Advice for Fanfiction Writers

[Captain Tammo]

Hi guys!

I thought it'd be fun to make a board where great fanfiction writers like yourselves can share some advice and give some tips on how to make a good fanfiction. Advice and tips could be on a variety of different things, but the goal here is to post something of value that another person may be able to use to improve their writing and such. Here are a few ideas to get you thinking:

• What do you know now that you wish you knew when you first started writing fanfiction?
• Do you have a strategy to keep readers engaged in your writing?
• If you could give one piece of advice on this subject, what would it be?
• Tips on how to stay motivated while writing?
• Ideas to make a fanfiction easier to follow along

Have at it!

[Skyblade]

This is a great idea! YOU will give us advice too, won't you, Captain Leo?

Keep in mind that I've got a lot to improve on in writing; take my words with a heap of salt. Also, this advice goes for any prose, not just fanfiction.

First, grammar. Instead of having people edit out the same mistakes over and over, just learn the grammar rules! Learn how to use dialogue tags; that's a common mistake I see.

Dialogue Tags

When a character is performing an action related to speaking ("said", "yelled", "whispered"), use a comma:

"I'm pretty much a Grammar Nazi," Skyblade muttered.

When a character is performing an action unrelated to speaking ("sat down", "looked around", "punched someone in da face"), use a period:

"I'm pretty much a Grammar Nazi." Skyblade rolled her eyes.

[close]

Other than that, learn the rules! Learn how to spell, learn about commas and when to use them, learn about what is relevant. As someone who's studied grammar a bit (for the SAT Writing section But hey, I got a perfect score on it...), I don't really worry too much about my grammar and can focus on the story itself.

Don't waste the reader's time. I personally try to keep my writing short (believe it or not ). Don't go on and on describing this tree, that table, and what the sky looks like unless it's relevant to the story. Of course, this is all opinion, but I personally don't have a long attention span and would like to read only what's pertinent to the story.

Characters Oh my goodness. There's so much you can do with characters, but my pet peeve is Mary-sues. I personally like relatable characters, whether they share the same background as me or a personality trait (good or bad). Nobody can relate to a Mary-sue, because nobody is perfect. Plus, where's the challenge in that? Again, this is subjective, but I WANT to see a character fall down, struggle, and fail sometimes. I want to see myself in him.

Another thing: make your antagonist cool...there are various ways to do this if you research it, but villains are an integral part of a story!

Diction Ah, eloquent writing. This takes time and practice. But one quick tip I got from Mhera a while back: vary sentence structure. Instead of always simple sentences, try throwing in compound and complex ones too. And if you have no idea what I mean by that, grab a grammar book or look it up online

Keeping readers interested In all honesty, I don't think I do a good job of this... But what I do try to do is always have something the reader is questioning. Why does she do that? What was he referring to briefly? Curiosity is an excellent motivator. Make the reader curious about something (or better yet, several things).

That's it...for now.

[Captain Tammo]

Good stuff, Skyblade! I was always bad with the comma versus period setup (Origins of Simon is full of those errors... whoops ) but I like to say that I've since learned that rule.

I suppose I should throw my 2 cents in on this, too, considering I made the thread..

How to help the reader understand what's going on
Something I'm starting to get into is the practice of putting a bullet-point summary of the story so far every few chapters. The reason I do this is because some readers don't read a fanfiction one chapter after the next on a regular basis. Some readers will take a break for a week and then come back to it. Having a brief summary of the story's events can help them remember what happened, which very well may keep them reading your story.

Story pacing
I get it, you've got that idea that's been cooking in your brain for the longest time and you just have to get it into the story because you're so excited about it and it's such a good idea! 9 times out of 10, it actually is a good idea and the readers definitely will enjoy it. However, try to refrain from rushing the first several scenes of the story to get there. You may have the whole journey laid out in your head, but the readers don't. You have to take the time to explain things to the reader so that by the time you get to that totally awesome scene you've been thinking about, the reader can appreciate it as much as you do.

Consistency
A number of fanfictions (particularly incomplete fanfictions) follow a very common pattern. See if you notice it:

Awesome/suspensful/mysterious intro --> first chapter is full of the new characters we meet and we find out what their adventure will be --> story from another character's perspective, pretty entertaining --> back to the main characters, the story is starting to slow down --> things are getting a bit dull

It is not uncommon for a fanfiction to burn out early on and never get finished. My solution to this problem, which I very strongly suggest, is to write out the whole story (or almost the whole story) before you post that first chapter. Sometimes this can be frustrating since you really want people to read your work. But trust me, finish the story first. This not only gives you as much time as you need to develop the boring spaces into segments that contribute to the story, but also allows for you to let the story sit for some time. Once you write that awesome chapter, give it a week and see if you can come up with something better or somewhere new for the story to go. Your story will take longer to finish, but I can guarantee that you will be much happier in the end.

How to fix a sue (or at least help the situation)
Let's pretend that you are new to fanfiction writing and you accidentally made a character so perfect it hurts. You've posted the first three chapters and now it's too late to change them. What do you do? I found myself in this situation when I started writing the Simon trilogy. I made good ole Captain Leo and his fearless crew a whole ship-full of Mary Sues and Marty Stues. So my way of fixing this was to introduce a series of very difficult challenges to the crew and have them all make mistakes, get defeated, lose fights, starve, and, in particular, go mad! In the end, I had a story which not only highlighted, but amplified the fall from grace for some of these characters. By the time Part II of Simon rolled around, I had learned my lesson and began to keep characters in check.

