How I Discovered Fanfiction

How I Discovered Fanfiction 

     I was bored, sitting in front of my computer and surfing my favorite Harry Potter website, Mugglenet. After reading the latest news post I was looking at the sections at the top of the page: Books, News, Fans, Discussion, and Media. Clicking on ‘Fans’ I scrolled down the page looking for an interesting section. Something popped out at me ‘Mugglenet Fanfiction’ it read. I clicked, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. 

     

     On the top of the page it had two paragraphs on what fanfiction was. Once I had read it I understood that the following stories I would read might not be cannon (Non-Cannon means that the author has said that it didn’t happen that way). 

     

     I saw tons of fanfictons: AU (Alternative Universe), Non-Cannon (Things that never happened in the books), Next Gen (Next Generation), Adventure, Horror, Romance, and a ton of other stuff.

     

     After sitting there for a few seconds, debating about which one the click, I decided to try Next Generation. That category was about the kids of the first generation (Harry and his friends/enemies). 

      

     One character I was particularly interested was Harry’s youngest child, Lily. In the epilogue of the books his two older sons had been given personalities, but Lily wasn’t. So I searched up ‘Lily Potter ll’.

     

     There were very few stories about her and I felt compelled to write a bit about her. It seemed unfair that James and Albus (her older brothers) had a lot of stories about them but Lily only had a few.

     

     My first draft of ‘Lily Potter and the Resurrection Stone’ was awful! However, I thought it was wonderful at the time and sent it in to Mugglenet Fanfiction. They didn’t accept it and soon I realized why. 

     

     My story didn’t really have plot, the characters that I had created were quite shallow, plus my dialouge seemed stiff and not at all realistic. I had thought this would be easy, and my planned 20 chapter story would only take a month to write. I was wrong. 

      Once I had a plot that I liked and felt it  was stable I started to work on the characters. In my first draft Lily had two good friends: Her cousin, Hugo, and a character I made up called October. I kept both of them, but had to fix a lot of problems. 

     

      Hugo didn’t say much and just kind of stood there, so I gave him a personality. October was okay, but I tweaked her a bit and re-did her introduction so it fit her new personality a bit better.

     

     Then there was the setting. I had a lot of problems. In one chapter Lily’s bedroom would be in the hallway by the stairs and the next moment it would be down on the first floor. So I drew out a map of the Potter House, placing Lily’s bedroom permanently.

     

     So far I’ve written 5 chapters but Mugglenet still hasn’t accepted my first one. I guess I have a little more work to do. I”m sure someday it will be good enough and then there will be one more Lily Luna Potter story out there.