Why you should absolutely, 1000%, use fanfic to brainstorm your next WIP. (Yes, I said it!)

Look, darlings. Don't come at me with the pitchforks and torches just yet. Hear me out. 

I'm not, under any circumstances, saying to rip off another author's work. I swear. 

But taking inspiration? Why not? Humans have been doing exactly that since... forever. 

Take a look at this screenshot below, and then we'll get into Story Time. 

Alright. This beautiful clusterf*ck is from my own Google Docs; it's the infodump holding the metric ton of stuff thrown together for my current WIP, "Immortal Disasters." 

And why am I showing you this? 

Because... 

It all started when I could not, for the life of me, find a story that I wanted to read. 

And then it all just took on a life of its own. 

STORY TIME: 

I am a huge, huge fanfic reader. 

I swear Ao3 is my best friend. 

And I routinely alternate between the Harry Potter fandom and Twilight. Because when it comes to my comfort reads, I'm a giant kid. Sue me. (Don't really do that. I'm kidding. 🙏) 

ANYWAY 

An ungodly amount of fics and hours spent reading them later, I found that, when it comes to the Twilight fandom... 

I wanted to read about a Bella Swan that was actually grown, and I don't mean just barely legal. I mean a whole, grown, actual adult. With a career and a life of her own. 

But the problem was... authors in the fandom seemed to think that "grown" meant barely legal and seemed to think that being an adult meant dropping the F bomb every other word. (I mean, sure, we do this, and when speaking, I have the worst casual potty mouth, but it's annoying to read.) 

Now, I know that writing fics is exactly how a lot of authors get their toes wet and learn how to write. I'm a huge advocate for learning your craft that way. 

But that didn't mean I was able to find exactly what I was looking for, with the ship I was looking for. 

So... 

I decided to write it myself. 

BUT HERE IS THE KICKER 

Just because it starts as a fic, doesn't mean it has to stay a fic. 

These sandboxes are prime real estate for creating a story that's entirely yours. 

What was originally the popular Dramione fic, "Manacled" by SenLinYu is now being officially published as Alchemised by Del Rey. 

E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey started as Twific. 

What started as a Star Wars Reylo (Rey/Kylo Ren) fic is now The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood.

Which means there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone from simply using the scaffolding for the ideas you have going, and then adapting said scaffolding. We have literally been taking inspiration from other sources since forever.  

SHAKESPEARE'S Romeo and Juliet was written after reading "The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet" by Arthur Brooke. Seriously. I kid you not. 

So here's what you do: 

FIRST, darlings, ask yourself this-

• What is it that you really want to read? 
• Is there a ship that you're disappointed that you didn't get? 
• A scenario that you wish had happened, but didn't? 
• A certain, nagging "what if" scenario that won't leave you alone? 

If so-

Once you do that, the ideas will start spiraling from there. And then KEEP WRITING IT DOWN. 

Not every idea you have will make it to the page, but to have that collection of ideas together?

That's when you can really start forming something. 

Sometimes they come to you when you're at your workspace. 

Other times, they'll sneak up on you in the middle of the night when you're trying to go to sleep. 

And other times, still, it'll happen when you're in the middle of something else, mostly when it's entirely inconvenient. Not that the ol' brain really cares about things like whether you have a pen and paper, or can pull out your phone at that particular moment. 

YOU STILL WRITE IT DOWN. FIRST CHANCE YOU GET. 

In my own WIP, Immortal Disasters, I just wanted to see what would happen if Bella started taking out the vamps. I never, for the life of me, understood why she took Edward back in New Moon. 

(The idea of: Bella Swan, Vampire Slayer, would not leave me alone!)

Anyway, that turned into a situation where my new favorite Twiship just had to happen, and then that turned into... 

"But I like time travel." 

And... 

"But what if we make it southern?" (You know, because I'm southern.) 

And then it kept mutating. 

So here's what I want you to do: 

Pick your fandom. 

Lay out your brain-nuggets, because we all have something that we really want to read, and are having trouble finding the exact thing out there. Or, at least something that we're curious about. 

THEN 

Once you've done that, think about the narrative choices the author made that have, perhaps, worked your nerves. Or, if there isn't any, perhaps things that are on your wish list. Things that you might have done differently, or things you wanted to happen, that didn't. 

Or, if that's pushing it, maybe think along the lines of, "But what if we make it....[insert idea here]." Because that's where AU's are born. 

And just scribble down everything. Keep doing that until you have enough pieces to really put something together. 

With enough pieces, you'll find the soul of your story. 

We'll talk about characters and their internal drive in another post. For now, let's focus on our scaffolding!

From an insanely useful outlining tool (the eight-point arc), I want you to leave space underneath the spot where all your brain-nuggets from your brainstorming sesh are going to go, and write: 

Stasis- 

This is going to be the point where you decide how the story's going to start. (This isn't going to be permanent, by any means, but you DO need to know the general situation where it's going to begin.) 

Conclusion-

I have found that THE most useful tool you will ever have in your whole writing toolbox is knowing where you're writing towards. To know how it's all going to end. (This doesn't have to stay fixed either. Trust me, once you start tackling your characters and they start speaking for themselves, your outline will need readjusting at least a good fifty times. BUT you do still need to have an End Point.) 

If you have that, the Long Middle just got a whole lot easier to conquer. 

If there's anything else you want to talk about or think I should cover, feel free to drop a comment! 

Until next time, 

Elise