fanfic

while thinking about what i find interesting about aus, i inevitably have to go into what the difference between fanfic and published fiction is. i think a lot of people have complexes about published fiction being better than fanfic, and while i agree wholeheartedly at some levels (as in, published fiction has access to editors because it's being written for the sake of profit & things like that), i think the actual difference between the two can be summed up as this: fanfic is blatantly derivative, and published fiction is not (or, well, not to the same extent).

the reason fanfic works for me even as someone so critical of books is because i keep those two things in mind. fanfic to me has a higher floor, because if i'm reading fanfic, it's already established that i like the characters it focuses around. much of the struggle in writing published fiction is trying to create genuinely compelling characters, so the fact that you're working both with preestablished characters and an audience who already likes those characters as well gives fanfic a boost. i don't know if i would argue that published fiction (which i guess i'll refer to as pubfic for the sake of convenience) has a higher ceiling. i think that if you compared the type of fanfic to the same type of pubfic that they're kind of evenly matched.

that's to say that if you took the average romance fanfic, because fanfic tends to be romance (for a variety of reasons not limited just to queerbait), and slotted it up against the average romance pubfic, i don't actually know that there'd be a huge difference. i'll disregard the quality argument in hopes that the earlier preface that editors deal with improving published works serves as a blanket, but i guess i'm trying to argue that both of these things are equally affected by the circumstances the writer is in. this ties into the derivative line i wrote earlier; fanfic and pubfic writers will both be influenced by what's most common. if enemies to lovers is the most common trope, there's a higher chance they'll like it just from exposure, and things happen from there on out.

i think the biggest reason people are so quick to deride fanfic in favor of pubfic is because they're thinking of classic books used as an example of good writing, like lolita, or something along those lines. i don't necessarily fault them for thinking that, but i think the better comparison is to slot fanfic against its counterpart in contemporary fiction. in that case, i actually don't think there's so much of a difference. ultimately, fanfic is wish fulfillment. so is romantic pubfic. unless you look at quality only (which i mean, given the state of contemporary romance, i also find it hard to truly argue that it's much better), i truly don't think there's such a distinct difference between fanfic and pubfic aside from reception.

with regards to reception, i'll elaborate more on the derivative point. fanfic needs no explanation here. it's taken straight from a book or movie or game or something like that, and the connection is made obvious. pubfic is less clear, but it's still undeniable that it is derivative. just look at books being marketed as (adjective) (other, classic book/series). it's been happening a lot with the hunger games (and in fairness, that was sort of a defining work of the genre), where you'll see things being marketed as a spicy version of the hunger games or something along those lines. that's a derivative work! when you write something and absentmindedly use a phrase from a poster you saw three years ago, that's derivative, too! and i think the real reason people prefer to look down on fanfic is because it's the purest example of appreciation for something; i think that in a society whose members are increasingly tending to hide their interests and their effort that fanmade creations are so easy to write off as cringe. that's really all