INTRODUCTION

Everyone enjoys books, movies, TV, comic books, manga/anime… And anyone with an imagination has imagined what it would be like if such-and-such character paired up with other such-and-such character. For Law & Order: Special Victims Unit fans, they always sit and ponder the idea of Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson pairing up together. After all, he can always talk to his partner about anything; it’s hard to talk to his wife about the work. And once his divorce had gone through, the idea struck fans even harder.

Fans of the cartoon show Danny Phantom have usually entertained the idea of Danny Fenton pairing up with his best friend Sam Manson. After all, most cartoon shows work with the hero pairing up with his or her best friend. Even the show That’s So Raven had fans craving the idea of Raven and her guy friend pairing up (sorry, I don’t watch the show so I have no idea what his name is). And what about books? So many girls fell in love with Edward Cullen, and thousands of stories are out there with Bella Swan dying in entertaining and creative ways only for Mary-Sue to come in and sweep Edward off his feet during his grief.

Harry Potter is another one famous for its fanfiction. Fans play with the idea of pairing Harry up with anyone from Ginny Weasley to (ew!) Draco Malfoy. No one is off-limits in the pairings. Other fans throw themselves into the universe of Hoggwarts sometimes falling in love with Harry and other times falling in love with another main character. Even other fans will entertain the idea of rewriting the series entirely with an added character—the daughter of Voldemort, themselves, the ideas are endless. Even I entertained the idea of adding a daughter for Voldemort. The idea never did pan out well though.

But there are pros and cons to fanfiction just like with any other kind of copying art. Fledgling writers follow in the steps of the greater authors just like fledgling artists trailing after the masters. So, to help out my fledgling writer readers out there, I have composed a list of pros and cons along with a list of popular fanfiction sites. Let’s begin with the pros…

PROS

1. Ability to come up with an idea quickly and easily. Everyone can find it easy to come up with an idea to write on when the characters, setting, and basic theme is already set in motion for them. All it takes is just a little twisting on the characters or maybe just an added character.
2. Instant feedback. Once a story is posted on a fanfiction site, it’s possible to get a lot of readers giving feedback in 24-48 hours. This is definitely a good boost to help keep the story going.
3.  Published instantly. The story is now born, and the writer quickly rushes to the keyboard to type it out as quickly as they can. With just a few clicks on a fanfiction site, the idea is then added to the growing list of stories.

CONS

1. Lack of original ideas. Everyone who first joins a fanfiction site always thinks the idea they want to post is completely original. After all, who’s ever thought of giving Frodo Baggins from The Lord of the Rings a love interest (this coming from my own personal experience)? Well, just as a warning, any kind of fanfiction idea has definitely been done at least once. And most likely, the first idea that comes to any writers mind has probably been done hundreds of thousands of times. Most ideas still floating alone and storyless are about characters no one really cares to write on. Who would want to write The Lord of the Rings from Sauron’s view?
2. Good feedback is amiss. Most reviewers may be writers themselves, but they may just be avid fans who have had the same idea as a writer and don’t have the talent to write it themselves. So, it’s likely to get several hundred copies of “OMG I <3 UR STORY!!!!” for a single story. There are the few out there that will give a good review, stating what’s wrong with your story and how it could be improved. There are also people out there known as flamers who do nothing but put down a story. This usually involves a lot of caps.
3. Published for no money and no real fame. So, maybe a story has been voted as greatest in its category, but when a writer approaches an editor with an original story, not a fanfiction, that editor may or may not care about the awards a fanfiction received.
4. Time taken from original stories. Every fanfiction writer struggles with time management. Fanfiction can be addicting. It’s easy, and there are so many readers out there to encourage a writer to continue. There’s no such feedback encouragement for the original stories gathering dust in their respective files or notebooks.

LIST OF FANFICTION SITES

• Fanfiction.net-this site offers many different fanfiction categories including movies, cartoons, anime/manga, even plays/musicals; Fanfiction.net also has a sister site for posting original stories—Fictionpress.com
• Fictionesque-this site offers not only posting for fanfiction but also for original stories making it easy to keep all of a writer’s stories in one place
• Patronus Charm-this is one of many fanfiction sites devoted solely to Harry Potter
• MediaMiner.org-this site is dedicated mainly to anime/manga fanfiction and also allows artists to publish their anime/manga fan art
• Harrypotterfanfiction.com-this site is another site dedicated only to Harry Potter fanfiction
• MyFandoms-this site allows for the publishing of more than just fanfiction but also has areas for fan videos, fan pics, and fan art along with blogs