[Viv]

Someone else asked this question recently, and I had to think one hot second before typing in my answer. Still, I think it's a pertinent question:

Why do you write fic? Why do you read fic?

[elea24]

Well I can't really answer from a writer's point of view as I haven't written any fanfic (okay, that's not strickly true. I've written fic but I've never posted fic )

Personally I think the appeal of fanfiction is the wide range of options and scope it gives the writer. The setting and characters are already there with their own personality and backstory. Anyone who wants to write a drabble or one-shot can do so easily without having to explain every little detail to the reader.
By the same token, OCs can be added in or the setting can be AU so the writer can have as much free reign as they like.

This also sums up the reason I like reading fanfic. That and it is nice to see where other people take my favourite characters.

[Viv]

[elea24]

[NancyBrooke]

Why write fanfic? or why write at all?

I write fanfic because after reading it for some time, I found I had stories I wanted to tell, aspects of the characters and the situations already created that I wanted to explore, opinions I wanted to express, questions I wanted to ask. And with fanfic it's nice not to have to explain everything, that with a short summary a reader can get started on the story without my having to create everything for them. Plus there's that already established audience think With fanfic, someone else has already done the heavy lifting.

I write exactly because of that polishing, Elea, whether it be fic or fact (or forum posts). I derive immense satisfaction and sometimes even joy from finding the right combination of words that will get my idea across, though sometimes that idea gets transmuted in the telling and turns out to be something quite different than what I started with. Then, even better, there's the joy in trying to take that nicely expressed idea just one step farther and - just maybe - elevating it toward something like art.

Or, to put it another way, it's good to succeed in expressing the idea, but better to make the expression of that idea, something beautiful, or interesting, or clever, in itself.

[LuthienTinuviel]

Simple, as an ESL person, I write fics to improve my English.

As for why I read fic, it's because most of them are extremely good, and I like to read.

[NeumeIndil]

To get it out.

To make my brain stop going a million miles a minute in twenty different directions.

To <i>create</i> without adding to landfills or the overpopulation of the planet.

To be more than a cog in a wheel taking misplaced hostility and bullshit with a smile from the sort of people who haven't found something that makes <i>them</i> feel alive and happy.

Basically, I don't feel human unless I have a story to tell.

[Arienwen]

For me it's a combination of several things already posted. I am a street actor. I do renaissance and pirate fairs om Florida, which requires a different type of acting compared to film. For a movie, or TV show, you get takes, or retakes, if you flub up a scene. For street acting, everything is live, you are face to face with you audience, not on a screen or stage. It's a lot of improv, being able to pull things out of your... erm... backside and keep your character's personality running and believable.

I love seeing the people when they share in the feelings of the character, or the story they're telling. When another face cried with my sadness, or smiles with happiness, or wants to join me on my quest for revenge... it makes my day.

It's the same way with writing fanfic. If you can read my story ( or stories, soon, hopefully) and can cry or laugh or get angry, it's all the same to me, entertaining in person or in writing.

I write fanfic because I have a crazy mind that will read a story ( like LOTR, for example) and I will love it, but my brain will also see loose ends left and come up with a way to tie them, or several ways to tie them. Courtesy of my mind going a million miles a minute, I have already come up with several alternate endings for one character. Curse my overimaginative mind....

As for reading fanfic, it's because sometimes my mind either won't come up with a story for one of the loose ends, or its too busy concentrating on a different one, and someone else has done it for me. I have tried for the life of me to write an Eomer fic, because he's one of my favorite characters in both book and film, but my mind comes up with a blank... but several other people on here and other sites have fixed that problem., and I will be forever grateful to them, because it's entertaining and helps to keep my mind from going too many places at once.

~~Arienwen~~

"An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere. The pessimist sees only the red light. But the truly wise person is color blind."

[Rhapsody]

Why do I write and read?

Simply because it is a kinda getaway from daily chores, responsibilties, real life stuff, a kinda escapism into a different world. Sometimes I really need that and it doesn't has to be a particular genre like fantasy: anything goes. I find the urge to write overwhelming from time to time, it feels like it is a burst of creativity that needs to get out somehow, whether it is in song, in word, creating images, photography or telling a story. Oh and gaming as well, although I don't do it that often anymore with a kid running around.

Other people play sports, watch tv, work in the garden, paint miniatures... I have writing, reading and other outbursts of creativity.

[eiranae]

[Viv]