Fanfiction picks up the slack where mainstream media lacks

By Hailey Ford

The most popular tags on Archive of Our Own. (Hailey Ford/CanCulture)

Ah, fanfiction. If you’ve ever logged on to Tumblr.com, you’ve likely come across a piece of fan-written content in your days—particularly if Superwholock was your vibe. Fanfiction often gets a bad rap, typically associated with amateurish content that displays the weirdest parts of the internet in all of its unholy glory. Viewed by outsiders as either content written by losers with no grammatical skills or the strangest smut that has ever been viewed by human eyes, it’s been difficult for fanfiction to wrestle its way into the limelight of mainstream literature.

While weird smut and bad grammar are entirely present, fanfiction has become much more than that. It’s a place for writers and readers to come together and explore themes and ideas in new and exciting ways. Fanfiction is where writers of any level can explore their favourite characters and worlds while adding their unique touch. It may be based on existing media, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t add new depth to those beloved stories.

Many popular books from recent years, such as The Love Hypothesis or The Mortal Instruments, started as fanfiction. Widespread headcanons have been widely adopted by fandom communities at large. It allows people to better see themselves in characters they love. And yet, it still gets a bad reputation, reduced by outsiders to only the worst parts of itself. To do so is like judging fine arts as a whole by the finger-painting of a kindergartener.

The importance of fanfiction in creating a sense of community, aiding creative development, and allowing for absentee representation shouldn’t be overlooked.

Julian Winters, author of novels Running With Lions, The Summer of Everything, and more, is one of many who found his start in fanfiction. As a young reader, he struggled to find good books with well-written, queer characters. Characters like him.

A 2013 survey found that around 43 per cent of fanfiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3) was explicitly tagged as featuring a relationship between two men, with only around 15 per cent tagged as having romance between a man and a woman.

In contrast, in 2016, only 79 LGBTQ+ Young Adult Novels were released by mainstream publishers - and those publishers put out a lot of books. A 2022 report indicated that only 12 per cent of regular characters on television in the United States are LGBTQ+.

These numbers are the highest they’ve ever been.

Winters recalls that most books or pieces of media that featured queer characters had them living out terrible, traumatic, and depressing lives, up until the point in the story where they inevitably died. For him, fanfiction provided a remedy to that.

“I wanted to tell those stories where I actually get to make it to the end,” Winters said. “We deserve better than just to be killed off halfway through a book.”

Winters also believes there are advantages that fanfiction writing has over traditional publishing - and some lessons he hopes can be learned from the successes of fanfiction.

“You get to just go wherever you want with [fanfiction] and the reader will follow you because you're telling such a great story,” Winters said. “We have this formula we follow [in novels] to get from point A to point B. Sometimes I would just like to spend a lot more time in worlds getting to know characters.”

He specifically points to simple stories, where characters just go about their day-to-day lives.

“Especially for me, as a person of colour, as a queer person. It'd be nice just to see people that identify like me or that look like me just living normal lives,” he said. “One of the great things about fanfiction writing is so much about it is kind of scratching that itch.”

Winters is not alone in his views, either on representation in mainstream literature (or a lack thereof) or on what’s missing from traditional media.

“[Fanfiction] fills in the gaps where canon doesn't go,” said Jaye Roy, a linguistics student at the University of Toronto, who's also a fanfiction reader and writer. “I think that's very valuable, especially when it comes to issues or representation that people might not see in mainstream media.”

Roy added that representation in fanfiction is not always done perfectly. Sometimes, despite their best intentions, amateur writers lean too far into stereotypes. Despite that, Roy feels that representation is one of the foundations of fanfiction.

“A bunch of people seeing the potential for gay and adding in the gay themselves,” Roy said. “Adding queer representation where there is none.”

Research indicates that positive and present representation of queer individuals can help reduce stigma and prejudice against the LGBTQ+ community.

While traditional media is still lacking here, fanfiction allows people to better find that representation in the characters they love. For many, fanfiction isn’t just about filling in holes left empty by mainstream media. It’s also about the people you meet and the shared love of a particular piece of media.

“For me, the importance of fanfiction was very intertwined with community,” Roy said. “It's essentially another way of the fandom coming together and congregating over something they love, or love to hate.”

For the president of the University of Toronto Fanfiction Club, Zain Butt, that sense of community is one of the driving forces of his love for fanfiction and one of his motivators in starting the club. “We're focused on this whole idea of coming together to just give our thoughts,” Butt said. “It's about exploring these scenarios and relationships that are hinted at.”

He added that before recently, it was often incredibly difficult to find direct queer representation. He believes fanfiction allows people to explore implied relationships or ones that viewers, readers, or watchers were drawn to. After all, even back in 1968, fans were writing Kirk/Spock fanfiction.

