What made you start writing?

[Stephen Hawking]

I'm curious.

What was it that made you decide, to give writing a try?

[Denzel]

I gat something like talking with dead people, if I don't talk about them they just kill me dd.

My oncle gat the same with his familly in Africa. This kind of things replaces Ebola for some.

 

I already had a contract.

Edited August 2, 2015 by Cécile Dull

[Tonstar17]

I have always wanted to write from a younger age I even wanted to be a writer at one point. As I got older I kind of drifted away from the idea then I discovered bbt fanfics and decided to give it a go. Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

[Queenfisher]

Same with Tonstar. I started writing when I was in elementary, so somewhat around 7-8 I started making short stories which later developed into comics once I started learning how to draw. Later on I became an artist and stopped writing. It was after I rediscovered fanfics (particularly tbbt), that I started writing again, and boy what a rush that was!

[karyshamy]

I've always loved writing, and I'm quite a fast writer, things are in my head and I just let them out. I wrote a lot during college, mostly technical stuff and also reviews of movies, books, art. I also wrote the articles for 8 editions of a technical magazine for the company I used to work for. It's really something I enjoy doing.

When I was younger I used to write parodies of movies and stories, and I wrote a bit of poetry and short stories. 

But in fact this is the first time I wrote anything in English. I decided to start writing fanfiction first because I wanted to practice the language, and I thought it was a good idea. Now I keep writing because I really enjoyed it.

I plan to write my own books in the future, some of them technical and also stories, I also want to write children's books.

 

[Tensor]

I thought about writing off and on since my freshman year in college.  I'd start something, but then would look at it and compare it to people whose writing I admired and always found it wanting.  A couple of years ago, I had been reading fan fics and I looked at Lenny and realized that we didn't really get a lot of Penny's thoughts.  So I started what I thought was going to be a 8-9 chapter  story of how Penny and Leonard got to where they were at the end of season six.  It ran a bit long.  I really enjoyed writing it, and when I realized that my writing was comparable to other fan fics (just to be clear, I feel there are better writers than I writing fan fic, but there are also worse, so I never felt as if I should quit).   

[phantagrae]

I started writing what I didn't know was fanfic when I was in junior high--Bonanza stories...

I met one of my best friends when I was in 8th and she was in 9th.  We were in junior orchestra together and got to talking, found she did the same thing, but with all the old westerns that were on TV in those days.  Ah, youth.

Anyway, I've been playing around with it since those days, but I never really finished anything until I finally started writing X-Files fic and found that I could finally figure it out.

I had taken a writing course in college, but it didn't all come together until TXF.  I also have a Quantum Leap story that's almost done.

Anyway, I struggled a bit with TBBT, in trying to get the tone right, but I feel good about it now.  I don't write much and I write mostly short one-offs, but it feels more like the show that way, to me.

I have a good idea I was working on before the finale, but I don't know if it would work now, and I've gotten sidetracked with real life lately, but I've always got ideas rattling around in my head.  I've got bits of paper with scenes scribbled down stashed away everywhere.

i think for me it's always been a matter of wanting to tell stories that don't or wouldn't make it onto the screen, missing scenes, etc.

[Stephen Hawking]

I have a good idea I was working on before the finale, but I don't know if it would work now.

Just post it as an AU story.

That's what I did with The Girls Night Aftermath and The Fear/Trust Declaration.

[Tensor]

I intended to finish "The Wedding Reconsideration" before the first taping report.  However, I had some health issues for about three weeks, a few weeks back.  Now, I will probably have finished writing it, but not editing it.  As a result, I don't think I'll have it all published before the taping report.  But, I'm not concerned, the story will stand by itself.  

[Guest sladenoddy]

I got sick of the what the writers were doing with Lenny I.E. going nowhere. so I thought I could do better, and though I say it myself I have.

 

[phantagrae]

I'm not that fond of stories that intend to "correct" the show (a LOT of that went on during the last two seasons of TXF), but I understand the urge.

[Chrystalie]

I started to write fanfics 15 years ago, I think it was a way for me to write missing scenes - I'd have loved to see - in my fav TV show (Buffy)
Few years after, I started to write poetry, and I even tried to write a book but I gave up after few pages.

I was reading lots of books when I was a kid, I think I always loved how easy it can be to picture how characters may look like ect

[Stephen Hawking]

I'm not that fond of stories that intend to "correct" the show

I don't see it so much as correcting the show, but either filing in the gaps  (as I did in Behind Closed Doors), presenting alternate versions of events (as in AU stories), or simply carrying on the events portrayed on the show.

[phantagrae]

I don't see it so much as correcting the show, but either filing in the gaps  (as I did in Behind Closed Doors), presenting alternate versions of events (as in AU stories), or simply carrying on the events portrayed on the show.

