When it comes to fanfiction I have a love/hate relationship with it. There are some truly wonderful and insightful stories to be found but there are as many horrible and stupid ones as well. It depends on the author and the subject matter. The author has the responsibility of viewing the source material (canon) and having at least a basic understanding of the characters” views and goals. The subject matter is more debatable but generally I find it hard to continue when comedy series suddenly becomes an angst/drama fest. Some authors can get that to work but often it just makes me search for a new story.
There are three things that will prevent me from reading a fanfic story: overuse of fanon ideas, character bashing and unsupported leaps in character development. Fanon is where a character trait or plot idea is changed for whatever reason and the fans will accept the new idea rather than the original one. Fanon usually generates from a new author that reads fanfiction before ever going through the canon and then decides that that is enough to begin writing a story. This leads to continuity errors and character misconceptions because no matter how talented an author is, there’s always going to be some bias. This trend continues on and on to the point where the fanon becomes the new canon. Some fans who have been exposed to fanon for so long will stubbornly keep with their flawed views even when presented with direct evidence from the original series that they are wrong.
Character bashing happens when a character’s flaws are all pointed out and/or exaggerated all for the purpose of making other characters look better. It makes for a poorly written story and severely limits character development for all involved, not just the one getting bashed. It also makes it easy to tell who the author’s favorites are and makes it much more predictable how the story is going to end. What I end up seeing from an author with strong bias against one or more characters are the same stories over and over again but with a different title. Now it’s fine to have favorites; that’s not the problem. However, to be a good author in fanfiction means being able to write all characters believably from the source material even if some of those characters don’t have a happy ending. I can live with that.
The last is even more of a problem in fanfiction. Characters that suddenly have a different trait or personality change without the author explaining just how that happened. This is sometimes referred to as Out of Character (OOC). In fanfiction, already established characters are being used and fans of the series are going to know when something about them is wrong. I’ve seen instances where a character who had no romantic feelings for another throughout the entire canon series suddenly falls in love with the other for no reason than the author saying, “Because I liked them both and I wanted them to.” Stories like these don’t last long and are often forgotten as quickly as I can find a new one. If characters do end up changing or end up falling in love with each other that”s fine. However, I want to read how that came about in a believable way and not with an abrupt one paragraph change.
I hope I haven’t scared anyone away yet with my gripes from above. There are stories out there that don’t fall into these pitfalls and are often worth reading. It just takes time to search them out and when they are found they are worth the time. It’s fascinating to see a character that I like being taken in a new direction that I would never have thought of or a divergence at some point in the canon that changes things drastically for all characters.
Below are a few links for anyone interested in getting into fanfiction. Fanfiction.net has one of the largest collection of authors and stories for just about any series you could want but it takes a while to find ones you’d be interested in. Mediaminer.org is a smaller site in comparison but I find that the quality of stories are higher. Enjoy!
www.fanfiction.net
www.mediaminer.org