eternalpuppetmaster
In-Training
nothing compares to the existential terror that is Funzo
Posts: 88
Pronouns: She/Xe/He
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Post by eternalpuppetmaster on Sept 20, 2023 15:30:10 GMT
Im writing fanfic for the first time... ever, so what are some common mistakes that, as a more experienced writer, you would personally say to avoid?
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Azure
Member
No matter what changes - will no longer change me! ♪ ⋆*。
Posts: 58
Pronouns: he/she/bun/fae/moon
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Post by Azure on Sept 20, 2023 18:59:39 GMT
Oh boy! I am both an avid reader AND writer of fanfic. Welcome back to the world of it!
A lot of my other tips depend on what specifically is being written, but... *Cracks knuckles* Here are my general tips. (A lot of these apply to all sorts of writing, too, not just fanfic.)
- Go back and edit!!! I can confidently guess that the biggest reason people exit out of fics is bad spelling and grammar. Get a beta reader, if you need to. Or even if you don't need to. A beta reader is generally a good idea, always. (A beta reader being someone you get to read and edit your writing before you publish it. This can be anyone, including a friend! Or, hell, even me! Just hit me up, I'm happy to beta.)
- Outline your plot! Especially in multichapter endeavors! If you don't do this, your audience will be able to tell, I promise. (Plus, then you get to do fun stuff like foreshadowing!)
- Don't overdetail minor events, and/or clothes. We don't need to know what a waitress looks like exactly if she's just gonna appear once as a background character and never again. We also don't need to know exactly what kind of dress the MC is wearing.
- You don't need to announce POV switches. Believe in the intelligence of your audience; we'll be able to tell by the usage of "I" and "me" who is speaking! If it's REALLY unclear (which is unlikely), your beta reader should catch it. Then, you can have another character refer to the POV character by name.
- Warn folks ahead of time what they're getting into! AO3, the main fanfiction site, is great for this (despite my gripes with it). You can use the rating to indicate if there will be explicit content, and you can use the warning system and the tags to warn of further content. If you're not on AO3, you should put these sorts of warning in the fic's summary. If there's something in your fic that might upset someone, make it clear before anyone even clicks.
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jelly
Member
In a way, recordings have the power to raise the dead.
Posts: 121
Pronouns: Ey/Em/Any
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Post by jelly on Sept 21, 2023 2:42:52 GMT
Seconding the "go back and edit" thing! SPaG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) can be fairly easy to fix, even running it through a spell check can help in that regard. In addition: line breaks are your friend! Sometimes inexperienced writers have everything all in one block, and it can be really difficult to keep your place in it. Also formatting wise: be mindful of, if posting somewhere with multiple contributors, that your front facing text/meta data (the title of your fic, summary, anything else the website your using allows) isn't in a weird font that might disrupt the submissions around yours! This happens a lot where a title in Zalgo Text will cover up the summary of the fic above it...
I would say #1 tip is just to have fun and enjoy yourself, you'll improve over time naturally just by practicing! Also, don't feel bogged down by abandoned WIPs / your word count being "low" / low engagement -- ultimately as long as you're having fun these things don't matter! There's also nothing wrong with writing a bunch of drawer fics before feeling like you want to post something for other people to see. I do that sometimes when writing for with new character just to get a feel for them.
Oh, another tip: learning the difference between general 3rd person POV and limited POV was a life changer when I was younger! If you're unfamiliar, limited just means it's 3rd person that's following a specific character (so the audience only knows what that character is witnessing) and this also usually means that the narration in tinted in their opinion (EX: "the banana" vs "The evil yellow fruit" (that the POV character just happens to be allergic to)). I sometimes see general 3rd POV being used in... a sort of role play format? where the "perspective" changes between characters every sentence (like when you read through a RP thread), which is fine, but it's a lot easier to get into that sort of thing when the author is using that style of narrator purposefully.
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