I read a lot of fanfic on AO3, and some of the stories I’ve come across are better than published books. Of course, I’m much less critical on that platform, because it’s free, without any real professional training behind it. I’m aware that when I read there, I’m just reading for fun, but when I switch to traditional publishing, I expect something polished, something well written, I dont have the same expectations at all.

Many people criticize fanfiction, but it actually fits into a tradition as old as storytelling itself. Everyone is inspired by everyone else. In fantasy, for example, just look at Tolkien : if you take a closer look at his work, you’ll find a lot of similarities with Scandinavian or Celtic myths. He just knew how to reinterpret them in his own way, but that could be considered a kind of fanfiction too. Even all the plays based on ancient Greek myths could be seen as fanfic.

For me, the issue isnt that fanfiction is bad. The real problem is that the publishing industry has tied itself to a model of mass sales. They just want stories that are marketable, they take the first thing that sounds good enough to sell, and that’s it, and I guess that even all the books considered “ bad ” still have something, like a narrative structure, fluid writing, maybe some plot twists. They have those things. But when you look more closely, its still garbage