fanfiction is weird.

I say that as someone who adores and loves and writes fanfiction.

You see, fanfiction fulfills a particular function: it corrects something. Maybe a scene of a television show cut off before a character announced some life-shattering news and it thus happened off-camera. The solution? Write fanfic explaining what happened, or find someone else who did and read theirs. The scene fades to black after a couple tumbles into bed but you want more? Write or read fanfic. Two characters never meet but you imagine they would have had amazing chemistry? Write or read fanfic. A show ends after two amazing seasons, but you wish you knew what had happened after? Write or read fanfic. (Or contribute to a Kickstarter campaign, for some lucky fandoms.)

In some (many) fandoms, fanfic isn't limited to canon pairings. If a couple's arc played out perfectly on screen or in canon in the fans' opinions, the fandom in general* feels less desire to read or write fanfic about that particular pairing.

*I'm aware that "general" is incredibly reductive, and of course specific cases may be different.

The Nancy Drew fandom is technically over eighty years old—the fandom itself, not the members, though I'm sure some elderly people would describe themselves as Nancy Drew fans. The canon pairing in the fandom is Nancy Drew/Ned Nickerson.

Fandom, according to my research (which may be a bit biased), actually prefers Nancy/Ned as the canon pairing.

The majority of the fanfic, however, is Nancy Drew/Frank Hardy.

Why does this matter? Partially because I hate that pairing, partially because a lot of people looking for fanfiction favor that pairing. This means that when I publish a story on a site like Fanfiction.net, few people are even looking for it, since it focuses on the nonpreferred Nancy/Ned pairing; few people read it; and fewer people comment on it. Granted, those who do read it are generally glad it exists, and I'm grateful for their readership.

I feel discouraged, though, when I see other stories on the site with many, many more reviews and hits. Sometimes I read one story, just to see what's going on... and it hasn't been spellchecked or edited, the content is abysmal, and some characterization is entirely incorrect. That depresses me more. What am I doing wrong? I wonder.

If I really wanted to make an experiment out of this, I would write a Nancy/Frank piece and see if that's the problem. I hate that idea, though. Nancy/Ned is the pairing I love, and writing Nancy/Frank would be like bashing nursery alphabet blocks together in a flaily manner. I wouldn't enjoy it, not at all. It would make me feel dirty. I understand how foolish that sounds, but it's true.

I have been very appreciative of the readers I do have, though, and when they tell me that they love my work or that I should consider professional writing, it really does make me happy. I just feel a little nervous about it, though. But I'll be able to tell soon enough, I suppose. And if my original writing doesn't sell, well, at least I tried.