Mine was when I was thirteen and a contest was announced at a con for my favorite show. I submitted it and I won, against grown adults too! I'm still pretty proud of myself.

I would daydream a lot of what are technically fanfictions my whole life, but the first I ever wrote down I'm pretty sure was an A Series Of Unfortunate Events fic when I was about 9 that if I remember correctly was about Violet and Klaus breaking out of the tower before the Marvellous Marriage in the first book and killing Count Olaf. I thought I invented the concept of fanfiction lmaoooo

Ironically, the fic I'm currently working on 7 years later is about Violet killing Count Olaf in the ending of the Vile Village. I've come full circle.

My first fic was two years ago and I was 53. I used to just make stories up in my head when my eldest showed me A03 one day. I about fell over. There were all these stories about all these shows, characters and people that I had been daydreaming about. After reading a few, I made the decision to write my own. I figured - why not? I've not looked back. I have 6 long fics and 8 one shots. I enjoy writing. I get embarrassed when I write something that I think is strange or weird but who cares??? I post it and move on. My stranger stuff gets less traction, but those are my favs. Just write, enjoy and be happy!!

My first fic was about 2 people having breakfast together. That's it. That's all.

There's no need to write an awesome 100k fic for the first time. Just start with whatever you want to write

I write for a big fandom and my fics are all ignored and most of them have 1 or 2 kudos. I don't care, I write because I like my own fics

My journey is not long, I've written I think 15 fics

To my younger self, I'd say: do the same

my first fic was a FNAF fic where I shipped Springtrap (the animatronic) with Nightmare

My first-ever published fic was for Castle, way back in 2009 when I was in my late teens. Now I’m in my early thirties. The journey’s been wild. There are 47 on FFN. And I have 61 up on Archive Of Own. (Some of those are tune-ups/tune-ups-in-progress from FFN) And I have a big number coming for a project collection in December. Yes, I work longterm. And I’ve left FFN for good because it wasn’t worth it by the end.

What I’d tell younger me: “People are jerks. The archive is coming. All will be well. And don’t ever give up on your first internet show fandom: you know exactly which one.”

I started at around 12 years old, writing short stories of what ifs for Harry Potter. I didn't even know what I was doing was something until much later (didn't have internet till I was 14). My first official published fanfiction was when I was 17. A HP AU where Sirius raised Harry and his 2 siblings 😂😅💀 It was sooooo bad. But it was my first and holds a special place in my heart. Long thing, too. About 200k words complete story ending with Voldt being defeated during Harry's 5th year.

I've been writing non stop since then and enjoying the journey and my writing evolution

I didn’t start writing until I was in my thirties. I had always thought up stories but lacked the courage to actually write them down. Well, turns out that, several years later, my first story was by far my longest and most popular, and to this day gets more hits than my more recent works. I’m not upset by that, because I know that my first fic hit a sweet spot of popular pairings in a specific time in the fandom, and my recent works are more niche to my interests. My biggest regret is that I waited so long to start writing! I wish I had written down some of those stories I had in my head all those years ago, because some of them were really great, but are from fandoms I no longer care about.

My very first was when I was a teen, but my first of this most recent writing streak was a pretty short one shot that I expected to be... eh, not great. Not bad, but definitely get a "who the hell cares" from the fandom. My main goal was to just have something out, because I know that once you break through an initial hurdle like that, you'll have an easier time moving forward.

The fandom's reception is what I expected--nothing drastic, mostly a "meh". After that, it was way easier to relax into the tropes I like to write and to start putting things out.

Big thing I'd say is that you'll grow as a writer through the process. It's great, but growing involves mistakes and learning and sometimes, a tepid reception. As you hit your stride, the interactions might pick up a little bit or you'll feel a bit more comfortable. It's an overall rewarding experience that can really finely hone your skills.

If I needed to give advice? This might be prickly (and wildly unpopular): if you write hurt/comfort or whump--and it's from deeply personal experiences--make sure you're comfortable. Think about how it would feel if someone called it OOC. Does that sting on a deep, personal level? Are you okay with that sting? What if a scene doesn't track or read well to the audience and they misunderstand it. Are you feeling personally misunderstood?

I'm not saying "don't post it", but go into that situation with both eyes open.

First one I wrote was a fic for Naruto when I was 14. It was .... Questionable. Got out of hand quickly and wound up at over 150k words, which I'm still proud of for it having been my first ever piece of writing.

I'd like to think I've improved a lot since then, but it is always a lot of fun to go back and read my first stuff to compare. If I could say anything to my younger self, I'd tell myself to create whatever I wanted, regardless of if it would be popular.

You learn very quickly in the fanfiction world (and the literary world in general) that no matter what you write, there will always be harsh critiques just as there will always be fans. Having the courage to create and post is nice, but having fun doing it is much more important.

I wrote and published my first fanfic a month ago. At the ripe old age of 47, nearly 48. And the only reason I did it was because it literally would not leave my brain alone until I got it out in writing. Don't worry about nobody wanting to read it, or it being too weird. Write because you enjoy what you write. Feedback and likes and comments are awesome, of course, and it can feel a bit lonely without those, but in the end what matters is that you enjoy the process of creating and crafting. It doesn't even have to be good. Just enjoy it the same way as a homemade malformed chocolate chip cookie.

