THINGS YOU SHOULDN'T DO IN FANFICTION (feel free to copy/paste this list...more people should read it)

A bossy list by Raining Ink. Your mileage may differ.*

1. Accidentally write a Mary Sue. Go now, and Google Mary Sue. Write one if you must. But please, realize that you're doing it; and give us a warning in the fic summary.

2. Infantilize a teenager or adult character. Dear Hurt/Comfort author, if your sixteen-year-old protagonist is constantly whimpering, clutching a plush toy, looking at people with "vulnerable liquid eyes," sucking his thumb, or otherwise acting like a small child, you are probably tap dancing on your reader's gag reflex. This syndromeplagues Harry Potter fan fic, especially Severitus/Sevitus. It is not cute. It is supremely creepy.

3. Have an explicit sex scene in every chapter. I know. It's a shocker, right? But a lot of us actually read fan fiction for the plot. I will wade through a whole lot of explicit scenes to get to the nuggets of plot (and almost every fic worth its salt has some plot even if the author didn't realize it), but I don't enjoy it. Please at least let me know in the summary if I'm going to have to skim massively to find the story amidst all of the insert Tab A into Slot B.

3.5 Have an explicit sex scene at ff.net. That M rating? It's M, not NC-17. They are not equivalent. I feel pretty strongly about this, though I used to barely notice it and I've never bothered to report anyone. If you're going to write smut, write it somewhere else. There are a lot twelve and thirteen year olds digging through this site. I think we've got a responsibility to keep it clean, or at least clearly labeled.

4. Write without a Beta if you suck at English grammar. Don't feel embarassed. A whole lot of people fail at grammar. Betas are cute and plentiful and so gosh darn helpful that it will make you feel all tingly inside when you get one. If you are really bad, get two Betas. It's good for you. It's good for your story. It's good for your readers. And I can promise that you'll get more reviews if your grammar and spelling are up to snuff.

5. Write a "Group of Characters read the Book in Which They are Featured" Fic. DO NOT DO IT. I'm sure I'm hurting some feelings with this, but there is a very good reason not to. I have never, ever, read one of these that wasn't a horendous work of plagiarism. Yes, it's fun and funny to see how Draco Malfoy responds to the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Super. BUT. You can't write this fic without copying massive amounts of the author's original work. I've seen entire chapters of novels retyped. The fact that the "writer" (aka typist) used quotation marks didn't change the fact that I could have read the original author's story without paying for it. This is plagiarism, not fanfiction. It is illegal, unethical, and stupid.

6. Use your story as a political or religious platform. Put it on your profile page, not in your character's mouth. Harry Potter really doesn't care if you like Sarah Palin or not. (Quite frankly, none of the rest of us do either.)

7. Write abuse scenes solely to garner sympathy for a lame character. Abuse is a serious issue. Don't make a mockery of it. If you're going to deal with it, don't just insert it into your story to "juice things up" or to make everyone feel super sorry for your protagonist so that they will understand when he/she starts carrying around a teddy bear at age sixteen and sucking his/her thumb. (See number 2.)

8. Summarize canon. Seriously? It's fan fiction. We're fans. We don't need you to give us every detail about how Harry Potter grew up with the Dursleys or how Percy Jackson is really a demigod. We got that memo. Write something new.

8.5 Write an AU in which nothing new happens. Summary says: Harry is really the reincarnation of Merlin, sent to Earth to save it from alien invasion, and Voldemort is really the female leader of the invading force. Rock on. And then, for 100,000 plus words, the characters do the exact same things they did in canon. Voldemort may be a pink tentacle monster, but it hasn't changed anything. Not even the dialogue. This baffles me.

9. Write entirely in dialogue. I'm seeing more and more of this. I know it's easier, and it makes your chapters look longer on paper, but really? Dialogue is great when it's resting on top of good exposition. Otherwise you're trying to build a pyramid from the top down.

