A trend I'm noticing is that my generation has been reading and/or writing fanfiction from our early years. I personally got my start writing fanfiction when I was 9, before I even had internet access regularly. I would write Gravity Falls fanfiction in entire wide-ruled notebooks. I participated in my first NaNoWriMo my sophomore year of high school, and I clocked in at about 55,000 words with time to spare. I participated in Wattpad's Novella Contest my freshman year of high school, and managed to get onto the long list.
Fanfiction has a really long history, from the days of LiveJournal (which still exists, but not many my age use it for fanfiction anymore), to the adult content purges of various platforms, to the creation of Archive of our Own (colloquially called AO3). We also can't forget about the whole debacle with Anne Rice, something that I wasn't too well-versed in due to not being online much in my early days. I actually didn't get internet access in my home own, beyond owning a hotspot that we'd use sometimes, until I was in high school. I got my first phone my sophomore year of high school, before that I used deactivated phones that were years old.
I know a lot of people who also write fanfiction, though I write less of it nowadays. My adoptive mother, someone in her 50s, frequently writes fanfiction and has friends who do too. Fanfiction doesn't have an age limit, and most often the only person who stops you from writing fanfiction is yourself! It doesn't matter if you're 'too old' or even 'too young'. I'm going to be honest, while there isn't a lot of peer-reviewed research papers on the effects of adult content on children, I know children are going to access these things anyway. I think of any kind of inappropriate content or things as harm reduction: I know teenagers are going to drink, smoke, watch adult content, and I probably can't do anything to stop it other than helicopter all the time. Not only do I not have time for that, I also can't do it for every child or young teenager who may be engaging in these things. I frequently approach these things with an attitude of education: I'll educate you about it, and advise you how to best go about it. I'll tell you what I think you should do, but I know that if someone's determined enough, I can't stop them. What you do with that knowledge, I'll try to support you through.
Alright, with all that disclaimer stuff being said, how exactly do you go about starting to write fanfiction? It doesn't matter if it's in your public library in the middle of the afternoon, or if it's at midnight at your PC in the dark. You can also opt for traditional writing in a notebook, locked away or not. Being frank here too: We all have different comfort levels when it comes to doing something like this. Fanfiction is just now starting to become something more acceptable to do, but I (and maybe you too!) still feel shame about writing it.
In this admittedly longer post, I'm going to hold your hand and walk you through writing your first fanfiction. When you're done, it'll probably seem less frightening than you thought it would be. There's going to be no parts to this, unless in the future I feel like I need to or I should expand on something. All of the basics are going to be right here. You can also take as long as you need, this post isn't disappearing.
First off, we need to start with what's going on in our heads. Sorry to say we aren't doing any fanfiction writing yet. You could start now if you wanted, I can't stop you, but it may be a less enjoyable experience if you've got things about it weighing you down. Are you worried about writing the wrong thing? Are you worried about being too old, or young? Are you worried about being the 'wrong gender' for writing fanfiction? Your fandom's too small? For the record, the easy answer to all of these things is 'don't be, you're not, you're not, and don't worry'.
For the first one, if you want to be canon-compliant, maybe you're worried that your interpretation of canon is 'wrong'. Well, do I have great news for you! In media and communication studies, there's a theory called Reception Theory. What does this mean? It basically means that the audience of a piece of art or media will have their own interpretation of the media, and may reject the creator's intended meaning. You have your own interpretation of media, and that's amazing! Stick with it, write about it, I guarantee there's someone out there who agrees with you. You just may not have found them yet, or they may not have found your fandom yet. In addition, this assumes that you're publishing your work online, or showing it to others. You don't need to do this. At all.
It's commonly stereotyped that fanfiction is written and published by young girls and women. Truth be told, I'm transgender myself. I also have friends who write fanfiction who are also transgender. One of my best friends when I was younger was a man who wrote fanfiction and drew fanart. I know an adult man, who's graduated technical school and has a very successful life, who likes My Little Pony. My adoptive mother writes My Hero Academia fanfiction. I've written fanfiction for Gravity Falls when I was 9, smaller fandoms when I was 12, and major fandoms now. What matters most if that you enjoy what you're writing. Grammar's bad? Too bad! If you enjoy writing it, keep going! This brings me to my third point...
