we all drank of the snapple
Day 12 -- What's in Your Bag, in Great Detail
This will be short. I don't have a bag, therefore there's nothing in it. The closest thing I have is my old backpack from uni, which technically still has my notebooks and folders from my final semester at uni still in it. There's literally nothing else in there though. It does have Scooby Doo on the flap. And the folders and notebooks are various colours -- mainly green, yellow, red, and blue. Not very exciting, I know. Sadly, there's no purse to talk about (cos I don't carry one). I do have very deep pockets, which at times seem somewhat dimensionally transcendental. (However, they aren't). These pockets usually have my wallet in it, my car keys, and a serviette (cos my immune system is crap and I always have a cold). There's also sometimes a can drink in the pockets as well.
Day 01 - Introduction
Day 02 - Your first love, in great detail
Day 03 - Your parents, in great detail
Day 04 - What you ate today, in great detail
Day 05 - Your definition of love, in great detail
Day 06 - Your day, in great detail
Day 07 - Your best friend, in great detail
Day 08 - A moment, in great detail
Day 09 - Your beliefs, in great detail
Day 10 - What you wore today, in great detail
Day 11 - Your siblings, in great detail
Day 12 - What’s in your bag, in great detail
Day 13 - This week, in great detail
Day 14 - What you wore today, in great detail
Day 15 - Your dreams, in great detail
Day 16 - Your first kiss, in great detail
Day 17 - Your favorite memory, in great detail
Day 18 - Your favorite birthday, in great detail
Day 19 - Something you regret, in great detail
Day 20 - This month, in great detail
Day 21 - Another moment, in great detail
Day 22 - Something that upsets you, in great detail
Day 23 - Something that makes you feel better, in great detail
Day 24 - Something that makes you cry, in great detail
Day 25 - A first, in great detail
Day 26 - Your fears, in great detail
Day 27 - Your favorite place, in great detail
Day 28 - Something that you miss, in great detail
Day 29 - Your aspirations, in great detai
Day 30 - One last moment, in great detail
And now, for your reading pleasure, you can listen to me whinge about the sad state of affairs of the writing quality of fanfiction.net. Seriously.
Okay, I have been writing fanfic since I was 14. I'm now 23 and I would like to think I have improved since then. (Well, we can hope. I assume I have. I mean, if one was to read my self-immersion HP fic from when I was 14 and compare it to the Fringe writing I do now, I would hope they would seem some improvement. Not only in grammar and spelling, but in content and character development). As such, my taste in writing has gotten much more selective. I would like to think that I can place a good story and tell the good writing from the, to be frank, crap writing. Regardless of whether the writing is good or bad, I still read almost every fic that comes across the archives for fandoms I'm heavily involved in (so for right now that's Fringe, Covert Affairs, Doctor Who, and Alice when it comes to the fanfiction.net website). In so doing, I have come across certain trends that, while they may not have bothered me when I was 14, drive me CRAZY now. And I really wish to see some improvement. Here is my list of requests to the writers on ff.net (who will probably never know this exists) on the ways in which you can stop sucking at your craft and make your writing both legible and enjoyable.
1) Use good grammar. I mean, spell check and grammar check exist on every single word program available (minus wordpad), and PCs and MACs both come with this writing program. Feel free to use it. Also, have someone look over your work. And don't post something seconds after you're done typing it. Keep it on your computer for about 2 or 3 hours, go do something else, then come back and re-read over your work. You'd be surprised how many errors you make just by typing fast. The readers will read it even if you take a couple of extra hours to post. Now, I get that it's supposedly mainly younger people who read and write fanfiction, but there are some of us who are older and would like to feel that we're reading at least teen novel literature and not something illegible. A few typos are okay and totally acceptable (I still can't post a story without coming across at least 2 or 3, even following my own advice), but when every other word is misspelled or your sentence structure makes no sense, then you need to re-read over your writing or find a beta. They exist for a reason.
-- English as a first language people, pay special attention to this. It's really saddening (not to mention frightening) that I've read stories written by people whose first language isn't English who can write English better than a Brit, Irish, American, or Canadian person. Seriously, if English is your first language, learn to write in it.
