Thirty Days of Fanfiction: Day One
Jul. 1st, 2011 02:10 pmSince I can be online only briefly for another week, I'll try to do the meme actually one day at a time. *g*
1 – How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
As it happens, I wrote my first fanfiction in a fandom I wasn't particularly into at the time. Books aside, my earliest fandom was Star Trek in its various incarnations, and that was also the first fandom I searched out and read fanfiction in. However, it wasn't the first I wrote in. Nor was it Highlander: The Series, my first internet fandom, so to speak (though that was the second fandom I wrote stories for), or Babylon 5, another obsession at the time (quite frankly, I did not dare before the show was actually over, and even then I had a curious hesitation despite being frustrated by the lack of Centauri fanficition; it took me almost a decade to do something about that myself). It wasn't Buffy the Vampire Slayer, either, which I transitioned to because several HL fans had discovered it and were into it.
No, the first two fanfics I wrote were Star Wars. And I was only ever mildly involved back then, before the prequels. (Yes, I am that minority person who didn't get into SW fervently until the prequels.) A New Hope was okay, but I hadn't felt compelled to ever watch it again in ye olde 70s, despite being exactly the right age and massively into Sci Fi. The Empire Strikes Back captivated me because I thought (psst, spoiler) that the whole Vader = Anakin Skywalker suddenly made the whole story less black and white and interesting to me. And Return of the Jedi I was fond of and all in all liked as a conclusion. Still, I don't have any dusting videos from the old days lying around, and while I watched sometimes when the films were repeated on tv, I did not spend any money on the franchise. When the new books appeared, I was first interested, but somewhat dissappointed they were set after the trilogy because what I was really curious about was the backstory, not what Leia, Han and Luke did next (I was perfectly content to leave them where they were at the end of RotJ, except for Leia dealing some more with all the family revelations, perhaps). I browsed through the Thrawn trilogy in bookstores without acquiring them. And then, lo and behold, the ever recurring rumours about a new trilogy suddenly became less rumours and more reports that shooting had begun, etc. And suddenly emotional involvement happened. And with it something else. To wit, the urge to write a vignette about how Luke transitioned from ESB-style "Nooooooo" about the news re: his father to the determination to save the man (and that there is something to save) we see in RotJ. And lo and behold, fanfiction happened. (No, you can't read it. It's in German.)
A short time later (I think),![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bimo, compelled by the lack of good fanfiction websites in German, opened a multifandom website and asked for contributions. I donated my Luke tale and made a new friend. (In the years to come, I would write some more SW, one more story in German and the rest in English, and even got into internet debates, but it was never such a big, formative fandom for me as the above named and some others, so it still amuses me that it was Star Wars that got me going. (To fanfiction, not writing in general; I had written non-fanfic before.) What had drawn me in? The fact I felt an emotional gap in canon, lack of exploration in the licensed media, the fact I have a thing for messed up family relationships, and fall and/or redemption stories, and the need to write it before getting new canon. In other words, the usual. :)
( The rest of the days )
1 – How did you first get into writing fanfic, and what was the first fandom you wrote for? What do you think it was about that fandom that pulled you in?
As it happens, I wrote my first fanfiction in a fandom I wasn't particularly into at the time. Books aside, my earliest fandom was Star Trek in its various incarnations, and that was also the first fandom I searched out and read fanfiction in. However, it wasn't the first I wrote in. Nor was it Highlander: The Series, my first internet fandom, so to speak (though that was the second fandom I wrote stories for), or Babylon 5, another obsession at the time (quite frankly, I did not dare before the show was actually over, and even then I had a curious hesitation despite being frustrated by the lack of Centauri fanficition; it took me almost a decade to do something about that myself). It wasn't Buffy the Vampire Slayer, either, which I transitioned to because several HL fans had discovered it and were into it.
No, the first two fanfics I wrote were Star Wars. And I was only ever mildly involved back then, before the prequels. (Yes, I am that minority person who didn't get into SW fervently until the prequels.) A New Hope was okay, but I hadn't felt compelled to ever watch it again in ye olde 70s, despite being exactly the right age and massively into Sci Fi. The Empire Strikes Back captivated me because I thought (psst, spoiler) that the whole Vader = Anakin Skywalker suddenly made the whole story less black and white and interesting to me. And Return of the Jedi I was fond of and all in all liked as a conclusion. Still, I don't have any dusting videos from the old days lying around, and while I watched sometimes when the films were repeated on tv, I did not spend any money on the franchise. When the new books appeared, I was first interested, but somewhat dissappointed they were set after the trilogy because what I was really curious about was the backstory, not what Leia, Han and Luke did next (I was perfectly content to leave them where they were at the end of RotJ, except for Leia dealing some more with all the family revelations, perhaps). I browsed through the Thrawn trilogy in bookstores without acquiring them. And then, lo and behold, the ever recurring rumours about a new trilogy suddenly became less rumours and more reports that shooting had begun, etc. And suddenly emotional involvement happened. And with it something else. To wit, the urge to write a vignette about how Luke transitioned from ESB-style "Nooooooo" about the news re: his father to the determination to save the man (and that there is something to save) we see in RotJ. And lo and behold, fanfiction happened. (No, you can't read it. It's in German.)
A short time later (I think),
bimo, compelled by the lack of good fanfiction websites in German, opened a multifandom website and asked for contributions. I donated my Luke tale and made a new friend. (In the years to come, I would write some more SW, one more story in German and the rest in English, and even got into internet debates, but it was never such a big, formative fandom for me as the above named and some others, so it still amuses me that it was Star Wars that got me going. (To fanfiction, not writing in general; I had written non-fanfic before.) What had drawn me in? The fact I felt an emotional gap in canon, lack of exploration in the licensed media, the fact I have a thing for messed up family relationships, and fall and/or redemption stories, and the need to write it before getting new canon. In other words, the usual. :) ( The rest of the days )
