Things that bug me about fanfic

[slwmtiondaylite]

I’ve read fanfiction for years. I started with The X-Files and it just continued to Buffy’s Spuffy fanfic, Star Trek XI Spock/Uhura (in which I still have stories I’m working on. I promise they’ll be finished...eventually XD). So, I’m no stranger when it comes to fanfiction. But it’s only recently that I’ve started reading Glee fanfic (only recently that I decided to stop denying that I was obsessed with the show [or more, accurately, Kurt Hummel]) and particularly fanfiction of the Kurt or Klaine persuasion. Maybe it’s because a lot of the Glee fanfic writers are younger than those in the other fandoms that I’ve participated in (a huge assumption that I’m making, I know. Don’t shoot me over it), or perhaps it’s simply a matter of my noticing these things more so lately, but there seems to be a lot of technical/grammatical errors in the fanfic of this fandom. Not that it’s only found in the Glee fandom. By no means. It’s everywhere. I know.

And I know, I know it’s “just fanfic” and most the writers are not professionals and are probably writing just for fun and might not even have aspirations to be a professional author. Writing to get those pesky little plot bunnies out of heads and “correct” the wrongs of the show(s). And I know that most writers probably have no desire whatsoever to become published authors; this is just a hobby. I KNOW. I know not to expect to find Margaret Atwoods, Stephen Kings, Edgar Allan Poes or Jane Austens. If I go into fanfiction looking for the next literary masterpiece, I might as well be looking for a needle in Kansas (okay, not the most original phrase, but who cares?)

So I’ve noticed all these errors in fanfiction lately (maybe I’ve only really begun to pay attention). And I thought, hey, maybe I should write a guide (okay, sure, it’s a little sarcastic as well, but that’s how I roll).

And this isn’t only about the fanfiction of the Glee fandom. This could also apply to fanfic in general.

No, you may not be seeking publication, but I’d like to be optimistic and think that all writers, even those only writing fanfic, would like to improve on their writing, as it’s something you’re spending a lot of your free time doing. I know I do. But I also know that I want to get published, so I’m concentrating on getting the basics down so that maybe, one day, I’ll be able to walk into a bookstore and see my novel on a shelf with my name emblazoned on the cover. It’s a nice thought.

Now, I don’t profess to be an expert. Not at all. But I do love to write and I’m always reading novels or “how-to” guides and doing everything I can to improve my writing. So, I thought, why not share some of what I’ve learned.

• Typos. The easiest thing to avoid and I don’t know about you, but if I see a story with typos every other paragraph, I’m pressing that back button. Too many typos and the story becomes unreadable because the reader becomes too distracted by navigating the typos. A simple read-through or a quick use of the spellchecker (but don’t rely solely on that) could catch these easily avoidable mistakes. Or seek out the aid of a beta.

• Wrong words used. Is it waste or waist? Bear or bare? Heal or heel? Loosing or losing? Lose or loss? Roll or role? Rouge versus rogue (seriously?). You can’t simply rely on the spell checker and hope it’ll catch all your mistakes. It won’t, because spelling the word correctly isn’t enough. Don’t know which is the right word? Look it up in the dictionary or thesaurus. Or seek out the aid of a beta.

• Regional slang in the wrong region. If you’re writing a story about the kids from Glee, you’re writing a story about AMERICAN kids. They’re not going to call their mothers “mum” or say “bloody” or “snog” or any other BRITISH slang. Use the correct slang, etc for the region. It makes the story more believable.

• Punctuation. Punctuation is so important. I don’t know how else to say it. Incorrect punctuation can completely change the meaning of the sentence.
  He nodded, “I know.”
  
  No. That comma after “nodded”? That should be a PERIOD, not a comma. He cannot NOD the words. He SAYS the words.
  ”Let’s eat mom.” Vs. “Let’s eat, mom.”
  
  With a single well-placed comma, the entire meaning of that sentence changes from sinister cannibalism to something more benign.
  ”I helped my friend jack off the horse.” Vs. “I helped my friend, Jack, off the horse.”
  
  See how important punctuation is?

