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To me, writing fanfiction (i.e. stories set in pre-established fictional universes, like Star Trek for instance) is akin to filling holes in a mostly assembled jigsaw puzzle.  You can have a lot of fun, and make something beautiful that lots of people will appreciate, without much effort.

In contrast, original fiction requires chopping down a tree, running planks through the wood chipper, creating pulp, turning the pulp into cardboard, drawing a beautiful illustration on the cardboard, scoring the cardboard into little pieces, smashing the puzzle up- then reassembling those pieces in an interesting way before a live studio audience.

In other words, a bit more work.

No wonder few people who write fanfic ever transition to original fiction.  How did I do it?

Short answer:

20 years, dozens of failures, boundless perseverance  :)

Long answer:

I started writing fanfiction (i.e. stories set in other people’s fictional universes) around 11 or 12 years of age.  Like everyone else’s first efforts, they’re embarrassing.  Even more embarrassing are some of the universes I wrote in- but you don’t need to know about that.

I did everything you’re not supposed to do, the Mary Sue self-insert most glaringly.  I thought I was being stunningly original, only for the Internet to come along and show me lots of people do this, and it’s insufferable to everyone but the author.  Oops.

The important thing is, I didn’t keep churning out Mary Sues.  I started writing more thoughtful stuff with my favorite characters at the forefront, exploring their natures or plugging holes in canon (i.e. established places and concepts in the universe).  With the universe pre-built for me, and an audience already familiar with it, I had the great advantage of skipping introductory details and digging right into the story.  I became concerned with, and good at, staying true to the universe and its characters.  That didn’t mean I didn’t put out the occasional farce or satire, though.  I say you’re not a fan of anything unless you can laugh at it.

In addition to fanfic, I did tons of role-playing in the same universes, both chat room and forum-based.  Sometimes I played established characters- I was especially fond of Wilykat and Wilykit from ThunderCats- but usually I created my own.  Mary Sue was nowhere to be found- these characters weren’t perfect superpeople who garnered the loving adoration of all they met.  They received more distinction, scars, and redemption as I got older.  I churned everything I learned about character portrayal and development (like these lessons on description) back into writing.

(In one of my Star Trek RPGs, I “met” one of my fellow players by dressing him down for insubordinate behavior.  Two years later, the same player proposed marriage IRL.  Yep- role-playing is how I met my spouse.)

Most fanfic writers I knew remained fanfic writers- bouncing to new universes, but never attempting original work.  I itched to write original stuff by the time I finished high school.  Part of it was the desire to see my name in print (try publishing your own fanfiction, and enjoy the onslaught of copyright lawyers).  However, I also wanted to break the cycle of creating beloved original characters who were tragically stuck in universes I didn’t own, and couldn’t be decoupled from them.

If I was going to pour so much love and attention into character creation, I might as well do the same with universes.  I had a healthy imagination- it wasn’t hard to come up with my own settings, aliens, and the like.

However, ideas are one thing.  Conveying them to the reader in an engaging fashion is another.  To the fanfic writer/RPGer who never had to explain what a transporter was or establish the centuries-long rift between the Vulcans and Romulans, it seemed lengthy explanations were the only way to get my audience up to speed.  That bogged down and killed many of my early attempts.  I’ve since learned the value of just telling the story, and letting the universe unfold on the side.

There’s another balance to be struck, though, especially for a sci-fi/fantasy writer: throwing out too much unfamiliar jargon or too many funny words at once is annoying and disengaging.  I had a big problem at first with creating long, ridiculous names littered with dashes and apostrophes.  Now, all my characters and places get short names, nicknames, and/or names that are familiar to the audience in some way (ex. in English, rather than Look-How-Smart-I-Am-Made-Up-Ese).

My biggest problem, though, was lack of follow-through.  Stories that fizzled out in 80 pages or fewer crowd my hard drive.  I’d get excited about a cool idea or premise, but rarely flesh out a story past “Things happen… the end!”  Once the initial excitement died, I got bored and gave up.

Part of the solution was to make myself write shorter stuff: cut down those novel-length dreams to 6,000 words or so, and actually grind them out.  The other part was to develop a vague idea of the plot, start to finish, before letting myself get started.

Even now, I’m not a strong outliner.  This is because 50-90% of my cool ideas show up while I’m drafting.  Let’s say I’m writing a scene where a character must ford a river.  My intention is to get him to the other side- but, as I’m drafting that, I’m struck with a vision of a sky-serpent swooping down and carrying him off.

If I was a strong outliner, I couldn’t allow things like that to happen.  He has to get across the river, or the rest of this outline is junk!  Of course, if I allow the change to occur, I must RETHINK EVERYTHING, and possibly go back and rewrite much of what was already written in order to match the new stuff…

…but that’s what I do, most of the time.  Blood’s Force has undergone six major revisions over five years, not to mention dozens of lesser tweaks to characters and plot elements.  When you compare Draft 6 to Draft 1, though- see how much richer and nuanced the world is, how many more dimensions each character has, and how much more stuff happens beyond people chatting in rooms- the effort speaks for itself.

It took a long time, but I’ve worked up to a level of discipline where, if I start upon an idea, I follow through.  Blood’s Force was the first novel-length story I’ve ever carried to completion, despite many points when I asked myself whether it wouldn’t be better to take it out back with a shotgun.  It’s been quite the learning experience.  I hope on future endeavors, I reach Draft 6 quality faster!

Are there any other transitioners out there?  What did you find easy/hard about the experience?  Drop me a line and let me know!