Personal humility in storytelling Fanfiction is hard to write.  Or at least, it's hard to write well.  The reason for this is something I believe many people don't understand. Fanfiction requires a great deal of personal humility. Well-written adaptations require humility too, but fanfiction requires even more.  Adapting a story to a new medium requires you to put the good of the story above your own wishes, and if you love the original story, that isn't necessarily hard.  But fanfiction requires creating new things to match somebody else's desires and wishes, and that's extremely difficult.  It requires a much deeper level of submission and devotion to the original work. It's easier to figure out why you love a particular story and then create something new with the same touchstones, which is more perfectly matched to your tastes.  This is something that I think all artists do, in all mediums, and wonderful things can result. For instance, I am reasonably sure W. R. Gingell's book A Time-Traveller's Best Friend and its sequels (which I love) were inspired by the new Doctor Who TV show.  The story is a hilarious romp, and it's a joy to read precisely because she didn't try to force her heart into somebody else's story.  Instead, she figured out what she personally loved about that story and created something fresh based on those touchstones.  It's terrific.  It's original.  It's unique.  It shines. Writing a good new arc of somebody else's story is much, much harder.  This is probably why people who do a particularly good job of writing official fanfiction of TV shows (tie-in novels) frequently seem to be hired to write actual episodes of the show.  They have demonstrated that they have learned the difficult skill of submissiveness, and are therefore an appropriate fit for a writing team in an inherently collaborative storytelling medium. Submitting to the will of another creator is hard for me.  Perhaps that isn't universal; there are obviously people who enjoy collaborating.  I am not one of them. Every so often, though . . . there's a story I love that feels like it's missing something crucial by the end.  (Sometimes the existence of any ending at all.)  When it's a story I truly love, I may choose to take months to immerse myself in that story, to dedicate myself to learning what that story wants and needs.  Then I am ready to serve the story.  That level of submissiveness and humility comes only through pure, deep, unselfish love. I think that's what fanfiction should be.