Fanfic thoughts

I've been wondering about fanfic lately, and what people feel they learn from it as writers. In the most basic sense I think fanfic's obviously a great tool for a writer. You can practice all the most basic things about writing and, most importantly, put your work in front of an audience to get feedback. FF.net aside, this fandom is full of some incredibly good critics and teachers.

But I was also thinking about how in some ways fanfic flies by its own rules. Most obviously you're working with somebody else's universe and characters (even if you change them) so there's a huge amount of work done for you. But you've also got an audience that already knows what you're talking about half the time--so you can write a drabble and have it be appreciated. I write for some mass market series which are paid fanfic, but with different demands. I can't change the characters in any fundamental ways in those series, but the original stories in the books also need to reflect the shows upon which they're based. The story in the book has to have a plot like an episode of the show would have, it's not going to be character based where the show is plot-based. ( Going on... )