This chapter talks about why writing fanfic is harder than you might think.

Read the disclaimer if you haven't already.

An additional disclaimer for this chapter: I will be talking about reader habits in this chapter and why they can make writing fanfic harder. I want to state very clearly that I don't mean all readers. I don't even mean half of them. Writers wouldn't exist without readers, and I think I speak on behalf of writers when I say we appreciate readers more than we can say.

This chapter's only purpose is to raise awareness about toxic shipping and expectations and how that impacts a fanfic writer. If you aren't a toxic shipper and/or you don't place unrealistic expectations on authors, then I'm not talking about you.

Most of this is based on my experience, so your experience may have been different and you are welcome to disagree.

I think everyone knows that writing in any capacity is difficult, but many look down on fanfic because it's "easier."

Yes, it can be easier to a certain extent because you have characters to work with, and in many cases, themes, worlds, and plots to incorporate into your world as well. So maybe you don't have to do as much creative work such as creating a character or world from scratch.

However, fanfic writers struggle with two things original story writers (mostly) do not.

Shipping and expectations.

When reading a fanfic, something I've noticed as compared to when I've written original stories is that readers are more insane with shipping.

I've been writing online for over a decade, so when I say original stories, I mean originals I've written on other websites, not Wattpad.

This isn't an example toxic shipping, but it is intense shipping: my story, Like Crazy. The second something bad happened to Jimin, my entire comment section got filled with "Namjoon x Y/n" "Jungkook x Y/n" "Yoongi x Y/n." 

Why can't it just be "What's Y/n gonna do now?"

And, if I'm being honest, I deleted the Namjoon x Y/n comments because they genuinely concerned me, joking or not. Slight spoilers: he literally murdered one of her closest friends right in front of her and burned her town to the ground. Why would they get together-

It was a bit disheartening to see my comment section full of people immediately moving on to Yoongi x Y/n, or Jungkook x Y/n, or Namjoon x Y/n instead of thinking about Y/n, or hell, even Kastor. Kastor and Park have probably the best relationship in the story behind Y/n and Jimin. Poor Kastor, bro.

Whether it was a joking comment or a serious one, I've never written stories for sake of shipping characters. I write stories that happen to have ships in them. I want to write thought-provoking material that transcends the average fanfic on Wattpad. I love writing romance, which is why I include it in most of my works (even works without Y/ns), but story comes before ships. I'm not going to change the plot or ending for sake of appeasing a ship.

And I mean no offense to my Like Crazy readers who did this. You guys are awesome and I love you all; without you, Like Crazy would be a blip in my history. None of that is meant with ill intent. As a writer, I hope you understand I have feelings too and sometimes comments can make me feel a certain way, good or bad, whether the commenter intended it or not.

Shipping is a prominent part in fanfic. It's the main reason why so many readers read fanfic to begin with.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to read ship fics. Read whatever you want, it's your personal time and the thing you enjoy. I'm not about to tell you to stop reading what you like, y'know?

And there's no "but" coming. You do you. Nothing wrong with that, really.

My only point is that some fanfic authors who don't prioritize shipping get heat from people who do because they're expecting ships to come when that isn't the type of story the author is writing.

I've talked about this before, but Adrift was only supposed to have Jimin x Y/n and Hoseok x Seulgi. Now there's Taekook, Yoonphire, Jinya, etc. And that's because of pressure from readers wanting ships in a story about aliens and Jimin overcoming his weaknesses.

(Disclaimer: I wrote Adrift on other websites before I published it on Wattpad, so none of the pressure came from Wattpad)

I also received a lot of hate on ao3 because of toxic shippers. More particularly, Taekookers. I wrote a Taekook story on ao3, and Jimin being in it caused my comments to become "Get your sh*tty Jimin out of this story" and other terrible things I don't feel comfortable repeating.

Jimin was literally there to help Jungkook and was his business partner. Jungkook had a crush on him in the past, but I established very early that there wasn't going to be a love triangle and Jimin didn't feel the same for Jungkook. Even if there was a love triangle, that doesn't mean I deserved hate for Jimin simply existing in the story. Toxic shippers need to go, seriously.

