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[RokofAges75]

So here's a question I thought of, what got everyone into writing fanfiction in the first place?

I don't exactly know when it was, I just know that in high school I carried notebooks around and wrote a lot between classes, during lunch, before school... I still have my notebooks too.

I've heard a lot of people say that's how they started, by writing fanfic in notebooks at school.  That's neat that you still have those!  I think there's something special about having them in your own handwriting.  I started my first fanfic in a notebook and still have that, but it's only a few pages; then I started typing it on my computer and have never really written fanfic by hand since.

I stumbled onto fanfic while browsing BSB sites, and once I realized what I was reading, I got obsessed with reading it.  I read it for probably 5 months or so before I tried writing any myself.  I read this short story that was about Brian's illness when he was 5, told from the perspective of this little girl who lived next door.  I think Brian actually died in it, but then it turned out to be just a nightmare, and the story ends with the girl waking up as a grown woman, in bed with Brian, who she's married to.  It was a cute little story, but I remember being disappointed that it was so short and wanting to read more about what happened in between when they were five and when they were grown up and married.  So I decided to try writing my own story about Brian and a girl growing up together as best friends and falling in love.  I never finished the first version because I got an idea for another story (Heartache) and ended up finishing that one and getting it hosted online, but I went back and re-wrote the original story a year or so later and finished that one (Years of Grace).

[RokofAges75]

I didn't even know the concept of chapters or anything at that time. I was just writing in a word document and adding onto it as I went. So I asked her how people would know I'd updated and she was like "Just split it into chapters and send me new chapters as you write them!" And here we are.

That's funny!  Does anyone else have an example of something that seems so basic now that you didn't know or struggled with when you first started writing?

[RokofAges75]

I was digging through some old threads on here and I came across a question I thought would be interesting to ask again. When you get inspiration from a movie, a book or even another fanfic, how do you go about twisting that idea to make it your own?

I guess I usually make it my own by adding or changing details to take the story in a different direction.

In the example I talked about in my answer to how I got started writing fanfic, I took the basic premise of a short story I'd read and extended it into a novel by adding a lot more to the story.

Broken was inspired by the Swollen Issues series - both Nick cancer stories, but in an effort to go my own way, I gave Nick a different type of cancer that would allow me to take it in a different direction (a.k.a. amputating his leg), and I also added in a romantic subplot with Claire's character.

Guilty Roads was actually inspired by The Lion King (which was inspired by Hamlet), but I used Backstreet Boys instead of lions, mobsters instead of hyenas, Amish people instead of Timon and Pumbaa, and changed the setting from Africa to Pennsylvania LOL.  And actually, the whole "Let's come up with a way to twist a Disney movie into a fanfic plot" idea was inspired by the fanfic Faceless, which I always thought had been inspired by Beauty and the Beast.  So there was a lot of inspiration behind that story.

[RokofAges75]

Jizzle Of Oz was a parody of The Wizard Of Oz. I took the boys and tried to fit them to the characters from the movie. Since Nick was Dorothy he needed a female enemy and the natural choice was Paris lol. I guess I just didn't put a lot of thought into it but I enjoyed Leighanne as Glinda with the munchkins wearing t shirts with her photo on them haha.

Who else enjoys reading and/or writing parodies?  What's your favorite parody you've read and/or written?

[FrickingKaos]

I love parodies.. I might love suspense but I highly enjoy a good parody, obviously cause I'm a huge Weird Al fan. So my love for parodies carried over to my reading tendencies. I've only written one so I guess Jizzle Of Oz is my favorite lol.

I just remembered that Forces Of Nature, although I didn't finish it was directly inspired from the movie Twister. Nick was based off Dusty, AJ was based off Bill and Kevin was based off of their rival Jonas. I wish I'd finished that one.

Then Weird World was taken from a Weird Al song called "I Think I'm A Clone Now", inspired by the lyrics about having a clone of himself.


My favorite parody of sorts I've read was Five BSBs In Search Of A Plot and Julilly's story about Gaston for that Beauty And The Beast writing challenge we did.


As for the notebooks, my first story I ever wrote was the first story I have ever posted on AC which was called Incomplete. I have a couple others that I never posted, including one about 9/11 that I wrote in high school.

[FrickingKaos]

That's funny!  Does anyone else have an example of something that seems so basic now that you didn't know or struggled with when you first started writing?

I just learned how to make things italicized when I post to AC. Cause I post from my phone I don't have the editor function so I need to use HTML and I know nothing about it. Cinzia actually told me and I was so excited I learned how to do it lol

[mare]

Thanks, Tracy and Julie!