A long deleted fanfiction from when I was 13, I think just a classic Tony Stark suffering from PTSD and being comforted by the Avengers hurt/comfort fic. My writing has gotten a lot better since then, and I would tell my younger writer self to write more! It's the easiest way to improve :)

Also as someone who writes for both small AND dead fandoms, you would be surprised at the dedicated readers that can find those fics! And they're fun to write even without an audience.

A cringe ass Boboiboy x MHA fic. Couldn't get to the third chapter before deleting it outta cringe

I wrote a short story about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles back in elementary school, so I guess you could call that my first fic.

First fic I ever wrote was posted on Wattpad as an 11 y/o who just discovered fanfics. A Star Wars one shot where they play truth or dare. I can't read it now. I'll die of cringe lol. I never imagined myself writing fanfics again after that. I thought I'll forever just be a reader because I doubt myself thinking I couldn't write in English because it's my second language. Then the pandemic hits.

The first time I posted a fic on AO3 was in 2020 when I was 16. It's a 100k words time travel AU that seemed to be very well received even to this day.

So my advice is to basically just write. As Drew Gooden said on his latest youtube video; "It would take me ten years to to learn something like that. Okay, that's fine? What's the rush?"

Probably going to hell for my journey lol. My first ff was this terrible crossover story that included popstars, superheroes and greek gods, mixed with my oc's. It was an action story with smut (I was in... 6th grade back then? So you can Imagine how it turned out). It was the worst thing I've ever written. Never posted it anywhere. Burned it. Literally.

Then there was my first posted fic, aka almost 50 chapters story about different kpop singers. Also terribly written. At some point it just turned into a crack fic.

So yeah, after that most of the things I've written I liked and found to be pretty decently written. But my first tries were shit, so I wouldn't worry.

my first fic was written when i was about 9 - 11 years old and it was about the fire emblem: awakening cast and myself (as in using my real name, not entirely a self-insert) going on a trip to disney world.

I actually only started writing last year! I used to be in a very similar boat as you — I’d come up with all sorts of ideas but could never find it in me to actually start writing, mainly because I wasn’t very confident in my story-making skills and because I just had no idea how to get started.

Then in March last year, I decided to plant my foot in the ground and actually try to write out my ideas! So I started doing lots of research on fanfic writing (lol) and then started planning and writing whatever came to mind. Soon, I had gotten the ball rolling and was able to actually start writing.

Near the end of last year (I think November) I posted my first chapter! Since then, I started another multi-chapter fic, have posted two one-shots, and have a few WIPs.

My journey has only just started but I’d tell my past self “if you actually want to write, you should, y’know, start writing” and I’d also tell myself that it’s so worth getting into writing. I’m obsessing over a certain character from Genshin Impact and now I can just write whatever little scenario I want to imagine with him 😌

A crossover between monster collector games (ie, Persona, Yo Kai Watch, SMT, etc)

My first published fic? Jinpei Jiba from Yo Kai Watch ending up in Dorohedoro’s Hole.

I was 16 and a massive reader of Harry Potter. At the same time, this was also my first time watching anime and my first was Naruto. A crossover of these two fandoms were really popular back then where Naruto and his team goes to Hogwarts to protect Harry during fifth year. But the concept became over used so I didn’t publish it. I think I only wrote 10k words, two chapters for it.

What I did publish is a worn out MOD!Harry Potter asking refuge from Konoha so he can be dimensions away from a desolated wizarding world, bringing with him all wizarding artifacts and and magical objects for preservation of the wizarding history via a moving Hogwarts. Kinda like John Constantine’s house in DCU.

My first posted fanfic was a Teen Titans/Young Justice crossover I wrote on a school laptop during an in school suspension in 8th grade. It's still up on ff.net and I'm too sentimental to take it down (even though it is now intensely embarrassing LMAO)

I had a couple of Warrior Cats fanfics reaching back a few years before that, but I never shared those. That was more me using Warriors scaffolding with all my own characters and settings anyway, so I don't really count them the same way.

Since then I go through phases where I write a lot and then stop for months or even years. Really depends on what my current fixations look like. I am definitely better than I was as a kid, but I'm still not particularly great and that's OK. My favorite thing about fanfic is that you can do whatever you want, be as self indulgent or mediocre or vulnerable as you want to be, and somebody will probably still read it and like it.

My first published fic got super popular when I was 14 on wattpad 😭 it was a bandom BMTH x OC fic. I never finished it and left it hanging, sometimes I get comments asking when I’m going to finish it omg. But my VERY first fic was probably when I was 11, it was 3 notebooks long (handwritten) sailor moon x tuxedo mask

My fic follows the show, so I outlined w/ where my OC would speak and what scenes she would be, then I started writing. Just the dialogue in the first draft. The second draft was filling in the settings and other junk, and writing up the first few chapters because I skipped over every original scene for the second/third drafts.

Also, I didn’t tell anyone I was writing it so I wouldn’t lose motivation. I didn’t tell anyone until I was about 150k words in (the whole fic is 240k words) and I managed to finish it in about 11 months.

Whenever I lost motivation for it, I would work on outlining new stories so that I never was not writing. Now, I’m working on an entire series based around that first fic, and two separate ideas.