2) If at all possible, avoid deaux et machine, i.e. solving a problem and having everything turn up sunshine and roses without any explanation as to how it happened. Now, I was guilty of this a lot in my early writing -- having Harry come back from the dead with no explanation -- many, many times. So, for early stories, I can usually stomach this. But if it's your 30th story, and you keep doing the same thing -- killing your characters and having them come back so you can have these uber-romantic reunions with their loved ones -- then it's just bad, unimaginative writing. You can usually have a person come back from the dead and have it make sense if you think about it for more than a few minutes. You just have to have the mental patience...and some imagination. Most writers do have this trait. Don't be afraid to use it.
3) Avoid trying to write the same story as everyone else. For instance, in the Fringe fandom right now, everyone and their mother is writing stories about hallucination!Peter and post-discovery-of-Altivia!Peter guilt. This is all well and good. Everyone loves angst, and this is the perfect story arc for bringing all that to the fore. There's just one little problem. At the core of the story, almost every single last one of these stories is the same. It's either a one shot showing that Olivia can't forgive Peter for what he's done and embracing the awkwardness of the situation, or it's Peter kicking himself for not realising Altivia wasn't Olivia, and staring at Olivia from afar because he doesn't feel worthy enough to actually be in her presence. It's good angst, but I'm reading the exact same story over and over and over again with no differences in the outcome -- either quick forgiveness that's somewhat unbelievable or unresolved hatred. And it's making me yawn.
Granted, coming up with a different story using that plot line is rather difficult right now. One doesn't want to start a multi-chapter fic based around redemption and forgiveness when the actual reunion and discovery is only (at most) a couple of weeks away. To write a well written story takes at least twice that long to plan out completely. So, I would suggest, to those few good writers out there, take my advice. DON'T WRITE ON THAT PLOT POINT. It's beating a dead horse. I'm pretty sure I can't be the only fanfiction addict who is tired of that plot point. Fringe has lots of other ideas that can be explored. It's a show where you can write an infinite number of AUs that could still be canon -- it's the perfect programme to be as creative as you want to be. AND YET HARDLY ANYBODY IS TAKING THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE SO.
Please, unless you can put a twist on an idea, don't write the same story as everybody else. I mean, I have tons of ideas for Peter redemption fics, but I'm not writing a single one of them right now. Cos everyone else and their mother is doing it, and just writing it would bore me. Now, when the show has shown everything it's going to do with it, then I might write one of my own (especially if the way they handle it makes no sense or seems OOC to me).
4) Speaking of OOCness. That's another pet peeve of mine. Try to keep the characters doing and saying what they would actually say in the show. If you know that they're not going to be the same way the original writers portrayed them, warn the reader in your summary or in your author's note and give reasons why. Obviously, in an AU fic, they're going to act a bit differently because their lives have been different to how we've seen them portrayed. But, if you're going to stick with canon events, keep the characters canon as well. You do them an injustice otherwise.
5) PWOP is all well and good. I do read it. However, to all those writers who don't seem to write anything else, I tell you this. Don't be afraid to branch out. Everyone loves a good smut story, but smut is even better when there's buildup and tension first. After all, that's what gets people to write the stories in the first place, right? You see a show or film or read a book and you want to see them finally let loose all that tension that's driving you as a viewer or reader crazy, right? Nothing wrong with giving an occasional story with a plot and letting the reader stew for a bit and crave the final consummation. I mean, one of my favourite fics -- The Way of Things (a Doctor Who/Blackpool xover) took 38 chapters before Peter Carlisle and Rose Tyler did the deed. And I was about ready to shoot someone cos the wait was driving me crazy with their passionate kissing, intense flirting, and the descriptions given of Peter Carlisle's (played by David Tennant) smouldering dark eyes. I love the occasional story that's nothing but sex. But sex plus a story that gets us there, where we care about whether or not the characters last afterward, is even better.
6) Use correct spelling in your description of the story. I cannot count the number of times I have read a description on ff.net that says, "I suck at summeries." If you can't even spell one sentence correctly and use correct punctuation in your description, what hope will I have for the rest of the story?
