fanfiction writing tips
May. 1st, 2007 06:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skoosiepantsETA: Can someone tell me what the weather in Chicago is like in early November?
ETA2: Seriously, these are just my personal preferences
Hey, so having made my way through most of the good fic, I've found myself thigh-deep in badfic, and seriously, some of the concepts aren't bad, it's just the execution mainly makes my eyes bleed.
So. Here's just a few tips. And please remember this is not aimed at any of my flisters, okay, and no one specific, really. This is just a general rant along with some semi-helpful things to keep in mind that I hope you find at least a little bit amusing:
1) This is so important and I can't stress it enough: Write dialogue how you talk. Oh my god, please write how you talk. Use contractions! Use grammatically incorrect sentence structure! What you get out of school? Doesn't translate. I mean, on some level, yes, please know how to write coherently, but seriously, it's not half as important as WRITING HOW YOU TALK. You can argue that your character wouldn't talk how you necessarily talk (don't get me started on the 'was sat' thing), but then, guess what? Write how your character would talk! Get into your character's head! Unless you're Teyla or Zelenka, or unless you're stressing a particular phrase or whatever, I really don't want to read stilted dialogue. And this segues directly into…
2) Your voice/tone of the piece is not just expressed through dialogue, so you know all those contractions I want you to use in your dialogue? Use them when there's no dialogue. You're still in that character's head, right? And don't give me that 'it's omniscient' crap, because that doesn't float, people. Unless you're writing in God's voice, you still need to WRITE HOW NORMAL PEOPLE TALK. And please, for the love of all that’s holy, do not use “one” to say “you.” Nobody says, for example, How does one do that? You say, How do you do that? And I went to high school a long time ago, okay, so I’m not sure what they’re teaching in English classes anymore, but they taught me formal shit – like using ‘one’ – and that does not cut it in fanfiction, so just stop it. Please.
3) Put down the thesaurus and back away. We can so tell when you have no idea what a word means. You may *think* you’re using it correctly, but believe me, you’re not. Keep it simple! Use small words! And if you’re arguing, well, I’m writing McKay, and McKay uses BIG words, my advice to you is: we can still tell when you have no clue what you’re talking about. McKay is maybe three-fourths inflection, pacing, description, and maybe one-fourth fancy words. Most of McKay’s big words come from his job, so try writing him without any science mumbo jumbo and see how you do. If you really want to use big words, USE THE WORD. Use it A LOT before you put it in a story, because again: WE ALL KNOW THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT MEANS. I’m not talking science *terms* either. I’m talking, god, I can’t even think of a freaking example right now, but it’s like replacing “use” with “utilize” and yeah, crappy example, but think of it as, well, EVERYONE uses the word “use.” There is no way McKay doesn’t use “use” and sure, he may say “utilize,” too, but it’s also slightly, *slightly* different, and can make you look really stupid if you use it in the wrong place – I know, lame, but you get the gist.
4) Some people are picky about POV. I’m not, particularly, and have done it both ways, but sometimes it’s easier for you to either pick one POV for the entire story, or break it up into sections. The most you can probably get away with is the new person speaking, new paragraph rule – yes, this is also important! – and you can change the POV only when the speaker switches, but yeah, that can get confusing, and I think I probably just confused you all, as well as myself, but my rant is slowing down. Whatever. I just don’t want to see multiple POVs in one paragraph, okay?
5) Show don’t tell. A pretty big rule. However, some fic styles can get away with more telling than others, and I don’t feel like getting into it right now.
6) Personally, I hate exposition. I hate writing it, I hate reading it, and sometimes you need it, but just try to use it sparingly, okay? And this is something I’ve seen a lot of – too much description. If two people are having a conversation, you can really bog down a story to the point that I want to hit the back button if you have a paragraph description of feelings, gestures, whatever, after every dialogue volley. Break it up. I don’t care if you have just a plain ‘“blah blah blah,” he said,’ thing going on every once and a while. That’s fine, I like that. I can picture him talking all by my lonesome sometimes, thanks very much, particularly if you’ve already told me he had “sparkling blue eyes” or some shit – please don’t tell me he had sparkling blue eyes, oh my god.
