Why I Write Fanfiction

Hey Guys x

Unless you write it or read it, fanfiction can be quite a taboo topic.

People don't understand it, think it's weird or gross, or think that everything in fanfic turns out to be a carbon copy of fifty shades - which obviously isn't the case!

Now, you may or may not know this, but I write fanfiction. It's a hobby, but it's also one of the most important parts of my life, particularly when blogging has to take a back seat to uni work.

Right now I'm three weeks away from finishing the fanfic in the picture above, and 13 chapters into my new fic, and I stopped and thought about why I write fanfiction.

So I wanted to talk about this today. And right now, I don't have a definitive answer.

My fanfiction 'career' started with a boyband called 'The Wanted'

This is my first ever fanfiction. It didn't even have a name!

When I wrote this, I wasn't gonna put it online at all. I wrote it purely for my own pleasure, and I love that. I didn't even know what fanfiction was, all I knew was that I wanted to create a character, and put her in a situation where she could fall in love with one of my favourite members of my favourite boy band.

Then I came across wattpad. It was easy to use, I could read fics as well as write them, and SO many people were doing what I was doing, so it seemed so casual.

To this day, this fic is my second most popular, and I have no idea why because the plot is cliché, and the writing is definitely not what my writing is now. But I'm glad that people are enjoying it! You can read it here if you so wish, but as I said, it's not my best work at all!

Anyway, after I saw the positive response on that fic, I decided I might just try one more.

This was in 2012. By 2014, I had a further 6 finished stories up, all about or featuring The Wanted, all with different plots and (hopefully) better writing each time.

With these, I wrote them because I loved the band as people. In my mind, it was (and still is) using characters that already exist to help move along a completely independent story (or several!)

But then, I changed course.

The Celebrity Hunger Games was an idea that I had, that I'm so proud of! I mean, I doubt I was the first to think of it, but I loved it. I really committed to it too, I spend two years writing this!

I picked 24 celebrities, created back stories for each of them (because they weren't playing celebrities in the fic) and plonked them into the world that was created by Suzanne Collins.

I had celeb interviewers, family members, cameos, EVERYTHING! I had so much fun writing this, because I had a clear path. I'd read the first Hunger Games book, so I knew the order in which everything was supposed to happen. Unlike my The Wanted fics, I wasn't completely alone with my planning.

I've found it's also really fun to kill people off (haha!) and not have people upset with you, because that's just how it's supposed to be!

However, during the time of writing this (May 2015 to be exact) I fell in love with Marvel.

Lo and behold, I had found a new muse - and Rogue was born!

Rogue has been the biggest part of my life for the last year and a bit.

It all started with the idea of, what would I do if I was a superhero? What powers would I have? Which Avenger would I date? etc.

Rogue is a completely original character, so my main goal was to put her into the Avengers world and see how she would deal with everything that the team faces. Turns out, she's done really well!

The story tends to follow some of the Marvel movies, but there are also some chapters that are completely mine, such as the last five chapters that I've put up where I kill people off!

I've poured my heart into this, honestly. I'm gonna do a whole post about finishing it when I actually finish it, but I guess I started writing it so that I could take my love for Marvel off the screen and let my imagination take over.

I think another reason that I've written all of these is that, they're basically a short story shortcut. Something is already pre-determined for you, either your characters, your plot, your supporting characters, or just a simple idea. I've written 9 short stories this way, and I will continue to do so.

Right now, I'm writing my next fic, based on both the Avengers, and one of my favourite TV shows. I won't say too much here, but I'm hoping to upload the first chapter in mid-May, after I've finished Rogue and had a few weeks break from uploading! But when I upload the first chapter, I'll write a post about it and link it here!

Anyway, that's a bit about why I write fanfictions. I'm sure there's more to be teased out here, so I might do another post about fanfiction soon, maybe trying to tackle the stigma towards it.

Thank you for reading.

What do you think about fanfiction? Comment below!

Lou xx