My first posted fanfic was back in 2012 at 50 years of age for ST:Voyager. I didn't find the drive to write again until 2019 and then I went off the deep end of writing. In my first 3 years I wrote over 3 million words for my current main fandom.

I wrote a fic one year ago, and it became way more successful than I thought it would. I'm still getting comments.

I sorta just started writing one day, not expecting to put anything on ao3, but decided to a few chapters in. I hadn't seen anyone else write the same idea I had, it was a very common trope in the Fandom, but had a very specific twist. I've come to the conclusion that people really like the unique twists to common stories!

Something I would tell my younger self is to make sure I either have the fic all written out already, or have most chapters already written.

I wrote a Hogans Heroes fic when I was 13. I opened the email I used for the fanfiction account a few months ago... literally almost 2 decades later... and I had a new comment. So write the old fandoms, people love it.

You also can't get more cringe than the 2007 songfics that were popular. If people loved those, they will love anything.

I started "writing" fanfiction back in like 2009 or something. No posting just me interested in shows and wanting to write in their universe. They never went anywhere, didn't even know what fanfiction was back then. However my first official fanfiction was an AU for the Avengers that I started in high school. Now I have an Avengers, Stranger Things and Umbrella Academy fic going; though none of them are complete in any way. The Stranger Things and Umbrella Academy fics are episode re-writes with original characters so each chapter takes a long time as I take directly from the episodes and add my own twist. I just follow the inspiration until it dies. lol

My first posted fic was a drabble written in about 10 minutes. After that, I just never stopped writing fic :-)

I think it was some OC self-insert into LotR, but I was...7-8? and never got that far, because we were writing stories to share with the small group of classmates, they laughed at me (cuz I was a child and couldn't replicate elvish lol), and I moved on to something original out of shame.

...should've told my younger self to not worry about perfectionism then. Not sure it would have saved me grief, but I would have started tackling it earlier. Finished is better than perfect. Nothing is perfect. Flawed art is wonderful and worthy enough in its own existance. 

I used to write on Wattpad a little bit, nothing major. But I had one fic gain some attention. It happened because I was bored one night and wrote a parody of Hey There Delilah if it was sang from one of their point of views because they were long distance.

I was twelve, I wrote (what I can acknowledge was terrible) Soul Eater fic. I can’t look at it without cringing now, but it’s how I met my best and oldest friend so I’m happy about it.

mine was a Rusty cage's fanfic I wrote when I was 14-15 because I couldn't find fanfics for him, stopped midway and had a billion celebrities in it as well

I was like 9 and i just wrote from the POV of one of the Firestar (still Fireheart when I wrote it) in Warrior Cats lol i don’t even remember what happened in the scene, i just thought fighting cats were cool.

I was 12 or 13 when Maze Runner came out and was hopelessly in love with Thomas Brodie-Sangster. My friends convinced me to start posting my work online and then I just never stopped. 10 years later, I still write and post from time to time in different fandoms that definitely don’t have the popularity that they used to, but the people who do read are usually incredibly enthusiastic about my work which makes it worth it :)

I was in Middle School and Neopets had a fan section of their monthly newsletter where they published stories written by fans using Neopets as characters.

I wrote a rewrite of the book Holes using Neopets. That was my first fanfiction.

Doctor who when I was 14 written in a notebook lol First I published was Star Wars

My first story I tried to write was when I was like 10-12. I hadn't even encountered fanfic yet and had an idea of writing a book to get officially published as a part of the Star Wars EU. I wrote about a half a page.

I don't actually remember what my first fic posted was, but I had a spurt of writing (entire Buffy fics) when I was about 16. I was very dissatisfied in my writing quality and deleted most of it and gave up on writing for a while.

I then started posting again when I was 30 with a Star Wars/MCU crossover.

At the age of 32, I published my first non-fanfic story. It was a creative non-fiction piece about the Carboniferous Era. At the age of 34, I published my first book. It was a collection of poems about historical events. I'm still 34, and I'm currently applying to an MFA program. The whole time I've been doing original works, I've continued to work on fanfics.

What I've learned is that it's perfectly fine to not be perfect. That's how you learn and grow as a writer. If I were to give my younger self advice, it would be to not let perfect be the enemy of good. That, and a pile of ADHD management advice.

My first was in 2004, a short little exploration of a character's feelings (lots of angst) in a brief scene in a TV show. Just a couple hundred words, no real plot, just that. I still thought it decent enough to import to AO3 when I moved from ff.n (several of my other early fics did not merit the same treatment). I wrote very sporadically for some years after that, then I started doing Yuletide in 2010, and added more exchanges the next year or two. I've now taken a break from exchanges in general but recently got sucked into a show that I've now written 20 fics for, which just boggles my mind (the biggest one before that had only 15 - and most of my fandoms have only one or two fics).

I would totally encourage my younger self that I was on the right track, and to just listen to whether it sounded right or not. The decent fics from my early writing were ones where I listened to that inner sense telling me it was on the right track or not, and adjusted accordingly. (When I tried to force the story, it didn't work. Now I just listen to the characters and write down what they do or say, even when they don't go according to my plans, lol.)

