Meet Chris Kat


I met Michael via Twitter and wish him all the best for his upcoming release Until Thanksgiving.  We exchanged some tweets, then agreed on doing guest posts on each other’s blog. He asked me if I could write how writing fan fiction helped me get published. Easy, I thought—up until I sat down and really thought about it. Suddenly it seemed like a very big and difficult task!

What is fan fiction?

It is fiction written by fans of a certain book, movie or TV show. Say you watched a movie and felt a certain vibe between two characters but there’s no romantic element in the movie, what do you do? Right after watching the movie you usually daydream about what you would have liked to have seen. Some people sit down and write stories about those characters. Voila! Welcome to fan fiction land!

Fan fiction is divided in various sub-genres, for example: slash, gen, au, mpreg, fluff, etc. Confused yet?

I won’t explain all the abbreviations as that would be too much. Important is the meaning of the word slash. Let’s take the Harry Potter fandom for example. You’re writing a story about Harry and Hermione. It would appear as Harry/Hermione but it wouldn’t be referred to as slash even though the pairing is denoted with a slash. Nope, slash is used for same-sex pairings. Example: Snape/Lupin.

If you are interested in further explanations of these abbreviations you’ll find summaries all over the internet; there’s even a rather detailed Wiki entry.

Now that your curiosity is piqued, where do you find fan fiction?

Actually it’s all over the net. There are online archives, the best known is FanFiction.Net (also known as “The Pit”), where you can browse for any fandom, any pairing and will most likely find a story that fits your search criteria. Popular fandoms usually create specific archives too.

A lot of fan fiction is also posted to blog services like LiveJournal. Often you can find specific fandom communities there. The writers post their stories to their blogs and post links to the community blog, so the readers can find them easily.

How did I get into fan fiction?

Do you need to get yourself a coffee before you read on? Because this is a long story…

I hadn’t heard about fan fiction until 2007. I stumbled onto it by sheer luck. I loved (still do occasionally) reading Mangas. These are Japanese comic books and I only read Yaoi mangas (these books depicts homosexual relationships). After re-reading my most favorite series, Fake, for the umpteenth time and still not having enough I searched the internet for any additional books in this series. To my surprise I found a website with fan fiction. Yep, you guessed right—I was hooked.

I was lucky because this particular author wrote crossovers (characters from the Manga interacted with characters from various TV shows) and since I loved the universe the author had created so much I read everything on her website. I googled some more, found a few fandom communities from TV shows I liked and spent months reading literally everything.

At one point I focused all my attention on one fandom but to my dismay I couldn’t find a certain type of story. There were only a couple of shape-shifter stories out there and I had a craving (still have) for these. When all my searches remained fruitless I decided to write my own story. I poured that whole story out in two evenings, set up an account and posted the story to the community. It was my first story but not my last. After receiving encouraging feedback notes I started writing regularly, it was incredibly addictive.

For about two years I wrote exclusively in one fandom, then stretched my wings and dabbled into a new one. My new fandom allowed me to write different types of stories so I didn’t hesitate at all when a few months later another new fandom drew my attention.

What do I like about fan fiction?

Oh, a lot of things!

In the beginning I just wanted to write really short stories without having to go into detail and creating backgrounds for the characters. I could write just drabbles of 100 words or really short stories of about 1000 words or much longer stories. At first I mostly wrote between 2000 and 5000 words. After a while I wasn’t satisfied with only a few scenes anymore so the stories became longer.

In fan fiction you can write WIP, which means works in progress. You write a chapter, post it and then go on and write the next chapter, sometimes after receiving very valuable feedback/suggestions from readers. It helped me to learn how to craft stories in the range of 20000 to 80000 words, keep the characters true to themselves, etc. Even as I wrote fan fiction I invented original characters as supporting characters very early.

The really great thing about fan fiction is the instant feedback. You usually get the first comment/review within minutes (if it’s a very long story it might take an hour), which is really fantastic because it proves someone is reading and enjoying your stuff. Some people leave constructive criticism that helps to improve the fan fiction author’s writing skills.

I also got to know some people all over the world. Some of them have become real life friends. Since I’m not a native speaker I needed someone to check over my stories, correct grammar mistakes and the like; these people are called beta readers. Boy, did I have a stroke of luck with my very first beta reader! She beta’d most of my fan fiction stories as well as my original stories but most importantly she has become a very dear friend. Last year I visited her in the USA for the first time and this year she visited me. There are other people I’ve grown very close to which is a real treasure for me.

Now, how did all of this help me to get published?

Mostly, it was the support of friends and acquaintances that believed in my skill to write an enjoyable story.

When I became bored with my fandoms (House, Live Free or Die Hard, White Collar) I thought about trying my hand at writing original fiction. Some people voiced they’d miss my fan fiction but nonetheless they nudged me gently into the direction of original fiction.

During my fan fiction time I learned a lot about what people liked about my stories (I have a tendency to write sweet and cute) and also how to write multi-chaptered stories in various genres.

The support from my “fans” gave me the confidence to take the plunge and create my own characters with their own backgrounds and obstacles to overcome. When I sent in my first manuscript to Dreamspinner Press I didn’t believe they’d accept it but thought it was worth a try. I still remember my giddy feeling, the thumping heart and sweaty hands when I received an acceptance instead of a rejection. I’m very grateful to Dreamspinner for giving me a chance as an author.

Thank you, Michael, for having me here!

Published books:

Seizing It: https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=2858

Silver Lining (available 9/26): https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3240

Short story:

Cuddling Up in Animal Magnetism Anthology: https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3150

Blog: https://christikat.livejournal.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/christi_kat

[Thanks, Chris, for sharing your experience. The take-away message for me is that there are many different ways to catch the writing bug, or more accurately, to ignite the passion for writing that might lay dormant inside you. Is fan fiction your path to becoming a writer? Even though Chris and I came to Dreamspinner Press via different routes, the similarities in our journeys are striking. Many of the lessons Chris learned from writing fan fiction I learned through blogging. The critique group fleshed out most of the rest for me.

Good luck with the release of Silver Lining (September 26), and thanks again for dropping by…

My Glass House]


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