When I was little, I’d imagine myself into X-Files or Star Trek, but that only lasted until I learned about copyrights. Weirdly, despite its popularity, I’ve never really written fanfiction. I may have role played in it with others via text based mediums, but I haven’t tried to story it the same way I do my manuscripts and novel.
When I was little, and I learned about copyrights, it made me fear that I couldn’t use what I made if I made it in someone else’s universe. So when I felt ready, I made my own. My own universe. For my stories.
While I enjoyed role playing sometimes in the universes others have created, its more satisfying to plot out and develop a story within my own. There’s a sense of ownership, a vague sense of pride.
You don’t have to fear the likes of Anne Rice if you make your own stories in your own setting with your own rules. She is historically known for levying the law like a crowbar against her own fanbase. That was weird. That was also another era.
But yeah. If you put so much effort into writing a thing, shouldn’t there be a way for it to support you back? Shouldn’t you be able to sell what you make? That only holds true for original work. Fanfiction, due to the copyright, cannot be sold. So since I was a child, I feel that for myself, fanfiction can be wasted effort, wasted time. And that is a sad thing when I have read things like a sandy reimagining of the world of Vash the Stampede of Trigun that was as epic as the original. It is sad when you can’t earn from your own creation, no matter how epic the end result becomes.
So I stick to my own universe, my own physics and rules and whatnot. My own characters, though some may be inspired by people I know. 😉 I hope you enjoy my stories.