Daily Dialogues

In my opinion, there are two qualities that make for a fandom with a lot of fanfiction.

1. The story is good enough
2. The the story/world/characters leave room for fans to work with

An example of a story that doesn’t inspire a ton of fanfiction is Severance. I love that show, but it doesn’t make for a thriving fanfiction community. The characters are already fully developed and any questions are either already answered or will be answered. This doesn’t mean that there’s no fandom for Severance. There’s discussion, theories, analysis videos, art, etc. Fanfiction, however, isn’t a part of that. There are 1,727 stories on Archive of Our Own. That’s fewer than one might expect for such a popular show.

An example of a story with a huge fanfiction scene is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. The show itself is just okay. With a couple exceptions in both directions, the show is a decent 6/10. That doesn’t mean that everybody sees it that way. My Little Pony has its own fanfiction website with 158,329 stories. Even almost six years after the show ended the scene is still thriving. A 6/10 may not sound good, but it is good enough. The characters aren’t great, but they have enough interesting qualities for fans to work with and develop.

For example, Fluttershy’s arc is that she learns to stand up for herself and be more social. That sounds pretty boring on the surface. What I didn’t tell you is that Fluttershy is a pegasus that’s scared of heights. She was born in Cloudsdale, a pegasus city where most pegasi live. She lives on the ground. This invites questions about how she survived for so long in a city so high up in the sky and what her thoughts were.

She also has a childhood friend who’s the stereotypical pegasus. She embraces the sky and lives in a cloud mansion high in the sky. This invites questions about how she felt when Fluttershy moved and when they reconnected later. Fluttershy’s friend also dropped out of school.

There are tons of these examples for every character along with the large but not particularly well developed world.

I’m not saying that you should write a 6/10 story so people write fanfiction about your story. You should always aim to write a Severance instead of a My Little Pony. Great stories are also good enough and can have a lot of material for fans to work with. I’m just pointing out an interesting trend that I’ve noticed.