7) Don't BEG for reviews. Asking for one at the end of the chapter is more than acceptable; it is encouraged. Saying that you will withhold another chapter due to lack of reviews or that you have to have a certain number before you continue just makes you a review whore and a douchebag. I mean, being a review whore comes with the territory (I am one myself, I must confess.) But, refusing to write anymore if you don't get a certain number just shows that you're more about looking popular based on the number of reviewers than you are passionate about your writing. I mean, I have some stories that have no reviews at all. It hurts a bit and on more than one occasion, I've felt discouraged enough to almost consider giving up writing entirely. But, I genuinely love characters, and I always come back to writing because whether or not anyone else enjoys my writing is beyond me, but the characters keep speaking to me and as long as they do that, I will keep writing. Fanfiction writing isn't about popularity. It's about improving your writing skills and spreading the love of already created characters, as well as offering an individual incite into the interpretation of another writer's characters. Fanfiction writing is, in effect, hard core character analysis of pop culture -- a scholarly pursuit, in its own right -- and therefore, it should be treated as such.
Alright, I'm done now (I think). I would say that I'm sorry if I offended anyone, but it's not in my nature to be sorry about anything. I think things through too much before I bother typing them to say that I hadn't thought my arguments through before I typed such words. I'm a harsh critic, both of my own writing and of others' -- and I won't apologise for that. Now, this trend is less so on LJ than it is on ff.net, but it still exists on here as well. And you may be thinking, "Luna, you're not any better than those you're complaining about." And you're probably right (which would mean that you've figured out my penname on ff.net, which is different from what it is on here, so kudos to you!) I am far from being a perfect or even GOOD fanfic writer, much less a good original writer. But, I study patterns and trends (both in sci-fi programmes and in fanfic writing styles) and these are a few of those problems I've come across (and some I'm sure you readers have seen too). And I'm not even going into messed up continuity points or erroneous mythology that some fanfic writers commit. This is merely grammatical and character analytical fuck-ups.
Please, writers on ff.net, and fanfic writers in general. Do better. Do your best. And please, for the sake of all that is good, holy, and sane...be original and stop sucking. (To you few good writers out there -- you know who you are -- ignore this message).
This will be short. I don't have a bag, therefore there's nothing in it. The closest thing I have is my old backpack from uni, which technically still has my notebooks and folders from my final semester at uni still in it. There's literally nothing else in there though. It does have Scooby Doo on the flap. And the folders and notebooks are various colours -- mainly green, yellow, red, and blue. Not very exciting, I know. Sadly, there's no purse to talk about (cos I don't carry one). I do have very deep pockets, which at times seem somewhat dimensionally transcendental. (However, they aren't). These pockets usually have my wallet in it, my car keys, and a serviette (cos my immune system is crap and I always have a cold). There's also sometimes a can drink in the pockets as well.
Day 01 - Introduction
Day 02 - Your first love, in great detail
Day 03 - Your parents, in great detail
Day 04 - What you ate today, in great detail
Day 05 - Your definition of love, in great detail
Day 06 - Your day, in great detail
Day 07 - Your best friend, in great detail
Day 08 - A moment, in great detail
Day 09 - Your beliefs, in great detail
Day 10 - What you wore today, in great detail
Day 11 - Your siblings, in great detail
Day 12 - What’s in your bag, in great detail
Day 13 - This week, in great detail
Day 14 - What you wore today, in great detail
Day 15 - Your dreams, in great detail
Day 16 - Your first kiss, in great detail
Day 17 - Your favorite memory, in great detail
Day 18 - Your favorite birthday, in great detail
Day 19 - Something you regret, in great detail
Day 20 - This month, in great detail
Day 21 - Another moment, in great detail
Day 22 - Something that upsets you, in great detail
Day 23 - Something that makes you feel better, in great detail
Day 24 - Something that makes you cry, in great detail
Day 25 - A first, in great detail
Day 26 - Your fears, in great detail
Day 27 - Your favorite place, in great detail
Day 28 - Something that you miss, in great detail
Day 29 - Your aspirations, in great detai
Day 30 - One last moment, in great detail
And now, for your reading pleasure, you can listen to me whinge about the sad state of affairs of the writing quality of fanfiction.net. Seriously.
