How 2 B a ttly Awsum Fanfikshun Author
By
The One Called Demetra, in her continuing eternal wisdom.
Part Two: How To Avoid Writing
Alright guys, here it is! The next step in becoming THE GREATEST FANFICTION AUTHOR ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH! It's a tough step, but no worries, it's also the least important one. That's right. Writing. As pointless as it sounds, you're going to want to have a whole bunch of stories published. It'll make you look more distinguished and ergo your opinions will have more weight. Quantity = quality, obviously, so let's get started.
Now, I know what you're thinking—golly gee gosh, I sure am worried. Won't I have to think of a plot and consider the characters and go through a bunch of editing steps?
Nope! That's the good news. Despite what those stupid old farts bragging about all their published novels may say, writing is easy! I mean, how much harder than stringing some words into a sentence could it be? Not very much!
Okay, first off, since you're writing about somebody else's characters, you're going to want to be original. Whatever you do, DON'T write about the characters like they really are. That's boring. Interpret them how you want. Maybe the psychotic villain is really just a woobie who needs a hug. Maybe the cheerful young protagonist is a manic-depressive who cuts himself and listens to emopop while pouring his soul out into his poetry. Maybe the kind young woman who serves as a love interest for our protagonist is really a screaming, manipulative bitch who's getting in between the hero and his male best friend, who is clearly a much better match for him (but that's romance, and we won't be getting into that until next chapter). There are naysayers who may claim that you're making them "out of character" and the story is "unrealistic" because of it, but they're just narrow-minded fools. FOOLS I SAY. There's something called ALTERNATE CHARACTER INTERPRETATION, you know! And besides, it's called fanFICTION. You're allowed to do whatever you want.
Now then, plot. This is where the rule changes: with the characters, you want to give your own spin on things, but with plot, you have to stick with what works. Look around. The fics with the same basic plot have a whole bunch of reviews. Obviously people like it, and anyway, it's way easier than creating your own scenarios and doing the research to make sure they're plausible. Just read some of those fics and write the same thing.
Oh yeah, that reminds me—research. Don't bother with it. It takes a long time and it's boring. If you want to write a romance set in a horror series of which you've only seen the first episode of and set the whole thing in a country you've never been to, you can! It's FANFICTION! For FUN! Because it's for fun, it means you're allowed to do whatever the heck you want. Anybody who complains needs to pull that stick out of their arse and not read what they don't like. And by 'read' I mean 'review and point out'.
Back to plot. Another good thing about plot is that you don't even have to have one. You can write oneshots! Oneshots are just one-chapter pieces that can be any length, about anything. They require no planning, no explanation, nothing—what you say goes, because you can't be bothered with writing a complete story. Perhaps you want to write about two characters who have never met getting married. With oneshots, you can!
Or, for example, if you have a really great idea (of course, since all your ideas are great) for a plot—and like I said, writing your own plots is bad, but sometimes we have to break the rules to create true art—but can't be arsed to actually write all the character development, prose, suspense, dialogue and intrigue necessary to the plot, you can just stuff it all into a oneshot. Say you want Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy to be spies sent to kill each other while at the same time being romantically involved. This is, of course, a great and extremely original idea. But while it sounds like it could take up a whole novel-length feature, you can put it all into about one thousand words. Fanfiction is for FUN, remember? Quality is a moot point.
Even better than oneshots are drabbles. Drabbles are awesome. First off, you can write a lot of them, get a few reviews for each, and end up with hundreds and hundreds of reviews gushing about how deep and symbolic you are. Second, they're really, really easy to write. Some may say that drabbles are difficult to write because you have to put a lot of meaning and power into a few words. Well, they're idiots. To write a drabble, you have to do one thing and one thing only: state the obvious. Then you add in one of those new-fangled contraptions you learned about in English once—you know, metaphor, simile, some fancy language, that kind of thing. It doesn't have to make sense, just sound deep. If anybody reviews saying it was just a bunch of nonsense, they are uncultured MORONS—oops, I mean, boorish Neanderthals. Drabbles are ART and art is TRUE EXPRESSION and NOBODY can stifle it! You keep on writing, you free spirit you!
