposed to its very existence. I'll bet there are a hundred 13 year-old girls writing stories in which they marry Harry Potter for every one that actually posts her stuff on the internet. That seems like a fairly normal pre-teen girl activity, not much different than keeping a diary.

It's been around for years and even I didn't know there was a term for it until I first arrived online in 1997 and discovered an online fan club mailing list for my favorite show.

It was then I discovered I wasn't the only one writing my own stories based on the characters . . . others do it as well.

I've gotten several shorts online and so far, one of the major stories (divided up into 3 sections of several chapters as it's so long) on my personal website. I find it way easier to just publish my stuff onto my web space rather than go through the hassle and expense of publishing books and selling very few. My philosophy on that is basically this:

I write it the way I see it played in my mind. If you like it, great. If you don't, that's okay too.

I've been working and reworking stuff since 1983 . . . and still on occasion coming up with more ideas, but to find the time has been a challenge in recent years.

And I have to agree somewhat with the Mary Sue characters, but OTOH if you can put an interesting spin on them, they're not so bad.

I've not one but 2 MJ's and they both kick ass, take names, take pictures, share them all over the world and then some. They see themselves as genuises, but they end up looking more like a double dose of Wile E. Cyote on occasion.

And that reminds me . . . as soon as I can get a couple of hours I really need to start on that short where they got pulled over for speeding in New Orleans and ended up arrested for bootlegging.

[Lace Neil Singer]

By the way, Mary Sue does NOT equal original character. The only Mary Sue story that's any good is a parody; I've seen some really hilarious ones on fanfic.net as well as some great original characters who fit perfectly with the canon and really could have been written in by the original author. ^^

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Someone actualy wrote a fanfic for my writing blog (which of course was awesomely fun for me! ) and in it was an original character.

The original character was inspired by the profile pic of Yours Truly.

I loved the story, and it was close enough to canon I told the writer that heck, I'd just post it as a "guest post" and not as a fanfic. In other words, I now consider the story to be canon.

Is that a Mary Sue? I didn't write it. I hope it's not a Mary Sue. It's not like "I" have super powers in the story or anything.

Anyway, he's suggested I use the character in my own posts. I would not be against that, except that if I do it, it IS a Mary Sue, and I told him as much.

Not something I want to be doing, writing Mary Sues.