Booklr Questions – Do you read Fan-fiction?
I may have used affiliate links for some of the items in this post. Using an affiliate link to purchase an item won't cost you any more money, but I may receive payment if you click on a link and make a purchase. For more information, visit the disclosures page.
Do you read Fan-fiction?
When I was in high school, I used to read a lot of fan-fiction about some of my favorite TV shows, like Mobile Suit Gundam Wing. My favorites were the ones that centered on Heero Yuy, one of the five primary gundam pilots.
These days, I don’t really read fan-fiction anymore. I just don’t have the time for it. Being a grown up means that I have to plan my time out a little more wisely than I used to. If I want to read something, I’m usually going to go with a published book, instead of taking a chance on a story written by an anonymous person on the internet.
Then again, there are now full-fledged books based on the stories I loved in my youth. Let’s take The Wizard of Oz books by L. Frank Baum – there are entire series of books that are basically fan-fiction about his characters and their world. What are The Wicked Years, and the Dorothy Must Die series, but beautifully written fan-fiction?
Have you ever read fan-fiction? Do you still? What fan-fiction series speak to you?
Well, I don’t suppose we can call follow-on series by other authors “fan-fics”–or can we? The tendency to use dead authors’ characters in modern works (like the characters from Pride and Prejudice) really annoys me. In the first place, if Austen had wanted to write “Wickham’s Diary” or whatever, she would have done; in the second, riding on the coattails of a classic piece of literature like that is just…why not come up with something original? Many of the “prequels” and follow-ons do the original an enormous disservice, particularly when they are as poorly proofread as some I’ve wasted a couple of hours on a sleepless night with. I’m talking elementary-school errors like subject/verb agreement, here. Granted, teaching grammatically correct English is my day job, but still.
I know exactly how you feel about that. My English isn’t always perfect, but it’s my first language, so I’m allowed little latitude. I have enjoyed a few of the books written about Oz, but I completely understand where you’re coming from. People should be capable of creating their own worlds and characters for their books. Saying that, I did enjoy the film adaption of Death Comes to Pemberly.