Insanely long fanfics

[Mr.lucifer]

Now I know a lot of you couldn't give a **** about fanfiction(I don't blame you), because its written by mostly young people who are writing works using the original materials of others and nearly all of it makes dan brown like a master writer.

I made this discussion because of the enormous amount of fanficition out there that are around 1000 pages long or longer. My main point is that a lot of these fanfic writers could become writers with this sort of dedication. A few of them are actually decent writers. There are many fanfics out there that are even longer than war and peace. Let me give you an example.

FanFiction.Net, lists 326 Harry Potter stories longer than the 255,000-word Order of the Phoenix, the longest in the series, many of these incomplete. 686 are longer than Goblet of Fire's 191,000 words
http://www.fanfiction.net/book/Harry_Potter/10/0/1/1/255/0/0/0/0/1/
http://www.fanfiction.net/book/Harry_Potter/10/0/1/1/191/0/0/0/0/1/

least seventeen FF.Net stories have over a million words, with the Ah My Goddess fanfic Trial By Tenderness having recently broken the 2 million mark — at Harry Potter word-per-page rates, that's 6,800 pages, and over three times the length of Atlas Shrugged. Its not even complete yet.

Undocumented Features clocks in at approximately 20 megabytes of pure ASCII text. That's 3.5 million words long

The teen titans fanfic Those Black eyes is over 2 million words long and has 214 chapters. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4778437/1/These_Black_Eyes_A_Re_Post_Ing_r

Then there's Lightning on the Wave's Alternate Universe Harry Potter epic known as the Sacrifices Arc. It's posted as 7 separate stories (mirroring the 7-book format of the HP series), so the site doesn't record the full tale's word count. It clocks in at just over 3 million words. Surprisingly enough (for a fanfic), it's actually a complete story. The author wrote it between September '05 and Jan '07, posting an average of 6400 words per day.

Full Circle Chapters: 126 - Words: 877,380
The Subspace Emissary's Worlds ConquestChapters: 171 - Words: 2,630,406 (its not even complete!)
Heart of the PhoenixChapters: 40 - Words: 974,489 (still going)
Tamers Requiem, Book 3: Less than Human Chapters: 194 - Words: 1,116,371 (still going)
. One Piece: A Smash AdventureChapters: 138 - Words: 1,068,241
Urusei Yatsura The Senior YearChapters: 90 - Words: 1,488,201
. The Dilgar War Chapters: 104 - Words: 1,216,226
. Usagi, A Saiyan Child Chapters: 170 - Words: 957,960 ( was never finished)
. Gundam SEED: Chaotic Cosmos Chapters: 107 - Words: 1,016,272
A World of Adventure and CollisionChapters: 89 - Words: 1,125,836
Hugs and KissesChapters: 278 - Words: 2,171,735
. Kingdom Hearts: Final ConfrontationChapters: 145 - Words: 1,341,453
. Sailor Moon ARChapters: 318 - Words: 1,367,577
. Suikoden One HalfChapters: 84 - Words: 829,529
. Ranma, the Second Time AroundChapters: 93 - Words: 1,010,374
Hybrid TheoryChapters: 32 - Words: 1,226,077

Why aren't these people using this sort of dedication to writing actual original stories? I know just because they can write a story thats worth 3000 pages does not meant they would write decen quality novels. they would most likely be mediocre at best. But I think if they dedicated this sort of dedication to wiritng an original story and put their minds to it, they come up with something decent. I do realize that quanity doe not equal quality.

Just to give you an idea of how long ther works compare to the length of the longest novels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest_novels

[gruntingslime]

They've probably just acted on something that inspired them. A lot of times new ideas don't just pop into my head, I'll have to actually sit down and think out both structure and storyline (while other times I'll be flooding with new ideas)... So these people might just be inspired by stories or TV shows, films, etc. and decided that they would write that instead.

Particularly with film, I've always wondered why there are so many adaptations and remakes, in comparison to the amount of new material... But I have myself been inspired by some pre-existing art forms, particularly things from my childhood. I've never actually tried writing something based off them (script/novel/etc.) but I have fantasized about creating film versions of books (for example) that I've loved as a child...

So that's probably the reason why. They are just not over-thinking it. They're merely inspired and go and write. Regardless of the quality of their writing, and the fact that I will probably never read anything a fan-fiction writer has written (which is fan-fiction) I can still admire their inspiration and, as you said, the way they've sat down and really pumped it out. Not that it's about quantity, but to be honest I have a hard time writing a page, so from that standpoint I could even say that I am envious of these people who are able to really get it out of them.

[Wilde woman]

There is some incredibly good fan-fiction out there. I don't know if I would classify it as literature, but I'm surprised by how good the quality of some of the stuff is. Of course there's total rubbish, but I think if the cream of the crop could get published, they'd sell quite well.

As for originality, it's all relative. No writing comes from a complete vacuum, so one could technically argue that all writing is, on some level, derivative. Fan-fiction writers just choose to celebrate their inspirations more blatantly.

A little off-topic, but I think writing on the Internet - what with blogs and fan-fiction, etc. - is very interesting and will contribute to literature in the future. Lots of schools now have minors or tracks within their English/Comp Lit departments that study digital literature.

[TomKohlsi]

It's rather a shame that these people don't apply themselves into transforming these 1 milion word 'fanfics' into actual literary bounty. However, I agree that there are some truly amazing fanfics out there.... and then there are examples such as 'my immortal'' (no comment).

[PeterL]

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

[Alexander III]

"wit is the fool's mask"

[TomKohlsi]

Alexander, you digress :-P. But seriously, I agree that if these people applied their talents into origional pieces, there would be a great deal more published works by younger authors than there are currently....if you know what I mean :-)

[Delta40]

My daughter is an avid FanFic writer. As a young person, she falls in love with characters from books/tv. She then creates her own fantasy of what ought to happen - as if she were shaping her own destiny. She has written some original pieces. All brilliant, yet too personal for her to reveal them, in case she gets rejected! Irony. I don't know why, but I consider FanFic a passing adolescent phase. Some of them would make brilliant ghost writers too!