Welcome to Fanfic's Hall of Fame, ViniShah2!!!

ViniShah2: Fanfiction means everything to me. Reason: I love BTS and when I began writing BTS fanfics, I gained readers who appreciated me. They helped me grow as a writer and as a person.

ViniShah2: Well, I wrote the first book for myself during the COVID-19 lockdown. Somehow, the storyline was my dream (the one that we see while we're fast asleep). I saw two dreams, and I decided to merge them into one storyline. It was cliche, not gonna lie. I wrote it nonetheless. I sent the file to one of my cousins (who was also a BTS and K-drama fan), and she suggested me to publish the book on Wattpad. I did not even know it was called fanfiction then. I still laugh when I think about this. I mean, I wrote a book that was fanfiction without actually knowing it. And since then, I never stopped.

ViniShah2: I think I do. I had a habit to promote my book link on all my social media handles. One of the first readers who I also talked with was a lady from the USA whose age was around 62 at that time. She got in touch with me on Twitter, where she texted me, saying how she came across my book link on Twitter and she enjoyed reading it. She was also the first one to encourage me to write more fanfiction. I will never forget her encouraging words. Sadly, we are no longer in touch.

ViniShah2: Of course, it helped me. Now that I've written more than nine fanfictions, I have observed this pattern in all of my books. We, writers, tend to make at least one character in every book that is relatable to us. Somehow, they have the same insecurities, challenges, habits, or are simply an exact copy of ourselves. The name of the character might be real, but other than that, nothing belongs to them-whether they react or they feel.

Many times, while writing, I realised that I faced these difficult situations, and that was the reason why I depicted that particular scene in a book. And somehow, the way I made the character react to it has changed my perspective towards my real life as well. And celebrating jolly occasions, why not? I feel celebrating happiness is happier than coping with difficult times. If writing fanfiction helped me cope with difficult times, it surely and easily helped me celebrate jolly occasions too.

I'm not sure if this is an answer to this question, but when one of my books reached 50K, I celebrated it with my family, who were equally delighted. It was the first milestone for me since the time I joined Wattpad, and I never saw that coming. Also, I was very happy when that particular book received 50K reads, because it took me more than 6 months to complete that book. And I was; I still am close to those characters. The characters of that book feel like family-a family I created. That book changed my life, and I feel proud to say this, but that book changed the lives of many of my readers. Many of my readers messaged me saying how either any of the character(s) or that book changed their perspective towards life.

Another jolly occasion that I celebrated was when the same book that I talked about was featured on the official Fanfic and Ambassadors India profile. I know it's not a huge deal, but it surely is for me. And my mom was really happy when I shared this news with her. I believe in celebrating happiness.

ViniShah2: My favorite part of being a fanfiction reader and writer is that fanfics showed me how real people can be fictional too. I mean, if I love BTS and if I read/write fanfictions, I know that none of what is mentioned in a particular book is real, and I still get to enjoy the characters. I feel like I'm getting closer to them even when I'm not getting to know the real them. However, amazing stories make us love our favorite fandom more, and it's amazing.

Since the time I wrote my first fanfiction, I have been writing just fanfictions and reading the same. It's addicting, and I don't feel like getting out of this world that Wattpad, some of my favorite authors, my readers, and I myself created for me.

ViniShah2: I think the future is brighter than the brightest star in the night sky. No, I mean it! And I want to see the future of fanfiction even better. Because it is comfortable for a reader as well as a writer to read/write the books on their favorite fandom. Since I'm both a fanfiction reader and a writer, it gets easy for me to dive into a fanfiction book to read as well as to make characters with the names of the fandom that I admire.

If Wattys starts accepting fanfiction books again, perhaps fanfiction books would do wonders and would reach out to more people around the world. I mean, for sure, my books are read in more than 100 countries, and all thanks to the amazing ambassadors that take out time to feature our books. Still, if Wattys continues to include fanfictions again, it will work better. I can totally see myself growing as a fanfiction author in the upcoming future.

ViniShah2:

a. Aein_yeobo7 (she is one of my first readers to click on my book as soon as I publish a chapter)

b. Noshin7bear (who became my great friend now. All thanks to Wattpad and fanfiction.)