Why Fanfiction Should Count for your Goodreads Yearly Goals: My Hot Take

My blood has been boiling over this for years. Many of us adore fan-fiction on our favorite sites, including Archive of Our Own, Wattpad, and Fanfiction.net. These sites are platforms for amateur writers to show their work and love for other TV shows, books, and movies. Additionally, with chapters updating every day, the stories posted to fan-fiction sites are longer than some of your favorite published novels.

Goodreads

Goodreads is a bookish website created by Amazon to track your reading patterns and make friends with others who share similar interests. The website lets you tag books you want to read, that you are currently reading and that you’ve already read. I also have other tags on my books like “favorites” and “books I own.”

Also, Goodreads allows you to set how many books you want to read for the year. The problem with this system is that you cannot log any fan fiction that you read and have it count for your Goodreads yearly goal. So, this means that all the heart-wrenching stories you spent time reading are forgotten, according to Goodreads and Amazon.

In my experience, I have seen only a few stories that have made it to the Goodreads catalog, and that’s most likely because they’ve been published. Nevertheless, I do not think that it would hurt to log your favorite fan fiction to the site so you can keep track of your entire reading experience.

The Math Behind It

I can best explain this reasoning through the Transitive Law in mathematics. I’ve provided a neat diagram below describing the law and how it applies to my argument.

If published books are made up of words, and fanfiction is made up of words, then fanfiction and printed books are the same. Published books are logged into Goodreads through Amazon. If fan-fiction and published books are the same mathematically and published books are on Goodreads, that means Goodreads should log fanfiction on their site.

The math speaks for itself. I know Amazon will never see this article, but my argument has no downsides and only upsides. Amazon would make a lot of people very happy. I have multiple fan-fiction works saved on Archive of Our Own that I would love to log into Goodreads. They are complete with a cohesive plot, great interpretations of characters already created, and excellent grammar.

I do not claim that every work published on fan-fiction sites is grammatically correct and cohesive. But, if you read and enjoyed the content, that’s all that matters. Therefore, I ask a tiny thing for a large company, and many would back me up in this argument.

My Last Thoughts

I’ve appreciated the work of fan-fiction writers and their contribution to canon works of art. When I am completely bull-dozed by a story, I know that the writers on Archive of Our Own are there to piece me back together. I very strongly believe that book consumers should recognize these writers for their work. That might encourage more writers to share their stories.

I humbly and honorably request that those with Goodreads accounts can add their favorite fan-fiction stories to their yearly goals. Just think of all the good it would do with book lovers across the globe.

I rest my case, your honor.