Hi. If you're a serious writer looking to improve your skills through fan fiction writing, good for you. You've probably chosen a character or story you care about, and for the most part, the creator(s) of the manga/series have allowed you to borrow their characters. Lucky us.

Do not let this dissuade you from creating your own world/characters/stories. Fan fiction is fine, but make your own way in the literary world.

If you want to stick with fan fiction, that's fine, too. Fan fiction doesn't have to be mediocre or trite. There are a lot of variables in many fandoms. Write a good fan fiction that does justice to your favorite characters or series. Use your favorites to make yourself a better writer.

Borrow or lend -- fan fiction is a good opportunity to make use of a known and accepted character/series to hone your writing skills. You've got a built-in audience of fans who are looking to read about their/your favorite characters, and that right there is a big advantage. Readers already know what the characters look like, sound like, and have a good idea how the character would react in a lot of situations.

If you're writing just to get reviews (and reviews are very nice to get) without wanting to learn the craft of writing, you might be disappointed in what readers say about your work. Some reviewers are brutally honest. If you put out a piece of writing that has no thought or care behind it, readers might notice, and might comment. Or they might just not review or read any more of your work. You've seen this yourself on this site, where a writer throws out a story and brags Just something I wrote on the fly. Hope you like it. R&R! And then it's full of grammar and spelling mistakes, poorly executed (if any) plot, and/or is about absolutely nothing, and the writer wants to know Where are my reviews? There's a difference between poor writing when a writer is trying to learn and plain old lazy-don't-care writing. We're all here to learn, hone, and perfect a story, right? Well, maybe not.

For writers, respect yourself enough to tell a good story that engages or moves a reader.

For readers, remember that writing and putting those words online for anyone and everyone to see is a very vulnerable thing to do, tantamount to undressing in front of a two way mirror when you know everyone is on the other side. It takes a lot to write a good story, not just the typing and fact-checking, but the sheer will of imagination can be exhausting. Sometimes it takes looking into lots of different barrels and buckets to find a new idea or twist for a story, because everything has been done at some point.

Reviewers, be nice. Maybe even check out an author's profile before you lambaste them about something. The most hurtful reviews I've seen on this site were for a collection of stories under a joint account for some cartoons/anime. Granted there were errors in spelling and punctuation and were more tell than show, but a few of the reviewers ripped up the writers like a cheese grater. This was bad, especially when the writers were junior high students from foreign countries in an American school where they were taking a class for English language learning and were using fan fiction to become better acquainted with the language. How damaging for them, on several levels.

And also for writers, you can't write a story to please everyone, so don't try. Write to please yourself, and share that when you're ready. If you get flamed, look at the review and see if it has any points. If it does, learn from those and rewrite. If there's no merit in the flame, ignore it. Remember that some people flame out of jealousy, meanness, or just because they can (I guess that's meanness, too). Patch your wounds and move on, or use that delete or ban button.

Happy writing and reading, folks!