• Tense shifts. Pick one tense and stick to it. Most novels are written in the past tense, but that’s not the only way to write. Present tense can be used to create a sense of urgency (I chose to use this tense for my Lies in Silence for that very reason. It’s a very intense story). And if you use past tense for your story, then any flashbacks or discussion of past events should be written in pluperfect tense (i.e. he had run away; as opposed to “he ran away”).

• Paragraphs. When a new speaker ACTS, they get a new paragraph. You change paragraphs when you change speaker/actor. And Dialogue? And Thoughts? Those are ACTIONS just as much as jumping, running, etc.
  INCORRECT:
  The priestess shook her head, refusing to look at her.
  
  “It is no concern of yours. My punishment is mine and mine alone to bear.”
  
  “Punishment?” The woman turned her head away from Nyota.
  
  Nyota moved on the mattress behind the woman and pushed the robes down her shoulders. Seeing the wounds, swollen, oozing, inflamed, Nyota fought to suppress a gag.
  
  “These are infected.”
  
  That above example comes from my own story (Engulfment, ch. 2). The current way the paragraphs are arranged makes it confusing. Who’s speaking? Who’s doing what? Is the priestess the one who endured a punishment? Or is it Nyota? It’s confusing me and I wrote it.
  CORRECT:
  The priestess shook her head, refusing to look at her. “It is no concern of yours. My punishment is mine and mine alone to bear.”
  
  “Punishment?”
  
  The woman turned her head away from Nyota.
  
  Nyota moved on the mattress behind the woman and pushed the robes down her shoulders. Seeing the wounds, swollen, oozing, inflamed, Nyota fought to suppress a gag. “These are infected.”
  
  Each paragraph above is separated by actor. The first paragraph is the actions of the priestess, the second is Nyota’s response and so on and so forth. There’s no question as to who is saying or doing what.

• “I mean”, “you know.” This is something that bugs me to know end.
  He was just trying to prove his feelings. I mean, how difficult could it be?
  
  No. Just no. Take that “I mean” OUT OF THE STORY. It’s not needed and it’s jarring to have it in there. A sudden shift into first person POV in a third person POV makes no sense whatsoever. The only time I-mean’s and you-know’s are acceptable are in first person POV and even then it’s iffy. The only time these are acceptable are when they are used in direct quotations by CHARACTERS.

• Than vs. Then. THAN is used for comparison purposes and comparison purposes ONLY. “That dog is bigger THAN that one.” THEN has several meanings: at that point in time (e.g. “I wasn’t ready THEN”); chronologically (e.g. I did this THEN I did that); in addition, or also (e.g. “It costs $1000, THEN add tax.”); in that case, or therefore (and often with an "if") (e.g. “If you want to go, then do your work.” OR “’I’m hungry!’ ‘THEN eat!’”). IF YOU’RE COMPARING SOMETHING, THEN USE THAN. OTHERWISE, USE ‘THEN.’ (see what I did there? XD)

• Lie vs. Lay. You LIE down. You LAY SOMETHING down. LAY requires the use of a DIRECT OBJECT. I assume that the confusion between these two words rests in the IMPERFECT tense of LIE, which is LAY.
   PRESENT TENSE
   LIELAY  IMPERFECT TENSE
   LAYLAID  PLUPERFECT TENSE (had) LAIN (had) LAID
  LIE is something the SUBJECT does. LAY is something that is done TO THE DIRECT OBJECT. (does this make any sense?)

• Your/You’re and They’re/There/Their. This should be self-explanatory and, honestly, there’s no excuse for messing up with this. Maybe in a text message, you can get away with using the wrong ‘your’ (and even then, I cringe), but if you use it in a story and I’m pushing that back button so fast, my laptop gets whiplash. If you’re having difficulty discerning if your word choice is correct, ask a beta for help.

• Adverbs are guilty until proven innocent. I can’t remember where I first read that, but it’s something that I’ll admit I’m still working on, because yes, it’s a lot easier and quicker to simply use adverbs. And yes, if you read any of my chapters that are already online, you’ll find adverbs all over the place. I know but it’s something I’m actively trying to work on. Take all those “-ly” words and delete them. Instead, use descriptions and metaphoric language. For example, instead of writing:
  He spoke quietly.
  
  Try:
  He spoke in a hushed whisper, his words fluttering from his lips like gossamer silk settling in the small distance between them.
  
