Beginner Writers - Fanfiction and RPGs

So I'll admit. I write fanfiction.

From time to time.

I usually write tiny one-shots. I might watch a movie or read a book and think, hey, it'd be cute to have this thing happen. I don't publish it anywhere, I just keep it to myself in a Scrivener document.

Okay, so I do have a fairly decent sized story of some Blades of Acktar fanfic centered around Harrison Vane pulling a "didn't actually die" move, but besides that, the Scrivener document is mostly one-shots.

But I've seen a lot of folks do this as well, especially with online RPGs being so popular. I think a number of people have gotten their first jump into creative writing by starting out with an RPG. So that's pretty cool.

Last summer I wrote a story with my 6 year old sister (Sister 2), doing it RPG style in a notebook. She decided she was going to write a Princess, so I wrote for the Prince, and we passed the notebook back and forth and scribbled down what our characters would do. (Her Princess captured my Prince and threatened to turn him into a frog if he didn't marry her, and he said he had to ask his parents first, if anyone was interested as to how that story turned out.)

But I think RPGs are a great and fun way to introduce creative writing and practice spelling and grammar. In the above story, Sister 2 got to practice writing and spelling on her own. And she enjoyed it (unlike doing her writing workbooks for school).

Growing up, Sister 1 and I rewrote all The Hobbit movies, complete with a number of added characters, in notebooks. She had always struggled with spelling...but by the end of a couple notebooks, she had gotten waaaaay better, and was also reading more on her own.

I think writing fanfiction (with or without RPGs) is also a good way for people to practice writing different characters (unless they write only one character who is obviously a self-insert, haha).

And even now, when I write my fanfiction, I like to give it a purpose. Maybe write it from a POV that you try to shy away from. Try working on your descriptions or something. Make it a bit of a writing exercise.

But unless you want to have one of the most popular writers on those fanfiction sites (which would be kinda cool, but also kinda weird to have to explain to people), you will eventually have to stop writing fanfic and move on to your own original books.

As a starting point or gateway to writing, fanfic and RPGs aren't that bad. It's a great way to introduce people to writing stories, creating plots, and practice correct spelling and all that jazz. But don't forgot to work on your own stories.