Well, I might start posting here after all.

JordanIda said:

I've got three finished novels to post. And working on a fourth. They're romances. Fanfic very loosely based on Twilight.

I've been lurking here for a couple months. In the forums. I like everyone I've met. And even though I can be a cantankerous, somewhat acrimonious sort of person, I've found most of you are, too. So I haven't met anyone here that I can't hang with. People here seem to be mature enough to get my dry sense of humor, and I don't have to be apologizing for it all the time.

I'm kind of hoping the readers here will also have an average age somewhat north of 14. And a bit of maturity. As opposed to other places I've been-and-gone in the past year. There's only one way to find out!

Currently my fiction is down to one venue: the little site with two R's in its name. Got followers, unsolicited reviews, high ratings that I didn't get through swaps. So the readers like me. But in the forum I was bullied and pig piled by the writers. And this morning I got notified of a three day ban.

For "toxicity in the forums."

Because I had the nerve to defend myself against those bullies. ("Premium members"... squeaky wheels... oh well. City hall and clicques: can't fight'em.)

So on March 10, when my ban expires, I'm going to take my fiction down and ask my readers to come here. Maybe a few will. Maybe not.

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I had some unfortunate timing where I was reading your work on RR after I saw it recommended on a Reddit forum, and then I suddenly could not read any further chapters because it got deleted :(

I only got to read the first few chapters so its not like I can give any overarching thoughts on the entire novel yet, but my initial impressions were that it was an enjoyable read with prose that stood apart from a lot of the other writing you usually find on these sites (at least the first parts that i read, and it was nice to read something different).

I was a bit saddened that I could not read what happened next in the story, but does this mean that you will post the novel somewhere else? I hope you find a new home for it, so I might get the chance to read it fully

I've come to realize that I've been naive. For me, fan fiction creation is just a hobby. And to me a somewhat repugnant one, as I consider fan fiction theft and don't read it, myself. How strange, that contradiction.

Too many people are monetizing it. I've encountered too much anger and rage from those who attempt to pay their rent and grocery bills-- under the table, on top of everything else-- with this pastime that I've regarded as mere idle amusement. Because my stance places me outside of their cliques, there can be no sense of community or belongingness, for one such as myself. The few true hobbyists are outsiders. Other. Targets.

I've also seen, on webnovel sites, far too much fan fiction that is thinly disguised as "original work." Sometimes "inspired by" the property of others (whatever that means), but more often not even that. This trend will only accelerate, as websites crack down on declared fan fiction.

I've come to realize that fan fiction in all its forms is a blight that should be eradicated. With scalpel, chemo, and radiation. That will have to be someone else's fight, and all too likely a futile one.

Given that this really is just a hobby for me and ultimately an inconsequential one, I've decided to preemptively withdraw from the fray.

Apologies to my readers, from wherever you hail. Maybe at some point you'll find yourself reading original work of mine. Then again, perhaps you already are.

JordanIda said:

I've come to realize that I've been naive. For me, fan fiction creation is just a hobby. And to me a somewhat repugnant one, as I consider fan fiction theft and don't read it, myself. How strange, that contradiction.

Too many people are monetizing it. I've encountered too much anger and rage from those who attempt to pay their rent and grocery bills-- under the table, on top of everything else-- with this pastime that I've regarded as mere idle amusement. Because my stance places me outside of their cliques, there can be no sense of community or belongingness, for one such as myself. The few true hobbyists are outsiders. Other. Targets.

I've also seen, on webnovel sites, far too much fan fiction that is thinly disguised as "original work." Sometimes "inspired by" the property of others (whatever that means), but more often not even that. This trend will only accelerate, as websites crack down on declared fan fiction.

I've come to realize that fan fiction in all its forms is a blight that should be eradicated. With scalpel, chemo, and radiation. That will have to be someone else's fight, and all too likely a futile one.

Given that this really is just a hobby for me and ultimately an inconsequential one, I've decided to preemptively withdraw from the fray.

Apologies to my readers, from wherever you hail. Maybe at some point you'll find yourself reading original work of mine. Then again, perhaps you already are.

Click to expand...

Fan fiction is where most writers start, though. Some even manage to get into "writing stables" and write the official fan fictions (c.f. the television and movie tie-ins on bookshelves; every Star Trek or Psych or Babylon 5 novel or comic book is fan fiction; there are some exceptions - Belisario himself wrote one of the Quantum Leap novels, and the guy who created Dexter was still churning out novels after the series ended the first time, for example). For some publishers in the 70s and 80s, the only way to get in was to "prove yourself" with a few installments of the ongoing series they had the rights to, either solo or partnered with the creator (about a third of the, what was it 142 novels in The Destroyer novel series were written with one of the two creators as an editor; one left the franchise around 47 or so, and the other did the next three solo before taking on an ever-changing selection of partners (listed on the indica but only his name was on the cover), and then stepping back himself around book 100, with the cover changing to "created by Sapir and Murphy" and you had to look to the credits page to find out who really wrote it).
Heck, there was a name, Robert Arthur, who appeared on a lot of books (mostly short-story collections and a series called The Three Investigators - if I'm recalling the story correctly, the father came up with the concept and approached Alfred Hitchcock to back it; he then wrote the first book and handed the entire line to his son; the last book with Hitchcock's name in the credits - "Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Three Investigators" - was the only one they worked on together, and the last one either of them actually wrote) between about 1950 and 1990; he was originally one person, then a father and son who sometimes worked together, sometimes separately, and then various individual authors as the NAME was the property of the publishing house.
So don't be so harsh to judge fan fiction. Maybe some of the people churning it out deserve scorn but the entire form of literature does not, IMO.

Oh, there are many categories of harmless fan fiction.

First there's the work that is sanctioned by the IP holders. Exceedingly rare, and the players almost always share some prior affinity, behind the scenes. Especially in the screenwriting professions. Totally incestuous; nepotism rules. And even to some degree in academia, where editors won't lift a finger in the slushpile without an endorsement from at least one tenured professor.'

Then there's the huge "fun between friends" category. I place myself firmly in that one. (Though in my case it has always been for fun and nothing else; my professional life and this one have no intersection whatsoever.) Heck, even Stephenie Meyer started there, by trading fan fiction with friends on MySpace. Twilight didn't strike gold from out of the blue. She brought a giant fan base to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. There will always be places for the "fun between friends" category. Even if giant Wattpad folds under DMCA (hard to imagine), hobbyist fan fiction will just move back to social media where it started (Reddit or heck, even full circle to bulletin boards like 4-chan if it's still around).

The trouble these days is that the "fun between friends" category has been swamped by illicit profiteering. It's not right and it sure isn't fair, but it's life. It's not a matter of a few bad apples spoiling the bunch. Profiteering is rife. It's become a cottage industry. And it besmirches what was once a fun, wholesome, and largely harmless and victimless pastime.

I don't think there's any way to go back. Not after the success of fan fic starts like Mortal Instruments and 50 Shades. Now a lottery mentality has taken hold. It's unseemly and to some degree sad and deserving of pity. After all, the odds of being discovered and making it big from web novel sites is vanishingly small, and it's sad that so many people are expending (wasting) so many calories in the hopes of realizing that elusive payday.