: Re: Fan Fiction: a crutch or a good start? Writing is writing, but I am not confident enough to take on creating a whole world from scratch. Will writing fanfic or writing in other shared world

It's a crutch.

The scariest thing about writing is the idea that nobody will like (or even understand) the stories and characters you create. Writing fanfic is an attempt to dodge that risk by using stories and characters that are already well liked and well understood instead.

The problem is that you never learn anything without taking a risk, and so by hiding behind other peoples' characters fanfic writers stunt their own development. The way you learn how to write good characters and compelling stories is by writing bad and boring ones. The things you do wrong give you insight on how to do it right. But this never happens in fanfic, because you always have that world's established tropes to fall back on.

In other words, to tell great stories you have to be willing to fail completely, and fanfic writers aren't.

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: Re: Fan Fiction: a crutch or a good start? Writing is writing, but I am not confident enough to take on creating a whole world from scratch. Will writing fanfic or writing in other shared world

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