There are many different styles of writing of Fanfiction. There are chapter fics, similar to novels, written in installments. There are also oneshots, fanfics which act more as a short story. Some fans write songfics, Fanfiction which uses lyrics from a song to describe a scene from an anime, to an oneshot. But Otaku’s are also content to simply write a poem about their favorite character, or about their favorite scenes.
You might be asking, “How do I write a fanfic?” Well, the first thing to do is explore the ‘what ifs’. What if something happened to this character? Or, what if this character fell in love with that character? What if something terrible happened to the character’s parents? That kind of exploration can give you plenty of ideas for a story you might want to write about. You could even change the entire storyline, to “what if they met in the modern day society instead of in their world?” (That’s called an AU, Alternate Universe) Some people also create their own original characters, known as OCs, to explore what it’s like for their character to interact with the storyline, and perhaps throw it in an entirely new direction. The most fun and unique of the writing styles in my opinion, is the crossovers, where a character (or the entire cast) meets people from another series (you can have more than 1 series in a crossover), to discover what would happen if they met.
Posting the Fanfiction is also fun, as you can give/get reviews and critiques to/from other people. If you don’t like giving critiques, but want to fix a few things, you can become a Beta Reader, a person who helps writers with their grammer or characterization. While most people are very positive in their comments, there are those who may call your OC a “Mary Sue” which is the term used for characters that are considered too perfect, too beautiful or too powerful. Or you may have your story referred to as a “Mary Sue Fic” where, for example your character is repeatedly put into the same situations, multiple times. An example of this might be, if your character is kidnapped and then saved and then kidnapped again and then saved again. If you don’t want any critiques from others, you can either ask people to “go easy” on you or request to have no critiques at all for your fanfic.
Fanfiction is the perfect way to improve your literary and writing skills. It introduces you to new writing styles, and is important for all kinds of work, whether you may choose to write a book or if you want to create a TV series. According to the Wall Street Journal article entitled “Rewriting the Rules of Fiction” September 16, 2006 by John Jurgensen, authors such as Meg Cabot of “The Princess Diaries” fame admits to having written on fansites as well, writing stories about Anne McCaffrey’s fantasy novels when a teen. Cabot now admits to looking at these sites and tallying the number of stories written about her own characters. It is from sites such as these that the next big Anime writers may emerge.
Fanfiction has certainly served to expand the Anime sub-culture and has contributed to the “Coming of Age” of Anime in America.
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