Fanfiction has a poor reputation. It’s often considered cheap imitation or low quality. A lot of the time, however, that reputation is undeserved. There are a lot of talented writers out there who use fanfiction to explore their own creativity, and many popular writers even got their start in fanfiction (Cassandra Clare and E. L. James immediately spring to mind).

I got into the fanfiction world through video games. Games are fantastic at telling stories, but there were often parts that I found myself wanting to know more about, like what my favourite characters would do with their downtime, or how people imagined the characters’ lives continuing after the game had ended. I wasn’t alone in this and found that people made most fanfiction in the fandoms I was curious about with the same desires. I wanted to explore the world that I had immersed myself in with characters I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to yet.

A few years ago, I started writing fanfiction myself, not only to explore the lore of worlds I had immersed myself in but as dedicated time to practice my craft. When I’m in between jobs and don’t have a project of my own going on, I never let myself sit idle. The only way a writer improves is by writing every day, and fanfiction allowed me to improve my skills without the added load of having to create my own world. What I discovered was that there was a lot I could learn, not only through the act of writing but from observing and analysing the works of others. And best of all? The fanfiction community is amazingly supportive of writers of all levels.

Here are the top five ways I discovered that fanfiction can improve your writing:

1. Use anonymity to write outside your comfort zone

One of the best pieces of advice a mentor gave me was to write as if your mother will never read it. I used to struggle writing sex and violence because every time I tried, I worried about how it would make people view me. It’s a natural social hangup, and one of the things I think keeps a lot of new writers from ever realising their potential – an inbuilt prudishness that is difficult to overcome.

Fanfiction is a great way to move past your self-imposed hangups. The fanfiction community doesn’t use real names. Every writer remains anonymous unless they actively choose to share their identities. This anonymity is a perfect mask to write in styles, subjects, and on topics that would usually make you nervous. Getting used to the idea of writing outside your comfort zone, and experiencing real-life feedback on that writing without having it associated with your real-world identity, is a surefire way to move past those hangups and apply it to your regular writing.

2. Learn from the mistakes of others

While there is some excellent quality fanfiction out there, not all of it is as polished or developed as we’re used to from our mainstream reading habits. Fanfiction is often put out into the world at the first draft stage, which is something we, as readers, don’t often get to see. You can use this as a fantastic opportunity to analyse work at all stages of completion.

If a writer has used a technique or did something in a way that doesn’t read well, take a step back and ask yourself why that is. What is it about that sentence or paragraph that doesn’t sit right with you? How would you fix it? Is it something you can apply to your own work? By highlighting mistakes or inconsistencies in the work of others, you’ll learn how to recognise it in your own, and improve your work accordingly.

3. Learn about worldbuilding

The narrative worlds in which fanfiction is based are already well established. Writers have spent a long time polishing those worlds to a gleaming finish. What fanfiction does, is fit in the spaces left in those worlds, developing it beyond what even the original writers could have imagined. By reading a wide variety of fanfiction you can see not only how writers subvert established worlds, but also how they expand them within an already provided framework.

When you consider stories that you enjoy, what parts of those do you wish had more development? How are fanfiction writers developing those ideas? You can look at what parts of the narrative people gravitate to, and use that in your own writing, making sure you flesh out your own worldbuilding to really highlight and clarify the parts that you might otherwise have overlooked.

4. Practice new techniques and develop your skills within a structured world

My biggest draw to fanfiction was to practice my writing in a world that I didn’t have to create from scratch. One of the most challenging parts of fiction writing is coming up with new ideas and worldbuilding. It ends up taking a lot of mental energy just to develop a new plot or idea, and after that, there is very little energy left to practice the bare bones of narrative writing, like character development, writing realistic conversation, or description.

With fanfiction, the heavy-lifting of worldbuilding has already been done for you. I essentially had a sandbox in which I could play freely, trying out new narrative techniques, and really pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. Using an established framework allowed me to create a character and insert them into an already highly-developed world. It taught me a lot about world-appropriate characterisation, gave me the chance to play with different scenarios, focus on character specifics, and subvert tropes.

5. Learn what readers are drawn to

One of the lesser discussed aspects of fanfiction is learning about reader psychology. You can get a lot of insight into what readers want from how they react to certain stories. It’s a great way to research for your own work – see what types of stories readers are drawn to, and read comments on stories to find out which characters, events, and moments spoke to them. In this way, you’ll gain insight into what readers are looking for.

If you really want to go in-depth with this, you can use platforms like Wattpad that give you analytics on your readership. Not only will you know how many people are reading your story, but you’ll also know what countries their from, their gender breakdown, their age groupings, which chapters of your story had the most readers, and whether you’re keeping your readership engaged (or if they stop reading halfway through a chapter). In this way, you’ll be able to tailor your work to a specific audience.

There are lots of reasons why reading fanfiction is a worthwhile endeavour. It allows both readers and writers to explore themselves and the worlds they love beyond the mainstream media. The best thing is, unlike many writing groups or writing classes, fanfiction communities are full of people eager to both read, write, and provide feedback. As a writer, you’ll be writing for real people, with real feedback on what they like and don’t like. It’s not just an academic exercise; it’s real engagement.