Fanfiction Improvement Time!
Lately I've been wanting to rant about a certain topic: horrid writers in fanfiction. So I'm going to take a stab at it, talking about a few of the things that bother me the most.
First there's the ones who don't have good plot ideas. I don't consider these to be the worst writers in the world, mostly because some of them actually know spelling, grammar and have a wide vocabulary. Take Stephanie Meyers for example (okay, so she's not writing "fanfiction" per se), she has all the parts of the book but alas, no plot. Or, at least, not an imaginative one. She pretty much decided to take the Sookie Stackhouse novels and re-write them for tweens. But I digress, we're not here to talk about published authors, nor do I have an axe to grind with Ms. Meyers. The point is that, some fanfiction authors hit dry spells and that's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm rather accepting of cliche or just plain shitty plots.
Then there's the people who can't keep in character long enough to write the first line of their fiction. Okay, so feel free to take liberties--but analyze the characters you're about to write and figure out their fundamental qualities: are they selfish or selfless? What defines them? What are some of their values? If you start off too far off base, you might as well be writing original fiction!
Thirdly is the people who can't figure out what grammar even is or where that damned Spell-Check button is located. I understand typos, I understand not being perfect (everyone makes mistakes, it's only human); but when I'm finding an error every ten words or so, it's time to take a class. I know that you had at least middle school English, and at that level you should be able to find both the Spell-Check button and the basics of grammar by the time you reach High School. Basically: if you're bothering to write 500+ words and post it on some website where other people do the same thing, be able to use the Spell-Check button at the very least. We don't want to read your sex scenes in what looks to be a children's attempts to write it.
The last thing that I'd like to bring up in this rant is this: if you can't learn from the corrections that someone is making on your writing, applying them to your future works, then why are you even bothering anyone with it? I don't mind if you spell "definitely" as "defiantly" for the whole of Chapter One, but if someone has corrected you, keep it in mind when you're writing Chapter Two! I'm not saying that a single mistake further on down the line will have people flying off the handle in your direction, but as long as it seems like you're trying to improve upon yourself with your writing, then you'll get more "I love this story"s and less "fix this, fix that".
This isn't nearly all of the problems with fanfiction, but these are a few of the problems I've been seeing lately. Feel free to discuss, argue or bring up points in the comments.
First there's the ones who don't have good plot ideas. I don't consider these to be the worst writers in the world, mostly because some of them actually know spelling, grammar and have a wide vocabulary. Take Stephanie Meyers for example (okay, so she's not writing "fanfiction" per se), she has all the parts of the book but alas, no plot. Or, at least, not an imaginative one. She pretty much decided to take the Sookie Stackhouse novels and re-write them for tweens. But I digress, we're not here to talk about published authors, nor do I have an axe to grind with Ms. Meyers. The point is that, some fanfiction authors hit dry spells and that's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm rather accepting of cliche or just plain shitty plots.
Then there's the people who can't keep in character long enough to write the first line of their fiction. Okay, so feel free to take liberties--but analyze the characters you're about to write and figure out their fundamental qualities: are they selfish or selfless? What defines them? What are some of their values? If you start off too far off base, you might as well be writing original fiction!
Thirdly is the people who can't figure out what grammar even is or where that damned Spell-Check button is located. I understand typos, I understand not being perfect (everyone makes mistakes, it's only human); but when I'm finding an error every ten words or so, it's time to take a class. I know that you had at least middle school English, and at that level you should be able to find both the Spell-Check button and the basics of grammar by the time you reach High School. Basically: if you're bothering to write 500+ words and post it on some website where other people do the same thing, be able to use the Spell-Check button at the very least. We don't want to read your sex scenes in what looks to be a children's attempts to write it.
The last thing that I'd like to bring up in this rant is this: if you can't learn from the corrections that someone is making on your writing, applying them to your future works, then why are you even bothering anyone with it? I don't mind if you spell "definitely" as "defiantly" for the whole of Chapter One, but if someone has corrected you, keep it in mind when you're writing Chapter Two! I'm not saying that a single mistake further on down the line will have people flying off the handle in your direction, but as long as it seems like you're trying to improve upon yourself with your writing, then you'll get more "I love this story"s and less "fix this, fix that".
This isn't nearly all of the problems with fanfiction, but these are a few of the problems I've been seeing lately. Feel free to discuss, argue or bring up points in the comments.