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From Fifty Shades of Grey to After to The Love Hypothesis, books that started as fanfiction is on the rise. Not only are these books on the rise, but again and again, they find their way to bestsellers lists and are heralded amongst bookworms as the year’s best books. But why is that so? Fanfiction is generally looked upon with distaste by published authors, with writers oftentimes facing legal repercussions for writing fanfiction. So, why is it suddenly making its way into the mainstream and into an industry that seeks to squash it? The appeal involves built-in reader bases, fanfiction writers knowing their audiences, and the overall appeal of fanfiction.
The History Of Fanfiction
Fanfiction has been around for centuries since it means a work that is written using the world and characters of another story. For example, Good Omens is essentially fanfic (fanfiction) of the Bible. However, fanfic in the modern sense was popularized around the 1960s with the rise of Star Trek and its fandom. Fanzines (magazines made by fans and distributed among fans) published fics, such as Spocknalia, which was one of the ways people realized they could completely reimagine the source material of their fandom themselves. Fanzines were one of the only ways to distribute these fanfictions pre-Internet era, beginning the rise of fanfiction.
The invention of the Internet was when fanfic hit its peak (and continues to grow today). Now that people no longer had to pay for fanzines to read fics or had to go through editors to get their fics published, fanfic flourished. Early websites such as LiveJournal and Fanfiction.net sprouted to accommodate the influx of people wanting to publish and read fanfic, allowing fandoms to connect and fan works to thrive, especially in the Harry Potter fandom. After two years of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’s U.S. release, there were already 1,200 fanfics in that category on Fanfiction.net ((Aitchinson, Sean. “From Star Trek to Superwholock: A Brief History of Fanfiction.” Fanbyte. Dec. 11, 2019)).
This allows more and more fans to feel comfortable with the idea of publishing their own works and reading others’ works. However, not everything was sunshine and rainbows. Since these works use published character names and worlds made by a different author, they are technically plagiarism and violate intellectual property law, and many authors treated fanfiction that way. Anne Rice was one of the loudest voices in the anti-fanfiction movement, striking down most fanfiction that popped up from her series The Vampire Chronicles and taking the fanfiction writers to court. While she soon backed down from her staunch stance, the damage remained: fanfic was no longer something fans felt comfortable doing, and it turned into a secret hobby that was potentially dangerous and illegal.
In Support Of Fanfiction
Other authors, such as J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter series) and Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book), not only tolerate but encourage fanfic, with Neil Gaiman openly allowing his fans to write fanfic and that he does so himself, tweeting, “I won the Hugo Award for a piece of Sherlock Holmes/H. P. Lovecraft fanfiction, so I’m in favor” ((Gaiman, Neil. “I won…” Twitter. Nov. 29, 2017)).
Even actors seem to love fanfic and actively encourage fans to write it. Misha Collins (of Supernatural (2005-2020) fame) has always been appreciative of fanfiction involving his character Castiel and another character, Dean Winchester, even when they venture into NSFW territory. He tweeted in support of when the relationship Destiel was the first ship to reach over 100,000 fics on AO3, and even though he can’t read the fanfiction himself (as many creators and companies can’t due to the possibility of the fanfic writer suing for copying their ideas), he enjoys the idea of fans expressing their love for the show in literary form (( Collins, Misha. “Speaking of numbers…” Twitter. Aug. 9, 2021. )). However, while authors, companies, and even actors tolerated fanfic, these fanworks were technically still illegal under intellectual property law. Then came the Organization for Transformative Works.
The organization, comprised of a group of passionate fans, has advocated for fanfic’s “transformative” nature and its validity under copyright law because they add new meaning to the original work rather than completely plagiarizing it. They then established their own protected archive of fanworks in 2008 — Archive of Our Own (AO3) — which has become one of the biggest sites to publish fanfics. It is not only a fanfic site, but an archive for older fanfic categories to protect them from legal issues, importing them from other sites in order to protect them under their rules and preserve fandom history.
The Appeal Of Fanfiction
We cannot discuss the appeal of books based on fanfic without discussing what the appeal of fanfiction is first. Why are there over five million works on AO3? Why do people love fics so much that they formed an archive to protect fanworks from the law? Why can’t people be original and write their own works?
Well, it begins with the fact that authors sometimes write things that people would rather ignore, or people have a different idea of how a work should have been written/ended. The mentality of “might as well do it myself” is strong among fanfiction writers because if the author is not going to write two characters in love, they have to put words on paper in order to make that dream a reality. If published, then other people who also want those characters to be in a romantic relationship get that sense of fulfillment that they did not get when reading the source material.
