Fan Fiction compared to regular stories

This has concerned a few times in the past; how does fan fiction compare to regular original stories?

For a while now, I've been under the impression that writing a fan fiction story doesn't really compare to actually writing an original novel. That's why whenever I'm watching a movie, TV show or documentary relating to authors like J.K. Rowling or Rick Riordan, or trying to get into the Spirit of Black History Month by writing something to feel like an African-American author, fan fiction never feels like enough.

Any thoughts on this?

As with all non-Fan Ficion, it depends on the fan fic author. There are some fan fic authors whose works I would willingly pay money to read just as their are authors of original fics I would never spend money on. However, since there's no barrier to publishing fanfiction, there's no one to filter out the crap fanfics, whereas to publish an original work though a publishing company, someone else has to like it enough and it also get's edited... so the crap original works get filtered out more then they do in fanfiction. Self-publishing gets rid of that though, so we might be seeing more works of the overall quality of fanfiction getting read more often.

They serve different purposes. Regular fiction is what you can enjoy cold. Fanfiction can be better than regular fiction if you are just looking for more of a specific character or set of characters, but if you're reading for plot or world building it's often not as tight as published fiction.

Though there are some published fictions whose quality is... debatable. I remember some Star Trek or Doctor Who Expanded Universe novels whose main difference with bad fanfiction in that I was reading them in a paperback instead of fanfiction.net.

From the point of view of the writer, the interest is that it allows to concentrate only on specific parts of writing, which is a good starting point, and also ensures that you may attract readers more easily.

I enjoy writing both (my own worlds) and fan fiction. There are some differences.

First of all, Most Fanfiction Is Written By Fans - that is, there's a definite feel in writing fanfiction that I do, at least, that depends upon readers being familiar with the canon story. Some writers do their own novel-versions of things that did not start out as text-medium (for instance, look up "Legend of Zelda game novelezations" and you'll find something for every game and several examples for popular games of the series). However, most fan fiction - and the stuff that I do - aren't retellings, but are "plothole spackle" or "What might have happened behind the scenes for behind the eyes of the characters" or alternate endings, or alternate universes... or, for added flavor and fun, the crossover (which requires one be familiar with more than one canon).

Writing originals? You have to worldbuild an entire universe from scratch. Now, I am the kind of writer who doesn't know everything about a given world she writes when she writes it (which creates Fanfic Fuel - or would, if my work ever becomes something people want to do fanfic of). I find it quite a bit more difficult and, thus, the process of writing any kind of story tends to go slower than any fan fic for me (unless I am especially on fire - I once write a semi-long short story in the course of a day because I was angry about something and it gave me an idea).

Then there is the matter of characters. Unless you're someone who writes a lot of In Name Only , using only character and place names to essentially draw readers to something original (a practice I disapprove of, though mostly it is accidental, just a form of bad writing) if you want to write good fan fic you need to consider the established character of the characters you are borrowing for your playtime. Much like worldbuilding from scratch, this is different than figuring out and getting to know the personalities of the characters that pop up in your head.

Sometimes, I wish to be able to (and will try), to work with my own worlds "like I work with fanfic" once I can get a world and characters reasonably figured out just to make the writing process go more swiftly.

I do, however run into a bit of a problem with that because another thing about fan ficiton that's different than original is that I find that more people are willing to read it. You get the "instant gratification" of posting it online and having a ready audience who loves the canon and wants to read fan takes on it. I think of fan fiction as being like an extended exchange and conversation between fans - people geeking out, giving their own opinions and ideas on a thing that is mutually loved. There's also a certain freedom in fanfic that makes me agonize less about the quality, because fan fiction, being free, sets the bar low. Loads of people create it. Loads of it isn't good. It's not something most expect to actually publish, being that much of it is canon-dependent. I can definitely say that I am more confident in my fan fiction abilities for fandoms I've established myself in than I am for any new fandom or for my original work.

What I'm saying is, the reading end of it aside, there are fundamental differences (at least for me) in writing between the two.