I can think of nothing more educational for a writer than fanfic.

Word, Connie. I learned a hell of a lot more through writing and editing fic than I did in my one formal creative writing class (at an Ivy League institution, no less).

But that's not the content, it's the process. Fic is in many ways about community -- fic is how I engage with a show, and how I engage with a fandom. I leave to others the intense 30K character analyses and symbolic explications. Me, I write fic.

Ooh, I can't sleep, and I don't want to work, so I'm rereading my Smallville and dS fic favorites. This shit rocks. You know it's a good story-- or maybe you just know that you're a dork, which, also pretty applicable-- when you can't stop giggling from sheer vicarious happiness *and* you keep welling up with tears so you have to go to the bathroom and just sort of slump against the door for a minute making weird noises, and then blow your nose with toilet paper.

I learned a hell of a lot more through writing and editing fic than I did in my one formal creative writing class (at an Ivy League institution, no less).

Consuela is me. I've had more fun beta-reading for people from 14-40 than I ever did as a teacher. It's amazing to see someone really start to understand how a story works, how to feed exposition into the story, and so on.

I have a somewhat daring suggestion: What if we invited Rio's friend into the forum for a little while so he could ask questions and float some theories? Would that raise too many privacy red flags?

I know there's Dr Who as well - Kalima has some lovely Dr Who stories over at fanfiction net (and she's also published one Dr Who novel, co-authored with some chap) and it's, what, a dozen years since Dr Who was on air.

According to the Dr Who fandom and the BBC (which licenses the novels), Dr Who isn't dead, it's just moved to another medium. I know this because I supervised a (crappy) Honours thesis about it.

What if we invited Rio's friend into the forum for a little while so he could ask questions and float some theories? Would that raise too many privacy red flags?

Well, those of us who post publicly in this thread and talk about fic already admit to writing fic. I don't use my own name for a reason here. I suppose the interviewer could ask anyone he/she quotes whether they want to go by their pseud or their legal name.

But anyone, of course, is welcome to join in and talk here, so long as they comply with the community standards of courtesy and respect.

The stuff that wasn't covered in my formal creative writing class is legion. All I remember is "look in the mirror", which only helps if you're doing semi-autobiographical fiction. But I learned all about the mechanics of writing from fic: pov, voice, structure, metaphor and theme...

The other great thing about writing fic is that unless I'm submitting something to a very picky archive, I don't have to worry about getting turned down by a publisher. When you're writing original fiction, people keep asking you when you're going to have a best-seller, when's the book going to be published, etc. That's a kind of pressure I don't have to deal with as much when writing fan fiction.

Also, if I want to try something truly experimental in form or content, I can float it out on to the Web or run it by y'all on Bitchy fic and get some great feedback. Speaking of feedback, another thing I love about internet posting is that I can always go back and fix things.

What if we invited Rio's friend into the forum for a little while so he could ask questions and float some theories? Would that raise too many privacy red flags?

It would raise my own personal privacy red flags.

And I don't think he's doing a piece on, like, WHAT IS SLASH or WHY DOES SLASH EXIST. He's talking about this one particular thing that people do--keeping old shows alive in their hearts by writing new stories about them.

I love being able to test-run things in Live Journal, and I love writing with partners. I love improvs and AIM-riffing, though I haven't been in AIM much lately.

Like Dana said, Rio, there are places where you can find older shows kept alive via fic. I know there was a Virtual Season 4 of Millennium underway. There's lots of X-Files fic being written now but set in earlier seasons (pre-baby). And, of course, lots of stuff is still being written about dueSouth and The Sentinel and LFN despite the fact they were all cancelled a while back.

I've even heard of Bonanza fic still being written. *g*

And I posted a little snippet of Robin of Sherwood fic this summer, in response to an LJ challenge. That show died in, what, 1985?

I love improvs and AIM-riffing, though I haven't been in AIM much lately.

Speaking of which, will you be around tonight? I might be looking for someone to riff with -- even if we do have disparate fandoms.