How to Write a Fanfiction

[Sithking Zero offline]

How to Make a Good Fanfiction

By Sithking Zero

So, you want to write a fanfiction, right? Yeah, you and every other anime fan in the world.

But, I sympathize; I too am a fanfic writer. I have been around the block, I know how it feels. To think of how the show could be better, to imagine a new love between those who most deserve it, to add that splash of chaos and destruction to counter the beauty and peace of it all. Ah, the feeling; nothing in the world is quite like it.

But I digress. What I am putting down here is as much a set of guidelines, as much of a prevention. I don’t want to go onto FF.net, and see this:

Luv at frst site: A sassusaku story. Sakura an sauske find each other under the ful moon. Wut wil happe? PLZ GO EZY ON ME IS MY FIRST NARUTO STORY!

Now, anyone can already tell that this is indeed a piece of fecal matter. First off, misspelling the title of the story, unless done intentionally, is a surefire way to make sure that nobody reads your story. Ever.

But we’ll save the advice for this section:

THE SUMMARY AND TITLE

This is one of the most important parts of any story. It’s the hook, the catch, the all-important first impression that make people say, “I want to read this story,â€

[Phoenix Wolf offline]

Cool! It helps, I like it...

[Rail Runner offline]

Definitely good advice for those looking to get into Fan Fic writing..very well thought out, and well done.

[Tekirai offline]

GRAMMAR

xP

Great thing to read for newbie writers. But it needs moar ACC dos and don'ts. That seems to be the big problem these days. Explaining things like how to make the story sound interesting without making your character look like a Mary Sue in both the summary and the story itself seriously needs to be spread around fanbases.

And my own piece of advice: just because a story has loads of reviews doesn't mean it's good. Try reading some of them, preferably from earlier chapters for minimum spoilerage. Seeing the kind of people who read it might help determine whether you should try reading the story yourself. Doesn't always work, but it helps a little. No idea what category that would go under.

You missed out on the 'computer stuff' section as well. And no mention of 'no script-style writing at all unless you can do it right' at places other than FF.net. Otherwise it's pretty good. ^^

[Phoenix Wolf offline]

Grammar is important in a fic.. I am a fic writer my self and have other people proof my stories for me.

[Yumi Ulrich offline]

I love it i am a fan fiction writer myself so it helped me with some of the kinks i needed to get through.

[. offline]

I never read fanfiction... for whatever reason I'm more entertain writing my own stories then reading someone elses. It's sad really.

Swearing is also something... that you gotta take carefully. If your character swears up and down, he's going to come across not only un-educated but when he's angry he'll have trouble verbally expressing it. I've always been a fan of saving curse words for very explosive tyraides.

[Overcaffeinated Sloth offline]

Do you think I could add something? I can edit this post if you okay it, I have some pretty good tips from my Manga story classes.

[Sithking Zero offline]

Sure, go ahead.

[Malkmusian offline]

I tend to make a good story, but with a very criptic title, usually something a character says.

[ambitiouslove offline]

Really great tips for new fanfic writers!
But on a personal off note, I'm so used to hearing "fanfic" I've never heard of it being called "A fan fiction" lol.

I've been writing fanfiction since I was 17 or so. I've never really posted it online though... too embarassed lol

But there should be a point about how writing fanfics becomes really addictive! lol I've been writing one story for 2 years and it's reached about 800+ pages (on MS Word).

[Gauntlet offline]

Really great tips for new fanfic writers!
But on a personal off note, I'm so used to hearing "fanfic" I've never heard of it being called "A fan fiction" lol.

I've been writing fanfiction since I was 17 or so. I've never really posted it online though... too embarassed lol

But there should be a point about how writing fanfics becomes really addictive! lol I've been writing one story for 2 years and it's reached about 800+ pages (on MS Word).

Yeah, I've never been one to write fan fiction, but I've been working on my own fiction novel for about 9 months now, with only two pages written. I'm extremely enthusiastic about it for some reason, though, so I'll probably keep going with it for a while. I'd like to read your work ambitiouslove; if you've put that much devotion to your story, I'm sure it's great material.

As for the topic, those are some good tips for writing in general. The only things that I'd like to mention (and possibly restate) is to avoid information dumps (paragraphs of backstory; spread it out!), avoid unnecessary scenes (can your story do without it? if so, take it out), make sure the character's are believable (speech, mannerisms, personality, everything, unless you are purposely doing it differently than the character in question).

I have almost 500 bookmarks that help me to keep in touch with writing; I haven't learned to write from reading books, but instead, from all these archived articles. I still enjoy reading, but in actuality, I learn more from these articles than books. This is a good site to get started for fan fiction (and in general, writing non-fanfic), and while it's not the deepest article I have, it's certainly a good read.

Yes to the poll, by the way.

Edit: Fixed the link so it leads to the top of the page instead of starting at number 30; I almost got confused and tried to find the first 30 tips before I noticed that it was scrolled down. Sorry for that issue.

[Malkmusian offline]

About writing an fanfiction so instantaneous, I actually wrote Some Gift From Heaven on paper instantly, but really, I was drafting out the plot over 90 pages and started to add the characters from time to time. Then, when I wrote the story on my computer, I actually had a lot of good ideas.

Oh, and a great fanfiction takes a good year to write...or maybe 2, in my case. I'm planning, maybe a sequel to it.

[G-Force offline]

Oh my goodness, that has to be the most single useful fanfiction writing guide I've ever read in my LIFE! Thank you so much for sharing such a valuable resource with us.

To contribute to the discussion, I once wrote a CL fanfiction guide a long time ago found here but it's not as good as the one St. Gauntlet posted. It mainly deals with CL and it was even stickied on the official forums, back when they were actually enjoyable to read.

[Gauntlet offline]

Sithking Zero, I hope you don't mind me posting another link here?

This is an excellent resource. It is 56 articles, each one about a page, though some have two pages. This is similar to the previous link I posted earlier, however, this one covers some aspects more in-depth. I really can't stress how important it is to read these articles. Fan fiction or your own innovative fiction, this will benefit both types, and it would be detrimental to miss out on this.

I don't know if Sithking Zero appreciates me posting these two links, or if anyone will actually care enough to bother with them, but if you'd like me to post some more, just say the word, or more preferably, drop me a PM so I can stop flooding his thread.

[Malkmusian offline]

I've read all of y'alls fanfiction writing threads and they're both good. I'm using some of the tips to write my sequel.