  Perhaps that’s not the best example, but I think it gets the message across.

• DON’T summarize. SHOW, don’t tell. The first rule of writing. You’re writing a story, not a summary. DESCRIBE what is happening, what the character sees, feels, smells, hears, and thinks. This is something I have seen in countless Glee fics lately, where the writer seems so determined to rush through one section of the story so s/he can move forward. But it weakens the story. Considerably.
  Spock sat on the floor of the cell. He was nervous. He didn’t like to be here, but he had to be, despite his past. The Admiral entered with his security detail and ordered the Vulcan to be released from his cell. They took him to the Enterprise, where Spock attacked the captain after he insulted his dead mother.
  
  Um...yeah...doesn’t really tell you a whole lot, does it? That just tells the reader what happened by summarizing the events. We don’t know much about Spock or the admiral. At all. Let’s try this:
  The metal of the shackles clanged loudly in the silence of the small cell in which he sat. His eyes drifted downwards and he studied how the metal caught the dim light of the room, how his reflection glinted, distorted. He shifted his wrists, wincing slightly against the chafing of his raw flesh. He tilted his head.
  
  That feeling was there again. He was still struggling to process it. It was still so very new.
  The vessel rocked slightly to the left and he squeezed his eyes shut. His breathing and his heart rate increased. He had never before been a starship such as this one. He distantly recalled one he might have been onboard ten years ago, but he labored to suppress such memories. They had nearly destroyed him.
  
  The Yorktown righted itself and he opened his eyes. He looked around the bland empty cell, his eyes growing wide.
  
  He was nervous. Scared, even. It would have been illogical to deny it.
  
  As he sat in this tiny cell, his memories rose from the depths of his mind and taunted him, tortured him. He wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t because of that feeling, that new feeling. And once again, he cursed his eidetic memory.
  
  The rumbling of the warp engines buzzed in his ears. The walls...they were closing in.
  His eyes closed tightly and he brought his knees to his chest, His elbows rested against his knees and he ran his hands through his unruly hair, pushing it back. He suppressed a loud sob, his hands drifting down to hide his face. He felt the scar marring the left side of his face. He jerked his hand away, hating that scar, remembering how he had received it. Remembering the blade that sliced his face, the laughter.
  
  He leaned against his right hand, feeling the light stubble underneath his palm and looking at the walls of his cell. He sought comfort in that new flicker of feeling. But the anxiety, the depression he felt emanating from it...
  
  He nearly crumbled.
  
  Perhaps this had not been a well-thought-out plan.
  
  And so on and so forth. It would be far too long to show here. This example comes from my Star Trek XI fanfic, Mes-torik T’khiori (chapter 1).
  
  See? Details make the story more interesting. But the summarization of events is not the only area where you see this. Don’t tell us Kurt is a talented singer. SHOW us. Describe his love of music, how his voice makes angels weep, etc. Don’t say, “She was beautiful.” Describe her glistening blue eyes, her silky smooth hair that bounces when she runs.

• Chronological order. Think of your story as a mental movie. When the reader is reading words, she is imagining the story in her mind, seeing it play out on that mental silver screen. If you screw up with the chronology, it causes the reader to pause her mental movie, rewind and attempt to piece together what really happened. Ask yourself, what happens first? Writ that first. Then what happened afterwards? ACTION => REACTION. Always.

• That pesky, evil “AS”. “He drank her blood AS he knelt down.” Which did he do first? Did he drink her blood or did he kneel down? Yeah, this is another example of chronological order. To explain why this is so bad, I must borrow the words of OokamiKasumi over at deviantART.
  ”In school, they teach you that ‘as’ is a word used to connect fragments of sentences together, rather in the same way as you would use the word ‘and.’ Unfortunately, ‘as’ doesn’t quite work the same way as an ‘and’ in fiction....’AS’ means, ‘things that happened simultaneously.’ ‘AND’ means, ‘this happened next.’ In Fiction, NOTHING is truly simultaneous because the eye READS only one thing at a time.
  
  He knelt down before his victim AND seized her by her hair, bringing her throat to his mouth. He pierced her skin with his fangs AND drank her blood, relishing the warmth of the red liquid pouring down his throat.

