Essay on Fan Fiction ✓

Essay on Fan Fiction

By Fox-Trot-9

There are two aspects of fanfiction that determine whether a fanfic gets reads or not. One is reader preference, and the other is the availability of those stories that fit a reader's preference for a certain fandom.

What I mean about reader preference is just what it says: fanfic readers are fandom-centric, meaning that they read fandoms that interest them. It doesn't matter if it's 1D, Dr. Who, Sherlock Holmes, Justin Bieber, DragonBall Z, or (freaking, I don't know) Bible Black for Christ's sake! If they're into any of those fandoms, they'll read it; conversely, if they're not into the fandom, the WON'T read it. Simple as that. Also, fanfic readers read what they know. You can't expect them to read a fanfic if they don't know the fandom. On occasion, some readers that have read a fanfic they haven't read before actually become fans of that fandom, because it interests them, but this is EXTREMELY rare.

Now, the availability of the fandom determines how often a fanfic gets read and reviewed. There are two ways of thinking about this. At one end of the spectrum, the rarer the fandom is (like Ghost Hunt, or Lupin III), the more unique the fanfic of that fandom becomes, and the more it will stand out; at the other end, the more numerous the fandom is (like 1D), the less unique the fanfic of that fandom becomes, and the less it will stand out. But the inverse of this is that on one end of the spectrum, the rarer the fandom is, the smaller the fanbase that'll read it; on the other side, the more numerous the fandom is, the bigger the fanbase that'll read it.

So there's a trade off. Bigger fandoms tend to dilute originality, because the story lines get reused over and over, but you've got more readers who enjoy reading them nonetheless. Smaller fandoms tend to have more originality, because the story lines aren't used as often, but this comes at the price of having fewer readers. So for fanfic writers who want popularity over originality, go for the bigger fandoms; for fanfic writers who want originality over popularity, go for the smaller fandoms.

That's my two cents, so take this assessment anyway you want. Good, bad, sensible, brilliant, absolute libel against your fandom, what are your opinions on this?

End of argument.

* * *

I tried to illuminate this discussion on page 3 of this forum, but apparently, I chose the wrong time to do it. Hopefully, now's a much better time to enlighten this discussion past the bickering. Sooooo, without further adieu, here it is.

Okay, I have another observation to make in this forum, and it centers on how people portray their favorite characters (or in many 1D fans' cases, band members) in their fanfics. Now to make this fair, I will make general observations in other fandoms in addition to 1D, such as Naruto, Cardcaptor Sakura and Ghost Hunt (my favorite anime fandom). As for my qualifications on these four fandoms, I'm just a casual observer when it comes to 1D, I'm generally okay with Naruto, I'm better with Cardcaptor Sakura, and I'm a HUGE fan of Ghost Hunt. But the observations I make are generally true for all fandoms, not just these four. So with that in mind, here are my observations:

1. The bigger the fandom gets, the more diluted the originality gets, because the same story lines get reused over and over. I've already explained this in my previous posts.

2. So the more often the same story lines get used in a particular fandom, the more 'innovative' the fanfic writer has to be in order to keep the reader's interest. I quote, 'innovative' for a reason.

What I mean by 'innovative' is just what it says: you change something about the setting, time or place, or change something about the characters in the fandom to make it more interesting. I'll point out examples of this in my next post. This is called fanservice. If you don't know what fanservice is, then Google 'tv tropes fanservice', and you'll see what I mean.