Why Fanfic?

It's a question I get asked a lot. Quite a lot of people can't quite see what the appeal is of working in quite such a restrictive genre, with so very little leeway in terms of setting and characterisation, and no commercial prospects. Quite often, they're expecting some kind of answer about how it's good practice, since having character and setting defined frees you up to work on things like plotting and dialogue, or how pastiche is an interesting technical problem.

The thing about answers like that, though, is that they seem to regard working on fanfic as a kind of necessary evil, a tedious exercise for a writing student who'd really rather be getting on with original work. They don't explain why people who aren't aiming at a writing career would choose fanfic as a hobby, and they certainly don't explain why anyone would bother reading fanfic.

( Wild theorising cut to save your Friends page )