• “He said, she said, it said...said, said, said.” You DON’T need to always end a quotation with “said.” I rarely do. If you split your paragraphs correctly, dialogue tags shouldn’t be needed. Yes, dialogue tags are a perfectly acceptable way to write, but they get boring. Use action tags instead.
  ”I love you, too.” She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, how I love you.”
  “I love you, too.” She swiped at the tear rolling down her cheek. “Oh, how I love.”
  “I love you, too.” She laughed, looking away from him. “Oh, how I love you.”
  “I love you, too.” She glared at him, her eyes narrowed, her teeth bared. “Oh, how I love you.”
  
  Dialogue tags take up valuable space and word count that could be used elsewhere. And by using actions, your meaning cannot be misinterpreted.

• Those talking heads just won’t shut up. Just make sure you don’t fall victim to “talking head syndrome.”
  “I have nothing to say to you.”
  
  “That is a possibility. Though I must remind you that it would be in your best interest to inform me what you know of the Rebellion.”
  
  “I have been a prisoner of the Empire for twenty-two years. I know nothing. You are Vulcan, are you not?”
  
  “I am.”
  
  From my Star Trek XI story, Lies in Silence, chapter 21 (WIP)
  
  Talking head syndrome. Nasty thing. And that is certainly a risk when you don’t describe anything. There’s no mental movie. It leaves it up to the reader to interpret the conversation any way she sees fit. And always remember, what CAN be misunderstood, WILL be misunderstood. Make sure that cannot happen.
  The prisoner struggles to sit erect, pressing against the back of the chair. “I have nothing to say to you.”
  
  I step forward, my hands held behind my back, fingernails digging into the palms. “That is a possibility. Though I must remind you that it would be in your best interest to inform me what you know of the Rebellion.”
  
  Silence. The prisoner shifts in his hard metal prison, the shackles around his wrists clanging against the chair. “I have been a prisoner of the Empire for twenty-two years. I know nothing.”
  
  My eyes leave his face, his scarred face, and focus on the moonlight filtering through the small window behind him. Calculations rush through my mind. Twenty-two years. Twenty-two years, four months, fifteen days ago, my mother-
  
  “You are Vulcan, are you not?”
  
  The prisoner’s words startle me, piercing through the silence. My mask falters, threatens to fall from my face. It takes a moment for me to respond. “I am.”
  
  The actions that I’ve added bring much more to the scene. The narrator’s hand movements denote nervousness, as does his darting eyes. He’s uncomfortable with the conversation and with the prisoner in front of him. His mood is nowhere evident in the first example, forcing the reader to assume. So, don’t fall victim to talking head syndrome.

• Head-hopping. He thought. She thought. It thought... Head-hopping is when we, the readers, are constantly tossed back and forth between characters’ heads and POVs. (For example, in one scene, we begin with Kurt’s point of view. We get his inner thoughts on the matter he is confronting. And then, in the next paragraph, we’re tossed into Blaine’s head.) And this bugs me more than anything else. And while technically, it’s “legal” to write this way (I understand, having never really read anything of hers, that Nora Roberts is an author that is horribly guilty of this), it makes the scene weaker. The point of every scene, of the entire story is CONFLICT. And there’s no conflict, no suspense when we know what both characters are thinking at all times. The rule of thumb is “one POV per scene.” NOT one POV per paragraph. I can hear some people asking, “then how can I let my readers know what the other character is thinking?” Simple. The same way you know what people are thinking in real life. Descriptive body language and other visual/auditory clues. A furrowed brow might indicate confusion. Flushed cheeks may indicate frustration, embarrassment, or anger. A smile shows happiness. Halting words may indicate hesitance or nervousness.
  
  And to add to this...if you’re writing a flashback from, say, Blaine’s POV, that means we the readers are seeing the scene from Blaine’s perspective. NOWHERE do Kurt’s thoughts belong anywhere in the scene(s). Unless your character is telepathic, Blaine cannot tell the reader what KURT is thinking. It doesn’t make sense. He can only rely on visual and auditory clues like everyone else.
  
  If you’re having problems avoiding headhopping, I find that writing from a first person POV is the easiest way to learn how to avoid it.
  

Long story short, if you need help, look for a beta who can and is willing to help you write the best story you can. :) I am more than willing to help if needed.