GUEST – Brianna Tibbetts – Fan Fiction and Your Creative Drive
Today, I’m glad to have author Brianna Tibbetts to share her insights on how writing fanfiction keeps her productive in her own writing! From Brianna Tibbets: When I discovered fan fiction was a thing in 2011, I didn’t think I’d ever want to write it. I read it on occasion, mostly to fill in holes in character development left behind by existing franchises I loved, but I couldn’t have imagined writing it myself. Then, in December of 2012, the BBC show Merlin ended. I loved the finale, but felt distinctly unsatisfied. There was so much I wished had happened, but none of it would ever be addressed, because the show was over. So, I wrote my first fan fiction to get it all out of my system. Less than two hours later, I had five thousand words about two of my favorite characters on my laptop screen. Writing fan fiction was much easier than I’d expected.
My fanfiction journey
Today I’m kicking off a series of blog posts about the benefit of writing fanfiction. I have some amazing guest bloggers coming over the next month to share their experiences and thoughts on the matter. But before they do, I wanted to share with you my fanfiction journey. I’ve been a published author for nearly ten years. My first novel was published in 2011, kicking off a four book series that I would complete in 2017. When the final book dropped in December of that year, I didn’t realize how much of an emotional drain it would be on me. Those books, that world…that character…had been a part of my life for more than just the eight years it took to publish the books, but an additional three years before that as I wrote and polished that first one. If you invest in anything for over a decade, you will invest in it emotionally.