And thanks for also mentioning 5 BSB's, Tracy!

One thing I struggled with was dialogue. When I very first started, I didn't realize that you could put a period at the end of your sentences inside the quotes lol uh...I was a bit out of practice.

[Sakabelle]

I just learned how to make things italicized when I post to AC. Cause I post from my phone I don't have the editor function so I need to use HTML and I know nothing about it. Cinzia actually told me and I was so excited I learned how to do it lol

Haha Tracy that's funny! I started learning HTML because of fanfic too, back in the day I decided I wanted to have my own website so I got my friend's brother to show me some basic stuff. As I wanted my website to look better I started learning some Javascript. I ended up going to school for Computer Science and I still work in the website/tech industry. I never really made that connection between fanfic and my eventual career until now. Huh!

[RokofAges75]

That's really cool, Steph!  Has fanfic influenced anyone else's life or career in some way?

For me, as a teacher, writing as a hobby has not only made me a better writer, but also a better teacher of writing.  The writing I do in front of my students to model different strategies is probably stronger than it would have been if I hadn't gotten into fanfic, at least when it comes to fiction/narrative writing.  And just having a love of writing makes it more fun to teach, too.

Also, going along with the HTML thing, running my own website for so long has taught me lots of technology skills that have come in handy in my career and real life - building a website, creating graphics, using social media, etc.

[RokofAges75]

I love parodies.. I might love suspense but I highly enjoy a good parody, obviously cause I'm a huge Weird Al fan.

I love parodies too!  There used to be a lot more of them in the BSB fandom... well, some of them were more "hate stories" than fanfic, but those were still funny too.  One of my favorites, going WAY back, is this parody of The Blair Witch Project: http://www.angelfire.com/bc/BackstreetComedy/Blair.html  It's not well-written, and it's so old-school, I'm not sure anyone who didn't read it back in 1999 would even find it funny now, but for whatever reason, it's always cracked me up.  There's another one of The Exorcist on the same site that was pretty funny too.  I also loved everyone's Beauty and the Beast stories - one of my favorite challenges we've done!

I really enjoy writing parodies.  I don't write them all that often, but I've done a few for 00Carter and various short stories.  My favorite is probably my pandaskunk series because it spoofs a bunch of different stuff, and even though it's silly, it somehow all works together.

[FrickingKaos]

I feel so ashamed I didn't mention 00Carter lol that's right up there in my favorites too. And 1000 Ways.. Even though it's not a parody it's a comedy. I love to read stuff like that now and then.

[RokofAges75]

Thanks!

[Rose]

How I got into fanfic.

So I've been writing since second grade, like somewhere in a crate of my childhood that I got after my mom passed away, are those little books some elementary schools will help you "publish" if your teacher thought you had written a good story. You got picked to publish it as your own little book. My teacher at the time told me I was good and I heard it a few times in later grades and as a kid who already loved books, I very quickly found I loved writing more than I did playing pretend. My mom wanted to encourage this so by 5th grade she bought me my own typewriter. So I wrote even more, all original fiction obviously.

Fast Foward to 13 my sister gave me a computer for Christmas and I was able to get on the internet full time and I looked up websites about my favorite group at the time. I, like Saka Steph saw a "stories" link, and I clicked and discovered fanfiction. The idea of combining my two favorite things sounded awesome and I went from there. Quickly discovered fanfiction.net and posted there till they got rid of RPF. After that I got hosted on a friend's website that I was collaborating with and she let me know about AC as well.

[Rose]

When I get inspired by books, usually it's not so much twisting them or spinning them, it's always questions. Like... "What would happen if Nick was in that situation?" or "What if this was different? I could throw BSB in the mix too." Or, like my This Is The End idea, for example. "What were BSB doing all this time before they ended up in heaven?" I find my best story ideas literally come out of nowhere.

Or, from talking to Julie at 3am - which funny story, happens just as easily in person at our hotel room as it does when we're on yahoo or FB messenger in the middle of the night.

[RokofAges75]

That's so neat that you had an actual typewriter to write on!  Do you still have it?

I had an old PC in my room by the time I started writing fanfic, but it didn't have an internet connection.  This was back in the dial-up days, of course.  So I would write in my room, save my files to a floppy disk, and then move to my mom's computer to get online and post stuff.  To read fanfic, I would copy/paste chapters to a Word document, save them on my floppy, and take them back to my own computer to read offline because my mom would get mad if I stayed online for hours at a time, tying up the phone line.  Eventually I got internet in my room, and that made things much easier!