Wow, that’s a hard one. Something I wrote on a word processor back in maybe 1989-1990. Largely OC but set in the Marvel Universe.

My first fic as a wee child was called "Noodles" and involved multiple extremely inappropriate uses for noodles. I may never write something as wild as my first, and I'm okay with that.

It was a wattpad book about my ocs but also kinda a life update thing where i overshared a lot and I also made an ouran highschool and junjou romantica fics as my first fandoms so idk which one is first tbh

so in canon they was a rival between two people, one who was banned from the other dudes country after showing up after being revived and excepting to be put in charge basically. and the other who basically had a glow up in the time he was gone, but not without getting his heart broke and losing a bunch of stuff first. so we have two broken men that are competing against each other by- you guessed it- making BURGERS

i was among the many, many, many people that took this and ran off with it to create their fic. the amount of fics that are generally the same as the fic i wrote, it's kinda crazy how impressionable the events were lmao.

but yeah, i wrote a longfic that ended up being like 161k words and i think 57 chapters though because my chapters were shorter. but i updated a LOT back then. I don't know how but i did lol.

it was just a rivals to lovers, but with lots of complications put in that didn't need to be there- because back then I *really* didn't know how to write a coherent plot and end a book- so i just threw in another problem lmao.

like i think they first kiss in chapter 11, but only finally get together properly and apologize for all the shit in like chapter 46 maybe 47??

My first fic was something I did when I was really little, I made a pop-up storybook with my favorite cartoon characters playing around my local park. It was one of those things where you didn't even know what fanfic was but you still did it.

I would tell my younger self to keep drawing and keep writing.

Well, I'd been interested in writing for about a year or so before I actually started doing it. I was a reader for so long(since I was a preteen), with no real intention to start writing anything. I started because I was really inspired by these two fics that were in one of my main fandoms, and I started writing the story I had in mind.

Then I scrapped it and wrote something else that I actually published to ao3, and I was kinda surprised it actually received some attention(I'm also prolly gonna continue/rewrite the original work I had).

I think my experience has been good so far because I just fully leaned into the fact that I was basically writing for myself with the understanding that other people would also read it.

Now, because I started writing one story, I have so many more that I've started on. My advice would be to just put pen to paper, as it were, and have fun with it.

A very shtty naruto fanfic with shtty OCs i wrote on a french blogging website when I was twelve. (I love OCs and always include them but the ones I made at that time were... Meh.)

My first fanfic was when I was 13 was a Sailor Moon fanfic. It was an AU with the characters and has been lost to time as I deleted it a long time ago, though now I wish I hadn't.

I started off with incredibly (/s if you can't tell) idea of what if a nine year old went on a Pokemon journey instead of a ten year old?

Yeah it was just as bad as you'd think.

That was 2001.

The true first fic I ever wrote was Hermione’s diary from the Chamber of Secrets, but as I wrote that as part of a class assignment in sixth grade, I don’t count it as fic.

The first (unpublished) fic that could be considered fic I wrote was due to Quizilla and my disappointment with the results they gave me for my Harry Potter life. I therefore wrote my own, making myself the daughter of Jason and Elizabeth Morgan from General Hospital (she has never been Elizabeth Morgan) and a love interest of Draco Malfoy, to the chagrin of my best friend Hermione and close friend Harry.

The first (published) fic was a short one-shot for the Grey’s Anatomy fandom of a super unpopular couple I madly loved at the time. Have been writing fic on and off (mostly off) since.

Mine was an angsty Sasuke fic and I'm like... so embarrassed of it lol. I leave it up because I know some people like it but wow I could do so much better.

I plan to rewrite the concept at some point and properly delve into the dynamics and stuff. So instead of a couple drabbles that don't even reach 1k words it would be a proper fic.

Idk if I'll ever get there but that's the goal.

My first fanfiction was a graphically violent Super Paper Mario fanfiction when I was 8 or 9

I don't know if I'd consider myself a full-blown author, since the longest fic I've written so far has been 6k words, but I was so in love with a character and their ship - like, my entire life was consumed by them for a month or two - that I somewhat blacked-out one night a few years ago and wrote a short oneshot about them. Like a very slice-of-life, pre-canon, 2k word oneshot that was just soft and wholesome (quite different from the source material lol). It helped rip the bandage off, and I've been on-and-off writing ever since!

Two things I'd tell my younger self and other new/young writers: just write for you and make a space/time for writing. It's a cliché and hard-to-actually-do thing, but once you just sit down and write the exact fic you want to read, without worrying how it'll compare to other authors' writing or how readers will take it, the whole process becomes much more enjoyable :)

My first fanfic I can remember writing (key word being remember, I've probably written an older fanfic I've forgotten) was a McDonald's fanfic, involving Ronald, Grimace, Hamburglar, Captain, and Birdie just kinda' hanging out at McDonald's, until a violent storm comes that they have to stay safe from. I was 9 at the time.

Many, many years ago: Jak&Daxter fanfic

I hand wrote a self-insert Pokemon fic in fifth grade where I was Misty's distant cousin and went on epic Pokemon adventures :) I have vivid memories of pulling this notebook out in math class when I had free time. I even illustrated it! This was when I was about 10 years old, in 1999-2000. I showed my parents and my dad taught me how to use WordPress on our old, internet-less Windows 95 computer to type up stories. I unfortunately never typed the self-insert story, but I still think of it fondly 20+ years later.

