‘Why read classics when Wattpad exists?’

After two hours of clapping hooting and shedding tears of happiness Aditi Sutar 19 knew what she was going to do as she exited the movie theatre after watching Haikyu The Dumpster Battle The 30minute train ride back home was filled with her frantically scrolling through the fanfiction portal Archive of Our Own or AO3 as avid users call it reading stories about Tetsur Kuroo a beloved side character from the movie By the end of her journey shersquod read a good chunk of fairly well written lsquoficsrsquo and she was home in more than one wayFanfiction like the name suggests are stories written by fans featuring characters from their favourite book movie or show but in an entirely different plot of their creationCritics look down upon the genre for its lack of originality and seemingly poor writing but more than one uberfamous movie or book has its origin in fanfiction be it Fifty Shades of Grey or the After movie seriesAnanya Sutar and Ditsha GuptaThe recently released Amazon original series The Idea of You also had its humble origin as a story posted on community publishing platform Wattpad with Harry Styles as the main inspiration behind the male protagonistmdasha popstar played by Nicholas Galitzine who romances an older woman played by Anne HathawayFanfiction is not a recent phenomenonmdashpeople have been publishing fanzines since the rsquo60s But with easier internet access we now see young adults who have been engaging with the format since they were as young as 11 or 12 Among them is Aditi who started reading fanfiction since she first got access to the internet and began writing her own stories shortly after Shersquos among millions of people whose adolescence was shaped by the bright orange pages of Wattpad the verbose scary and accurate content tags on A03 community forums on Discord and questionable artworks on DeviantArtTherersquos a myriad of things you can do with fanfiction from inserting yourself as a character in the story and weaving a romance plot with another character to exploring a conspiracy storyline Aditi found herself reading Harry Potter and Percy Jackson fanfiction and then moving on to writing about her favourite Kpop bandsHer cousin Ananya Sutar a 22yearold engineering student in Chennai also dabbled in the practice ldquoI wanted to create my own story and my original characters in a world I was very invested inrdquo says Ananya who went to write a Game of Thrones fanfiction on Wattpad that made her semifamous in the communityAnother longtime writer 21yearold management studies graduate Sara Fernandes appreciates the freedom of plot that the genre providesldquoFanfiction lets you explore the lsquowhat ifrsquo If Irsquom not satisfied with what happened to a storyline I could always just read or write fanfiction about it There are practically no restrictionsrdquoSuch was Sararsquos obsession with fancurated stories that she stopped buying published books ldquoWhenever I bought books Irsquod question whether they were worth the money I was paying because I could find something better online for freerdquoAditi admits that she too had stopped reading books at one point As an aspiring screenwriter Aditi has written multiple scripts and says it was fanfiction that solidified her writing fundamentals ldquoYou donrsquot need to read classics to be a writer you just need to read Some of the best writing Irsquove read has been fanfictionrdquo she assertsNot everybody agrees though Aspiring writer Neelakshi Singh regrets not exposing herself to published fiction more at a younger age ldquoFanfiction did isolate me from exploring published works and eventually limited my scope as a writerrdquoFanfiction is akin to selfpublishingmdashit understands what the audiences want and it delivers tooEven publishing professionals canrsquot deny the hold that fanfiction has on readers particularly the younger demographic Some publishing houses even look at fanfiction trends as a litmus test for demand Ditsha Gupta a marketing professional at Penguin Random House tells midday ldquoWhile I canrsquot say anything about other publishing houses I do tend to look at the fandom trends to assess what will work with the books we pick up ourselvesrdquoTherersquos a kernel of truth in the disregard for fanfiction with its lack of restriction and editing resulting in some questionable works being readily accessible to people but it would be wrong to disregard its significance altogether As Aditi sums up ldquoFanfiction taught me how to connect ideas and shift between genres and itrsquos comforting If it wasnrsquot so influential I wouldnrsquot see my 30yearold colleague typing away Greyrsquos Anatomy fanfiction during her breakrdquo