From: mbottorff@lshelby.com   
      
   J.Pascal  wrote:   
      
   > I was wondering who'd committed fan fiction (and was willing to confess)   
   > and what effect you think it had on your writing ability and career?   
   >   
   > Also... what property engaged you enough to make you crazy enough to write   
   > in that world?  Did you just love the setting that much to want to play in   
   > it with a new cast, or was it the characters you wanted to see more of?   
   > Something else?   
   >   
   > I'll start.  I've never actually done it.  I've only been tempted.   
      
   I did it twice.  I was about 12 or 13, and had never heard the term   
   "fan-fiction" but technically that's what it was.   
      
   They were the first two stories that I wrote for my own pleasure.   
   Neither one was ever completed.  One was Star Wars and the other was   
   Pern.  I don't know that this is significant, though.   
      
   Although the stories were set in those worlds/universes, I essentailly   
   created all my own characters and settings and eventually I said to   
   myself... so why bother with someone else's world then?   
      
   And for all my stories afterward, even though many of them were inspired   
   by specific authors, everything at least had its serial numbers filed   
   off.  (And I did that for a LOT of different authors so I don't think   
   there needed to be anything uber-special about the worlds.  I had to   
   have enjoyed my adventures there as a reader, that's all.)   
      
   As time went on, my tendency to emulate specific authors grew less and   
   less, also.   
      
   I think I was just using other people's worlds as a jumping off point,   
   or mounting block -- something that with greater experience as a writer,   
   I ceased to need.   
      
   I tend to assume dedicated fanfic writers write fan fiction for totally   
   different reasons, which don't happen to apply to me.  I'm not sure what   
   all of those reasons are, but at the very least I don't tend to fall in   
   love with fictional characters and want them to fall in love back, and I   
   don't seem to feel the need to "fix" other people's stories:  if I don't   
   like them I just stop reading/watching them.   
      
      
      
   --   
   Michelle Bottorff -> Chelle B. -> Shelby   
   L. Shelby, Writer  http://www.lshelby.com/   
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