No Fan Fiction? No Problem!

 “This story was actually written in 2016 then I put it away and forgot about it.” These are the words I wrote in an email for a recent short story submission. Why did I decide to just forget about that story after writing it? Because it was a fan fiction story, and outside of fan fiction websites, I wouldn’t have any luck placing the story anywhere.

 

That’s what I thought, anyway.

 

This call for stories that I came across changed my mind. I realized that my story didn’t HAVE to be a fan fiction story in order for it to work! It could be something else entirely. Something along the lines of my very own story with my very own characters with my very own ideas.

 

So that’s what I turned my short story into when I revised it before submitting it. I didn't use the same characters, I changed names, and I changed some other things in order to make it different. Doing all those things didn’t hurt the story at all. Sure, it made the story just your average sci-fi story, but it was no longer a fan fiction story. It no longer had characters in it somebody else owned the rights to, and the vehicle they used for time travel was not the same thing as in the story which somebody else wrote. (I had to do research on things used for time travel in fiction to make sure I wasn’t infringing on any other copyrighted material!)

 

Changing my story from “fan fiction” to “regular fiction” was not very hard to do. With just a few changes, it was my very own story.

 

And I knew that I could not have gotten that done if I had been too attached to keeping the story a fan fiction story. I mean, it’s just a short story! I could write tons of other stories and lots of other similar fan fiction stories.

 

Not only this, but I kept the original story, just in case I ever one day grow nostalgic for the franchise.

 

But the important thing is that I was willing to make those changes. I was not too attached to a story I’d written 8 years ago that I was unwilling to turn it into something I could send out for publication. I was willing to change a fan fiction story into something that was my own story, without another writer’s character or another writer’s copyrighted material.

 

It remains to be seen if this story will get accepted for the anthology. If not, I’ll have another story to add to my files to send out if I ever find somewhere else where it might fit.