My general view of all types of creative pursuits is: you can do pretty much whatever you want, and some people will like it, and some people won’t.
And over time you’ll learn what’s important to you (get as many fans as possible? get liked by a few people who really matter to you? get a result that you think is good? or just have fun with the process?) …and how to achieve it (trying different styles, different media, seeing what other artists have done and learning from it, etc)
and there’s no real wrong way.
Just ways that may be more or less likely to reach whatever your goals are.
Anyway, I think it’s mostly common sense that, if you want to make something in a particular style/medium– and want it to be something that fans of that style/medium will like– it generally helps to get some experience observing well-liked work by other creatives who do that same kind of stuff.
and, I’m not sure why there’s so much argument over this in the field of fiction writing, specifically.
Except, maybe, that when people say this about fiction writing, they tend to word it in ways like:
“if you want to be a good writer, you have to read books! you’re gonna suck at writing if you never read books! ….No, not fanfiction, those aren’t real books, and they’re not going to teach you how to write real books. Yeah sure, they might teach you how to write fanfiction, but obviously that’s not what you’re trying to write, right? …Anyway, read real books or else you’re a bad writer. No, I won’t define what I mean by ‘real,’ or recommend which ones. I’ll just assume that whatever you’re reading doesn’t make the cut.”
and, well… personally?
I think, if you want to actually get the point across, it might make more sense to emphasize the part about “observing the kind of creative work you want to do.”
by which I mean: getting some of your experience from reading in the same overall genre, style, age-bracket etc. that you want to write in.
And yeah, this does include fanfic-vs-original-works.
They are read with different expectations, written for different reasons, and require very different skill-sets.
Yes, the differing expectations of fanfic or original work may be more important or less important, depending on the exact story. And yes, again, your practice will have to depend on your own personal goal.
But, in general:
And yet. I feel like many people tend to emphasize that in a very one-sided way.
Only addressing the “reading fanfic won’t teach you how to write original work!” side of things.
When the other side of things is… at least as true. Maybe more.
Story time:
I know someone who has written a lot of original work over the years. When I met them, they were starting out with very beginner-level work, but through lots and lots and lots of practice, they’ve become a skilled writer of original fiction that now has a very devoted little fan base.
Their growth has had many contributing factors. Reading has been part of it, and what they’ve gotten from reading the work of others has been pretty much entirely original fiction, no fanfic.
And… a while back, they tried their hand at writing fanfic.
The fanfic was enjoyable to read. Their technical writing style still had a lot of their typical skill. But— it was very clear, to me as a reader, that they did not have prior experience with fanfic.
They approached the backstory in the same way they would approach the backstory of characters they’d invented for an original story. They used all the subtle, masterful expository skills of a lifetime of original fiction writing– the unobtrusive ways that a really talented author can reveal, in the subtext of a dialogue, or in a character’s brief reflection on memories, what significant events happened in the past and how they relate to what’s happening now.
But the stuff they revealed this way? was just the canon lore from the source material that the fic was based on.
The stuff that actual fanfiction readers wouldn’t feel any need to have explained to them! No matter how gentle and unobtrusive the exposition was, it still came across as pointless, unnecessary filler, to someone with experience reading fanfiction.
Now again, I’m not saying they were bad at fan writing. Their experience did transfer, in many ways.
And again I will reiterate: beauty is in the eye of the beholder, appreciation of art is subjective and diverse, and if the writer’s goal isn’t “to please the maximum possible number of average fans of this particular kind of writing,” then the path they take to their goal may be entirely different and that’s okay.
But, from the viewpoint of someone with common expectations that come from being an avid reader of fanfic, I think I can speak for a lot of fanfic readers when I say: Having read some fanfiction would have helped them write a story that worked better as fanfiction.
And I think that’s the core of truth in the advice.
Lots of things in your life, your practice, your studies, can contribute to your writing style. And the result you are seeking may be any of a number of things. Whatever you write– and however you get there–could end up fulfilling your goal, depending.
But, all other factors aside: Getting some experience reading the type of material you want to write? will generally lead to a better result (by most of the metrics you could be using) than not getting that experience.
And that goes for writing fanfic, too.
Which is sometimes the goal. As much as that tends to get forgotten.