It satisfies an inch in fans’ brains when they can finally read something they had been yearning for in the source material, regardless of whether it is canon or not. Additionally, fanfiction explores scenarios that the characters in the source material otherwise would never have experienced. AUs, or alternate universes, are popular fanfiction tropes since it allows fans to read about what a modern Harry Potter/Hermione Granger meet-cute in a coffee shop would look like, or if Dean Winchester was plopped in the middle of a murder mystery. Fanfiction widens the breadth of how much fans experience these characters and worlds, allowing them to spend more time with the characters they love even if the source material has ended.
Fanfiction can also be comforting to readers and writers alike. Instead of diving headfirst into a piece of media they don’t know, fans can open up a fanfiction site and read a work where they know the characters inside and out and don’t have to work to get to know completely new characters and worlds. They can simply read a fanfic about Spock and Captain Kirk — two characters they are already attached to from Star Trek — falling in love and living a life of domesticity. Fans don’t need to grow attachments to new characters and can stick to what they know.
As for writers, it can be comfortable for two reasons. First, it can help budding writers with their skills. Having a world already created for them allows them to explore characters and dynamics rather than world-building, and if they want to explore world-building, they can write an AU. Many authors nowadays admit to writing fanfiction in their nascent years to improve their skills, and now we see actual fanfics turned into original works. Second, once writers get a hang of their writing style and skills, it is comfortable to return to a world they already know rather than constantly having to create characters of their own. It’s like rewatching a show, except they’re writing a Doctor Who (2005-present) vampire AU.
Fanfic is not only a way for people to expand their creativity, but it’s also a source of comfort for many. Fanfic can challenge the boundaries of the source material, or it can be as simple as the writer expanding upon an existing scene in the original work solely because they believe there should be more in that scene. Therefore, many of these aspects of fanfic carry onto published books that were formerly fanfiction.
Fanfiction As Published Books
There are countless examples nowadays of former fanfics published as original works. The most famous is Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, which started as a Twilight fanfic. After by Anna Todd is based on a One Direction fanfic, heavily inspired by Harry Styles. Most recently, The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood is based on Kylo Ren and Rey Skywalker from Star Wars.
All of these books are either critically acclaimed, spent a week or more on bestsellers lists, or both. It’s undeniable that there will be more books based on fanfics published in the future judging by how successful these books are.
Tropes And Relationship Dynamics
Fanfiction is famous for its dynamics and tropes. There are lists upon lists of fanfic tropes, with these tropes making their way into AO3’s tagging system. Enemies to lovers is one of the most famous tropes, along with royalty, sharing a bed, coffee shops, temporary amnesia, and fake relationship, among others.
Certain dynamics between characters, such as friends pining for each other, idiot x rational one, rivals, dark one x innocent one, “tsundere” x hopeless romantic, are all common between characters that are either canonically together or shipped together, and if these tropes and dynamics are found within in a published book, it automatically draws fanfic lovers to it.
Comfort
That element of comfort factors into why these books are so beloved. All of these books contain one if not multiple tropes and dynamics known in fanfic. The Love Hypothesis has both the fake-relationship-turned-real trope and the rivals dynamics, both themes that fanfic readers go crazy for. These books cater to these audiences because their characters and plots are something one would see in fanfic, bringing that sense of familiarity. The reader doesn’t feel as if they’re going to be blindsided by the plot: they more or less know what is going to happen, the rest is up to how well the author writes it. There’s nothing new, and that’s good.
It has elements of fanfiction, but the reader can feel good about reading an original work and supporting an author monetarily without getting into legal territory. The reader can keep the book physically, which is something one can’t normally do with fanfiction unless they can bookbind the fanfic they love or buy a fanzine. Keeping a physical copy of something they love so much and reminds them of a favorite hobby brings a lot of comfort to fans. Also, when reading the book, fans can picture their favorite ship in place of the characters, giving the book an extra layer along with understanding the characters easier since it’s something the reader has seen before.
Novelty
Another reason why these books are so popular is because of the novelty of a fanfiction turned into a book. The second word gets around that a published book is based on a fanfic, it automatically gains publicity due to the sheer courage it took for an author to pitch and publish the book and the unfamiliarity of seeing something as illegal and abnormal as fanfic being brought into the mainstream. Fanfic, as much as it has grown in popularity and more people are comfortable admitting to reading and writing it, is still judged and looked down upon by publishing houses and the mainstream public.