Okay, I have been writing fanfic since I was 14. I'm now 23 and I would like to think I have improved since then. (Well, we can hope. I assume I have. I mean, if one was to read my self-immersion HP fic from when I was 14 and compare it to the Fringe writing I do now, I would hope they would seem some improvement. Not only in grammar and spelling, but in content and character development). As such, my taste in writing has gotten much more selective. I would like to think that I can place a good story and tell the good writing from the, to be frank, crap writing. Regardless of whether the writing is good or bad, I still read almost every fic that comes across the archives for fandoms I'm heavily involved in (so for right now that's Fringe, Covert Affairs, Doctor Who, and Alice when it comes to the fanfiction.net website). In so doing, I have come across certain trends that, while they may not have bothered me when I was 14, drive me CRAZY now. And I really wish to see some improvement. Here is my list of requests to the writers on ff.net (who will probably never know this exists) on the ways in which you can stop sucking at your craft and make your writing both legible and enjoyable.
1) Use good grammar. I mean, spell check and grammar check exist on every single word program available (minus wordpad), and PCs and MACs both come with this writing program. Feel free to use it. Also, have someone look over your work. And don't post something seconds after you're done typing it. Keep it on your computer for about 2 or 3 hours, go do something else, then come back and re-read over your work. You'd be surprised how many errors you make just by typing fast. The readers will read it even if you take a couple of extra hours to post. Now, I get that it's supposedly mainly younger people who read and write fanfiction, but there are some of us who are older and would like to feel that we're reading at least teen novel literature and not something illegible. A few typos are okay and totally acceptable (I still can't post a story without coming across at least 2 or 3, even following my own advice), but when every other word is misspelled or your sentence structure makes no sense, then you need to re-read over your writing or find a beta. They exist for a reason.
-- English as a first language people, pay special attention to this. It's really saddening (not to mention frightening) that I've read stories written by people whose first language isn't English who can write English better than a Brit, Irish, American, or Canadian person. Seriously, if English is your first language, learn to write in it.
2) If at all possible, avoid deaux et machine, i.e. solving a problem and having everything turn up sunshine and roses without any explanation as to how it happened. Now, I was guilty of this a lot in my early writing -- having Harry come back from the dead with no explanation -- many, many times. So, for early stories, I can usually stomach this. But if it's your 30th story, and you keep doing the same thing -- killing your characters and having them come back so you can have these uber-romantic reunions with their loved ones -- then it's just bad, unimaginative writing. You can usually have a person come back from the dead and have it make sense if you think about it for more than a few minutes. You just have to have the mental patience...and some imagination. Most writers do have this trait. Don't be afraid to use it.
3) Avoid trying to write the same story as everyone else. For instance, in the Fringe fandom right now, everyone and their mother is writing stories about hallucination!Peter and post-discovery-of-Altivia!Peter guilt. This is all well and good. Everyone loves angst, and this is the perfect story arc for bringing all that to the fore. There's just one little problem. At the core of the story, almost every single last one of these stories is the same. It's either a one shot showing that Olivia can't forgive Peter for what he's done and embracing the awkwardness of the situation, or it's Peter kicking himself for not realising Altivia wasn't Olivia, and staring at Olivia from afar because he doesn't feel worthy enough to actually be in her presence. It's good angst, but I'm reading the exact same story over and over and over again with no differences in the outcome -- either quick forgiveness that's somewhat unbelievable or unresolved hatred. And it's making me yawn.
Granted, coming up with a different story using that plot line is rather difficult right now. One doesn't want to start a multi-chapter fic based around redemption and forgiveness when the actual reunion and discovery is only (at most) a couple of weeks away. To write a well written story takes at least twice that long to plan out completely. So, I would suggest, to those few good writers out there, take my advice. DON'T WRITE ON THAT PLOT POINT. It's beating a dead horse. I'm pretty sure I can't be the only fanfiction addict who is tired of that plot point. Fringe has lots of other ideas that can be explored. It's a show where you can write an infinite number of AUs that could still be canon -- it's the perfect programme to be as creative as you want to be. AND YET HARDLY ANYBODY IS TAKING THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE SO.
