Since I know how excited you are to find out what I’m bitching about this week, we’ll cut to the chase: fanfiction.  If you’re sitting there scratching your head in a confused manner, that’s fine because I’m about to elaborate on what it is.  If you’re recoiling in terror, you obviously are well acquainted with the internet and probably sympathize with me.  If you’re beginning to get offended, let me assure you that by no means is all fanfiction everywhere awful—just most of it.

Time to define the word of the day: “fanfiction is when someone borrows characters, settings, or plotlines (or a combination of all three) from an original work of fiction like a movie, book, TV show, etc. called the “fandom.”  For example, let’s say I like the movie Star Wars and I write a silly story about how Chewie and Han Solo accidentally drop a wrench on Jabba the Hut’s head while repairing the Millennium Falcon.  That’d be fanfiction from the Star Wars fandom. 

Still with me?  Good.

Technically, fanfiction by definition violates copyright laws, meaning that writers are expected to preface their masterpiece with a disclaimer assuring the readers that they don’t own the fandom.  If the actual copyright holder decided to sue, I doubt these disclaimers would count as a decent defense.  However, most of the original creators are probably either too lazy to stop the continuation of fanfiction, or are ignorant of its existence.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I really have no issue with fanfiction by itself.  If every story, or at least a majority of them, was just something written for fun, it wouldn’t be the subject of my rant today.  However, 99.347% of all fanfiction on the internet consists of a) poorly written, unrealistic sex; b) depictions of retarded teenage angst; or c) some combination of the two.  On top of this, only one in ten fanfiction writers will have any sort of decent writing style, and only thirty percent of the time will the writing even be legible. Things such as characterization, plot structure, and grammar all appear to be largely ignored as well.  Yet somehow, a sizable chunk of fanfiction “writers” take themselves really fucking seriously.

We all know someone who claims to be an expert in a field they know nothing about, and fanfiction writers are like this person multiplied tenfold.  They thirst for adoring reviews that shower them in undeserved praise, greedily hoarding chapters and even entire stories in order to receive them. Personally, I feel these young budding writers could use a face-to-face workshop style class, so they can learn about proofreading and editing. Who would have thought that looking over your writing would make such a vast difference?  Without the horrendous raping of the English language, reviewers might spend less time harping on their syntax and more time appreciating the actual story. Which in turn means that no one sends their personal retarded Gestapo to harass the critic, leading to a better, happier internet.   continue >>