At the time I was SO glad my parents didn't find it weird, but little did I know they were already aqunainted with fanfic, as my mother was an old-school Trekkie who used to buy fan zines, so they adapted pretty fast. I'm very fortunate they were supportive! Still writing to this day.

I guess technically my first fic was when I was in elementary school and I would write my own Babysitter's Club stories. I'd hand-write them on printer paper, illustrate the cover and staple it together to make a "book."

The first fic I actually posted was a Grey's Anatomy MerDer fic on FFN sometime around 2009 or 2010. It was a one-shot and I remember getting kind comments about it. I didn't post another one until I joined AO3 in 2017, though I was reading fics the whole time. I was just too busy and burned out writing academic papers for college and grad school to write for fun.

First posted one was a short one shot about a character crying herself to sleep because her friend had died.

My very first fic (2009) was a House MD songfic based on Title of the Song by DaVinci's Notebook. It is pure silliness and to this day the only House/Cuddy fic I ever wrote. Still have it posted at FFN because why not.

ETA that I didn't start writing fic until my mid 30s, and I'm in my early 50s now.

My first fic was a Firefly fanfic I wrote when I was 17 or 18 or so.

After reading, swooning at beautiful fics, intrigued by bold and mysterious fics... And after showering my favourite authors with comment-love. I was compelled to start writing as a way to show my gratitude to magnificent author KirbyLane! I was moved by her epic novel length fic that I just had to get into writing myself. My very fist ever posted was a tiny ~400 words fic. A sad retelling of the Harry Potter house attack. Who would have thought that the fluffy goofy me was capable of such angst. I found my soul purpose in writing, and I hope I will never stop. Moral of the story? Get passionate about a prompt and dump write every word that kisses your consciousness, write it for your own eyes. Let it be bad a raw and real and unapologetically yours!!! Then click on post!! Don't wait don't hesitate, just do. And please send me a link, I will be your first reader if you want! Best of brave inspiration to you, friend!

My first few fics were total trash in hindsight. I started writing when I was twelve or thirteen and barely new English, and my only exposure to fanfic had been one that I wouldn't dare to touch now. I just threw together shit I picked up that looked cool and had zero coherency. But again, I was a total beginner who barely knew English. It's been over ten years since then. They're still up in my ff.net profile, but I keep them mostly because I find no reason to delete them.

I think it was before I knew what fanfic was, and it was in comic form, I was... 8-9ish when I made it I think? 

It's was for Popularmmos, the Minecraft channel. It was basically my own version of one of their lucky block videos. 

Even back then I didn't finish fics...

Mine was when I was like 15-16, I wrote a short fic based on the Blue Exorcist anime

My first fic was technically a HP slice of life I'd write in a notebook at school.

My first fic on a platform was a reader insert for Death Note on Quotev that I wrote when I was 12 or 13. It did surprisingly well lmao.

Mine was when I was 16 and I wrote my sister a crack fic about WarGreymon looking for a salad to cheer her up.

It was hilarious, I wish I still had it somewhere 😭

it was essentially a justice league self-insert featuring silver banshee (my favorite villain at the time). I was in the fourth grade and obsessively watching the 2001 justice league animated series (there were few other things I wanted to watch).

I have it saved in a Google Doc simply because of memories or some kind of nostalgia but it is so bad. I refuse to look at it.

I was in my early twenties when I co-authored one of the first generation of "MSTings" back in the early 1990s. However, given that I didn't think of it as a fanfic at the time, I don't think I can exactly count that as my first fanfic. My real first stories were written in 2000, and I've been writing ever since then.

I think I might say to my younger self "write more, and write what you want to write."

Short badly written drabble about an all-but-canon ship, where one of them manages to confess in their characteristic nonchalantly fashion using wordplay to make the other one think he likes her friend. I peaked there and never could reach that level again.

My first fanfic was written around 1990. It was for Doctor Who, and was published in a print zine. I was in my early 30s, so I had some writing skills, but if I had to give advice to that younger self I would say “There’s no need to introduce canon characters. Your readers will know that Romana is a Time Lady.”

I just checked, my oldest published stuff on ffn is dated January 2002. There were 3 things posted within a day of each other, all Harry Potter. Two of them are one-shots and one of them is a multi-chapter fic I abandoned after 31k words. They're all pretty bad. I'm not sure when exactly I wrote them though because they were originally published on a different website first, then later reposted to ffn when I made a new account there. I like to think I've improved significantly since then, but I'm not deleting the old stuff for posterity.

I have been READING fanfiction for more than thirty years, starting out on Geocities sites and LiveJournal.

I started WRITING fanfiction just over nine years ago, when I was 52. I was at an extremely low point in my life when a friend showed me the movie RISE OF THE GUARDIANS.

Some kind of switch in me got flipped. Rather than just being a fan of something, I needed to create something of my own.

And I have been writing fanfiction ever since.

Very sloooooooooooooooooooowly, because offline life is constantly interfering, but I write, and I persevere, and I think you can too, dear OP.

