Kindle Worlds

I've just read two articles about Amazon's new fanfiction-for-money scheme, one by John Scalzi and one by Chuck Wendig, both of which raise interesting points about whether or not the scheme is good or bad for authors of fanfiction, and here's my thought on the issue:

Don't write fanfiction in the first place; write original fiction.

'But I enjoy writing fanfiction because I love this universe/setting', you say. I respond: why do you assume you are incapable of creating an original universe/setting that you don't love as much, if not more because it is wholly yours?

'But fanfiction is good practice for aspiring writers', you say. I respond: that's like saying you can practice for the Daytona 500 by just driving on straightaways. The curves are part of driving too, and the creation of characters and setting are part of writing, too. Practice them. You might even discover that that's the fun part.

'But fanfiction has a built-in audience that I would lose if I wrote original fiction'. I respond: yes. I'll bet more people read my awful geocities-hosted Star Trek fanfiction from the late 90s in a day than have read a word of my original stuff in the past four years. But I earned the views I'm getting now all by myself.

'But there's an online community for my fanfic/fandom'. I respond: there are communities for writers of original fiction on the net as well. Google is your friend.

Just my humble opinion, of course. And none of this is meant as any sort of personal attack on people who write fanfic; I used to be one of them. If you want to write fanfiction, go right ahead. But I've never heard an argument for writing it that's not more true for writing original work.

Please feel free to comment, just keep it polite.