So you're favorite show has an ending you're not satisfied with they way things played out, or you just finished reading a great book that's a new favorite...except that the main character didn't end up with the person you wanted them to be with. What if I told you that you're most likely not the only one who feels this way? What if I told you that there's a whole community of people online who wrote their own version of events that took place on that show?
Fan fiction is when someone takes a story and characters from a work that is not of their own creation and can either rewrite events, write a scene where something might've happened we didn't get to see, pretty much anything they want.
Fan fiction has developed an...interesting reputation thanks to books like "fifty shades of grey," which was based off twilight fan fiction. Most people when the think of fan fiction, the immediately think that it is nothing more than bad writing, Mary Sues and a lot of "steamy" scenes. While there are fictions that are like that, I've read fictions that are actually well thought out and written well. Some are even written better than some published novels. There are an overwhelming amount of people that claim that they've read fan fiction that was written better than "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," the play that's a sequel to the original "Harry Potter" series.
Through out high school I did write my share of fan fiction (and may or may not still do), though I always felt the need to hide that fact, like it was some kind of dirty secret. I didn't even post it on any website like Wattpad or Fanficion.net terrified that somehow people would discover them and make fun of my hobby, even if I hide behind a user name. After that I would change my name, dye my hair and move out of the country.
Some people view writing fan fiction as a waste of time, that they should just sit down a write a "real book." First of all, not everyone who writes fan fiction has dreams of getting traditionally published, and that's okay. A lot of people write fan fiction purely just for the fun of it. And it is fun to play around with characters and put them in situations that the author didn't write about, or even crossovers where characters from different series, like what would happen if Harry Potter ran into Captain America at a coffee shop, how would that conversation play out? Would they be friends? Would they even know who the other is? The possibilities are endless!
Also, plenty of published authors started out by writing fan fiction. Cassandra Clare, author of the popular "Mortal Instruments" series (as well as about 5,000 over Shadowhunter's books), stated that she started out by writing Harry Potter fan fiction. Alexa Donne, author of "Brightly Burning," her debut novel that came out earlier this year, made a whole video on her Youtube channel talking about how she used to write fan fiction (but she would't tell us her user name), and the benefits that came with it. The only way to get good at something is to practice, and any kind of writing, including fan fiction, is still practice. Since it's online, fan fiction writers can get instant feedback, they can learn.
I don't see any reason to shame someone, especially kids and teenagers, for writing fan fiction. It'd be like telling a child not to practice drawing, because who knows, that child could grow up to be the next Van Gogh.