[Fan Fiction is one of those things I’d never heard of until I joined the writers group. When I learned that’s how Helen got her start, I asked if she’d write about her experience transitioning from the world of fan fiction to becoming a published author. Check the links at the end of the blog to find our more about Helen and her work. I’m guessing at least of few of you might want to give writing fan fiction a try!  Thanks, Helen, and welcome to My Glass House!]

I started writing fanfiction after picking up a Beauty and the Beast fanzine in the very early 1990’s. Stories included everything from exploration of secondary characters, to snippets of life (flash fiction), and most importantly for me, what would have happened if that third season hadn’t happened. (For those not familiar with the show, the “dreaded, it didn’t really happen third season” is where the producers decided that instead of giving lead actress Linda Hamilton the break that she needed they would just kill off her character and do a quick love-interest swap. Fans were not impressed and the show died along with Hamilton’s character, Catherine Chandler).

But I need to backtrack a little. Originally, (before I found that fanzine) I’d started writing a novel that was loosely inspired by Vincent and Catherine’s story, because I was so unhappy about Catherine’s death. But that novel wasn’t at all satisfying to me. I didn’t want to write about my characters, I wanted to write about Catherine and Vincent! After I picked up that fanzine, I realized, hey, wait a minute! Other people are doing it, why can’t I?

So I did!

That original story has been refined and added to and is still available at fanfiction.net (although the formatting sucks; it was the first time I’d ever posted anything anywhere.)

Fast forward a decade or so to when I started watching the Doctor Who spinoff series, Torchwood and I started thinking “what if…?” again. Mostly, it was to fill in the little gaps, figure out what happened to the characters when the camera stopped rolling, or to wonder, what would Elizabeth Shaw (a character from the “original” Doctor Who series) make of Jack draining the Themes? Hmmm….? (For those unfamiliar with Torchwood, the series included a cannon m/m couple, Captain Jack Harkness and intrepid “teaboy” Ianto Jones—which is an important part of my personal story.)

I started writing my “what if…” stories down…and of course, once I write something, I have to do something with it! So I posted my work to fanfiction.net. And I started getting feedback. Lots and lots of feedback. Lots of amazing feedback. (I’d gotten some great feedback from my other stories as well, but I think the audience for Torchwood was just bigger at the time than the audience for a BatB or my other fanfic piece, for an obscure Johnny Depp movie…okay, so that describes half his films…moving on….)

The more I wrote Torchwood fanfiction, the more I became enmeshed in Jack and Ianto’s relationship, where it might go, where I thought it should go. Where I bleeping well wanted it to go, because Torchwood ultimately suffered the same death as Beauty and the Beast and oh, no, not on MY watch! I’m a fanfiction writer, I can fix that!  *grin*

A number of my fanfiction readers kept telling me I was “so good,” I should be writing original fiction. But see, I already knew how original fiction worked. I subscribed to Writers’ Digest back in the ’80’s (it’s no longer a magazine I recommend, BTW). I’d had a novel make its rounds, and I had a pile of rejection slips. I had no problem with the rejection slips, a couple of them were really great (i.e. included personal notes from the editor). See, there are all kinds of reasons for a story to be rejected, many of which have nothing to do with the merit of the work. Don’t ever take a rejection slip personally.

The biggest reason I balked at going back to original fiction was that I realized how much work it is. I’m not just talking the writing part; good fanfic writing is hard work, too. But when you write fanfic, you post it and move on to the next chapter. When you write original fiction, you have to shop it around to a publisher. Once it gets accepted (assuming it gets accepted), there are edits, (Dreamspinner puts us through two rounds of edits, plus a galley proof edit), and cover art to consider. I was very surprised (and happy) to discover that most smaller publishers give the writers some serious input on our covers. It’s great—but it’s one more thing for us to think about.

But even that isn’t the end. Once a book comes out, you have got to put in a lot of hours promoting yourself in new and creative ways if you want people to be aware that your book exists—if you want the right people to be aware that your book exists (i.e. you have to figure out your demographic and market to it).

I wasn’t interested in doing all that WORK. Writing was fun. It was a hobby. (Please note the intentional use of past tense verbs).