If you're looking to add personal value to your story, give it a purpose
I know Brian Jacques himself wasn't a fan of symbolism and picking his stories apart piece-by-piece for analysis (he was someone who just wanted a good story). But something I try to do in my writing to make it better is to add the challenge of giving the story a central, overarching message. I tried really hard in my fanfiction to add one and its something I feel good about

Have fun! This is your story after all
Can't forget that

[Skyblade]

Great advice, Capt. Leo!

But something I try to do in my writing to make it better is to add the challenge of giving the story a central, overarching message. I tried really hard in my fanfiction to add one and its something I feel good about

That's fantastic. I agree. I'm honestly not interested in a story for the sake of a story. I want to get something out of it (which is why I actually prefer nonfiction ). I implement themes in my own novel as well (perhaps even overdoing it... ), and I try to give it meaning.

[The Skarzs]

The most important part of any story is the first sentence.
That is the hook, the thing which lures the reader in to read more. From there, the next important is the first paragraph, then the first page, and lastly, the first chapter. If the first sentence doesn't catch the reader's interest, he might not want to read much more. First impressions are important. The same thing goes with the following parts. Everything must keep the reader wanting to read more, without exhausting the story, of course.

Sometimes, simple sentences are best.
The reader doesn't always want flowery sentences with twenty adjectives and adverbs, a compound clause and three semicolons. It can be hard to keep up, and can distract from the continuation and flow of the story. While sentence variety can be good, too much variety can be bad. One good rule is "no two sentences in a paragraph should start with the same word." Overuse of "the" as a sentence beginner can be avoided this way, and can also give a sense of variety even though sentence structure may not change much.

Study how plot works.
Like aforementioned, the first sentence must grab the reader. To expand on that, after the first sentence, the first paragraph must then introduce the conflict. The conflict must rise throughout the story, getting gradually more and more intense (with some small lulls in between to keep it realistic) until the climax is reached, where protagonist and antagonist must have some sort of confrontation and one comes out the victor. From there, the story winds down to the conclusion. At the simplest, story structure for fiction is as follows: Introduction of conflict, rising conflict, climax, and conclusion. One should not have too much time between the climax and the conclusion, because the conflict cannot stay at that highest of states for too long without going stale, and too much "down" time makes the story feel incomplete.

[Jetthebinturong]

I'm not very full of advice but there is one thing I see far too often that I just have to talk about, and that is the phrase "could care less." If you're using it in the way most people use it, STOP.

"Could care less" means "I care about this thing at least a little bit."
The correct phrase is "Couldn't care less," as in, "I literally don't care at all."

[Chipster of Noonvale]

This thread contains some very good advice.  I'll try to keep this in mind the next time I write something.

One thing I want to add: make sure that each character's personality and behaviour matches that in the original work.  Characters behaving OOC are often really annoying and distracting.

[Skyblade]

Good advice, everyone!

One should not have too much time between the climax and the conclusion, because the conflict cannot stay at that highest of states for too long without going stale, and too much "down" time makes the story feel incomplete.

@Skarzs This is something I've worried about for a while. There are 24 chapters in my novel (excluding a prologue and epilogue). Would the last two chapters put after the climax be too much?

[Eulaliaaa!]

I think two chapters is ok. As long as it doesn't go on forever. It should show what happens afterwards and have a good conclusion, and if it's your type of writing - be wrapped up in a neat little bow. It's my type of writing to leave a few loose threads open for the reader's imagination, and maybe even create some if the book will have a sequel. It also depends on how long the chapters are.

I'm not very full of advice but there is one thing I see far too often that I just have to talk about, and that is the phrase "could care less." If you're using it in the way most people use it, STOP.

"Could care less" means "I care about this thing at least a little bit."
The correct phrase is "Couldn't care less," as in, "I literally don't care at all."

^
Thank you.

[Skyblade]

It's my type of writing to leave a few loose threads open for the reader's imagination,

Oh, even with the two chapters, this would still happen Especially since I'm not planning a sequel. Thanks for the advice!

[Jukka the Sling]

Dialogue Tags

When a character is performing an action related to speaking ("said", "yelled", "whispered"), use a comma:

"I'm pretty much a Grammar Nazi," Skyblade muttered.

When a character is performing an action unrelated to speaking ("sat down", "looked around", "punched someone in da face"), use a period:

"I'm pretty much a Grammar Nazi." Skyblade rolled her eyes.

[close]

I'd like to add just one little thing here, 'cause I've seen this mistakenly done as well.  If the paragraph mentions speaking but has a direct object in it, you also use a period.  Like so:

Correct vs incorrect

CORRECT: "I'm really mad."  She said this with a smile on her face.

INCORRECT:  "I'm really mad," she said this with a smile on her face.

[close]

The "this" (or "that", or "it") is the direct object of the sentence, so, yeah.  In that situation, they shouldn't be one sentence.  Split them into two or remove the direct object.

[Skyblade]

Good point, thank you!

Another question: How much emotion is too much?

[The Skarzs]

Any.

Different people have different taste in emotional characters. But, what do you mean by emotion? There are a lot. Most people aren't going to be so polite that they'll let others step all over them and keep themselves totally and completely stuck within themselves. Most people feel anger and will lash out. It's not common for someone to be angry at everything and everyone because there has to be some happiness in their life, no matter how vague it might be. There's a limit to the amount of emotion one can have. (I'm just not sure what it is.)

[Skyblade]

That's an interesting thought. I meant emotional scenes, though.

[The Skarzs]

Well, sometimes bluntness is best there as well. For example, I had an emotional scene in my book, and I decided to cut something down because it was too much. (That's not much help, though. . .)
Hopefully other people will give some insight.