You can watch from the sidelines, you can read about how to do it (hi!), but you gotta practice if you want to get better. Nobody comes out of the womb being able to write novels. It's okay if you're an adult, and bad at spelling and grammar. If you practice writing, you'll get better over time if you put effort into it. If you practice reading, you'll get better at it. I went from speech therapy and special education when I was younger to correcting people's papers in college regularly. Improvement is possible, just don't be alarmed if you don't see immediate results. These things can take time. If English isn't your first language, or whatever language you're writing in isn't your first language, say so in an author's note (A/N) if you plan on uploading it online. Chances are, people aren't going to care too much. If they do, that's on them.
Create for yourself. Don't write something intending to upload it online and get a million hits overnight. In the field of psychology, we know that intrinsic motivation always trumps extrinsic motivation long-term. If you're motivated only by external factors, you will have a hard time staying motivated long-term, especially if you don't get popular in a day, week, month, year, etc. Be motivated by the fun of writing, of writing out your wildest fantasies, of flushing your own cheeks in blush by writing a romantic scene with your favorite character, or of writing conflict between your favorite ship where you just HAVE to write what happens next. I know in the modern day of the internet, this can be a lot harder than it is to just say it. I try to put effort into writing things that are utterly self-indulgent and shameless. You may not get big in your fandom, but there will probably be people who want to read what you write. And we all know the cake analogy, the audience doesn't care if there's more of the same cake in front of them, they're just excited about cake.
Trust me, people get really excited when there's more fanfictions that are, say, '[favorite character]/reader, slowburn, coffee AU'. It may have been written a million times before, but you bet I'm going to read your interpretation of it, and that guy's, and that person's. If there's already 600 NSFW fics that are /reader of your favorite character, please write another! That gives those of us like me who stalk those tags more to read! And if you don't publish it? That means there's less extrinsic motivation to deal with.
Also, P.S., if your fandom's too small there will probably be people who want to read it. Last I checked, I've written half the fics for my favorite pairing, and I still get email notifications about it every once in a while. And, honestly, there are 2 total fics for the ship. I wrote one of them. It doesn't matter how obscure your interest is, or how obscure the thing that gets you off is, there's probably someone out there who wants to read it.
So, with that out of the way, pick what you want to write about! Is it a fic about your cat in the world of Dungeons and Dragons (that sounds awesome btw), or is it a simple / reader for a bigger fandom? Does it have no ships at all? Is it plot-heavy, or romance-heavy, or both? Is it light-hearted, or heavy and dark? Oneshot, or something longer?
Quick explanation of terms: '/ reader' is for when a character before the slash is presented in a romantic/sexual relationship with the reader. These are usually told in second-person point of view (POV). '& reader' is usually used for platonic relationships with the reader. / is romantic or sexual, and & is platonic. Oneshots are (usually) quick works that are a self-contained story. / and & are the common terms nowadays for 'x [character]' back in the day. Plot-heavy is more of a focus on story, while romance-heavy focuses more on the relationships between your characters. Light-hearted can usually be applied to any fic that has low or no stakes. Maybe it's a oneshot where your characters get coffee, maybe it's a slice-of-life longer fic. Dark and heavy usually means darker terms, like crime, murder, drama, adultery, drug-use, other NSFW stuff.
Take your time figuring this out. Alternatively, you may start writing then realize your story is going in a way different direction than you thought it would. You can either go back and try to get it on the right track again, or you can roll with it. Stories often have a tendency to surprise both the reader and the writer with where it goes. Plot points may pop up in your head while you're writing-- pin them and see if you're interested either now or later in it. It's completely normal for this to happen, and you can choose to roll with it or not. Also-- we're all amateurs doing this for free. If your story isn't perfect, or has plot holes, or it's a bit out-of-character, don't sweat it.
A note here: Don't worry about hitting a word count goal. That's fun to do for challenges like a Novella (25,000 words) challenge, or a novel challenge (50,000 words). Very often, though, just write and see where it goes. I like to say that a story ends where it needs to end. Word count isn't an indicator of how amazing your story is. I've seen a lot of well-received works that clock in at less than 1000 words. Text fics, fics that are formatted as if the characters are texting, are also still written by people.