Butt said he appreciates the openness of fanfiction is, and how accessible it can be to new writers.

“[Writing] is one of those arts that's harder to get into when you're younger,” he said, stating he finds the main option available to new writers is either poetry or short stories. “If you want to do longer narrative fiction, then fanfiction is the preeminent form nowadays.”

For those with a passion for writing, courses can be expensive. For many, fanfiction is an opportunity to learn by doing and sharpen their storytelling skills. It also comes with a built-in fanbase bursting with people who are happy to jump in and give their thoughts.

Plus, it’s free. AO3, Wattpad, Fanfic.net, Tumblr, whatever your site of choice - posting costs nothing but your time, energy, and occasionally your sanity. In sharp contrast, self-publishing through traditional methods could take a sizable chunk out of your bank account. If you’re a broke college student, that’s likely not in the cards for you.

So if you’re just looking to get your work out into the world, put down your pen, pick up your laptop, and log onto AO3. Fanfiction might just be what’s right for you.

Advice from Canadian writers on how to finally put an end to this never-ending cycle

By: Sania Ali

It’s been a few days, and that article, paper or even novel that you’ve been meaning to write has yet to make a dent in your blinding-white word document. The looming deadline is seemingly coming closer and closer. This doesn’t mean you’re a bad writer, or that you’re never going to finish this project. You’re probably just facing writer’s block.

Not to worry, you’re not alone here! It may feel like you’ll be unable to climb out of this pit, but every single writer in history has experienced writer’s block. I spoke to three different writers who have not only lived through writer’s block but also have tips to overcome it!

1. Know what you’re writing about

A lot of the time, writers sit down with a vague idea of what they want to write about, only to discover that they don’t really know what they’re writing about. Thus, they find themselves in the pit of writer’s block.

Christina Anto, a technical writer with a master’s in literature of modernity from X University, said that researching what she’s writing about has almost always gotten her out of writer’s block. “You can borrow ideas and change them, you can get inspiration or even just know more of what you’re talking about. So I think that would be the research aspect. Just keep reading and reading and reading,” said Anto. Indeed, finding inspiration through the works of other writers is a great way to combat writer’s block and start getting your head around the content of your writing.

2. Write, write and write some more

When you have an idea in mind but the execution seems nonexistent, it may be time to try freewriting. Calgary-based content creation specialist at Routeique and fiction writer Ethan Allan says that writing something down, even if you know you won’t like it, is a much better alternative to staring at a blank screen. Once you have something down, you can begin dissecting and figuring out exactly what you want to change and add. It’s also important to remember that writing is about having fun and the dreadful writer’s block is all a part of writing. Allan says, “If you can get anything down, I think that's going to be incredibly invaluable rather than just sitting at your desk and just hoping for magic to strike because it's probably not going to.”

3. Create an outline

Writing can become tedious when you don’t have a plan in place. To avoid this it can be beneficial to create an outline. Kelly Allers, the author of the fantasy book The Final Age of Magic, explains that to write his novel he used a large poster board and wrote down his ideas for the chapter on sticky notes, outlining the entire book chapter by chapter. This idea also allows you to collaborate with others on ideas. “All of it should serve a purpose,” said Allers. “If the work doesn't serve a purpose then you might be spinning your tires. You might not be writing about something that's really important to you or that really matters to you.”

4. Experience life

While it’s no secret that the work of writers can become reflections of their own lived experiences, it can be difficult to write when you haven’t experienced enough. For example, you may find yourself having trouble writing about a boat or a train if you’ve never seen one. “One of the things that really allowed me to break through it — and I know it's not an easy thing to do right now — but travelling and getting to explore different cultures,” says Allers. You never know where inspiration may strike. Allers recommends holding onto a pen and paper as you experience life. If you’re feeling like your story is leading nowhere, a great remedy to spark some ideas is to put your writing aside for a while and go out for a walk.

5. Remember to take care of yourself!

Despite contrary belief, writer’s block is no reflection of your capabilities as a writer. Anto goes back to the root of writer’s block and talks about the culture of being a writer. “Understand that writer's block is an emotional experience, it's a frustration, it's anger, maybe it's insecurity,” says Anto. “There are questions about how systems influence writer's block, how exhaustion and burnout and the 40-hour work week can negatively impact people's ability to write high-quality work. It's not just the writer, it's also everything around the writer.”

If you’re faced with writer’s block you may want to ask if the deadline you’re working towards is reasonable. Are you getting enough sleep at night? Are you eating enough? Sometimes, writer’s block may not have anything to do with writing, it might just mean it’s time to take a break!

No matter what you’re writing or planning to write, writer’s block is almost always a certain checkpoint of writing. Hopefully getting an insight into the tricks and tips of other writers can inspire you to be kind to yourself and get back into the groove of finishing up that project. Good luck!