Sorry I’ve been MIA recently. The government shutdown has hit me hard (mostly emotionally). I’m going to try to get back to posting more often.
Now then, I’ve been feeling the urge to re-read some of my favorite fan fiction (FF) lately. And since I have all this free time right now *insert eye roll here* I’ve gotten the chance to do so.
For those unfamiliar with FF, it’s fiction about characters or settings from an original work of fiction, created by fans of that work rather than by its creator. Fans may maintain the creator’s characters and settings or add their own. (Thank you Wikipedia) Specifically, FF denotes free work. The plethora of Pride and Prejudice re-writes would not be considered FF to most.
You can find all sorts of FF on fanfiction.net — they even have an official app (Apple | Android) — and on An Archive of our Own, and many others (just Google ‘fan fiction site’). There is some overlap between the sites, but most have exclusive stories.
With very rare exceptions, I only read Harry Potter FF. There’s certainly more than enough of it to keep you busy for the rest of your life. Fanfiction.net alone has over 800K Harry Potter stories.
I plan to review the FF that I read this year as a way to bring my favorite authors some more readers. That said, for many of the stories, if you haven’t read the books, you may find yourself lost in places.
I’ll also give you a warning: if you choose to read any FF (Harry Potter or otherwise), it can ruin the original works for you. FF authors have a way of pointing out plot holes that you may not have seen previously.
Review Structure
Because of the nature of FF, i won’t be reviewing it the same way I do books for purchase. I’ll give an overall score, 1-3 stars for do not read, read, and read now! respectively. Stories with excellent grammar/spelling will also receive a “+”.
For example, a story that I really enjoyed and had minimal errors would receive a ★★★+, whereas a story I somewhat enjoyed and had many errors would receive a ★★☆. I don’t feel it’s fair to judge spelling and grammar on a free story written for fun.
I also intend to only review longer stories, those that are novella length (15K+ words) or longer. It seems silly to spend more time to review a story than it did to read it.
If you have any questions, leave a comment below, or leave a comment with your favorite authors and stories (don’t forget links).
A Hint
Sometimes FF authors will take down their stories for one reason or another. And sometimes fanfiction.net will purge their site of stories that they feel violate site terms (whether they do or not).
To ensure I can always read my favorite stories, I download them using ficsave.xyz. It’s a great site, you just have to input the URL and chose a download format. But if you do that, make sure to leave some comments on the original story. All authors love comments/reviews, even unpaid authors.
