Fanfic But With OCs - Tumblr Posts

Anyone else start as a fanfic writer then started writing your own original ideas, and the best way to do it is to write your drafts like fanfiction of your own work? Like that's the only way I get stuff done.

I write a story with the characters I like, write an arc with facts about the world and characters as it becomes relevant, no real point to the scenes except me having fun with a scene I happen to be enjoying. I take a character I wanna have fun with, say "Go do that important thing so we have a plot while you show off how cool you are", then add random ideas that sound generic but fun to act as story beats. They went to a town, they got beat up by monsters, they discovered a super power, they make friends.

I take breaks between writing the story to obsess over other stuff, then come back when I have an epiphany in the shower a month later and quickly resolve the current arc in order to jump them into the next one. Like, there's still continuity, they mention "Hey we just went through something, wanna talk about your feelings?" "Not really man, wanna go on a quest for that Macguffin and uncover our deep-seated issues that way?" "Sure!" But the story follows a barely-connected story beat with side characters and new world building for the new adventure. And then this happens over and over.

Then I come back, one day.

I'm 600 pages into this Sysphian writing style of starting arcs that have barely any organization yet undeniable continuity and I think to myself, "Man, what if I just start the whole thing over now that I know where the story KINDA goes." So I start writing my second draft...like it's a fanfic of my original draft. I can do whatever the hell I want with these quirky facts about the characters, maybe translate one hobby into a backstory, take this tragic fact about the backstory and make it into an actual trait that defines how they react to situations, take these two characters that would TOTALLY get along and make them friends, I can take a character who should be getting introduced way later and just introduce them now!

And then it's...it's good? It's something I would genuinely read without cringing at??

It's got foreshadowing and interpersonal conflict and secret passions and even more secret traumas and it's humorous and the introduction of characters or quests actually seem to...make sense??? Like oh shit there's actually a REASON we want this thing, it's not a Macguffin anymore! Oh crap these two characters who were later revealed to be related can have a really interesting dynamic if I introduce them like they know from the beginning they're related instead of dropping it like the most casual thing ever in an arc 300 pages later??? These two characters are prominent figures so they would likely get along but have SO much sass between their one braincell. Ya know, this guy would be a really great guy for them to talk to in order to solve that weakness they have, but they wouldn't fix it because they don't get along. OH MY GOD I COULD SHIP THESE TWO AND IT WOULD BE PERFECT -

And what I get is a story where a lot of things have changed, mainly plot-wise, but the bare bones of the former story is still there. I think "Would this character know anything about this topic?" and then think "Well I made them an inventor with a backstory like this, so maybe they wouldn't know it directly, but they'd know a famous story about it" or "Yeah, that knowledge works with their backstory. Actually, if I take that thing I can expand it into this whole other thing. Wait, that means they would definitely know this other character. Oh, they would NOT get along with this character, how can I get THEM in the same room?"

Bonus, because my draft is so long, I feel the natural urge to be like "I wanna write the most exciting scene RIGHT NOW, how do I skip over all the fluff to get to the stuff I wanna WORK with" and so I've written a way more interesting hook that feels more natural jumping into the middle of their lives. I don't have to have the long-winded backstory from birth to the present, but now I can have them reference their backstory as more of a mystery to the characters they just meet - who are learning at the same time as the audience. I can think about how this character perceives that backstory and chooses to describe it, how another who was related might see it differently, and make it unclear who had the more accurate recounting since, ya know, I didn't actually write it beat for beat in this version!

The characters sometimes evolve into something completely different from my original telling - and I have NO IDEA how but I'll take it man! I had a shy and nice character get introduced as a more mysterious but knowledgeable and competent character because I had finally figured his personality out later on. He's still a tragic and kind person, but now he's being introduced to someone who doesn't know him and I get to see how yo he would be so much cooler if THIS was the side of him we saw FIRST. This is how he acts to strangers, rather than bearing his heart and true personality on the first go around because in the first draft I just wanted to get to the part where we're already going with his true version.

This is just how I write fanfiction. This character had this thing about them, but what if it was introduced like THIS?!

Basically I'm an AU OC writer at heart. Ask me to pull a story outta my ass and you'll get the equivalent of burnt toast, but ask me to write a fanfic of my own characters and I am a Master Chef in my natural habitat making a buffet. Why does my brain work like this? Am I the only one that does this?