It’s seen as just smut, unoriginal, and “weird,” so the fact that publishing houses are catching on to the growing acceptance of fanfic as actual art is a huge deal for fanfic enthusiasts, fans, and regular reading audiences alike. The Simon Snow book series is based on a fanfic written by Cath, the protagonist of Fangirl, which is a book based on a woman writing fanfiction. The entire book series is a fanfic, and it is one of the more popular fantasy YA book series with a thriving fandom. Because the book Fangirl already had a built-in audience of fans and fanfic enthusiasts, the following book series gained an automatic audience, showing how loyal fanfic readers and writers are.
Combined Audiences
As mentioned before, these books that started as fanfic already have a built-in audience of fanfic enthusiasts. If there is a book that is based on fanfic, the plot doesn’t matter most of the time as long as these fans get to support a work that validates their entire art form. It’s novel enough that a book based on the ship Larry (Harry Styles/ Louis Tomlinson) or Harry Potter fanfic gets published because it means that more books like that can be published, including aspiring fanfic writers who want to be published.
In addition to these built-in audiences, these books also get regular bookworms and audiences who are not interested or know about fanfiction as readers. With the built-in fanfic audience, the book automatically gets free marketing by word-of-mouth, roping in the other audiences to read the book. Because of this free marketing, these books get more publicity than regular books, and social media certainly plays a big part in this. “Booktok” is a popular side of TikTok where bookworms recommend their favorite books, and these fanfic enthusiasts are oftentimes the most vocal about these books. When the book is released, it already has a mix of fanfic fans and regular fans ready to support it.
Self-Insert
Self-insert is a popular fanfic genre, oftentimes having a character be paired with a female Y/N (your name). Now, this genre is moving onto published books since many were based on self-insert fanfiction or have elements of the genre. The Shadowhunters series by Cassandra Clare is based on Draco Malfoy and Ginny Weasley fanfic, but many times in fanfiction, the female characters serve as merely a self-insert for the largely female fanfic-reading audience, which is what happens in The Infernal Devices spin-off. Fifty Shades of Grey was famously known as a self-insert for middle-aged mothers to fulfill their innermost desires, and After is a self-insert for a female Y/N and Harry Styles.
It can be very validating to read a physically published book that caters to a common fanfic trope since most published books contain characters that aren’t meant to be self-inserts. This not only appeals to female audiences but anybody who can identify with the main character and who is interested in the person the character in the book is based on. People who know that Hardin Scott is based on Harry Styles are automatically drawn to the book because they want to imagine themselves inside the book.
Validation
Validation is one of the most powerful reasons why books that started as fanfiction are appealing. Since the fanfic community is mostly comprised of women (reading and writing), it is often pushed aside as “stupid” or “childish” because of good old sexism which invalidates every female-dominated interest. Now that publishing companies are taking an interest in fanfiction as a new opportunity for making money and building popularity, it gives credence to the long-ostracized genre of fanwork only because it’s female-headed. Only when money can be made is when a female-dominated field is respected, and while that is frustrating, it’s great to see such a “weird” interest go mainstream.
It’s time for female interests to have a place in the mainstream, and that includes fanfiction. People spend hours upon years upon decades crafting their fanfictions, updating and editing them, replying to comments, and thinking of plots for them. Seeing other fanfic writers’ works published is the ultimate form of validation, and it makes sense why these books appeal to so many people. If higher-ups in publishing companies believe that these books deserve a place in the publishing industry, then it allows fans to feel comfortable in their interests and draws them in to read these books.
Published Fanfiction Is Not Going Away
As much as fanfiction continues to be looked down upon and made out to be seen as “weird,” it is clear that the course the publishing industry is taking is seeking talent within fanfiction websites such as Wattpad and AO3. It is only going to grow in popularity for all the reasons listed previously. Fans, especially fanfic writers and readers, will continue to feel validated (and may even be published) and rewarded for all the fan labor they provide for their fandom.
Most stories nowadays are technically considered fanfiction anyway, whether it be based on a Greek myth, a religious text, or a classic novel published before the 1900s. It’s about time modern fanfiction is treated the same way and given the respect it deserves. Next time you break open a book, try and see if it started as fanfiction or if it resembles a published text. It’ll make reading a lot more interesting.