Fanfiction, and then some

As I have mentioned before, I’m a fanfic enthusiast. I love reading and writing fanfiction. I generally focus on the anime titles I’ve read as well as English books that deal with fantasy and/or science fiction, e.g. The Belgariad, Star Wars and Harry Potter, just to name a few.

Reading and writing in this genre gives the opportunity for the fans to tweak the story to their liking, and to add their own touches to the world. Some authors like this so much that they allow others to write and publish fanfiction stories based on their works.

The first ‘universe’ (for the lack of a better term) that comes to mind is the Star Wars universe. You can find books dealing with the time before Episode 1: The Phantom Menace ° right up to the latest series, The New Jedi Order, which deals with the descendants of the original Star Wars. Might I mention that upon reading these books, one can see that the strictest measures have been taken to ensure that everything proceeds in a orderly and linear fashion? In fact, at the beginning of the book a layout shows which novels have appeared and in what order they took place in the Star Wars universe.

However, there is another universe that is far more populated, and in my opinion, opened the door for fanfiction to gain recognition, is the Dragonlance series. In MPH Midvalley, the largest bookstore in the Klang Valley here in Malaysia, nearly three-quarters of a four-tiered rack is given over to the series. That may seem little, but if you compare it to the amount of titles in other places, it gives you an idea just how popular the series is, and how dedicated the universe is. Unfortunately, you would have to read the Dragonlance Chronicles ° first to understand. After that it’s what I call the Twins saga ° of the series.

If you’ve managed to reach this far and are still wondering what I’m talking about, fanfiction is generally written by people other than the authors themselves. The authors contribute only the ideas and the characters. The fanfic authors take the ideas and see if they can run away with it. The best ones succeed. I know cause I’ve seen it. ; p

Many people turn their noses down at this genre because they assume that writing fanfiction is easy. In fact, it is far harder than any of the other genres. The challenge is to take something that originally belongs to someone else and to make it uniquely your own, yet at the same time, recognisable.

A quick look at the number of Harry Potter fanfiction (not fan) sites will attest to this. I have yet to find any that do not deal with slash (if you don’t know what this means you’re too young to know) but keeps the meaning of the characters, or do not keep in character and makes the OOC (Out Of Character). This includes mine, of course. * Grin * Here's the link

I brought this up because well, it would make you understand about the references to my Matrix post. I write fanfiction because I’m either not satisfied with the ending, I want more, or, I fell in love with the characters (Sigh… Kurama… Drool… Hakkai *whack!* *Ouch!* * sounds of someone snapping out of a trance *).

Ahem! * hack! Cough! *

The Matrix does not make me feel any of these. In fact, it is one of the very few things in my life that I’ve either seen, read, or understand, that I want to dissemble it and to talk about. It’s quite hard to find a movie that raises so many philosophical questions at one go.

Oh well… I’ve run out of ideas so far, but please, stop by my other blog and tell me what you think about it. See ya around!

° Star Wars Ep. 1= If you don’t know what this is, google it.
° Dragonlance Chronicles: Dragons of- Autumn Twilight, Spring Dawning, Winter… something! (Not in that order)
° Twins saga: Time of the Twins, War of the Twins, something of the twins.