Part 2
What you should know before you start writing a fic
ie; Presentation
Megamind: Oh, you're a villain alright. Just not a super one.
Titan: Oh yeah? What's the difference?
Megamind: PRESENTATION!
- Excerpt from the movie Megamind
I swear I love that little big-headed blue-skinned little-
*coughs*
Anyway, that quote is there mostly because I've always wanted to put quotes in front of chapters. But it's still up there for a reason.
Let's say you want to start a story. You have everything planned out; or you have at least a vague idea of what is going to happen. You know who your characters are. You know how they react to situations. You have a villan, a hero and a romantic subplot. You have comic relief, action scenes and angsty scenes. Overall, your story seems just ready to come into being.
Right? Right.
But everything up there is going to matter very little without proper presentation skills.
I use the word Presentation here to cover the general impression a potential reader has of a fic, before she/he starts to read it. Yes, it exists. And yes, it matters.
When someone glances at the story, things jump out to that person, often wearing giant neon signs. They can notice lack of capitalization and isolated 'i' s. They can notice a distinct lack of vowels in groups of words. They can notice a lack of commas or quotation marks. The overuse of exclamation marks is very hard to miss. Lack of clear demarcation between sections of a fic and the writer's notes leads to huh-moments. Run on sentences which go on forever can cause a headache, as can massively long paragraphs. One-sentence paragraphs can be irritating.
Reactions vary from individual to individual, of course. But there are a few things the majority of the thinking population tends to insist on...