Please, unless you can put a twist on an idea, don't write the same story as everybody else. I mean, I have tons of ideas for Peter redemption fics, but I'm not writing a single one of them right now. Cos everyone else and their mother is doing it, and just writing it would bore me. Now, when the show has shown everything it's going to do with it, then I might write one of my own (especially if the way they handle it makes no sense or seems OOC to me).
4) Speaking of OOCness. That's another pet peeve of mine. Try to keep the characters doing and saying what they would actually say in the show. If you know that they're not going to be the same way the original writers portrayed them, warn the reader in your summary or in your author's note and give reasons why. Obviously, in an AU fic, they're going to act a bit differently because their lives have been different to how we've seen them portrayed. But, if you're going to stick with canon events, keep the characters canon as well. You do them an injustice otherwise.
5) PWOP is all well and good. I do read it. However, to all those writers who don't seem to write anything else, I tell you this. Don't be afraid to branch out. Everyone loves a good smut story, but smut is even better when there's buildup and tension first. After all, that's what gets people to write the stories in the first place, right? You see a show or film or read a book and you want to see them finally let loose all that tension that's driving you as a viewer or reader crazy, right? Nothing wrong with giving an occasional story with a plot and letting the reader stew for a bit and crave the final consummation. I mean, one of my favourite fics -- The Way of Things (a Doctor Who/Blackpool xover) took 38 chapters before Peter Carlisle and Rose Tyler did the deed. And I was about ready to shoot someone cos the wait was driving me crazy with their passionate kissing, intense flirting, and the descriptions given of Peter Carlisle's (played by David Tennant) smouldering dark eyes. I love the occasional story that's nothing but sex. But sex plus a story that gets us there, where we care about whether or not the characters last afterward, is even better.
6) Use correct spelling in your description of the story. I cannot count the number of times I have read a description on ff.net that says, "I suck at summeries." If you can't even spell one sentence correctly and use correct punctuation in your description, what hope will I have for the rest of the story?
7) Don't BEG for reviews. Asking for one at the end of the chapter is more than acceptable; it is encouraged. Saying that you will withhold another chapter due to lack of reviews or that you have to have a certain number before you continue just makes you a review whore and a douchebag. I mean, being a review whore comes with the territory (I am one myself, I must confess.) But, refusing to write anymore if you don't get a certain number just shows that you're more about looking popular based on the number of reviewers than you are passionate about your writing. I mean, I have some stories that have no reviews at all. It hurts a bit and on more than one occasion, I've felt discouraged enough to almost consider giving up writing entirely. But, I genuinely love characters, and I always come back to writing because whether or not anyone else enjoys my writing is beyond me, but the characters keep speaking to me and as long as they do that, I will keep writing. Fanfiction writing isn't about popularity. It's about improving your writing skills and spreading the love of already created characters, as well as offering an individual incite into the interpretation of another writer's characters. Fanfiction writing is, in effect, hard core character analysis of pop culture -- a scholarly pursuit, in its own right -- and therefore, it should be treated as such.
Alright, I'm done now (I think). I would say that I'm sorry if I offended anyone, but it's not in my nature to be sorry about anything. I think things through too much before I bother typing them to say that I hadn't thought my arguments through before I typed such words. I'm a harsh critic, both of my own writing and of others' -- and I won't apologise for that. Now, this trend is less so on LJ than it is on ff.net, but it still exists on here as well. And you may be thinking, "Luna, you're not any better than those you're complaining about." And you're probably right (which would mean that you've figured out my penname on ff.net, which is different from what it is on here, so kudos to you!) I am far from being a perfect or even GOOD fanfic writer, much less a good original writer. But, I study patterns and trends (both in sci-fi programmes and in fanfic writing styles) and these are a few of those problems I've come across (and some I'm sure you readers have seen too). And I'm not even going into messed up continuity points or erroneous mythology that some fanfic writers commit. This is merely grammatical and character analytical fuck-ups.
Please, writers on ff.net, and fanfic writers in general. Do better. Do your best. And please, for the sake of all that is good, holy, and sane...be original and stop sucking. (To you few good writers out there -- you know who you are -- ignore this message).