#but picking up a pulp novel from the 60s will fix your ideas about published writing never having those tropes prganically really quick.

[fvckw4d]

Writing fanfiction doesnt teach you "bad habits," it teaches you how to write fanfiction. Just like learning how to draw cartoons as a teenager doesnt teach you bad habits about drawing, it teaches you how to draw cartoons. It's fucking weird to frame it as though all cartoonists tell the same stories in the same ways and have all the same styles and strengths and weaknesses, and that the natural end goal is to gain a following and stop drawing cartoons. It's weird to act like there are no stories that you can ONLY tell with cartoons, that cartoons can never tell meaningful stories, and that cartoonists have no future in a professional setting.

People use "fanfiction" to mean "writing that takes shortcuts" but every time people list all those shortcuts, I always think of some type of professional writing that had those same flaws or does those same things. I always end up thinking of fanfiction that doesnt do those things.

So I have nothing against fan fiction, I've even done some of it at times.

but I think its important to realize it teaches writers bad habits, namely, when you're writing with established characters you don't have to introduce them, flush them out, characterize them (as much) because that work has already been done, the reader already knows and likes the character thats why they're here for more of a character someone else established.

which is fine, again, totally fine. However, I've noticed more and more in fiction I pick up lately characters seeming, undercooked, and with other stylistic tropes it really seems to be with authors who started off in Fan Fiction.

I do think Fan Fiction is a good starting point for getting an audience and getting feed back and building your confidence, but you have to realize that like there are some things in original work that aren't in fan fiction so you're not practicing them when you write fan fiction.