On the subject of TRUE AND FREE ART THAT CAN NEVER BE CONTAINED, let's talk about poetry! Most people agree that a poem does not necessarily have to rhyme. Well, I like to go the extra mile! This is a list of things a poem doesn't have to have:
-Rhythm of any kind
-Structure
-Thought put into it
-A point
Poetry isn't a craft like anything else, with its own set of guidelines and expectations. It's a form of TRUE, PURE EXPRESSION straight from your tortured soul. A good way to write a poem is to write whatever is on your mind, delete some words, and break it up into lines. If you really want to look artsy, add some fancy words and those metaphor things I mentioned. For example, I was having a bad day last week, so I decided to poetize about my abject misery.
The original text:
God, I'm having such a bad day. My life just blows. I wish I could die. Why does this always happen to me?
A totally awesome poem:
God
I am having
Such a bad day
My life, my soul
Just blows
Like a desk fan set on 'High'
Oh how I wish
My life could end
Oh why oh why
Does this always happen to me?
Remember, I am a seasoned expert and professional poetizer. Don't expect your first attempt to turn out as well as mine.
The last thing about the bare mechanics of story writing is this: spelling and grammar. Lots of people say that no writer can possibly make it out of the starting gate without learning this first. Well, guess what? THEY ARE WRONG. Remember our mantra: fanfiction is for fun. Since when is pretending your TRUE ART is an English essay fun? And spelling? Geesh, that's what spellcheck is for! I defiantly no than spellcheck has helped my spell butter; you loose nothing buy relaying on it. Don't worry about sentence structure and syntax and such. That will put your writing into a predictable pattern of boringness and stifle the TRUE ART that resides in your INNERMOST SOUL HOMG.
Okay, now you need to know how to name and describe your masterpieces. For titles, you want something interesting and eye-catching. Thinking of titles can be hard, so here's Demetra's Handy-Dandy Super Effective Guide to Titling!
Take a word from here:
Bloody
Dying
New
Destructive
Doomed
Burning
Forbidden
Combine it with a word from here:
Love
Lust
Passion
Justice
Rose
Kiss
Fury
And voila! A totally awesome title!
If none of the titles seem to fit, you can always name your masterpiece 'Story without a title' or 'No title yet' and advertise that the first reviewer gets to name the fic. This'll get people stampeding to review and get their name mentioned, thus riding on the coattails of your success.
And finally, summaries. Summaries are hard. In fact, writing a handful of letters is so difficult that it's perfectly acceptable to forgo any actual summarizing and just type the phrases 'no flames please', 'my first story so please be nice', 'NO YAOI' or 'YAOI', '[pairing] forever!', 'read and review', 'don't like don't read', 'better than it sounds', 'summary sucks', 'I suck at summaries', 'WOOHOO' and 'yay!' in any order. However, if you really want to go the extra mile and have followed my wise advice about plotting, you can use these basic summaries for best effect:
[Character A] has always hated [holiday]. Can [Character B] change [his/her] mind?
[Character A] is in love with [Character B], but doesn't know if [he/she] like [him/her] back! Will they ever get together?
[Character A] likes [Character B], but [Character B] doesn't like [Character A] back! Will love prevail?
[Character A] and [Character B] have always hated each other when they're forced to [do a class assignment/go on a mission/save the world/etc] together. How will they cope? Will love blossom?
When [Character A] and [Character B] meet, they don't like each other at all. But when [Character B] saves [Character A]'s life, what will happen?
Full credit to me, of course.
One thing to avoid in summaries is to not give out information that the reader might be interested in. Interested readers = reviews, so drawing readers in is a must. If you don't explain the story, people will be confused. So while this:
[City] is under threat as a mysterious disease breaks out and [Character A] discovers a secret that could change everything.
Is a bad summary, this:
[City] is threatened by [Villain] and [his/her] [weapon]. [Character A] discovers that moon rocks can stop [Villain] and goes with [Character B] to the land of [country] to talk with their king about borrowing his space ship.
Is a great one!
That about wraps it up, but wait! There's more! Next chapter we have romance, and all the glories of living vicariously through fictional people.
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Holy **** on a **** sandwich with **** on top. Just HOW did this get forty-something reviews in such a short time? Dammit, guys, at least four of my fics have effort put into them! Why not read those?!
…but seriously, all the reviews for this nonsense? Sheer awesome.