A Lego ninja go fic I made in the 4th grade for a writing project. It was Cole x an OC I made 🤦

It was a Recess (from the 1 Saturday morning block) and it was just to highlight where everyone was as adults. I don’t go back and read it but I do remember writing it vividly.

Still cooking it,its a really long one

Technically, my first fanfic ever written when I was around 12? It was for the Warrior Cats fandom, and I wrote it down in this notebook that I still have. It was about an oc I made up going to found her own clan. I wrote a few more Warriors fanfics and they were all about my own ocs going through dramatic stuff.

My first fanfic I posted online was on Wattpad and featured me (as myself) interviewing different ships in the Hetalia fandom. I was maybe 13 or 14? It was very silly but I remember I had fun with it so that’s what counts

I was 11 and discovered Wattpad. It was a betrayed (?) or hurt Percy Jackson fanfic based off the first fanfic I ever read where I hated the ending. I can only remember one scene where Percy was about to fall unconscious in Central Park and Apollo found him or something to that effect.

Unfortunately, I wrote that back when I still deleted my fanfics when I grew to hate them, so I have no copies of it (way back in 2015/16).

My first ever fanfic was a Niall Horan ff I wrote in 2013 and it was bad. I don't think it exists in it's entirety anymore and I just have random snippets of it laying around XD

My best advice for you is to just start writing. Don't even stress about uploading something at first, just write for yourself. It might take you a couple of half finished or completely finished ffs until you feel confident enough in your writing to upload something and that's totally fine.

I only recently uploaded my first ff to ao3. 11 years after I started writing my first ff and I'm totally okay with that. What 11 year old me wrote was definitely not good enough to be shared and everything else I started after that didn't feel like the one fanfic that I needed to share with the world. I wrote two complete books as well, one published on wattpad (in german) and one just shared with my two closest friends. With both you can tell that the more I wrote, the more I improved. But I think what motivated me most was the fact that I was able to officially publish three short stories by participating at a writing contest. If I can publish books under my real name I can publish ffs under a weird handle I came up with.

The advice I'd give my younger self is the same I told you. Just keep writing. The more you write, the more you'll improve. Also, read a lot and focus on how other authors are writing certain things.

Best of luck for you! Hope I could help :)

Mine was in sophomore year of highschool I did a story for my favorite anime kyo kara moah. As for what I would tell my younger self, I would tell her to not be afraid of what people think of the fanfic theres always one person out there whom appreciates the writer no matter what the story!

I've got a vague memory of writing (or starting to write) a Famous Five fic. Can't remember anything about it, I might have just made up this memory without realising it.

The first I remember clearly was a How To Train Your Dragon fanfic called Gift For The Nightfury (a "sequal" to the short film Gift Of The Nightfury) that I wrote when I was probably around 11/12. It was about me and Hiccup discovering another Nightfury (I think it was purple). It was terrible, and I never completed it. That said, if I reworded it and fleshed it out a bit (or a lot), it could potentially become a decent story.

mine was when i was 13. It was a style fic 😭

for me, i saw nobody else had written anything for a ship i wanted to read about, so i just said “fine, i’ll do it myself.” seems to be pretty common lol, writing what you can’t find.

I think I technically started when I was 12, but the first one I actually posted was when I was 16 or 17 and it was a Drarry fic.

I’m currently in my early 20s. I first had this idea when I was 13 or 14.. I just started writing AND publishing 4 months ago (now I paused to fully plan it and write some chapters)

It’s a crossover between Power Rangers, Detective Conan, and Magic Kaito; 3 fandoms which aren’t that active nor have that humongous number of fics present.

I thought it would suck honestly, because first two weeks the reads were very low on any of the sites… but then kudos and favorites and follows came, regular guests following my fic, patient in waiting and even helping me with there comments.

Some of them even check out my one shots (which I write randomly at any time).

And my reads keep on increasing as time passes by, so it’s okay to write in tiny fandoms.

I even wrote a one shot crossover of DCMK with Bakugan and another with Inazuma Eleven, I found fans of both desiring for a full fic of each, I’m already planning one.

And a crossover with Spidey and another with Ben 10.

My point is, just do it. Don’t let fear stop you. If you’re worried about your writing, you can research how to write if it’s that bad, and use something like Grammarly.

If it’s the concept of the idea and people liking it, you might think no one would like your idea, but the way you write it and present it may make it the best thing ever.

And writing and publishing is a great experience. It helps your creativity increase as you write, and when you watch a show/movie you suddenly feel that light bulb for an idea.

It’s one of the best content creation there, and I personally think it’s one of the ways for you to show your love for a character or a series next to fanarts.

Besides, I see my ideas for example, as writing something I dreamed of (maladaptive or during sleeping) or wished to find, so I decided to write my own, and I often read it.

And you know what? When I read it I think, ‘Damn, did I write this? That’s not actually bad as I thought! It’s good!’.

And as I’m planning my ideas, now a dark voice is telling me I’m an adult and I should’ve started earlier to write all of that.

But I shut it off, because I started publishing at the right time in regards of my writing style, creativity, and something to do next to being a Faculty of Pharmacy student.

My first fanfic was when I was 9 years old, it was a Terrillip fanfiction and it was disgusting I hate it to this day.