7) What I really hate are people who don’t learn from their past writings. Seriously, there is a pair of writers in particular that I won’t mention that make the same horrendous mistakes over and over again and it’s simple stuff that, you know, I probably got wrong too when I was starting out, but if you’ve written over a dozen stories with the same freaking things wrong with them, oh my god, what is going on in your mind? So, anyway, this is all to say, lay off the exclamation points. Lay the fuck off, okay? Use them sparingly, don’t use them in every other sentence of dialogue because people don’t talk like that (write how you talk!) and even if they’re shouting at each other, I’d rather you used “he shouted” or “he yelled” or whatever, and never pair shouted or yelled with exclamation points – and yes, I know I’ve used a lot of exclamation points in this entire post, but it’s not a fic so it doesn’t matter and I really am yelling at you *g*
8) I once perused a forum thread about writing and they were arguing over paragraph lengths and what’s the rule of thumb and, you know, if you’re getting that nitty-gritty about it you’re just thinking too much. Paragraphs can have only one sentence. They can have five or ten, and okay, there should be a line at how big they should be, but that’s just because it’s really hard to read a big fucking paragraph without getting bored or lost, so just use your common sense, okay? Flow and rhythm is just something you have to figure out yourself by writing and writing some more.
9) Repetition can be useful. I like circular stories and all, but I don’t want a paragraph talking about how emo Ryan is because Spencer got a haircut or something and then another three paragraphs halfway down the page about the same damn thing. Okay, Ryan’s sad, we get it, now let’s see some action! What does he *do* about it? Does he cuddle with Jon? And if he’s cuddling with Jon, is he *really* still thinking about Spencer’s stupid haircut? (I think I’ve lost my thread here, but whatever, cuddling)
10) If you’re not having fun, then you’re doing something wrong. I don’t think I can expand on that concept.
God, there’s so much more probably, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.
ETA2: Seriously, these are just my personal preferences
Hey, so having made my way through most of the good fic, I've found myself thigh-deep in badfic, and seriously, some of the concepts aren't bad, it's just the execution mainly makes my eyes bleed.
So. Here's just a few tips. And please remember this is not aimed at any of my flisters, okay, and no one specific, really. This is just a general rant along with some semi-helpful things to keep in mind that I hope you find at least a little bit amusing:
1) This is so important and I can't stress it enough: Write dialogue how you talk. Oh my god, please write how you talk. Use contractions! Use grammatically incorrect sentence structure! What you get out of school? Doesn't translate. I mean, on some level, yes, please know how to write coherently, but seriously, it's not half as important as WRITING HOW YOU TALK. You can argue that your character wouldn't talk how you necessarily talk (don't get me started on the 'was sat' thing), but then, guess what? Write how your character would talk! Get into your character's head! Unless you're Teyla or Zelenka, or unless you're stressing a particular phrase or whatever, I really don't want to read stilted dialogue. And this segues directly into…
2) Your voice/tone of the piece is not just expressed through dialogue, so you know all those contractions I want you to use in your dialogue? Use them when there's no dialogue. You're still in that character's head, right? And don't give me that 'it's omniscient' crap, because that doesn't float, people. Unless you're writing in God's voice, you still need to WRITE HOW NORMAL PEOPLE TALK. And please, for the love of all that’s holy, do not use “one” to say “you.” Nobody says, for example, How does one do that? You say, How do you do that? And I went to high school a long time ago, okay, so I’m not sure what they’re teaching in English classes anymore, but they taught me formal shit – like using ‘one’ – and that does not cut it in fanfiction, so just stop it. Please.
