Tag Archives: fanfic

Transitioning from fanfic to original work

This entry is part 4 of 14 in the series My writing journey

Last week, I confessed that it was fanfiction that really brought me to writing fiction at all. And it was fanfiction that, somewhat paradoxically, brought me to my first original novel, too.

The Fellowship Of The Ring (2001) 1My freshman year of college, my “honors” writing class final was to see Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring on opening day. I’d never been interested in Tolkien (this is turning into a regular confessional column, isn’t it?), but who could say no to cheap tickets and an easy final?

So I saw it (and then saw it again. and again. and . . . yeah), and discovered a whole new fandom to write about. And yes, in keeping with our confessional theme, it was, of course, completely Mary Sue–based. Utterly shocking, I know.

It wasn’t very long, however, before I began to see the potential for my own story. I’d created my own culture and borrowed just one character (I’d tell you who, but . . . seriously, there are reasonable limits to everything!), and even then I was using my own characterization.

The San Diego California Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints served as the inspiration for the castle. Because of course there was a castle.

Aside from that character’s name and a few bits of Elvish, there wasn’t a whole lot of ethical debate about this fanfic. I finished the story out as perhaps a short novella length, probably, and knew what I had to do: I had to make this my own.

That entailed inventing different cultures for the characters, and, of course, constructing a language, which then bled into changing my major to Linguistics. It stuck, though I did end up adding another major and a couple minors. Writing was already changing my life.

While all that was going on, I also had to change up my class schedule for my second semester. I managed to sneak into two classes that were notoriously hard to pick up: flexibility (Stretching to fulfill my PE requirement? Yes.) and creative writing (which would eventually count toward an English minor. Double yes.).

I frequently forget this, but I did take a college-level creative writing course. Incidentally, my professor was Dene Low, now an Egdar-nominated author (and that book, Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone is so fun!). Also, I’d like to note that this makes me totally legit as a writer. Right?

Ha.

Another shot of the San Diego templeSo my erstwhile fanfic became the beginnings of my first original novel, epic fantasy as all first novels should be, even though I didn’t and still don’t read a whole lot of epic fantasy. Honestly, I don’t remember the details, but it involved a king’s youngest son (Haldan) who travels to a fabled land of superhuman/magical people with its queen (Avelath). They’re leaving their land because the planet says it’s afraid (keep in mind I had NOT yet read the rest of the Lord of the Rings trilogy). As a younger son, Haldan doesn’t have much of a future at home, so he joins Avelath on a quest to find a new home, unite three warring kingdoms and save the world.

Epic.

I brought the first bits of that novel, which still doesn’t have a title, to my first ever actual writing workshop in this creative writing class. The feedback wasn’t really that great (= useful), although even then, ten years ago, guess what? I should cut my prologue. (Totally true. Totally did it. Totally helped.)

My class schedule was very full that semester (18 credit hours), but also kind of odd in that I was done with class by noon every day, so I frequently spent afternoons working on expanding the story into a novel and IMing with my best friend, who happened to be a writing friend from high school, too.

Some things never change 😉 .

But, then, some things do. When that novel fell through, I went through a long writing drought. More about that next week!

How has your writing changed over time—genre, subject matter, fanfiction vs. wholly original? Come join in the confessions! 😉

Picking up fiction (my confession)

This entry is part 3 of 14 in the series My writing journey

I’d dabbled in short fiction, and writing seems to run in the family, but I kind of trace my real start in writing to another source.

In the ’90s, Nick at Night began airing The Monkees. My sisters and I got hooked on the absurdity pretty quickly right before I started high school. (What can I say? We were the target audience, 30 years too late.) Over the next couple years, I met and saw two members of the Monkees in concerts (three different events)—Peter Tork and Davy Jones.

Almost year ago, I got text messages from two of my sisters within seconds, basically saying the same thing:

I’m so sorry about Davy Jones!

That was how I found out he’d died. He had a heart attack at 66. For some odd reason, the youngest of the Monkees was the first to go.

One of my favorite Monkees’ songs actually sung by Davy, plus a classic first season romp. Sigh. Second season hair was so much better 😉

It was a sad surprise, even if it’s not completely unheard of (I mean, Peter Tork, the oldest of the Monkees, hit 70 just two weeks before). It hit me that night as I saw a clip from the old TV show that he was really gone. But let’s be serious here: he wasn’t a close personal friend, and I’m not going to mourn him like one. His death didn’t make me face my own mortality, or give me a sobering wake up call, or anything else. It was a sad note.

But two weeks later, I remembered what I owe to Davy Jones.

When my sisters and I started watching The Monkees, I liked the show so much, I had to write about it. Yes, it’s true—I came to writing through fanfiction. Monkees fanfic. (Is this as shameful as I think it sounds?) And though Davy himself wasn’t the biggest reason for my doing that, he was part of the ensemble. He was part of the reason I started to write.

davy jones
Davy and me (holding records?), in 1998. And yes, that extra hand on my waist is Davy’s. I’m 15, he’s 52. Is that skeevy? Oh well.

So thank you, Davy Jones.

The fanfiction trend continued through high school, including both the Monkees and Star Wars. Fanfiction also helped me find some of my first writing friends and partners, Susan and Sarah. They didn’t know one another; I worked with both of them. We co-wrote some of our short stories, or just wrote in the same universes, swapped stories, and generally fed one another’s writing muses.

A few other friends from high school were also really supportive of my writing—Kim, who read my fanfic and still encouraged me to write ;), and Erin, who is now also a writer. Thank you all 🙂 .

What do you think? Is fanfiction (and Monkees fanfiction) a bad way to get into writing? How did you first find writing friends?

The debt I owe to Davy Jones

In the ’90s, Nick at Night began airing The Monkees. My sisters and I got hooked on the absurdity pretty quickly right before I started high school. (What can I say? We were the target audience, 30 years too late.) Over the next couple years, I met and saw two members of the Monkees in concerts (three different events)—Peter Tork and Davy Jones.

Two weeks ago, I got a text message from two of my sisters within seconds, basically saying the same thing:

I’m so sorry about Davy Jones!

That was how I found out he’d died. He had a heart attack at 66. For some odd reason, the youngest of the Monkees was the first to go.

It was a sad surprise, even if it’s not completely unheard of (I mean, Peter Tork, the oldest of the Monkees, hit 70 just two weeks before). It hit me that night as I saw a clip from the old TV show that he was really gone. But let’s be serious here: he wasn’t a close personal friend, and I’m not going to mourn him like one. His death didn’t make me face my own mortality, or give me a sobering wake up call, or anything else. It was a sad note.

One of my favorite songs actually sung by Davy

But then over the last weekend, I remembered what I owe to Davy Jones.

When my sisters and I started watching The Monkees, I liked the show so much, I had to write about it. Yes, it’s true—I came to writing through fanfiction. Monkees fanfic. (Is this as shameful as I think it sounds?) And though Davy himself wasn’t the biggest reason for my doing that, he was part of the ensemble. He was part of the reason I started to write.

davy jones
From left to right: my sister (holding one of my favorite photos of Davy from the 60s), my friend, my sister,cropped to just Davy and me (holding records?), in 1998. And yes, that extra hand on my waist is Davy’s. I’m 15, he’s 52. Is that skeevy? Oh well. (Don’t know where my other sister was 🙁 .)

So thank you, Davy Jones.

How did you get started writing?