Fanfiction is a form of writing that is largely written by amateurs. The movie After, Fifty Shades of Grey, and many others have been created from stories originally created as fanfiction. People who create stories in fanfiction generally pull from characters in real life, TV shows, movies, and sports and then create their own original version of the story. Fanfiction is all about exploration and discovery. It can honestly be fairly difficult to find great fanfiction so I’m here to share some ways to discover some of the best stuff. You may not exactly learn novel writing skills through writing fics, but you’ll certainly see how to tell great stories and craft great narratives and who knows, maybe eventually even getting a book published. The creative possibilities are endless.
1. Search from Archive of Our Own
Of all the website, AO3 has one of the best search tools. Sorting by kudos is a great way to help surface some of the best stories in a particular fandom.
I like to filter by the length I want to read, filter out any tags I’m not in the mood for, and then sort by the kudos. I find the list of results tends to be pretty good.
2. Look at fandom pages
There are a lot of fandom pages that show case some of the top stories within each fandom.
These can be hit or miss but oftentimes a great place to go when you’re exploring and still developing a taste for what you like.
Some examples of these types of pages:
- https://www.fanfiction.net/book/Story-of-an-Hour/
- https://commaful.com/tags/naruto
- https://archiveofourown.org/tags/*h*Roxy%20(2018)/works
3. Look for tumblr recommendation lists
For most fandoms, there are super fans who will read fics and recommend their favorites on different sites, Tumblr being one of the most popular ones. If you can find these curators, you’ll be in great shape to find high quality stories in your particular fandom.
4. Join a lot of sites
There are a lot of fanfiction websites out there, many with great stories. Try out a bunch of them to get a feel for which ones you like. This Quora answer also has a lot of sites for you to look at. The more you try and the more you read, the more of a sense you’ll get as to which types of stories really resonate with you.
5. Join Facebook Groups
There a number of fandom and fanfiction specific Facebook groups. If you join them, you’ll get a sense of what people like and what people are sharing. There many general fanfiction groups as well as groups that are dedicated to specific fandoms. Try searching around and seeing what you find. There are many good options and the best part about these groups is that you also get to surround yourself with a community of people who are interested in the same types of stories as you.
There are so many ways to get to good fanfics. Let us know if you have any other great methods for finding the best fics! We are always curious to learn the latest and greatest secrets.