All of that is to say that original stories do deal with toxic shippers, but not to the same extent as fanfics. At least, in my experience.

Next is expectations. When you're writing in an established fandom, readers are going to have expectations for how the characters play out, especially for fandoms like BTS where the only thing you have to go off of is the characters. Unless you're taking from their MVs, BTS don't really... have a plot...

Readers have expectations for how BTS are going to act in a story. Not all readers, but some of them. Thanks to this, I've had many readers tell me that *insert BTS member here* wouldn't act that way in real life, or *insert BTS member here* would fit a certain role better (for example, Namjoon as the leader instead of another BTS member being a leader).

Yes, in real life, this would be true. Namjoon would be the best leader. But I'm writing fiction, not reality. I'm writing fictional characters based on BTS, but they are not BTS. I'm not flying to South Korea, kidnapping the seven, then shoving them into my stories, y'know?

Do not confuse them with real life people. Namjoon is a fantastic leader, but in the fiction world, there's nothing wrong with exploring a path where, say, Yoongi is a leader instead.

Maybe, just maybe, I'm dropping a teaser for a future story of mine where Yoongi is a leader... 🤭🤭🤭

If every BTS fanfic followed the BTS members' personalities perfectly, then most BTS fanfics wouldn't exist.

The bad boy category is one of the most popular in BTS fanfic. Yeah, Jimin is such bad boy in real life, he'd definitely play with your heart and not care about your feelings, right? The same person who almost sobbed when he found out Taehyung was crying and said "My baby :(" before sprinting at full speed to go comfort him. 

Yeah. Totally a bad boy who doesn't care about your feelings.

Cold lovers? You think PARK JIMIN, the man who can't take his hands off Jungkook's left tiddy, would be a cold lover?

You think Jeon Jungkook, the man who physically cannot resist slapping Jimin's ass to Pluto every chance he gets, would be a cold lover?

And those are just two examples. Even Yoongi wouldn't be a "cold" lover, necessarily. He's more soft-spoken and keeps to himself, but he enjoys being warm with the people he cares about, he's just not as open about it as other members like Jikook. So while Yoongi is, in my opinion, the most convincing "cold" lover, I still don't think he'd be very... cold, y'know?

So, yeah, moral of the story, BTS are never going to act 100% like BTS in fanfic. Don't expect them to unless an author is actively trying to write BTS exactly like their real life counterparts.

There's nothing wrong with writing your characters the way you want to write them. Readers may have expectations, but that doesn't mean you have to listen to them.

Just remember fiction is fiction, not reality. We're not going to write BTS 100% accurate to the real life BTS. Not only would that restrict our creative freedom, but it'd become pretty boring if we had to write the same characters over and over again.

I'm writing a story (Flawed) where Jimin is more closed off and extremely distrusting. He's, in general, very cold. Pretty much the opposite of how Jimin acts irl. Sure, he's still got his wittiness and sassiness, but how he acts around others is different. It's honestly really fun to write and such a breath of fresh air.

So to anyone who doubted how hard fanfic is to write, remember that, in general, fanfic writers are more likely to get pressure from their readers due to the genre they're writing in. I've written both originals and fanfics on multiple websites, and fanfic has always mentally drained me a lot more than the originals.

But hey, maybe that will change when I drop my big original story on this website. If it changes, I'll let you know.

I know this chapter wasn't a writing error or anything like that, but I hope it was a fun read and, for other fanfic writers, I hope it was validating since I know you guys go through a lot and have pleeeenty of stories about hate you've received and/or weird comments that made you uncomfortable.

I'm not sure which chapter I'll do next, but it's likely going to be either prologues, style over substance, why you shouldn't use flashbacks in your first chapter (in most cases), or why I hate character info chapters (those chapters that show a pic of the characters then under it have Name: *insert name*, Age: *insert age*, etc.). Not sure which one I'll do, but all of them are on my list. I have a lot of topics planned, so stay tuned for a lot more content!

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