Writing Fan Fiction.

A waste of time or a productive exercise?
I usually resort to it when I can't think of any writing ideas. Same goes for going on this website.
What do you think?

FANFICTION.NET.

Waste of time, since most fanfic is crap, anyway. And it really doesn't helo with ideas, since you're just using other peoples'. At least, that's how I see it.

While I mostly agree with Spired, that's not entirely true... I mean, look at Wicked o3o

I wouldn't consider Wicked a fanfic, but...sure.

I love writing fanfic. It's really forcing you to take somebody else's character and see things from THEIR perspective. Plus, it can really introduce you to writing personalities and quirks that you never had before.

Ende has a great point.
I think its good for when you cant think of ideas for you own stories but still want to write and express yourself. So, I like it a fair bit.

yes and no, for me.

while there are some crap fanfics as spire says, i do believe there's good things to it too. it does give inspiration when your in a block, and i do love looking at a character's motives behind their actions and trying it my self.
im also very proud of my and ende's lil' fanfic of young justice chat. the characters there are all very well developed, we simply borrowed the setting and background for their life stories, shaping the characters into something we called our own.

As i told Ende when she was nervous copying off canon: any borrowed character can never shine like the original, because you don't know what the writer originally had in mind when creating him/her. You simply have to look over that and tweak a little. In that way, i see fanfic as a way of inspiration. Although you're copying the setting/background/ or even a character, it will always shape into your story/character because you won't reflect the original writer's goals, you'll have your own in mind.