Thereβs a quality that certain books/movies/TV shows have that leads me to say, βYeah, I can see people making fanfiction of that.β Itβs something to do, I think, with how tight the story is, how much feels open-ended or like it could be elaborated on.
Something like Breaking Bad, for example, has low squiggability (thatβs what Iβm calling this quality). Itβs tightly written, the characters are consistent, thereβs little left to interpolate or extrapolate. Obviously, people DO write fanfic of Breaking Bad, but it still has a low squiggability score. Whereas something like Supernatural has a high squiggability score. Fantasy and science fiction often have high squiggability scores. This suggests squiggability could also be related to worldbuilding and potential for people to borrow a premise or setting.
And sometimes youβll read or watch something and youβll say, βAh, low squiggability,β and then youβll open tumblr and find out that everyone else seem to think its squiggability was very high indeed.