Make your sharp fan fiction website

Works of fanfiction are more likely to constitute fair use if they are transformative with respect to the original work, if they are non-commercial, if they appropriate relatively little of the original work, and/or if they do not tend to detract from the potential market for or value of the original work.

The two most popular fanfiction sites are Fanfiction.net (FFN) and An Archive of Our Own (AO3). Many fanfiction writers crosspost to both sites, while others prefer to post to only one.

The moral of this story is: never be ashamed of what you enjoy reading. Donʼt let the people who are riding their pretentious high horses tell you that only classics count as real reading. In my opinion, fanfics can be just as good (sometimes better) as the stories that inspired them and as classic literature.

Yes, it is possible to get sued for writing fanfiction, as it generally involves using someone elseʼs copyrighted characters or settings without their permission.

In the USA it is not illegal to read, write, or host fanfic. Thatʼs not necessarily the case in some other countries, where sites like FFN are banned (for instance.)

A lot of creators avoid doing so because if they later write anything similar, they can be sued for stealing ideas, even if they had the idea before reading the fanfiction. Thatʼs also why movie directions and the like donʼt read scripts that are mailed to them.

The legal team working on behalf of Organization for Transformative Works believes that the publication of fan fiction on AO3 is legal under the Fair Use doctrine, meaning that they need to be transformative, which they interpret as giving new meaning to the original work.

Fanfiction is an excellent way to practice writing. Fanfiction writers via community engagement, constructive critiques, drafting, revising, and self-editing, and ultimately practicing their writing skills get a pretty good grasp of their strengths and weaknesses as a writer.