Target Scan: Website
Target: www.fanfiction.net
One of the easiest ways to get into story writing is to write them using already established worlds and characters. It’s basically a short cut to what could be the hardest part about writing; creating believable and fleshed out characters and scenarios.
The problem is their corresponding creators and publishers already copyright their established characters.
Therefore such unofficial stories, or Fan Fiction, are usually released, if ever, into the Public Domain. Along with heavily credited disclaimers establishing that such stories are not for personal gain or wealth and are just simply labors of love.
With this in mind, this website fanfiction.net was established to gather together such stories into a single location for authors to showcase their works and to network with their peers and other readers in the form of reviews.
While most people would balk at the thought of reading stories of their favorite TV shows/movies/books from non-professional authors, but it should be noted that there are a lot of professional writers that do write in established story universes and get them published, such as the successful Star Wars and Star Trek series of books.
Therefore the level of writing that can be found it the site can be of a pretty high level. Of course one would have to navigate through a number of not so good ones to find them but an easy way would be to take note of the number of reviews that a story gets.
Personally, I mostly frequent the comic section of the web site. While I do believe that it is dangerous to follow an unofficial characterization of characters from novels and hour-long TV shows. I do think that there are some mediums that deserve to dive deeper into their characters than they allow, such as comics and the half-hour long cartoons. Of course seeing as how I too like to write fan fiction as well, it is good to know a place where it is easy for me to put them out and get feedback, which can be used to improve my writing.
Anyone who has ever wished for greater insight into their favorite shows or books, or who wish to share with other fans their own work, should do well to check out this web site.
Positives:
-Tons of fan fiction in one place
-Easy system to submit your own stories and get feedback for them
-Some high quality writing and good stories
-Able to mark favorite authors and view their other works
Negatives:
-Good stories can be hard to find among the rest.
-Easy to fall into “unofficial” views of characters
-Search function is primitive
-Incomplete stories
