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Fan fiction can be one of the most rewarding types of writing there is. How many of us have finished a book and felt sad because it was probably the last we are going to see of those characters and that universe. Fan fiction is a way to resurrect these fictional worlds that we have visited; better yet this time we are in charge of the action. There are legal aspects to this type of writing and care needs to be taking to avoid infringing on copyright but generally speaking this can be a wonderful type of writing to dedicate some time to.
Guidelines on How to Write Fan Fiction
There are guidelines for writing fan fiction such as:
- It is usually best if your fan fiction involves new characters. They will still exist in the same universe as the one created by the original author. These new characters will all be related to the existing characters in some way, but then it will be possible to spin off into their stories. One of the most common ways of doing this is to have the new character be a close relation to one of the original characters. Most works of fan fiction involves this type of new character.
- In order to write good fan fiction you need to have a good understanding of the original story. This means you have to study it in great detail so that you become an expert on the world that has already been created. If you are going to be writing fan fiction based on a series of books or TV shows then you will need to make sure that you read every book or watch every episode more than once. That way you will fully understand what is going on in that world and avoid embarrassing mistakes. It can be really jarring for a reader to be in the middle of your book only to realize that you do have made some glaring errors that depart from the original vision.
- The golden rule of fan fiction is to avoid any contradictions. This is why you really do need to research the original world completely. If it mentions in the first book that your character was an only child you will need to have a very good explanation for how they now have a sibling.
- The best way to avoid contradictions is to create your own encyclopedia about the original world. This will include detailed descriptions of each character and the environment that they live in. You can then keep on going back to this encyclopedia as you write your own book to ensure that you avoid any glaring contradictions. It can take a bit of time to put your encyclopedia together, but it will be worth it if it prevents you from making mistakes. It will also mean that if you decide to do any further work in this series of fan fiction you will already have a lot of the preparatory work done.
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