[Viv]

In another thread,

[DarkElfChilde]

I enjoy writing like I enjoy drawing. I'm a creative person that has to do something to get it out, and I have to get it out somehow right? Plus, it keeps me out of trouble, and where is the harm in that? None.


- DEC

[krazykataave]

I do it because i am not satisified with the way a story ends or want to know more but the orginal author won't tell. I can't tell how many times i rewrote the ending to Peter Pan when i was a child to something i liked better.

If i create the ending myself or read another's take on a story it gives me "inner peace" so to speak.

or i was just raised by freewill hippies.


Kat

[mistressofbucklebury]

That's a difficult question to answer and I guess it's different for everyone.

For me I know with the first fic I wrote it was a case of just wanting to see if I could do it... admittedly the fic has only got one chapter so far but I know I'll get there eventually and the feedback I've had has been positive enough to give me the self-confidence to know that just because I haven't done something before doesn't mean that I can't do it.

I must say that now I've dabbled in writing smut I find it really cathartic and relaxing... it's difficult to describe but I guess it boils down to being a type of escapism.. you know living life vicariously through the characters. That doesn't mean to say that I want to spend my whole day having/or thinking about sex but writing about it is just a way of releasing all the tension and energy I build up as I'm doing everything else.

okay I babbled a bit but I hope it makes at least a bit of sense.

[Alassante]

I love to write anything creatively. So fanfiction gives you the opportuntity to use already existing characters to write stories. I mean when I write Legolas I see him in my brain. I used to get annoyed when the man on the cover of the romance novel didn't look like he was described. I want that visual!!! So I gave up romance novels about 10 yrs ago. So this is my romance novel I guess....

[ellisk]

I think this is a wonderful question and should prove very interesting. Someone else said they have always done fanfiction since childhood. So have I. I remember writing different endings or stories like gap fillers for all my favorite TV shows and movies and books as a kid. Sometimes I didn't write them down but thought about them in my head only.

I guess that habit stayed in me and now that I'm 40 I still like to write things to explore aspects of the character's lives that the original author did not explore. And like someone else said, writing is a creative outlet. A hobby that I love.

I do it purely for myself because I thoroughly enjoy it. For a very long time I posted nothing. I still have hundreds of stories that aren't posted and never will be. But I finally started posting because I found getting feedback (no matter what it is like) is very interesting. I love to see how people see what I wrote.

I am less concerned with mechanics. I understand punctuation rules and spelling and I do my best to use them properly. But I would never be offended if someone told me "I hate your story because of this error." I'd just go fix it. Likewise, since I am not entirely a native speaker of English, people often point out word choice errors or preposition mistakes that I made and I greatly appreciate that.

But even though English isn't entirely native to me, I enjoy trying to use varied word choice and sentence structure (even if some of my original sentences make my beta roll on the floor laughing). And I enjoy playing with POV since it is really the characters in the stories in their inner conflicts that interests me most.

My stories tend to be very slowly developed and very complex so I don't expect all people to like them. But I love writing them. And if even one person reads them, then that it really pretty cool when you think about it. The Internet is letting us do something totally new--write and be read and critiqued before getting 'officially printed/published.' I think it's great. Just a truly fun resource.

Those are my initial thoughts.

[NancyBrooke]

To answer the "what if:" What if this happened, What if they met, and to explore the characters that interest us in possibly new situations.

Similarly, to play out the known story a different way and/or fill in gaps the author left us because they did not tell his story; they can tell ours.

But mostly, I think, to keep alive the feelings we had as we were reading/watching; to stay inside the writer's created world.

[Eruanna]

[SilverMoonLady]

Why? *grin* so very many reasons....

Relaxation/entertainment: more of a story you love, how can you lose?

Exercise/Improvement: have been writing for many many years, and this is the best and easiest way to improve; aside from the practice, the feedback is wonderfully helpful.

Stroke my EGO! Nothing's quite as nice as a review that makes you feel appreciated.

Escape: there's no problem you can't solve, no trouble you can get into or out of, no prize you cannot win when you are the Goddess of your world, which is what you are when you write, even if you're playing in someone else's sandbox. A big difference from RL where we are all subject to constraints of various sorts, and must often take the hardest road to the least of all rewards.

Oh, yes.... and meeting like minded folk like yourselves! That's the best:) But then maybe i'm just showing my lonely colors there!

[SpaceWeavil]

I can't remember the first time I wrote 'fan fiction' but I suspect I was very young. I don't know what started me writing at all, to be honest. It just seems to be something I've always done.

My early stuff was mostly a case of putting little fantasies into words. I used to imagine 'stories' involving the characters from my favourite shows or books and at some point I started to write those stories down.

Nowadays I mostly write fan fiction because I've no strong ideas for any original fic, and I am a compulsive writer. I don't have an awful lot of hobbies and am not particularly social, but I do get restless if I have to sit around. So I tend to spend a lot of my time at home sitting with the laptop, tapping out rubbish stories.

[ghettoelleth]

Here here SML, very well put and I totally agree. What I didn't realize about doing this, having never written anything in my life until now, is how much I would enjoy the process. I have learned so much and gotten to know some wonderful people because of this. I have enjoyed every step. Then I got my first review, talk about a review HOE! The reviews are wonderful and they do encourage but I'd keep going without them. I just love the way writing makes me feel about me.

[Texasgirl]

[LittleOldMe]

Well, I only discovered the existence of fanfiction a little under a year ago, and am pretty new to writing it. I first read Tolkien at a pretty early age, and also made up stories in my head. I never wrote anything down because I thought it would be wrong to write a story based on someone else's world, and it might somehow be demeaning to the Professor's writing. Maybe I'm just strange.

At the moment I'm working on a 'what if' story, and am just writing it because it's a lot of fun, and I'm having a ball. When I reread Tolkien now, after knowing about fanfiction, I find all sorts of places where one or two sentences spark families of plot bunnies. So maybe it's just the way he wrote that encourages fanfiction writers. I think another huge appeal is the chance to imagine what characters I've known and loved for years might do in a certain situation.

sorry this is so long. Great topic!

[Haleth]

It's interesting to see the different reasons for writing fan fiction.

I write fan fiction because I'm lazy and obsessed with details.

I need to have a history of the characters and the world itself before I can write, otherwise I literally spend hours wondering why a character reacts in a given way and how this connects to the environment/history of the fantasy world. When I try to write original fiction, I spend days fretting over background issues and usually get so sidetracked that nothing is ever written.

With fan fiction, the history, geography and societies have already been explained. It's very easy to use what is already there.

[inglor]