Field Guide to Identifying Fanfic Writers

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Title:	Field Guide to Identifying Fanfic Writers
Creator:	James Walkswithwind
Date(s):	January 28, 2003
Medium:	online
Fandom:
Topic:	Fanfiction
External Links:	Field Guide to Identifying Fanfic Writers, Archived version
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Field Guide to Identifying Fanfic Writers is an essay by James Walkswithwind.

It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series.

It starts with this statement:

Every writer is potentially several, or all of these types. A writer may go back and forth between them for different stories, or be a combination for some stories or all stories, or change combinations constantly. The point of this is not to squeeze every writer into a box.

The point is to clarify that there are different reasons for writing, different ways of writing, and different consequences for different types of writing. The field guide is meant to help illustrate those differences and help you make your own conclusions about what the consequences not listed here, may be.

Also - there are good and bad ways of being each type! There is nothing inherently worse or better about any type. So if you feel bad because you fit a certain type -- it's because you are judging it that way.

The Types

• The Storyteller
• The Craftswoman
• The Artist
• The Pop Writer
• The Therapist
• The Engineer