Lesson Zero: The Introduction

A figure walked out onto a dark stage, and stopped just behind a barely visible podium. There was silence for a moment before there was a hissed call for lights and there was a sudden surge of brightness from a spot light.

The light focused on a girl in her late teens standing behind the podium and next to a previously unnoticed blackboard. She was clutching a thick sheaf of paper and looked annoyed, standing as stiffly and as tall as her 5' 3'' frame would allow her to.

"Welcome, dear readers, to 'A Basic Guide to Writing Fanfiction'." She bit out, "We are meeting here to discuss common mistakes that are often in badfic and how to avoid them. I am doing this because frankly, the amount of badfic is positively disgusting."

She paused to write 'FANFICTION LESSONS' in large block writing on the blackboard before whipping back around, sending her long black hair flying.

"My name is Alice McCoy, you may call me Ms. Alice and I will be your teacher. Now I'm sure you are wondering exactly what will be covered in this course so let me enlighten you…" she trailed off as she tried to locate the class syllabus from amongst her papers.

Unfortunately this just caused the whole pile to fall to the ground with a muffled thump. Alice glared at the papers before muttering a string of swears before turning back to face the auditorium.

"Those don't matter. I can tell it from memory, what with this being the third attempt to hold this class," she said.

"Lesson One is Writing a Summary, Lesson Two is Story Lay-Out, followed by Lesson Three: Basic Story Information," Alice rattled off, "Lesson Four is Relationships, Five is Characters, and Lessons Six through Eight are Clichés. Lessons Nine and Ten will be on Mary Sues and our final lesson, Eleven, will be Basic Fanfiction Vocabulary."

Alice paused to listen for any signs of confusion before remembering practically no one was there, "Well anyway, in case it was not clear badfic is defined as a low quality story with incoherent story lines, bad grammar, bad characterization, and 'what the hell' moments. Badfic are what is wrong with fanfiction"

Alice cleared her throat before she looked quickly around the room, "Well I have said my part for tonight. So, any questions?"

"…"

"Huh," she muttered, "not even a cricket. Well until next time then. I bid you all good night."

After casting one last glance around the empty auditorium Alice snapped her fingers to signal the light to shut off and hurried off stage.

She left her papers lying on the stage in the darkness.


A/N: I can't just be happy with this, so time to try again. And yes I know it's not Harry Potter focused yet but it will eventually since I am most familiar with that fandom.