Once you have the basics thought about, or a prompt to work from, start writing! Start handwriting, or typing away! Go as long as you want to. I don't go back and edit my works at all. I don't have someone read it over for me, too. I just don't like editing, and I usually don't show my works to those I know. I'll fix spelling mistakes and some grammar mistakes when I'm done writing. Just go! Just write for the fun of writing! Put on your best mood-fitting music and just run for it. If you're having a hard time, figure out if you're not comfortable. Is your room light? Are you warm or cold? Are your blinds open? I know I frequently feel like I'm being watched over my shoulder. It takes work to find out how to work with this feeling best, but sometimes you just gotta nip at it and write anyway. If you're stuck, find prompts or read some inspiration first. You can take minutes, hours, days, weeks, etc. to write your first fic. When you're done, come back here if you want to. I can wait :)
You're done? Amazing! I'm very proud of you. Writing your first fic isn't easy. Now, we get to the question of editing or not editing? You don't need to edit. If you just enjoy the process of writing, maybe just clean up some spelling errors. If you want to edit, go for it. Fix your grammar, rewrite portions, delete portions, whatever you need to do.
So, here's the hard question. Do you publish it? You may not want to at all, and that's ok! You can keep it in your Google Drive forever if you want, nobody's going to judge you for that. It's up to you if you want to show your work to the public or not. If you're thinking that you may want to publish it, here's my advice.
1) I suggest publishing on Archive of our Own. They're an 'anything goes' website and have been a godsend for those of us who write content that may not be appealing. Other options are Fanfiction.net, Wattpad, Tumblr, or even Quotev. AO3 is still the most popular website, though. They don't have a mobile app, and if you don't have an account you may need to get on the waitlist, but the waitlist tends to move pretty fast and their website's mobile layout is perfect.
2) Name it anything! A popular choice for titles are often song lyrics.
3) Make the summary a snippet of your fic, a small summary, or even both!
4) Tag your fic, but don't overtag. Sometimes, striking the balance between these can be hard. If you want people to see your fics, tags are king. Tag your fandom, your major relationships, major characters that aren't involved in relationships, and anything the story is about. Tags you may use are things like fluff, angst, original character, reader, coffee shop - alternate universe, not beta read, etc. Other tags that are mostly filler are things like 'I wrote this when drunk', 'Author regrets everything they've done', or 'Author regrets nothing'. Filler tags are light-hearted and can give your reader a bit more of what to expect from you, your fic, and your attitude toward it. I'm pretty sure there's a tag limit on AO3 now, so if you hit the limit try to delete tags that aren't as important. Tag adult content, tag adult themes, tag sensitive content. When you go to the tagging section of your work, it'll ask you for major tags like 'major character death' or 'author chose not to use archive warnings' or 'archive warnings don't apply' or 'underage'. You can choose not to use any of the archive's warnings in the section that has the tags listed above. You can also use it to warn your readers of any sensitive content. Finally, a tag entitled 'Dead dove, do not eat' or 'DDDNE' is used to warn readers to read your tags and take them seriously. It's usually used for particularly dark fics.
5) For language, choose what you wrote it in. For language skin, I just go with the default. For upload date, I also just go with the default. If your fic is complete, mark it as complete. Put in how many chapters it is (or, if you don't know yet, just ?), title your chapter, paste it in the box, possibly fix formatting, and upload!
6) Congrats! You just uploaded a fic!
From here, you can either leave it be, or you can choose to orphan it off or put it in an anonymous collection. Orphaning it cuts any ties it has from you, and you can't edit it anymore. This is irreversible. If you still want to be able to edit it, but don't want your name attached to it, you can add it to an anonymous collection. In the settings for your story, where you can edit it and such, you can add it to a collection. This is a great way to group all your fics together (maybe you have a series?). You can also add your fics to any anonymous collection. It will take the fic away from your profile, you can still edit it, and I believe you can remove it from the collection at any time. This can be a great way to publish fanfiction, but not have yourself tied to it. I tend to put my old works under an anonymous collection, just so that people won't find it. I usually do this because it's old and I've done better since, or because the fic just doesn't fit my tastes anymore. Both of these are valid options. You can also just leave it and do nothing, which means that the fic will have your username attached to it and it'll be visible on your profile.
Now that you've written one, take a break. Or write more if you want to. Or go get some food, then write more. Do whatever you want. Explore the world of fanfiction a bit more if you want to. Who knows, it may inspire you some more.
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