gyzym:

OKAY, so, it’s time to have a conversation about original characters and learning to write them via fandom! I know quite a bit more about Char, my main character, and Theo, the romantic lead, than I did the last time I posted about original fic; I’ll have some more stuff up on that soon. But first, this! Because, whatever, it’s time for this now.

So here’s the deal: fandom taught me to write. I took classes on writing in school, sure, I had relationships with professors and other students, I did workshop classes, and that taught me all kinds of invaluable shit—how to take constructive criticism, how to deal with writing anxiety/blocks, the story structures that are most and least effective, the difference between “style” and “voice.” My creative writing education taught me all sorts of things about writing, but fandom, and fandom alone, taught me to write. And I’ll tell you a secret—it’s teaching you to write, too. It’s a massive workshop on a global scale, constantly updating with new variations on a given story, providing feedback for what you produce and feedback on what those around you produce, a limitless feed of information that’s all grounded in the telling of tales—how could it not teach you to tell them in the process? 

Here’s another secret: the shit fandom is teaching you about writing fanfiction? It’s teaching you about writing original fiction, too. 

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eight billion times this.