Grouse's List Of Things That Are Actually Okay In Fanfic
Hi, my name is Snowgrouse, and I've been into fanfic since the mid-to-late Nineties. I first started writing my own porn stories around 1994 (Mary Sue/nearly everyone in The Three Musketeers!) and slash (Mulder/Krycek!) around 1997. I'm not old enough to have been there from the start what with all the K/S zines and stuff, but old enough to have followed and participated in online fandom and fanfic since the WWW first got big in the mid-Nineties, so I've seen how it's been growing and changing over the past few decades. And I'm still growing as a writer and still struggle and angst over my stuff sometimes and always look for ways to develop my writing. And also keep being surprised by various things all the time, so I thought I'd make a list of the sorts of things I've learned over all these *mumbledy* years I've been writing fanfic. As these include some things a lot of people, even (or especially) the seasoned fanficcers often worry about, I thought I'd share them. Mostly they are things where I've found the prevailing (or at least notable) ideas in fandom to have been a bit relative and debatable (or, let's face it, complete and utter horseshit) and have realised that sometimes you have to break the rules to make stuff work. So, here we go.
Grouse's List Of Things That Are Actually Okay In Fanfic (Even If Some People Might Tell You Otherwise)
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-Romance novel terms and phrases, in modern fic, are Bad. But--and this is an important but--if your characters are the sort that might use some overly old-fashioned and romantic terms, it can easily look much worse if you don't. You can really go overboard in the opposite direction and slap modern language onto the sorts of characters with whom it wouldn't work. Don't try and make Loki sound gangsta (unless he's taking the piss). Or make a chaste medieval maiden talk like a porn star. As long as you avoid the throbbing members and azure orbs and limpid pools, it's ok to use setting-specific language. For instance, I've written historical fics where "fuck" just hasn't worked (at least immediately--I've had to build up to it) and in that context, especially if the original fandom has had super-romantic fairytale language (hello, Thief of Bagdad!) it's been perfectly appropriate for me to write the Princess gasping "take me" to Jaffar. Would I ever use it if it was a Doctor Who companion? Hell no, unless it was Victoria or something. A really good rule of thumb is that before the end of the 1960s and the sexual revolution, "take me" is okay because it was used all over the place and in a really bold context as well, whereas afterwards it started to sound corny and gushy. But for a woman and a certain type of gentleman before the Sixties, using "fuck" would have been fairly uncouth and unsophisticated, perhaps something akin to how the c-word is used today. Especially in het contexts, it's something you'd only hear in a brothel or from people who were pretending to be in one. So it's best used when the characters are getting really rough and nasty. Anaïs Nin (who was sexually pretty damn open-minded) used "take me" all the time back in the day, and if it was good enough for her in the Thirties and Forties, it's good enough for me.
Again, it all depends on context. I was told that you shouldn't really use "impalement" to describe the feeling of someone taking a cock inside of themselves because that's a cliche. And it is a cliche, definitely. But that just makes me wonder if the people doing the complaining have ever really taken a big cock up themselves, especially up the arse. To say nothing of someone sticking something harder than a penis, like a dildo up you. Because impalement is what it *feels like*. So that's one of those terms I've gone full circle on--from being told it was Bad And Corny to "wait, actually, that works." Of course, if *you* feel something is corny, don't use it. The whole deal is to just trust what you feel and not follow arbitrary lists of other people's pet hates. Do read those lists to get an idea of what turns most people off, but then make the final decisions yourself. Because whatever terms you use for sex, someone's going to hate them anyway--a good example would be the terms people use of lady parts. There is no consensus about that whatsoever--I'm fine with "pussy" and use it of my own bits IRL but some women utterly loathe it (which was... kind of strange to hear as it felt like they were harshing my sexual choices, but that's another rant for another time). Just stick with what you think the characters would use and what you yourself don't find too corny/harsh/offputting. Obvy, there are some terms that are cornier than others (I would close the tab immediately if someone described an anus as a "brown eye,") but if it's something that's really popular, you have a better chance of it working.
-Although even the popular terms can be hideously wrong: please, for the love of Venus, don't call the entire lady part a "vagina" because that's only the part that's inside your body. I don't care if you come from a culture where sex education is wobbly, it's as ridiculous as calling the penis "balls." And really worrying from a feminist perspective, considering it's a pretty important body part, something half of humanity gets judged by--women, even feminist-identified women not knowing what that part is called is pretty frightening. The outer part is the vulva; the vagina is the channel between it and the uterus. "Labia" means "lips" in Latin, and alone, refers to the outer lips (labia majora--the major lips)--the ol' bacon flaps are labia minora (the minor lips). Call the entire thing a sex, a foof, a pussy, a fanny, a cunt, a box, a snatch, a front bottom, a cunny, a yoni, the seat of her pleasure or a mossy cleft or whatever, I don't care; just don't call the entire thing "vagina."
