Fanfic, and the horrors that await the uninitiated.

In my list of 101 things to do in 1001 days one of the tasks is to write a short story.

I like writing, I find it to be soothing. When I write, I can see the events take place in my head like the ultimate fantasy movie of mine. But because it's my fantasy, no one else gets the little nuances (because they can't read my mind...also because I don't let people read it but hey, I imagine that if someone were to read it they wouldn't understand why x is x and y is y) and I end up getting quite long winded trying to explain everything. When it comes to story telling, I'm not so good at condensing things down. I feel the need to explore the world at large and it just refuses to be squeezed down into the space available.

But then I thought hmm...why don't I just do what thousands of people already do? I don't need to create a world or a situation that needs explaining. I can just rip someone elses hard work off with the knowlege that the reader, in theory, already knows as much as I do about the setting. I can write a FANFIC *shock horror*

The thought of using that in order to achieve my goal only occured to me after having read Ben's blog post from last night in which he mentions his own torrid past in fanfic (ok so it's not completely in the past but it's mostly in the past) and also one of possibly the most disturbing and poorly written yet somehow if you can take the joke hilarious pieces of fiction in general that has to exist in which Jesus gets err...down and dirty with Hitler.

I've never looked into fanfic before, and I'm pretty sure that Hitler Jesus slash fic is no doubt the very extreme lower end of the spectrum in both taste and writing quality. But you know, I always said that before you dive into something new, research is required. So I went off to dig up some of the more serious fan fiction specimens to determine how I should go about doing my own little piece so I can tick off one more goal on my list. For anyone else new to the world of fan fiction or having never really looked into it before now, here are my findings.

1. People will fanfic just about anything. I was worried that I'd end up doing something that no one actually would get. I sure as hell do not feel the need to write a Twilight fanfic (God knows there are already 180386 too many Twilight fanfics, and that's just from first glance at fanfiction.net - I shudder to think how many are floating around unnoticed on the wider internet) or a Harry Potter fic (I was put off when I read a Hermione/Rita Skeeter sex scene...ugh...). But looking at all the categories at FanFiction.net it turns out people really will rip anything off. Including the Bible. I kid you not. There are at least 2921 Bible fanfics. Granted, the Hitler Jesus Romance is one, and one that I've seen is a big rant by someone for whome English is clearly not their first language as to why athiesm should be illegalized (really folks, what else is Blogspot for if not for rants? Why is this on fanfic.net?) but there are some honest to God (if you'll pardon the pun) biblical fanfics there. Now don't get me wrong, this isn't a moral outrage or anything like that, it just seems odd...but I suppose that's just me being closed minded...or something.
2. A good portion of fanfics are porno fantasies. Let's just go back to those Bible fan fics. If you set the filter to "M" (that is, I assume, for mature) it comes up with 127. Ok that's only a fraction of all the bible fics out there but when you consider how prudish a book the bible is, it's gotta take some pushing to make an M rated bible fic. Admittedly a lot of them will be trolls and spoofs. So lets go take a look at something which draws a more dedicated fan base. Twilight pops out 54,624 rated M. Harry Potter holds 94,639 (of 503,704). It's not all of them. It's not even most of them. And this is just the out and out stuff...as opposed to that which is only implied or alluded to.
3. Nothing is sacred. That should be obvious from the Bible fics. But there is gay rated M fan fics based on To Kill a Mockingbird. How do you even come up with something like that?
4. You'd be suprised at what passes for "fan fiction". Some kid wrote a story about some random Unicorn he meets in a forest infested by killer wasps (which are lime green) called "My Pet Unicorn, Steve" and posted it up as Greek Mythology fanfic.
5. Honestly, I thought most active fanfic-ers were teenagers. My hubby updated his last on fanfic.net some 12 days ago. Apparently it's much more widespread amongst more mature audiences (is in age mature as opposed to "look we can write Harry Potter Porn" mature) than I first thought.

Am I scared? Hells yeah. Am I still going to do it? Yes. But first I need to figure out who I'm going rip off. Will I hide with my shame? Most probably, yes. What have I learned from my reconnaisance mission? I need not worry about content, correct grammar or spelling, substance or common decency. It's all pretty damn good in the world of fan fiction.