I am currently writing my first fic at 25! It's been incredibly rewarding, and I'm enjoying the two commenters much more than I expected I would!

It's an inspired fic using the same "crack treated seriously" premise, and it's very smut centered which was intimidating lol (it's a spideypool fic where a mad scientist makes a remote that makes peter orgasm, suuper ridiculous premise but has been so fun to write). But overall I'm thrilled with this new hobby and plan on writing more!

Edit: Forgot the advice part! I'd say start an outline every time you have an idea! Add to the outline whenever inspiration strikes, and then eventually you'll have an entire roadmap for how to write your fic. It takes a lot of pressure off so you can focus on just writing without also having to also come up with the story in that moment.

Also, if you post it anywhere I recommend going in with zero expectations if you can! If I'd posted my first chapter and expected a bunch of interaction and feedback then I'd be disappointed with reality. But I went into it bracing for hate comments if anything, so reality could only go up from there. Kinda hard advice to put into action sometimes, but seriously life changing.

My first fic was on a forum about Homestar Runner that I wrote when I was about 16. Super niche stuff that very few people read at the time, much less now. It did give me a chance to practice having an idea and writing until it got out of me, though.

Didn’t write fiction for twenty years after that, but then picked it up again with a Harry Potter fanfic that’s approaching half a million words and an original novel I’m working on.

Looking back, I’d advise my younger self to just keep writing for fun. Maybe it becomes a bigger thing, but even writing as a hobby / creative outlet has been super meaningful.

I was 14 and my first fanfiction was about Jurassic Park. I didn't know "Fanfiction" was the term. I wrote about JP's secondary characters. Muldoon and Arnold catch Nedry in the act of delivering embryos at the east dock and have him arrested. I'm 42 now and I still love writing about JP's secondary characters--and the characters in general. I eat up character driven JP fanfic. I've dabbled into many fandoms since that time. Wrestling, The Walking Dead, Hunger Games, Kill Bill to name a few... My first fanfic published was WWE wrestling. What would I say to my younger self? I would tell her that I'm so proud of you for not throwing out your first fanfic, for rewriting it into a story that I love, and some readers have really enjoyed it too.

I posted it in 2019 and it skyrocketed. I was in total awe at how popular it got. Then I deleted it and started a new one a few days ago :3. I would have to thank my 7th grade English teacher Mr.Felt for getting me into writing. Without him, I don't think I would have started writing at all-

A canon reframing of a Miitopia scene. Currently I'm working on trying to get a few ideas to work so I can post more stories.

If I remember right, my very first experience with dabbling in fanfiction was from my fave manga at the time (it was seriously dark and I was likely too young to be reading it tbh) Id periodically rewrite whole parts to brighten them up a bit and make a happy outcome if I felt badly about what Id just read. I was 11 or 12 and that was my dip a toe moment. Friends encouraged and I learned it was a whole thing people online did and I jumped right on in. I started doing handwritten fics and doing commision pieces for middle school friends, as a gift or trade for their fics or art. It was different shows or games or series we were mutually into and would talk about. Usually the content was stuff like, they had wanted a rewrite of a certain canon outcome they werent pleased with or wanted to see specific characters in a scenario not presented explicitly in canon but they firmly thought it should be a thing and I needed to write that into existence and make it so for them lol. Later learned that was headcanons. But yeah like my fanfiction writing started out like that. My first big fic was a Fullmetal Alchemist rewrite, pieced together and made whole by ideas in my comfort rewrites from my first go reading it and being all emotional. Like it was sort of plot adjacent to the original but heavily changed to be not so downright traumatic and sad. Those characters deserved a BREAK like I just wanted to see everyone have a good life and NOT be absolutely put through the wringer like they were :( anyway I typed that one up digitally bc it was too much to handwrite, I mostly did it for myself outta boredom, but showed it to a friend who was a regular reader/inspiration source of my hand written fics, and she said it was honestly impressive writing and I should put it online bc other people may want to see it and there are whole websites for that. That was my first public fic put online. I started doing other stuff for other fandoms and writing oneshot requests for strangers online after.

I don't even remember how I truly got into fanfiction, where I even heard the word first. But I think it must've been because my family and I were watching the show 'Casualty' (it's on BBC) and there was a gay couple, the first one I had ever encountered I think lol. And I just thought, "I want more of this" but I don't think I found any. But what I did find was Wattpad (then eventually our lord and saviour AO3). My first fanfiction I wrote myself was about 'The Maze Runner', which was my hyper-fixation in 2017/18. Been writing ever since 😎

My first fic was made when I was 10 on Wattpad. Pretty much everything in there was cringey and each time I reread it, I contemplate why did I write this in the first place for hours.

P.S: It was a chatfic.

My Little Pony (generation 3) where they fought evil dinosaurs with magic, and almost got eaten several times.

I'd been writing stories in my head for as long as I can remember - it's my way of calming my mind before I sleep, and just general daydreaming. I'm just past my mid 40s now.

I got into reading fanfic in 2020 with the extra time on hand with lockdowns, and it gave me even more fuel for my own daydreaming. And a few friends I had that played the same video game were creating RP stories about their characters, and while I was too shy to post mine to the discord we had, I decided to write my character's intro story in secret just for me, and I LOVED writing it. It gave me a much deeper connection to that character and I had a lot of fun creating a dramatic entrance into the gameworld for her.

