Archaeological Discoveries

[bimo]

Going through some old lever arch files, I just stumbled across the first fan fiction story I've ever written.

German language, typewritten manuscript, circa 1993, never been published. Crossover between TNG and Forever Knight featuring my then favourite vampire Nick Knight and a certain Starfleet captain running into each other during an archaeological dig on some alien world.

What really amazed me when I re-read the whole thing for the first time in over twenty years:

• While there are quite a few things that I'd do differently today (basically in a shorter, more compact and somewhat more subtle way than my 18-year old self did), the writing itself  is actually surprisingly free of cringe-worthy, embarrassing stuff.
• In many ways, it's already a typical "Bimo story". Lots of character details, visible attempts at establishing a somewhat atmospheric setting, some nice dialogue bits but little to zero action.

Colour me amused and fascinated at the same time.

Comments

[espresso_addict]

You started writing fanfiction a lot earlier than I did (Blake's 7 in 2000). I'd been writing 'original' fiction much earlier, in my childhood (no traces remain, thankfully) and then towards the end of my university career in the early 1990s. A lot of that's disappeared but there's one piece I rewrote & posted after I'd started writing fanfiction. It's pretty cringeworthy.

I find fanfiction inherently easier to avoid cringeworthiness -- the characters are less obviously based on oneself, even when really they are.