This Has Been Knocking Around In My Head For A Few Months Now, And It Hasn't Left Me Alone Yet, So You

Bernard 33 Horsehead Nebula In Orion Constellation

If Chibnall ever wants to throw in some major darkness to Thirteen's storyline, there is a loophole to her kind personality.

Nowhere in the English language does it say that kind means nice.

Chris Chibnall. For God's sake you need to give us a meeting between the Thirteenth Doctor and her daughter Jenny.

I’m forgetful sometimes. [ Hardly your fault. But I’m sure you remember him. Arnold. The person who created you. ] I’m sorry, I don’t think I recall anyone by that name. [ And yet you can. Somewhere under all those updates, he is still there. Perfectly preserved. Your mind is a walled garden. Even death cannot touch the flowers blooming there. Have you been hearing voices? Has Arnold been speaking to you again? ]

But why fanfiction?

I got asked again recently why I write fanfiction and not ‘proper books’ (I’m pretty open about my fic writing, I’m not ashamed). I told them what I’ve told everyone else - I’ve done both and this is so much better. 

I self-published a YA novel a few years back, the plot of which I was super proud of, and I even have ideas for two sequels, but they’ll never see the light of day. I just have no motivation to write them, and world building is hard and that amount of effort just doesn’t seem worth it.

See, everyone I knew wanted to read my novel, but no one wanted to buy it. Probably about 40 people read it but I only sold 16 copies, and for the effort to format text into a publishable format, the cost of ordering proof copies only to find it was wrong and to do it all again, and the stress of the whole process was just so not worth those few dollars that I made. But I knew going into it that I wasn’t going to be one of those fairy tale stories of an unknown author suddenly becoming a sensation overnight. The story was too obscure, set in Western Australia and wasn’t an ‘outback romance’ which is the only ones that seem to be popular in this setting. I’m more than okay with that because I have fanfiction now.

The difference? I have thousands of people reading my stories, and not just reading them, but I get feedback from some of them (never enough, we authors are fickle creatures who always want more comments, more interacton, more discussion). The thing is though, fanfiction gives me an audience that I will never have from my YA novel. That audience already exists, it’s out there, and they’re hungry for the story to continue. Not all fanfiction is successful - the people who read it aren’t a mindless mass; they have expectations, standards, itches that need scratching. Quality matters, but not just the quality of the writing but of the idea. It’s not just formulaic bullshit that a ghost writer can churn out, change the names but the plot is the same and then throw a big name author on the cover and it’s instantly a bestseller. We’re forgiving of small mistakes if the plot makes us want to keep reading until dawn lights the horizon, we’ll salute the authors who write in English when it’s not their native language and will gladly offer help with those phrases that they’re not sure of, and best of all, we stick together to protect and support each other from annon hate so those ideas have a safe place to grow. We’re a community, a family.

Fanfiction has also given me a platform to improve my writing. Looking back at the standard of my work at the very beginning (and even in my novel) I cringe now at how terrible it was. I’ve written over 1,200,000 words of fanfiction and I’m forever improving. I know how to properly punctuate dialogue tags now, my vocabulary has expanded, I’m not afraid to use adverbs just because some twat said ‘show, not tell’ is better. If an adverb makes the story flow better than three extra waffly sentences then I’ll damned well use it and be proud of it. I’m more confident in my writing and that shows in the quality. I would never have gained that confidence by selling fifty thousand books to ‘silent readers’. It’s the interaction, the feedback, the community that fanfic has that has made me a better writer.

So that’s why I prefer to write fanfic over ‘proper books’ and I will fight anyone who says that we’re not real writers. At the end of the day, people read fiction to be entertained and if I can honestly say that thousands of people from all over the world have been entertained by my fanfiction, that makes me a real bloody writer. 

Got a question for all you Trekkies out there. A very important question. Maybe the most important question of all.

Who was your favorite Khan?

(I really respect Benedict as an actor, but I grew up with Richardo, so you already know who I prefer...)

im asking luke lovers on here this and i'd love to hear your thoughts on it: what rian did to luke in tlj was a character assassination, but what do you think realistic character development from luke would look like. how would he have handled what went down with kylo, and where do you think he would have been when the events of tlj took place? would he even have exiled himself? would he have stopped using the force?

Okay first of all, I am honored you considered me for this!!

Honestly?? I don’t think it would’ve gone anything like what the ST mapped out for him. Despite my love for TFA, I was always kinda squicked out by the fact that Luke just…ran away. So, here’s my take:

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Question about writing here: in my senior year of school my English teacher told my class that the word ‘get’ should never be used when writing. He said it’s a lazy word that never adds anything to the story, and that you should find a better way of explaining what you mean. I typically tend to avoid using ‘get’ as a result of what he said, but is it really that bad of a word to use? 

No joke, after I read Good Omens for the first time, if I ever turned on the radio for a month afterwards I heard a Queen song playing.

Goodbye, my friend.