3) Put down the thesaurus and back away. We can so tell when you have no idea what a word means. You may *think* you’re using it correctly, but believe me, you’re not. Keep it simple! Use small words! And if you’re arguing, well, I’m writing McKay, and McKay uses BIG words, my advice to you is: we can still tell when you have no clue what you’re talking about. McKay is maybe three-fourths inflection, pacing, description, and maybe one-fourth fancy words. Most of McKay’s big words come from his job, so try writing him without any science mumbo jumbo and see how you do. If you really want to use big words, USE THE WORD. Use it A LOT before you put it in a story, because again: WE ALL KNOW THAT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT MEANS. I’m not talking science *terms* either. I’m talking, god, I can’t even think of a freaking example right now, but it’s like replacing “use” with “utilize” and yeah, crappy example, but think of it as, well, EVERYONE uses the word “use.” There is no way McKay doesn’t use “use” and sure, he may say “utilize,” too, but it’s also slightly, *slightly* different, and can make you look really stupid if you use it in the wrong place – I know, lame, but you get the gist.
4) Some people are picky about POV. I’m not, particularly, and have done it both ways, but sometimes it’s easier for you to either pick one POV for the entire story, or break it up into sections. The most you can probably get away with is the new person speaking, new paragraph rule – yes, this is also important! – and you can change the POV only when the speaker switches, but yeah, that can get confusing, and I think I probably just confused you all, as well as myself, but my rant is slowing down. Whatever. I just don’t want to see multiple POVs in one paragraph, okay?
5) Show don’t tell. A pretty big rule. However, some fic styles can get away with more telling than others, and I don’t feel like getting into it right now.
6) Personally, I hate exposition. I hate writing it, I hate reading it, and sometimes you need it, but just try to use it sparingly, okay? And this is something I’ve seen a lot of – too much description. If two people are having a conversation, you can really bog down a story to the point that I want to hit the back button if you have a paragraph description of feelings, gestures, whatever, after every dialogue volley. Break it up. I don’t care if you have just a plain ‘“blah blah blah,” he said,’ thing going on every once and a while. That’s fine, I like that. I can picture him talking all by my lonesome sometimes, thanks very much, particularly if you’ve already told me he had “sparkling blue eyes” or some shit – please don’t tell me he had sparkling blue eyes, oh my god.
7) What I really hate are people who don’t learn from their past writings. Seriously, there is a pair of writers in particular that I won’t mention that make the same horrendous mistakes over and over again and it’s simple stuff that, you know, I probably got wrong too when I was starting out, but if you’ve written over a dozen stories with the same freaking things wrong with them, oh my god, what is going on in your mind? So, anyway, this is all to say, lay off the exclamation points. Lay the fuck off, okay? Use them sparingly, don’t use them in every other sentence of dialogue because people don’t talk like that (write how you talk!) and even if they’re shouting at each other, I’d rather you used “he shouted” or “he yelled” or whatever, and never pair shouted or yelled with exclamation points – and yes, I know I’ve used a lot of exclamation points in this entire post, but it’s not a fic so it doesn’t matter and I really am yelling at you *g*
8) I once perused a forum thread about writing and they were arguing over paragraph lengths and what’s the rule of thumb and, you know, if you’re getting that nitty-gritty about it you’re just thinking too much. Paragraphs can have only one sentence. They can have five or ten, and okay, there should be a line at how big they should be, but that’s just because it’s really hard to read a big fucking paragraph without getting bored or lost, so just use your common sense, okay? Flow and rhythm is just something you have to figure out yourself by writing and writing some more.
9) Repetition can be useful. I like circular stories and all, but I don’t want a paragraph talking about how emo Ryan is because Spencer got a haircut or something and then another three paragraphs halfway down the page about the same damn thing. Okay, Ryan’s sad, we get it, now let’s see some action! What does he *do* about it? Does he cuddle with Jon? And if he’s cuddling with Jon, is he *really* still thinking about Spencer’s stupid haircut? (I think I’ve lost my thread here, but whatever, cuddling)
10) If you’re not having fun, then you’re doing something wrong. I don’t think I can expand on that concept.
God, there’s so much more probably, but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.