The Art of Fanfiction
Fanfiction is one of the most beautiful yet painfully misunderstood artforms.
Like many of you, my first introduction to fanfiction happened to be Fifty Shades of Grey, infamously a Twilight fanfiction. It colored my view of fanfiction despite having never read any of it, but this changed when I was a freshmen in high school. Something you’ll come to know about me is that I am a huge Star Wars fan, have been my entire life, and I was a freshman when The Last Jedi came out. It was during this time I developed a deep love for the character Kylo Ren/Ben Solo, and a devout obsession with the Reylo (Kylo Ren and Rey). Anyone who knows me, knows what books I read, or has read my books, knows I am a HUGE lover of fictional men with dark pasts and skewed moral compasses, and Kylo Ren fits that description to a T. And contrasting him with Rey, who also has a dark past and has to fight against her darker impulses that are intrinsically linked to her feelings for Kylo? Sign me up. I was so obsessed with them that I sought out fanfiction of them. I started on Tumblr but eventually branched out to Wattpad and Ao3, though Wattpad remained my primary fanfiction source. Objectively I know Ao3 is better, but the site is harder to navigate than Wattpad. I loved the fanfics I found, but nothing really scratched the itch I had, so naturally I started writing my own Reylo fanfiction. It was very bad and has since been deleted.
I had been writing my own original ideas and concepts for years at that point, but I never finished any of my manuscripts. The reason was my frustration in regard to my abilities as a writer. My skills didn’t live up to the ideas I had, and I wasn’t doing the stories I wanted to write justice, so I would get blocked creatively. The solution I came up with was writing fanfiction. It would give me the opportunity to hone my skills as a writer without feeling the pressure of my own expectations for my own original stories. And since fanfiction is public, I could get feedback. I started out with Reylo fanfics, then I branched out to Kylo Ren stories that were just as poorly written.
The real turning point was when I started writing fanfiction for Bucky Barnes, AKA The Winter Soldier from the Marvel movies. Bucky and Kylo are my favorite fictional characters ever, so they were my muses throughout my fanfiction career. It was through writing my Bucky fanfictions that my writing truly started developing. In the span of four years, I wrote seven full length books and two on going short stories/novellas with Bucky and my OC (original character) Soroya Roberts. She was an ex-HYDRA agent who could shapeshift into animals. She was the first character I ever truly poured my heart and soul into. I went through a lot of changes and growth throughout high school, and Soroya truly incapsulated that journey. Especially when it came to my journey in therapy. Soroya was my way of healing, and it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the cornerstone of her as a character is her hope and optimism. We followed her romance with Bucky through the canon movies before I branched out and crafted my own story. It got to a point where the only thing not of my own creation was some the characters and the world. The plot was all me. There were government experiments, supernatural serums, wars with alien races, international superhero politics, the creation of a new Avengers team with an academy for training, and of course marriages and children. I took the same creative route when I wrote my Star Wars series (four full length books and two novellas) and my Twilight series (two novellas).
It wasn’t until my freshman year of college that I decided I was skilled enough to start writing my own work again, and almost immediately after this decision I started writing The Promise of Spring. I had known for a while that my days of writing fanfics were numbered, and there is a large part of me that mourns it. Nothing is stopping me from writing fanfiction obviously, but it doesn’t fulfill me creatively as it did once. I started out writing stories that fit neatly within the confines of canon, and by the end I was creating entire new lore. I just reached a point where I felt restricted by fanfiction. As much as I had added personal flare to it, those stories weren’t my own. I had a good following, great engagement, lovely supporters (still do), but I still felt limited. But even after I made the decision to “retire” from fanfic writing, I swore I would keep all of my books up, and they will remain so. I am proud of the books I wrote and have made no effort in hiding them. My username was solobarnes (you can guess why) on Wattpad. You’re welcome to read the stories that made me the writer I am today.
So in conclusion, fanfiction is incredible. It was through fanfiction I found my voice as a writer. My books have been described as healing and comforting, and this trend started with my fanfiction. The main plot of each book was the characters and their journeys of healing and growth. Books are intrinsically tied to healing and comfort for me. I got into reading because of my diabetes diagnosis, it became my escape. Books, and by extension writing, have remained my coping mechanism throughout my struggles as a diabetic, my abuse at school, my mental health journey, my therapy journey, and my transition into adulthood. You can see the rises and falls of my healing throughout every character and story I have ever written, both fanfiction and original. The characters I created mean as much to me as the ones I create today, and I am trying to figure out a way to incorporate some of them into my original work. Readers who have followed me since my fanfiction days will have a hoot seeing characters they recognize and references they get.
I highly recommend you check out fanfiction. I know Wattpad gets a bad rap, but there are many good fanfic authors on that platform, many of whom I was able to connect with and I can attest are wonderful writers and people. Here are some recommendations for you: stxrmborn , ahsokatanos , supremekylo , nicbelles , hollylucidaxoxo , selcouth , welovebucky , xoscreamxo , fandomsoundsinnocent