So today I was looking back on all my past accomplishments and I suddenly realized something: I never accomplished anything. I suddenly felt a strong desire to have another weekly lesson after a month of avoiding it so that I could feel like my life has meaning. Ooh, isn't that wonderful!
Anyway, today's lesson is going to be about videogame fanfiction. Why? Because up until now this class has been mostly about fanfiction based on books. I know what you're thinking…
…
Yeah, I am full of shit.
What you're thinking is: "You're kidding right? That's stupid. Who doesn't know how to make a fanfiction based on a videogame. All it is is cleverly parodying game mechanics and bad writing." So you think you know everything, huh? So I'll skip all the easy stuff that everybody knows and move onto the juicy giblets. (I know you're chuckling about giblets. Well, stop. It's not that funny. In the same way that using "chutney" instead of an expletive isn't funny.)
There's more to making a decent videogame fanfiction without making it a parody. Parodies are very easy and fun to make, so I recommend it to everyone. It is, however, entirely possible to make other kinds which are great. What makes these great are more to do with the genre itself that the original videogame. So it is entirely pointless for me to explain how to write an action story for a Barbie game or a romance story for Medal of Honor.
When you make the jump from game to story, there is a very important point you must realize: it's not a game anymore and therefore, no longer interactive. It has suddenly become more of a novel, short story, or let's play than an actual game. So it's all about the writing. Story is key, but more important are the characters. Sure, you can describe a single guy taking out a military base with nothing more lethal than his chest hair, but it won't be the same as doing it in the game, and suddenly we care more about what the main character's internal struggle is and the twists and turns caused by less-important-and-therefore-less-likely-to-survive characters who make it possible for him or her to succeed. Or fail, if you're a dick.
My second tip is to get the writing style right for your audience. If you make a fanfiction out of Brain Age (I don't know how, but let's say you did), then you can through in all the pretentious words you want. On the hand, if your audience likes games where you blow shit up, then you should probably refrain from using words with more than five syllables or unusual-and-difficult-to-pronounce letter clusters. Do I have to explain why?!
A depressingly high percentage of the multitude of videogame fanfiction writers favor the explosion and death variety of storytelling. The kind that doesn't have much story and a lot of explosions. That is good for a game; we don't need a story to play, but we do need the play to give us a reason to turn on the console. If not, you can read a book or do something similarly constructive. The other largest kind of fanfiction for videogames is one-shot romance, and this is by no means a bad route to take. The only problem with this is that there is already so much out there that even if your story is messianic in quality, it will still be drowned in an ocean of so much drivel. Good luck.
I think that's just about it. I might have another lesson about videogame fanfiction in the future or I might not. It really depends mostly on whether or not I think I need to make one to do justice to the subject. Any questions or comments? No? Good, now let me play my visual novel in peace!