I was responding to the other poster saying they felt they could do better, etc..

I find that that sort of approach is not that enjoyable for me, as it makes a lot of assumptions about the writers and where the story is going.  What the other poster talked about wasn't about filling in gaps, but about writing something "better" than what the show writers have done.  I find that attitude pretty arrogant and I somehow doubt that it would necessarily be better than the show.  I guess it depends on one's version of the characters--is your interpretation of a character different from how they're written on the show and is that why you want a different outcome or a different direction?

AU is one thing, but deciding you can do a better job at telling someone else's story just strikes me as odd.

[Beckyseyedoc]

What started me writing? For my two cents' worth...

I loved to write when I was younger, and through undergraduate school wrote recreationally for myself only. At that time, back in "the year of the great flood," there was no such thing as the internet to send out my early work. Be grateful.  Graduate school took up all my time, as did the last nineteen years of the "real world."

Then, a visceral reaction to episode 8x24... I needed to purge the hurt and restore the love I knew existed between my favorite characters on my favorite TV show.

What is keeping me writing? Now, another reaction to a theme that repeated in movies I watched this summer, and a song that brought them together.

And just because I remembered how good it feels to write... and I won't give it up.

[nibbler747]

I was on vacation in Mexico.  I had to put the baby down at 8 pm, and then was pretty much stuck in my room the rest of the evening, bored out of my tree.  I shelled out to get the wifi in my room, and then just was googling random stuff.   Somehow I came across someone's list of best BBT fanfics.  I had never in my life read a fan fiction.  So I decided to read the stories listed.  Let's just say, this person had a pretty good list, cause it got me hooked.  I absolutely loved reading these stories.

When I watch certain shows, my head always gets filled with what if's.  What if this happened instead of that, how would the characters react.  I can practically hear the conversations in my head.

I've never written any type of story in my life.  I read a lot, but I never tried my hand at writing.  In school I wasn't overly fond of English as a subject.  I'm an engineer, I like clear right or wrong answers.  English was too subjective for my tastes.  I couldn't wrap my head around getting marked based on someone's sometimes differing opinion.  This irked me to no end.

I kept reading BBT fanfiction with a great appetite.  Then I started thinking.  What if the girls (Penny/Bernie/Amy) get into an awful fight.  Like a terrible cringeworthy fight, and it snowballed throughout the whole group in a way.  How would that look?  So that became the plot bunny for my first story.  But could I write with any skill?  I had zero idea.  This is going to sound just awful, but there are some pretty terrible stories and writing on there.  So I figured I couldn't do worse. (Aack I feel awful writing that, but it's the truth).  So I wrote my first story (without truly knowing where it was going to go at times).  I think it started a bit rough, but got better as the story progressed.  I really enjoyed writing it (which was a big light bulb moment for me), and had good response.  So now I am hooked!  I am on my second long story, and having a blast writing it.

So that is my long winded tale!

Edited August 5, 2015 by nibbler747

[phantagrae]

There's no quality control out there for fanfic, so, though I think we should all do our best when it comes to grammar, spelling, avoiding cliches and all that, there's bound to be really good stuff and really bad stuff, with the majority of it falling somewhere in the middle.

The first fanfic I read was old Star Trek Original Series stuff.  I knew a few people who had bought or were members of fanzine clubs--the great-grandfathers of places like fanfiction.com, or even places like this.  I remember seeing mimeographed pages stapled together (not even Xeroxed!) that ususally had a few stories included with other fanclub-type things.

And then the series of ST novels were essentially glorified fanfic, but by professional writers... (but not always any better!)

I think that seeing stuff like that (and then finding similar stuff online decades later) added to my interest in writing such stories.

[Stephen Hawking]

is your interpretation of a character different from how they're written on the show and is that why you want a different outcome or a different direction?

I've noticed a lot of Shamy fics (some of mine inclded) involve them having sex, and in some cases getting married/having children, aand I can certainly relate to that, because it's taking foreveer in tthe show, and the fans want a happy/sexy ending, and who can blame them.

[mphs95]

I started writing back in 1st or 2nd grade, winning best writer in a grade school contest in the school I had attended for 2nd (I went to four elementary schools) and a class contest in 5th and 7th..  As a child, my stories tended to be humorous or gory.  I've considered fanfic and had been a fan for almost twenty years, starting to my fave soaps Days of Our Lives and General Hospital.  Days was my first show fanfic, where I wrote two.  I then expanded onto GH.  My first non-soap was Perfect Strangers before Bones.  I wrote for my fave shows where I saw potential i.e. The Nanny, Perfect Strangers, or where a storyline pissed me off (GH, Days, Bones, The Waltons).

