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That's me, hitting the keyboard with my head over and over again out of sheer frustration.
I'm now firmly convinced that Fanfiction hates my guts and tries with all its might to make my life miserable. Because this is the 6th (SIXTH!) time in a row that it f***ed up my documents. Argh. It would probably be funny if I weren't so disgruntled right now.
So sorry for the upload fail (again), I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. (And if this still doesn't work, I'll go blow something up. That always calms my nerves.)
General
Alright, I take everything I said about 'Fantasy' back. 'General' definitely is the easiest way out if you don't know how to label your story. Sorry, my fault.
Horror
Anything related to Halloween, no matter how little horror actually appears within the story, can be labelled as 'Horror". But if you want to write a real 'Horror' story, keep these points in mind:
1. You can kill characters without having to label the story as 'Tragedy'. That's a great bonus.
2. Some sort of ghost / ghoul / evil spirit / demon / why-am-I-even-listing-these-things? has to appear in the story.
3. Feel free to base the story on the first episodes of Series 4, but please, PLEASE call the spirits Dorocha and NOT Doroca, Dorocca, Doroccccccca or Dorothea. And the gatekeeper's name is Cailleach. CAILLEACH! I know it sounds like Celix, but I guarantee you that it is actually written like that and anything else will give me eye cancer, so stick with the correct writing, okay? Okay.
4. Killing dozens of uninteresting minor characters is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged.
5. Things to make the story more interesting: lots of crying, wailing, screaming, yelling, yelping, tearing hair, flinching, cringing and rapidly turning around to investigate creepy noises which have very un-creepy sources but help to build up some suspense.
6. At least 50% of the story has to happen at night. And in the woods or an old, rotting ruin of some sorts. That's creepier.
Humor
For justifying the usage of 'Humo(u)r', you have to try (and fail) to be funny.
Here, too, you can use some of the elements the TV show presents you. Have a few examples: the Goblin Incident, Arthur's blatant obliviousness to all things magical, the banter, Gwaine (preferably drunk), Morgana's smirking – and seriously, the number of stories about her smirking habits is downright disturbing – , Uther's exorbitant paranoia, etc.
And don't worry about whether you are funny enough or not – only very few actually are. (I mean, look at my sorry attempts at humour!)
Essential for a 'Humor' story are stylistic devices like super-mega-over-exaggerations, ornate and vivid examples to make your readers imagine things in their heads they really don't want to imagine and won't forget ever again and a very loose interpretation of the characters, objects and places you are writing about.
Because only 'Humor' stories are allowed to feature rainbow-sh*tting unicorns, talking neckerchiefs, Gwaine with purple hair and a ballet-dancing Uther without completely missing the entire point of the TV show. It's a law of nature, don't question it. (Also, if you write about a ballet-dancing Uther, you'd have to be seriously crap at writing if it makes nobody smile at all.)
Hurt/Comfort
The genre 'Hurt/Comfort' is easy to explain, simply because it is self-explanatory.
Hurt your characters, then comfort them.
See? Self-explanatory.
'Hurt/Comfort' is best used with the additional genres 'Angst', 'Drama' and/or 'Friendship'.
If you choose one of the former two, focus on the 'Hurt' part, if you choose the latter, focus on the 'Comfort' part of the genre. It's not rocket science.
Mystery
(Gosh, why on earth did I think it would be a good idea to write this guide again?)
I skimmed through most of the summaries of stories (and sometimes even the stories themselves) that are labelled 'Mystery', and the only thing I know for sure is that the genre 'Mystery' is about as useful as 'Crime' or 'Family' (i.e. not at all).
Just use one (or two) of the other tags. Even 'Supernatural' is a better choice than 'Mystery', and that's saying something.
Parody
In 'Parody', the author is even more determined to be funny than in 'Humor'. And fails even more spectacularly.
End of story.
Poetry
Choose 'Poetry' if you want to write poetry. So basically an acceptable choice for everything as long as the last words of your sentences rhyme. But do me a favour and don't write poetry in the first place. (Somehow, I just know that this story will get a 'Report Abuse'- kind of problem in less than a week.)
