Fanfic yes or no and why?

[cassandraclaire at mail.com]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., foxmoth at q... wrote:
I think fanfiction's great. I've met a whole bunch of people I 
> never would have met otherwise. And I =love= getting reviews.
> 	I don't think it ruins canon. It is a time honored method of 
> interpretation and commentary. 
> Pippin
--------------------------
I'm with Pippin there; it's folk literature essentially, and 
definitely a time-honored way to share stories. 

I think I'm an unusual 
case in that I wrote my fanfic before I ever read any or had the 
slightest idea that there was such a thing as Harry Potter 
fanfiction. I read books 1-3 in the weeks before GoF 
came out, and my fanfic sprung from discussing the books with friends 
and from a specific request from one friend that I write her that 
story. I recall that when I did discover the existence of HP fanfic, 
I was very surprised. <g> 

I shall now speak some hearsay.  I do love the books, but I am not by 
nature a patient/obsessive person and if it were not for reading and 
writing fanfiction I would have lost interest in Harry Potter and Co. 
by now. I'm sure I'd certainly be delighted and rush out to read the 
next book when it came out but I could never have managed to maintain 
this level of interest without fanfic.

Occasionally I wonder about the lines blurring between canon and 
fanon but am not particularly worried. A few tiny details like 
thinking I know Draco's birthday might creep in, but I'm unlikely to 
want to send canon Draco a card in any event. I figure that I'll just 
reread canon and take a break from fanfic for a few months before OOP 
comes out, and I'll be good as new. I certainly understand people's 
desire not to read fanfic so as not to taint their experience of 
canon, though. Each to his own. :)

Cassie