Reflecting On Fanfic First
Whether that's wise
I have heard people recommending writing fanfic as a way to begin writing with the intention to switch to original fiction.
To which I say -- I don’t.
Some habits and skills that writing fanfic cultivates may be useful for original fiction.
Others are positively detrimental.
Devising new plots may help.
Writing the story without taking care to inclue the reader with the world it is taking place in, and the characters who are living it out -- because the fans already know -- weakens an important skill.
Not devising the world and the characters but keeping (more or less) within canon also weakens important skills.
The thing is that while we have certainly seen works where writers could devise plots but the characters were cardboard, or in which a cliche plot moves through a vivid setting, the skills still all work together.
If you don’t like how the hero and heroine quarreled, or think that it should have led to a permanent rupture, or resent that a character was killed off -- or not -- you go ahead and steal that.1 This is a perfectly commonplace way to start writing original fiction, and it is better than just being inspired by the work because it gives you a motive to change.
But consider what to change.
For instance, what plot purpose did the death serve?
It’s one thing to fix it by making another character, whom you never liked anyway, make a mistake that prevents the character get to the place where he died. (Or, of course, to get himself killed if his survival was what you objected to.)
It’s another thing to reorganize the setting to prevent (or enable) the death.2 This is much more likely to break canon, but it enables you to do much.
It’s still another to consider whether you should change the magic system to facilitate it. Particularly if you are considering a profound uprooting of the system from the bottom. It was generic, it didn’t serve your theme, it killed off the character you liked and not the character you didn’t.
It’s wonderful thing to do. For the final work, it’s best if it is actually an improvement on the work you are deriving inspiration from, being less generic, more colorful and vivid, less obviously a plot device, plus fitting your themes more elegantly -- but if you are doing it for practice, it doesn’t matter if you end up with a worse magical system. You tried. You exercised your ability to pull the ideas loose.
Some elements really do have to be pulled loose for an aesthetically complete work. The reason why the hero and heroine never commit is that it would change the series, and their unending battle with the evil shadow creatures has no real resolution. Both of them are so driven that they would not give up even so much attention as a marriage would take.
You could just hook them and override their characters, but you could also tear them out of that situation and give them a finite problem to deal with, such that they can conclusively end it, and marry securely in the knowledge that the future will be better for their heroism.
This is because you are developing the art of making your own canon, and making it aesthetically sound. The great art of it is realizing that all the parts have to hang together, and any of the parts can be changed in order to make it hang better. You are juggling characters and plots and settings because in the end, all of these act and react on each other.
Would this work better in a high fantasy world, without characters who did not know anything of magic before it started?
Can you put the school in a labyrinth?
Is dark magic just destructive magic, such as you would use to knock down a building after it had been rendered unsafe in an earthquake?
If these children hadn’t been trapped in the painting, would it be better if the results were told from the viewpoint of one of them? Or even the entire story?
Everything is an option.
The more you practice, the better you get.
You can start with being annoyed at how shallow and selfish an assassin being presented as a love interest is, and consider how he could defend his trade if he weren’t in solely for the money and shameless enough to admit it.
First you set up a land with endemic warfare.
Then you set up a quarrel with paladins where he argues that they go into the field to kill knights and men-at-arms who had no say in the battle, where he cuts straight to the heart and kills the man who decided.
One paladin counter-argues that he kills people in their own homes, leaving all people in dread where they should feel most secure; another that he pays no heed to the right and wrong of the war when assassinating important people, just for who pays.
After that, the paladins are attacked, and the assassin saves the day by killing the nobleman in command, whose idea it was, without pay.
Then, of course, you have to elaborate the plot to set up that conversation and that attack.
During which, perhaps, you realize that you dropped the romance. The assassin is no longer a love interest.
You have forged so far into original fiction that the original inspiration has stolen away.
And if you can’t imagine getting that far -- well, there are story ideas to this day where it’s a surprise how little, if any, of the original ripped-off idea makes it in.