The Star Trek fanzine Spockanalia contained the first fan fiction in the modern sense of the term. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
An entire genre has developed itself over the past 40 years or so. Ever since the original Star Trek warped through space, we’ve toyed with the idea of all those stories that never got written about the characters that intrigued us, who captured out respect and hearts. The movement became known as Fan Fiction.
I doubt any serious TV viewer has passed up an opportunity to fantasize about what would happen if… and brought the conjecture back into the series fold as a full-blown story, whether it was written down or not. I’ve done it for years—had whole scripts with good plots, great characters, and even parts for all the regular characters. And the sad thing is that I could have done something with them, if only as fan fiction and not sent the script to the studio for consideration by that series’ team of writers.
It’s one of those “I should have” things that many of us live with on a daily basis. “I should have” gone to see… “I should have” known better than… Truth is, I had a girlfriend back in ’67 when I lived in LA, who’d just sold her script to Desilu Studios for a Star Trek episode. The day after she got word, she was murdered two blocks from our building. The incident sort of put me off Fan Fiction for a while.
Last year I sat down to write poetry of a minor competition—there were no prizes involved, but critiques. My piece didn’t do very well. The audience was too young. That happens more frequently than older writers want to believe.
I still have the poem, which I’ll share here in a moment. I went back through it and changed a few things here and there. It leaped out of the hard drive this morning, screaming at me to find it a home. Since I don’t have any markets (that I can find), I decided to drop it here in order to create a challenge for those who’re up for it.
Everyone has/had a favorite show from their childhood. Now’s your chance to create a little fan fiction to commemorate that show. Write a story in 200 words or less using your favorite character from that show. Or write a poem about said character in a new situation. Recapture the heart of the character and share it here with us.
There’s no prize involved; no judging either. We are merely sharing bits of imagination for the fun of it. Be sure to inform us at the end of the piece the name of the show and the character’s name if you haven’t used it in your story. That’s all there is too it. Don’t be shy. Branch out and explore some fun. I can hardly wait to see what everyone comes up with.
Here’s my poem and how I approached my character from those long ago days of the 60’s,
Rememberin
Oh I really want to see the movie The Lovely Bones!!^^
Vale from www.berlin49.de
In the world of "Harry Potter" fanfiction, I've actually run across stories that are better than the books. And then there are ones so bad, readers are convinced it has to be satire.
I've written some fanfiction myself and the practice has improved my writing skills considerably. What's more, I know three ladies who are now working on writing their own original fiction books after having played with fanfictioin for a long time.
And most of the major general fic archives don't let you post stories in a universe where the original author has decried fanfiction.
When you post fanfiction, you have to pick the category for your story (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc). When an author has asked fans not to write fanfic with their characters, there's no option to select those universes. And I know fanfiction.net has a list on that page of authors who DON'T like fanfics.
Anne McCafferey has switched positions. She now allows fanfics to be written about her books. She was against it for a long time.
-Entling no. 2
the flavors sound wonderful! I'd certainly buy them (and I don't usually buy ice cream!) what a fun thing, thanks for posting!