Video game fan-fiction – best training shoes for creative writing

You played that video game and fell in love with it. You loved the characters, the story, and the whole game universe. It made you read everything there is to read about the game. The game became a franchise and you played every single title ever released.

I know because I was a fan of the Command and Conquer series. I searched through the web for any juicy bits of information about the in-game universe as I could

Then you thought about what ifs. What if this specific game character was on this mission. What if the ending wasn’t like this. It goes on and on. There’s just so much ideas and you decided to just write.

That’s how I discovered my love for creative writing. I enjoyed drafting out short stories about some of the in-game characters and expanding it. I remember vividly how I wrote pages after pages in those exercise books I got when I was still in secondary school. I had callouses between my index finger and thumb because I gripped my pen too hard and wrote almost everyday for two months.

One good thing about fan fictions is that the canon universe is already established by some other people. It’s less taunting than you trying to create a whole universe from scratch. For brand new stories, it takes a lot more effort on your part to think about the world, the characters, etc. I know because I do write fictions. Sometimes it could get so overwhelming that you decided not to write at all. For fan fictions, you could easily borrow some of the in-game elements as part of your writing. That was what I did and that made it easy for me to focus on the story I want to tell.

The other thing is you can get it out there much easier especially if you are a true fan. You will know where are the best places to publish you work. As I was a fan of the Command and Conquer series, I know there were some fan sites that allow you to submit fan fictions. People are less judging of the work you put out unless the story you wrote is totally out of the game canon universe. Well, at least that’s how I remember it.

If you aren’t a fan, it would be pretty scary to publish your writings online on some random blog or platforms like Medium. It doesn’t matter if you are a fifteen year or a sixty year old. That sense of dread of publishing your work for the first time is just scary. I know because I still have that lingering feeling even after I have published some articles online and hundreds of personal journals on my blog.

So go find a video game that you love so much. Be a fan and find out everything there is to know. Then start writing your own fan fictions about some of the characters or your own interpretations of in-game events. You can even put yourself as a main character in your fan fiction. Focus on the story you want to tell and hit that publish button as part of your training.