I just realized that I seldom write/read fanfiction of books, and when I do, it’s because they’ve been adapted to multi-media. Like, when I was into the LoTR and Hobbit fandoms, my baseline was the movies. When I got into Hannibal, it was because of the TV show. Harry Potter–the recent video game. Even my most recent story, set in the Song of Ice and Fire, is based on the series.
The only time I’ve had the book-version in mind, was when I was looking for stories on Arya/Jaqen H’ghar.
Everything else, I imagined the assets and events used in the shows/movies.
It’s the same with drawn media. Manga and comic books don’t inspire the urge for fanfiction in me, but anime and movies do. I had no interest in reading Marvel fanfiction until the movies came out. I only got interested in fanfiction for Haikyuu, One Punch Man and Chainsaw Man when I saw the anime.
The type of media I tend to write for is video games and the ones I read from are TV shows. I have no idea why, but I just thought it was interesting how certain media can make my brain latch onto the IP more creatively than others.
How about you guys? Any media preferences as well or maybe you have other factors in play?
I’m not entirely sure I can explain it. I read a lot but books don’t seem to need fanfic according to my brain. I daydream about the ones that interest me but that seems easier because I’ve already had to build the mental world as part of reading the book, so the daydreaming is just a continuation of that.
Whereas film & TV feel naturally more constrained due to the medium, so when I come up with an idea for a favourite character, I feel more compelled to write it down & similarly on reading other people’s ideas for that character. I know a few people who fanedit films & I honestly don’t know how they do it because there’s just so little there to work with when compared to fanfic writing. 🤷♀️ It’s like I feel the visual medium of film & TV need fanfiction to make them whole or greater than they are.
I think you hit the nail on the head for me. 🤔 My brain doesn’t come up with fanfiction for books/manga because they feel “complete” and/or “free” in a way that imagination and - as you said - daydreaming, come naturally. So my urge to expand/explore the world and characters are satisfied.
I think fan-editing is a lot more like solving a puzzle 😅 maybe that’s also how they approach it?
Yeah, solving a puzzle sounds more on the ball for fan editing. Like a more constrained form of creativity since you could come up with a great idea but if the material isn’t there to cover it, it’ll never get going.
Part of the reason I like fanfiction is that I go in for romance/fluff/smut, but the characters I want to see in those situations usually aren’t the ones who get that in TV or film - they’re not the romantic leads or they’re too weird or it’s all suggestion (& no payoff!). So I write what I’d want to see if I had the choice of what happens on the screen.