open-ended question as follow-up

[kaigou]

main poll; addendum; and consider this part three:

The phrasing is awkward, but my head is full of wood-glue this morning: generally, I mean that if you have written and/or do write fanfic, then this question applies. If you read fanfic and can think of stories but rarely ever actually write them out and post them somewhere for fandom consumption, then this question doesn't apply because your own disinclination to write is already a large-enough barrier. What I'm looking for here is what stops you from writing when your own laziness or disinclination is not a significant barrier: that is, you'd normally write the fanfic, but some criteria makes you decide not to write, after all.

Assuming all other factors are equal:
WHERE a story otherwise satisfies your personal requirements for prompting fanfic ideas,
AND that you write/have written fanfic and posted it for fandom consumption,
AND that you'd normally sit down and start writing the story in your head...

what makes you not write the fanfiction?

Comments

[kaigou]

Strictly speaking, I would consider you outside the area of people to be polled, then, because the issue isn't what inspires in general, but what inspires specifically fanfic -- or in this case, what de-inspires it. That said, I'm in the same boat as you, seeing as how I almost never write fanfic now, and only do so once in a blue moon as I take a rather belabored approach to finishing up a single outstanding long-term fanfic. Otherwise, all my fanfic ideas quickly transmute into ofic ideas, with no exceptions. So for me to answer the question, I had to think of when I was writing fanfic regularly -- and what would cause me to ditch a fic idea.

[autohaptic]

For about a year I wrote a massive Gundam 00 AU-- I answered the polls in terms of my mindset during that year.

That said... I probably only spent the amount of time I did writing in that AU universe because I was writing with three other authors and we sort of egged each other on and such-- like a round robin, only we'd write entire fics instead of just a part of a fic.

I'm still writing in that universe, but I'm writing original fic more often than I'm writing the fanfic.

And then there's the fact that the AU is so fucking far off canon that it might as well be original fic. So, I'm not sure if/how that counts? It's sort of an odd experience, and it relates back to the idea that community is a huge driving force in fic-writing for some people.