Romance
'Romance' is the genre where you will have to use your knowledge about Pairings (see Pairings). Because it deals with – Surprise! – romantic topics. In this genre, you will also have to mind the Ratings. I don't want to anticipate the later chapters of this guide, but here is a rough guideline:
Kindergarten romance or pining: K
Cuddling and kissing: K+
Dirty jokes and hints to sex: T
Sex: M
Hardcore BDSM, sex games of questionable nature and highly dubious or unappetising topics: you can try M, but please spare us the trauma. That's what other, ahem, interesting websites are there for. (And just for that sentence alone I'll have to rate this guide T, because someone is bound to complain about me sooner or later.)
But back to the topic at hand: if you want to write a 'Romance' story, please keep the following steps in mind:
1. Choose a pairing.
2. Choose a rating.
3. Write something overly cheesy and sentimental that fits into the pairing and rating, preferably without any plotline at all and so sweet it will give your readers caries by just looking at it. (Oh, and feel free to actually write that in your summary. It's astonishing how much 'Romance'-related teeth-masochism exists within this fandom.)
4. There can be some sort of drama in your story, like an accident or a misunderstanding. But please note that
A) you have to pick 'Family', 'Friendship' or 'General' as your second genre if your story has a happy ending and
B) you have to pick 'Tragedy', 'Drama' or 'Angst' if it doesn't. So don't you dare writing about a break-up without using one of the three genres listed above!
5. Never write something that can be labelled as 'Romance' and 'Poetry'. It will only end in tears. Most likely the reader's ones.
Sci-Fi
There are even less people who choose 'Sci-Fi' than 'Crime'. And honestly, what kind of story do you want to write that features medieval characters and can be called science-fiction? Do me a favour and either keep your hands from this kind of story entirely or label it as 'Fantasy'. Easy way out, remember?
Spiritual
Copy & Paste the description of 'Mystery' into this section and replace the word 'Mystery' with 'Spiritual'. (No, that's not lazy, it's just saving time and space.)
Supernatural
'Supernatural' is a TV show, and therefore a fandom on it's own. Period.
…
Alright, alright.
If 'Fantasy' is too cheap for you and there is anything ghost-like appearing in your story, you can use it. Happy now?
Suspense
(Oh dear. Here we go again.)
Write a story that fits into the genres 'Tragedy', 'Angst', 'Drama', 'Adventure' or even 'Friendship' and add some hints that make the reader think something unbelievably bad will happen without actually making it happen, e.g. hints of suicide or imminent world domination by men-eating Shetland ponies.
Except, of course, if the second genre you chose is 'Tragedy'. Then, you can make the reader believe that something bad will happen but the heroes can fix it without actually making them fix it.
Basically, 'Suspense' mostly is the pretty second genre, which only purpose it is to make the story look more interesting.
Tragedy
Kill someone. Preferably one (or several) of the main characters.
Yep, it's that easy.
…
Fine!
No matter what you write, someone has to die. And I'm not talking about all the faceless, nameless minor characters that die in hundreds of Plot Device, I'm talking about the characters I warned you not to kill in 'Adventure', 'Angst' and 'Drama'.
I quote: "mostly Merlin, sometimes Arthur, funnily enough never Uther". (Wow, that description fits literally everywhere!)
It doesn't even matter how the characters (as many as you like, depending on your mood) die, as long as you actually kill them.
Torture them to death, let them commit suicide, let them commit gruesome homicide and then suicide, drown them in a body of water (river, lake, sea, ocean, puddle, etc.), freeze them to death, make them sacrifice themselves to save their loved ones, give them a lethal mutation of genital herpes, whatever makes you happy and your audience cry.
So, to put it in a nutshell: Kill someone. Preferably one (or several) of the main characters. The End.
Western
Copy & Paste the description of 'Sci-Fi' into this section and replace the word 'Sci-Fi' with 'Western'. There you go. (My laziness just hit a new all-time high.)