This story is a long time in the telling. The original sub-title of the piece was “How I Almost Got into Fan Fiction”. It was written back in March and submitted to Jason Kenney at Heroes Magazine detailing and lamenting my trials and tribulations in trying to get a fan fiction story up and published. In a beautiful stroke of irony, he didn’t post it to his site and promptly lost it. About a month later, I gave him another copy and that time Heroes went into hiatus, again without posting the article. I would mention it to Jason every so often whenever I saw him at work or on-line. He would assure me that it would be posted eventually. It never was. There is something wonderfully poetic about that. It still makes me smile.

A couple of days ago, Jason reminded me of the article. “Why don’t you redo it and submit it again?” At first I balked. I mean, I did finally break into fan fiction with a wonderful assist from a Mr. Daniel Sauve and again by Chris Munn. The original story proposal that was chronicled in the article is now up and displayed at Marvel:Dark Design (Brother Voodoo). Since then I have also taken over Thor at Marvel:Revolution and am penning a Wrecking Crew series at Avengers2000.

I don’t know what I expected when I was first exposed to the concept of fan fiction. Green Lantern versus Sailor Moon in a best two out of three with Doctor Who as the guest referee or something of that sort, I suppose. And that certainly is out there. Nothing wrong with it either, if you like that sort of thing. I don’t. Then a friend of mine introduced me to a different side of fan fiction: a fan fiction based more firmly in the world of the comics that I had come to love. In this world the writers did not seem driven by “who’s tougher than who” or adolescent fanboyish erotica. They seemed driven first and foremost by a respect for the characters, the history of the genre and the legacy of the writers who had come before them. I thought this was something that I could get into. I was a little surprised at how difficult that turned out to be.

I guess I figured just write a solid story and that would be enough. Submit it to a group and voila! Instant hobby. Of course it didn’t work out that way. There I was a published author, creator and writer of an independent comic and I couldn’t get a single site to look at my proposal. Now obviously, I didn’t go to every site but it certainly felt like I did. What was worse than the rejections (curt little missives often no more than ‘sorry, not really interested’ ‘not our bag’) were the silences. Waiting and waiting for a reply and slowly realizing that one probably wasn’t going to be forthcoming. My ego was bruised. I had made money with my writing. I was a professional editor and there I was doubting my ability to put together a story.

It probably did me a world of good.

What it did was force me to sit down and read. At the risk of alienating my audience and setting myself up for a big fall… there’s a lot of crap out there. Some of it was pretty difficult to read. Choppy and festooned with spelling mistakes, tense shifts and unimaginative stereotypes. I couldn’t understand why this was being offered space while mine was being denied. I couldn’t understand why authors would willingly post offerings that poorly worked over. How could their editors have missed all of this? I also found some startlingly original ideas and creator-owned characters. And there were a handful of writers whose projects struck me as not just good fan fiction but good prose, period. I was amazed that my original conception of fan fiction could be so horribly on the money and off base at the same time. Often within the confines of the same group.

And here is what I came to realize. Fan fiction. Fan. The love of the genre and the characters that inspired those people to write, the crappy and the amazing, gave them an enthusiasm that I was lacking. I had broken into fiction awhile ago. Now, I had to rediscover the fan in me and somehow instill that into my writing. Without that element, I would never succeed. And let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. I have to admit, I’m still looking. I get frustrated sometimes with some of the constraints and limitations of group work but I hope that I am improving.

I went to a comic convention recently and got to meet one of my idols. I was surprised at how giddy and excited I was. A few words. A quick sketch. It put a smile on my face for almost an hour. I think I am rediscovering the fan in me. So maybe, just maybe I’m about ready to try and break back into fan fiction. This time legitimately.