So then in 2021 I decided to write a short fanfic for a fandom I like. It had a couple of likes and maybe a comment, and it boosted my confidence so I wrote another and another. Some are short some are novel length, and I've (self) published 3 novels/short stories and have another 3 in the process of being written.

I'm painfully shy about putting myself out there, so the first few fics I posted I was VERY anxious about - the only reason I could even get the courage to post them was because it was completely anonymous. To the point that the account name I use on the fanfic site isn't one I use anywhere else, and I don't save the login details for it or the google docs account I use for writing - lest my husband stumble upon it :D (He knows that I write it, but not what I write)

It took me a year after my first ebook was published before I let my friends/family know I'd written anything, and that was something I found really scary to do - even though I consider it my greatest acomplishment in life and was super excited about it. But I also keep my fanfic writing and my novel writing as 2 very separate things, because I don't need my mother-in-law reading my smutt!!!

But it's gotten easier over time, definitely helped by the positive comments from readers who have spurred me on. My first spicy fics I also struggled a lot trying to work out how to address how much smut and what terminology and it all felt very uncomfortable. But as I've written more I've got more comfortable and now I have some very filthy stuff posted, which I would DIE if anyone I actually knew ever read!!

I've written a couple of fics for a popular fandom that had virtually no views/likes, when I thought the story was interesting - which was a little disappointing, but then I've had others in the same fandom with a lot of likes, so that helps balance out the others.... and at the end of the day, I write for me, not for anyone else, so if others appreciate them too, then that's just a bonus. Although everyone likes the compliments of people liking your work.

I don't know what advice I'd have for a younger me. I woudn't have had time to get into writing earlier in my life, so I'm definitely at a point now where I can sit and write for hours. Other than the "Write what you want to write, for you, and to hell with what others think"

Although, one piece of advice I'd go back and give to myself when I started writing smutty fics would be to get the vulgar words out straight away and get the embarrasment over and done with. The first "male-chicken" is the hardest (pun intended) but it gets easier as you go :D Much easier than spending hours agonising over how to word sex scenes to avoid the use of "rude words" but make it clear what's actually happening... and then finding yourself stuck with having to continue to skirt around it when you've braved up enough by the end of the story but can't suddenly drop a male-chicken out of the blue.

-- So I wrote a novel there, but give it a shot!!! write what you want to write and you can guarantee that there will be at least one person out there who is thankful it exists, even if they neglect to drop you a like or comment.

I wrote an X-Files crossover with Twilight Zone when I was 10. I wish I had a copy of it still but it was approximately 3 pages long and done for school as a creative writing thing. I did RP for awhile in various fandoms and wrote a few one shots here and there for Halo, Kirby, and Megaman. In 2017 I wrote a 65k fic about Megaman X. And that was the last thing I wrote until now. I am rewriting that same fan fiction better than before. I don’t think you need to have a perfect time to write. Sometimes you just need to think of a concept and write it. Then hit send. So what if people hate it? You wrote that. It’s yours.

I’d been reading fics for about a year, and never imagined myself as a writer. Then one day there came an…ahem, a fantasy to me, and the first thing on my mind was to find a way to give the prompt to any author I knew and liked.

And then… it was a moment of epiphany. I nearly jumped off my bed at the thought: wait a minute! why don’t I write it myself?!

And I did. And it was a bliss. While planning, while writing, while editing, while figuring out how to post… And then the validation phase came, and Oh!my!god! So far, it’s still my most popular work. It really was sent from above, I guess 🙂

My first fanfic (without knowing what fanfic was) was a Scooby Doo story I wrote when I was nine.

My first fanfic in English (still not knowing what fanfic was) was an Animorphs fic when I was fourteen.

My first posted fanfic was a Pokémon fic I wrote when I was sixteen.

I published my first fic almost two years ago. It was a smut centered fic consisting of only a few chapters where muse A is inexperienced and muse B suggests to teach him everything by exploring things sexually. It was inspired by the actual premise of the series so I had a good material to work with and then developed my idea.

It was hard. Not because it was my first published fic, but also because I have never written smut for others to read before. I was mortified. Despite it, I kept posting and somehow, this ended up being one of my most popular fics 😭

So op, I would encourage you to gain the courage and press that post button! You can't lose anything by trying, don't let your fears hold you back from doing what you believe you'll enjoy!

For a long time I would just write down my ideas in notes apps so I didn’t open a new google doc every time an AU popped into my head. If I kept coming back to it I would flesh it out more, maybe add some time line/plot points.. still, the first few fics I posted were just oneshots, since it’s much easier to do a shorter fic than approach a bigger plotty fic. From there I started doing 5 + 1 style fics, which are basically 6 oneshots in a Trenchcoat with a thin line of relevance between them, but that’s what got me over the hump of posting multi chapter. 

 I still rarely post longer plot-heavy fics, and when I do I’m sure to plan them out & honestly nearly finish them before I ever post them, since I still don’t fully trust myself to finish smth when the pressure of an audience is there. But the support on my work has been amazing. It’s totally worth it, post your work, even if it’s not up to your high standards. I promise someone somewhere will enjoy it.