Author's Note: Hi, welcome to this sarcastic writing guide. This is heavily inspired by and written in the style of the Terrible Writing Advice series. Their videos are both helpful and hilarious. Check them out if interested! Without further ado, here's the first guide!

Chapter 1: Writing (Bad) SYOCs:

Submit Your Original Character stories, commonly known as SYOCs, are a popular story type in the My Hero Academia fandom. Readers can create and submit their own characters for a chance to have them involved in the story. Most My Hero Academia SYOCs center around a class of students, which can be around ten to twenty characters. And that doesn't include the various teachers, heroes, villains, and so forth that also form vital parts of the cast. Some of the best SYOCs have lasted dozens of chapters, each thousands of words long. So, if you've got little time and a five-second attention span, this is a totally reasonable undertaking for you!

We'll start with the prologue or the first chapter. It's easy, you don't need to make one! It's not as if the readers would find a prologue useful for learning your story's premise, setting, central characters, tone, writing style, and so on. After all, if they knew those, they could make an informed decision about whether to send a character in the first place! I'm sure they'll find surprises, like an unexpectedly grimdark storyline that potentially disturbs them and endangers the lives of their beloved creations, completely welcome. Meanwhile, you're left wondering why character submissions don't seem to understand anything about your story.

But if you insist on picking a premise right away, here are a couple of common ones to get you thinking:

One is the Next Gen SYOC. In these, the canon characters have grown up and had children, and those children are ready to pursue the path of heroics themselves. When writing these, make things super-realistic by having dozens of couples comprised of canon characters. Don't mind that most lasting romantic relationships form outside of high school. Don't mind the unlikelihood of all those couples conceiving children at the exact same time. And, don't mind that children are human beings who want to pursue their own path, which may not be a hero career. Also, forget about providing information about this future world which we don't know about since My Hero Academia hasn't finished. It's not like that's important information.

Another is the Other Hero School SYOC. Like the name suggests, these SYOCs take place in a school other than U.A. Often, they're in other countries. Now, having a different school can give a story a ripe ground for worldbuilding. What does this school do that sets it apart? How does the culture of the place it's located in impact it? Perhaps it is poorer with simpler training facilities, or newer and therefore lacks a solid reputation in the heroing world. But, we won't think about that. It's much easier to make a U.A. clone.

Now that we've gotten the nonexistent first chapter out of the way, here's the important part: the form! Be sure to leave out as many important sections, like personality and backstory, as possible. The readers will know what they'll need to include. They'll surely not see it as a sign that you're an inattentive writer.

With the form posted in your new SYOC, all you have to do is wait! Or, not. If you're excited to start your story, why not just use whichever characters are sent in first? Surely there's no need to filter out the good apps from the bad, right? In fact, why not accept every character that's sent in? Got an OC who's basically a god? Or one that isn't exactly bad, but involves a lot of backstory elements that don't fit into your story idea? Or simply a lot of characters who are similar, be it in personality, backstory, or Quirk? Accept them all! It will avoid hurt feelings. Plus, I'm sure readers will love seeing a bunch of characters fight for minimal spotlight.

Not all SYOCs have a main character. But if you decide to create one, here's some advice. Know your OC is the best. They've got the best Quirk, the best understanding of morality, everything! And don't let anyone, be it other characters or the readers themselves, tell you otherwise! Constantly rub it into the faces of the other characters by having them act aloof and oh so superior. To those of you familiar with tabletop games, it's like striving to make a DMPC of the worst sort. Because we all know how fun it is when your character can't do anything meaningful in a campaign.

But, what if your own character had a plotline that tied to your main story, forming a backbone for it? What if they didn't dominate the story, allowing submitted characters to share the spotlight and affect the plot? What your character could form meaningful interpersonal relationships with the submitted characters, giving the readers what they want while simultaneously humanizing your character?

Nah. This is your story, after all. Remind your readers of that by minimizing the roles of their characters. That won't diminish reader investment one bit.

But, if you do want the work of writing everyone elses' characters, here's some advice. Remember the character forms from before? You can reference those, of course! Say you've got a John Doe who's serious and no-nonsense. Have him tra-la-laing through a flower field, because, well, it's funny! Be sure to append John's character form to the end of the chapter so that people know he's serious and no-nonsense. It's not as if people want to learn about a character through the story, right?

Remember: The characters are all in your hands. That means you're free to do whatever you want to them! Make them as stupid as the story needs! Kill them off when you get bored! Unleash your disturbing fetishes upon them! Given the parent-child attachment a lot of people have with their characters, I'm sure your submitters won't be the least bit offended... or disgusted.

While you're writing the story, an OC submitter may reach out to you regarding their character's portrayal. In situations like that, remind them that it's your story! They couldn't possibly be bringing up a valid criticism or clarifying a misunderstanding, right? The only exception is if you've got a creator constantly pestering you about little things, like how their Quirk's area of effect is 85 meters and not 80, or how they're polite, not courteous. Those types of submitters should be appeased. Allow them to micromanage every little aspect of their character in the story. I'm sure that will do wonders for your stress levels.

So you've got your story rolling now. An important thing now is pacing your chapters! Start by writing loads and loads of chapters as fast as possible! I'm sure your writing quality (and mental health) will be completely fine! Once that high is done, I... don't know. Instead of setting a schedule of, say, one chapter every week or every other week, it's best to just write whenever you feel like it. The next chapter, it's... coming. Sometime. Give it four months, six months, forever...