But you know what they say, “never say never.” I sort of got dragged to Dragon*con (yeah, I know, not much of an arm-twist for a science fiction geek—it’s only the biggest science fiction convention in the country, and located a mere hop, skip, and jump from my home town… okay 13 hours’ drive. But still: Entirely doable!) In the art show there was this painting and standing there looking at it, I started thinking “what if…?” again. What if instead of a woman and a presumably male werewolf, it was a man and a female werewolf…oh, wait, better yet, what if they were both men…. Now, how do they meet, oh I know… and I was off. I started writing my ideas that night in my hotel room.

By July, my 89,000 word novel, Heart’s Home, was done. I’d taken elements of the werewolf “history” I created for my Torchwood stories (sans the alien origin part, I never did like that, but it’s Doctor Who cannon so I went with it for my fanfiction), elaborated on it a bit (I can’t believe no one’s called me on exactly where I got the idea of different werewolf “types” based on what phase of the moon wolves are born—although I did change it up a bit to make it mine…and avoid lawsuits).

But then the Big Question loomed: “now what do I do?” I could post my story online—or I could try, one more time, to see if anybody wanted it.

Much to my delighted surprise, somebody did!

So here I am. Promoting. *grin*

One of the biggest adjustments for me has been the lack of instant gratification, because when you write fanfiction, you write a chapter, polish it a little and post it (I was posting a chapter every day or two). And then in come the accolades, the “oh how amazing!” “I loved it” “How could you leave us on the cliffhanger, you evil woman! Update SOON!!!” All of which does wonders for a writer’s ego. You don’t get that kind of instant gratification with original fiction. You can sit around for days, staring at Good Reads, praying for a good review, which is not only detrimental to one’s ego, but it’s not a very productive use of time, either.

Which brings me to the other major adjustment I had to make. I’m no longer just a hobbyist. Writing is still fun, but it’s a job now. (Like many people, I was unemployed for a rather long time, and when it became abundantly clear that I was not going to be able to find the kind of “day job” I went to school for, we decided as a family that I would do this writing thing full time.) But that means putting in a 40 hour week. That’s not always easy when you’re not punching a time clock. You also have to decide what constitutes “work” and what’s just “goofing around on the ’Net.” Discipline is not one of my strong suits. (And it took a heck of a long time for me to convince my friends and family that just because I’m not punching a clock doesn’t mean I’m not sitting at home twiddling my thumbs, waiting for them to come up with some favor they need from me).

And did I mention that you have to promote yourself until you’re blue in the face? Fanfiction writers don’t have to promote, they just have to write.

The beauty (and curse) of the changes in publishing technology means that there is more original fiction out there than ever before. The competition for attention is fierce. (Fortunately most of the writers I know are actually really cool people who don’t really see it as a competition, at least not in any direct way; it’s not me against Michael here, it’s both of us trying to promote our work and find the readers who best love what we’ve written). Getting your books and short stories in the hands of readers who will appreciate them is twice as much work as actually writing those books and short stories to begin with.

For me the transition to writing original fiction was easy—really I’ve been doing it for a very long time. The transition to selling it has been challenging.

Anyone who seriously wants to sell their work needs to A) research the market. It is a changing world out there! Ebooks and POD publishing have changed everything. B) be prepared to do a lot of legwork, a lot of self-promotion, and a lot of advertising. (Setting an advertising budget that is realistic helps! Weigh your royalties against the cost of swag and ads and figure out what’s likely to pay off, i.e., not put you in the red.) C) be prepared to network. Authors are very often introverts (who else wants to sit all alone with their fingers glued to a computer instead of going to that party or hanging out with the family on a beautiful summer day?) We introverts have a notoriously difficult time getting out there and mingling with people. I have three words of advice: get over it. Get out there and rub elbows!

And lastly, (but probably most importantly) if you really want to be a successful writer, you have to find the time to keep writing! The bigger your back catalogue becomes, the more likely it is that readers will find one of your books/short stories.

Thanks for reading and a HUGE thank you to Michael for having me here today!

My website: helenpattskyn.com

My Dreamspinner Author Page: https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/index.php?cPath=55_534

My fanfiction can be found here: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/605536/Helen-Pattskyn

(Just bear in mind, none of them are edited, none of them are polished, and I will own every one of those spelling and punctuation errors! I have a few unfinished stories that may, someday, get finished).