How I Got Started in Fan Fiction

There's an argument on Twitter at the moment which started when someone (I'm not linking to it) said rude things about fan fiction writers.

I'm proud to be a fan fiction writer - and I'm incredibly grateful for all the fan fiction writers on AO3.  Reading their stories helped keep me sane through 2020 (yes, even the ones which didn't meet professional standards - they were written with love, and the writers were doing their best).

So, I started writing fan fiction when I was 12.

I shared a bedroom with my sister, and I used to tell her bedtime stories until she fell asleep, which I made up myself.  Then I started writing the stories down.  I was reading my way through the Swallows and Amazons series by Arthur Ransome at the time, so my stories were heavily based on them.  I was also a great fan of old pirate movies that were shown in the afternoons on weekend TV, and some of my plots were based on them.  In the process, I turned Nancy and Peggy Blackett into 18th century pirates and based them in Cornwall, with a ship called the Sea Witch.  I was also reading my dad's collection of Richard Bolitho novels, which gave me all the knowledge of sails and rigging I needed.  I can still tell the difference between a sloop, a barquentine and a ship of the line.

I didn't know it at the time, but what I was doing was writing Swallows and Amazons AU crossover fan fic, and I was having enormous fun.

None of these stories ever went further than a folder in my bedroom, where they were written out in felt tip pen.

I doubt if there are many Starship Excalibur zines still around from the early 1980s, but when I joined Star Trek fandom in my late teens, I wrote for them.  Looking back now, some of those stories were quite embarrassing - more enthusiasm than skill - but I got enough encouragement to keep doing it, and I kept improving.  My proudest moment was to write a Deep Space Nine story without ever having seen an episode of Deep Space Nine!  The new series had just started, and I knew some of the details, but I didn't have a TV at the time.  I wrote a story about Keiko O'Brien setting up her school and dealing with a problem Andorian pupil, and I seemed to get it right.

I spent many years not writing at all, for various reasons, but eventually I decided to make my best attempt at becoming a published writer, and started writing original fiction.  I got as far as getting a personalised rejection letter from an agent.  So I knew my writing was almost professional standard, but I also knew I wasn't going to get any better than I already was.  

I self-published the stories on Smashwords (see the side bar).

Then I went to Dublin WorldCon, where the AO3 website won a Hugo.  I'd heard of AO3 before that, but it seemed so huge that I kind of bounced off it.  This gave me the impetus to try again.

Last year, I wrote nearly 60,000 words of fan fiction.  Some of it was incredibly niche - I think I'm the only person to ever have written a fan fic for The Flashing Blade, which all of 6 people have read!  I've also written Lord Peter Wimsey fan fiction, in which Lord Peter became Lady Petra - working out how the plots would have changed if Lord Peter was a woman was fun.  (Bunter became Myrtle Bunter, too).  The first story I tried was about The Saint, since I was re-watching the old Roger Moore series and trying to make sense of his confusing and possibly contradictory back-story.

And I've written a lot of Good Omens fan fic, too.

So there we are - I'm proud of being a fan fic writer, and reader.  If it's comfort reading, well, I'm not the only person who needed comfort reading last year, and the process of creation has been very satisfying (I love doing research!).

I'm also very grateful that sites like AO3 exist, because I can remember the days when fan fiction writers could be sued - in fact, Anne McCaffrey once threatened to sue me, so that Star Trek/Pern crossover never saw the light of day!