10. Be Evil. This is for everyone and anyone out there who reads or writes fan fic. It's supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be friendly. If you're one of those withered souls who looks for opportunities to rain on everyone else's parade, get lost. We don't need you. Criticism should be constructive, plagiarism should be utterly foreign, and you should never poke someone just to see if they bleed.

Quotes of Notes:

"Retreat, hell! We're not retreating, we're just advancing in a different direction." - General Oliver P. Smith

"I am a mercenary, not a mindless puppet to dance to the whims of people who may not be able to tie their own shoelaces without an assistant." - Shivani (right here on FF.net! XD)

"Right and wrong are not what separate us and our enemies. It's our different standpoints, our perspectives that separate us. Both sides blame one another. There's no good or bad side. Just 2 sides holding different views." - Squall Leonhart (Final Fantasy VIII)

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort." - Herm Albright

"If your enemy is smiling, and you can't tell why immediately, you're screwed." - Phoenix of Eternity (another one here on FF.net!)

"Excellence can be attained if
you...

Care more than others think is
wise

Risk more than others think is
safe

Dream more than others think is
practical

Expect more than others think is
possible" - Bolteroy Schipperkes website (bolteroy.com)

"If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." - Sherlock Holmes

"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process, he doesn't become a monster." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"These impressions are of course all subjective, but can any author claim otherwise? Not until the day our bookstores start carrying offerings by Vulcan authors." - The Honest Courtesan (maggiemcneill.wordpress.com) - Seriously: READ THIS!

"It was like finding a rare candy-you felt guilty that someone dropped it but that didn't stop you from using it." - ReddVolt (I love FF.net-ers!)

"Good, Better, Best, may you never rest, until your Good is Better, and your Better Best." - Joey (interview on fyeahlolita.blogspot.com)

"Everything you can imagine is real" - Pablo Picasso

"The one looking after me asked me to rate the pain on a scale of 1 to labour." - Jillian (homebirth.org)

"Kids aren't supposed to be grateful! They're supposed to eat your food, and break your heart!" - Bobby Singer (Supernatural)

"In my experience, the amount of suffering is inversely proportionate to the amount of explanation required." - Ventorum (AO3)

"You don't have a soul. You ARE a soul. You have a body." - CS Lewis

"He reminded himself that no one had died this time and both of them had been through worse, namely Hell itself. When you have hit the mother of all rock bottoms, it can really put things in perspective." - DarkmoonSigel (AO3)

"All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: "What have you done?" - Daniel 4:35 (Christian Bible)

"Angels and demons are bound to his schemes, but man's will rides on hawk's wings, for it is free" - Anonymous

"Suicide isn't cowardly. I'll tell you what's cowardly, treating people so badly that they want to end their own lives." - Ashley Purdy

"[he was] one of those men who achieved such an acute, limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterward savors of anti-climax." - Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby)

"Nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. Nerd are allowed to love stuff-like, jump-up-and-down-in-your-chair-can't-control-yourself love it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is "You like stuff," which is not a good insult at all. Like, "You are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness." - John Green

I am the girl...that doesn't go to school dances, or games, and when I do go, I sit in a corner and read a book. I am the girl that people look through when I say something. I am the girl that spends most of her free time reading, writing, or doing other activities that most teenagers wouldn't call normal. I am the girl that people call weird, and a freak either behind my back or to my face. I am the girl that doesn't spend all her time on MySpace, or talking to a girlfriend on a cellphone or regular phone. I am the girl that hasn't been asked out in a year. I am the girl that has stopped to smell the flowers and jump and splash in the rain.

But I am also the girl who knows and is proud to be who she is, doesn't care if people call her weird (it's a compliment), who loves reading and writing and doing the things that no one seems to have the time to do any more, who loves and is obsessed with FanFiction, who can express herself beter with words than anything else, and knows the importance of the little things.

Copy and Paste this onto your account if you are anything like me, so the girls who are different and unique can know in their weakest times that they are unique, but not alone.