I like writing for different genres, but I have to admit, the BBT forums are the most open and welcoming to a new writer and I feel most at home here.  The encouragement I received for my first BBT, The Paradigm Realization has been very fulfilling.

Getting paid for this would be the cherry on the sundae, but I love doing it none the less.

 

 

[YlvaBorealis89]

Ah, there are so many reasons, I can't possibly name just one. I write because:

1. I can. Simple as that.

2. I find these characters so compelling and interesting and they inspire me. Also I enjoy bending them to my will.

3. Writing is sort of like taking a stroll inside my head, opening all the closets and drawers to see what's inside. I constantly find new and interesting things in there. It's become a personal challenge of mine to work out complicated/imaginitive plotlines and scenarios for the Shamy - I want to see how far I can take it before I ruin them altogether. *laugh*

4. I find their internal and emotional lives intriguing and digging into their heads is a journey in itself - I want to know what makes (Sheldon especially) tick. I want to figure him out.

5. I get a headache if I don't.

But I do recall when and why I decided to write my first fic Treading Water. We saw so much emotional growth on Sheldon's part during the first half of season 8 and I was so pleased with that, but I kept wondering what brought it on. What changed? And why is he still a flight risk? I just had this... desire to dig in there and take a look inside that bulbous brain, but how would I go about doing that? What could be a good way of exploring Sheldon's emotional life. And then after the Christmas episode I decided that maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to have Sheldon go see a therapist... Without telling Amy =) Yada ya, I thought it, I wrote it, now I need it.   

[Bella Duveen]

These are such interesting replies. I always enjoyed writing, and won a writing competition at school once, when I was nine. As a teenager, I wrote about a show because I had crush on a character in (that's kind of resurfaced twenty years on...er, yeah, well!) and most of those, had I kept them, would probably be dreadful Mary Sue type stuff, although I did have some published in the show's fan magazine at 15-16!

I came to BBT fanfic when I first discovered the show properly at the end of 2013 - I found the forums, and there was this fanfiction category Well, I was on Maternity Leave and became hooked, and grew fascinated with the Shamy relationship. Then, one day, feeling a bit self conscious, I wrote a first piece out by hand, just a short one, about Amy as a kid. Then I got to thinking we'd never seen her birthday, and I wanted it to be sexy and special, and The Diamond Dedication was born - and I got reviews! People liked what I wrote, so I carried on!

[MsTeller]

I have been making up stories since before I could actually write. I have just always loved characters and good stories and creating my own worlds. When I was a kid they used to be simple short stories that were either based on a fantasy/fairy tale situation or were based on my real life and my family and my pets etc. I went from there to a mix of fan fiction about my favorite TV shows and more realistic stories. Years ago I self-published a children's book but it was not very successful. (It turns out that being a writer does not necessarily make you a good salesperson for your work!) I kept writing until I was in my twenties but then I gave up and quit for quite a while. Then I started writing again when I was going through therapy and counseling and I was encouraged to journal about my feelings and experiences. I was also supposed to channel my daydreaming habit into something that was more productive. And then eventually I learned how to put all of the elements together. I started combining my real emotions and my own worlds and meanings with some of the other things that had inspired me and the story would often work out very well. That is when I started writing actual books! I am still holding out hope that I might be a successful author someday. That would be my greatest dream for my life!

 

I was responding to the other poster saying they felt they could do better, etc..

I find that that sort of approach is not that enjoyable for me, as it makes a lot of assumptions about the writers and where the story is going.  What the other poster talked about wasn't about filling in gaps, but about writing something "better" than what the show writers have done.  I find that attitude pretty arrogant and I somehow doubt that it would necessarily be better than the show.  I guess it depends on one's version of the characters--is your interpretation of a character different from how they're written on the show and is that why you want a different outcome or a different direction?

AU is one thing, but deciding you can do a better job at telling someone else's story just strikes me as odd.

While I no longer write fan fiction I would say I have a very different interpretation of some of the characters on the show and that explains a lot of my frustration with it. It is mainly due to what the writers would characterize as a negative character trait versus what I would. Because of my different perspective on life and people in general I define character traits very differently.  I also have a different view of what is interesting to write (or watch.)

I think as a writer you have to be prepared for the fact that not everyone is going to like your story or your style. That comes with the territory!

Edited August 10, 2015 by MsTeller

[rachelshamyfan]

I only discovered fan fiction after I started watching tbbt and at first I was resistant to reading but then I found a lot of great stories and that inspired me to write as well

Think I've written 12 stories now and all but one is a shamy love story, I might do more in the future if inspiration hits again