It Starts with Fanfiction

“‘Yes, you love me Lindir, and I love you as well.’ she hugged him a loving hug.

‘Wow, you stole those words right out of my mouth.’ he whispered and hugged her back. ‘But when we were kids you did not like me.’ At that comment they both laughed aloud.

‘No, no I did not like you, so we fought. It was not funny then, but it is hysterical now!’

The rest of the night they talked of when they were young elflings and laughed in joy. Erudessa thought this was her love forever, and Lindir thought that Erudessa was his love, and they were right.”

By Your Side, In Peace by seventh grade Gabrielle

With a lack of commas and a terrible sense of flow and style in writing, fanfiction has its own unique brand of authors and audiences. I still remember the days I spent reading them on my DSI in bed late at night, my parents unaware of my craze for the mediocre lines I scrolled through for hours. I couldn’t get enough of seeing my favorite characters getting put in the stickiest of situations. When seventh grade rolled around, I found the courage to start writing these stories of my own.

Fan fiction is where my first audience appeared. It took nearly an entire year to get noticed on Wattpad, a media platform saturated with any alternate universe and crossover a fan could ask for. I wrote stories based off of my favorite anime and movies, which involved anything from a love story to a compilation of short stories filled with embarrassing moments the characters went through.

The excerpt in the introduction is a piece of writing I presented to my seventh grade English class. The entire twenty-page story took thirty minutes to read. I was surprised my classmates weren’t dozing off!

Little did I know that the root of my writing would be in this terrible fanfiction I wrote and published on the world wide web, which still exists today if you do a little digging.

Fan fiction may come with stigma among the general population of teenagers. Many people see it as something a geek would do. But the stories one creates today about their favorite character may be the beginning of a career in writing.

It starts with fanfiction. Don’t be afraid to publish a story you made on a website for people to see. Seeing how much others enjoyed my stories gave me hope that one day, I could express my own original ideas.

Thank you for reading this and God bless you all!