-Everyone sounds corny sometimes; even the best writers do. The thing is to accept that sometimes there is just no other way to say a thing apart from a really boring and/or cliched way. Some of these phrases have become popular exactly because they work. You can get really neurotic about this whole avoiding cliches thing--to the point where it can get really wanky when you try to sound all original and as a consequence, your prose will start to sound more than a bit pretentious. Or just lame. So allow yourself to use some familiar phrases now and then. It's not the end of the world. It's fine if you say that something "made shivers run down your spine," for instance. As long as your entire work isn't just cliche after cliche. And remember that people *do* say corny things IRL. Especially guys in bedrooms. I mean... saying corny things in bed is a dude staple. So why wouldn't your guys do that? Just use it sparingly, and denote that others find those phrases corny.
-It's ok to write het if you want to. Slash hasn't been all that subversive for the past ten years or so, because it's become so popular that it suffers from all the same godawful dreck het fanfic used to be guilty of. Just projected onto guys. So if you feel like het, go for it, even if you may feel pressured not to. That's the only way those attitudes will ever change--and the same goes for female bodies being subjected to ridiculous amounts of shaming from sexists and/or over-the-top politicising from certain types of feminists to the point where whatever you write, it's Wrong for *someone* out there. But that's not how it should be. Sex is fun, and it's about time women started to enjoy it too. Women will never stop being victims if we constantly associate sex only with being objectified or shamed or abused, and that's an important point to remember. WE ARE ALLOWED TO ENJOY SEX, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, and if RL makes that difficult the way it does now, that's all the more reason to enjoy it in fic at least. Obviously, you should never feel forced to write anything you're too uncomfortable with, but I can definitely recommend writing all sorts--it's harder to write about female bodies, but when you succeed, it feels great. I get messages time and time again saying how cool it is that I'm writing het as well as slash and making it just as kinky and dirty and so on, and that was a huge relief because I just expected the good old "eww, vaginas" types of flames.
If anything, writing some wildly sexual woman is more subversive than the sort of slash that just turns the guys into the worst possible weepy heterosexist cliches of women. The latter used to be fun and subversive in a "hey, let's make the guys go through what we go through" way about... oh, those ten years ago. Now it just becomes as painful as when they make chicks do it. I mean, it's ok to write that if that's your thing and you really want to make the bastards suffer, and it is easier than het and I enjoy doing that sometimes myself, but whether that's *subversive* any longer is another matter entirely. It may be subversive in good ol' patriarchal *real life* (and therefore will serve a purpose as long as male socialisation is what it is) but in *fandom,* it's not exactly new. So don't be afraid to write whichever gender combo you want, really. Don't ever think you're boring or lame or heterosexist or whatever if the characters you ship happen to be a man and a woman; it should always be about whichever characters get you going. If you write it well enough (or, let's face it, kinkily enough), you *will* get readers, and intelligent readers, and it's great to see how that's changing a bit now at least, so that we can have smut of all kinds of genital combinations. Which is nice. More smut for everybody!
-Having said that, this is another important one: YOUR FIC DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE A MESSAGE. It doesn't have to be politically correct. You don't have to write het if it makes you uncomfortable. You don't have to write slash if it makes you uncomfortable. You don't have to write sex at all if you're just not that into it. You don't have to write anything at all if it makes you uncomfortable just because someone on the internet wants you to write a certain type of thing. It's your fic. It doesn't have to be subversive. Your characters don't have to be some paragons because IRL, people rarely are. So your story doesn't have to have the female characters bustin' balls and blowing stuff up. They can be weepy. Or they can be butch or anything in between; whatever floats your boat, and the same goes for the guys and the pan-gendered alien beings. As long as they are interesting characters. The slash doesn't have to be a grittily realistic portrayal of modern gay men because, hello, is straight or girl-on-girl porn directed at guys a realistic portrayal of women or just a, you know, wank fantasy? There you go. You are actually under no obligation to try and be morally superior to the guys if you want to just have a good, honest wank. It's only human to have a libido, and at least when it's fic, you're not harming anyone.
Because so much of fanfic is about venting and exploring fantasies anyway, it doesn't have to have that much to do with your real values or what you'd do in bed or whatever. That's kind of the point--in fic, you can do stuff you wouldn't normally do, or have characters behave like complete dicks because it works for the story. Don't let anyone shame you for not being PC or "justifying" a villain's actions if you really, really, really want to see the Master blow up your school and then wank over the ruins. You're writing that so you won't go and blow that school up yourself, and aren't you glad fanfic exists for that? Yeah. Even the most awful of villains serve a purpose, and for the villain-fancier, they can be incredibly cathartic. Do not ever, ever associate yourself or let other people associate you with the values and ideas represented in your fic unless that fic is a manifesto and presented as such. Write whatever the fuck you want. Write what gets you off. Write what sets you free. Write stuff that's so sick it makes you want to throw up if you feel like the experience of writing it is worth it. Despite what the PC squad or even the law enforcement might think of the stuff your characters do. Freedom of speech and all that.
-And following on from that previous one: remember The Agatha Christie Rule. She knew a lot about murder, but she didn't have a backyard full of bodies. Thomas Harris isn't, contrary to all evidence, a cannibal. And apparently Stephen King isn't possessed by a supernatural power from beyond the grave (despite the unearthly volume of output he's capable of). Yeah, weird, I know.
-And further on the whole paragons thing: think of what stereotypes and cliches apply to your own life and the people around you. You'd be surprised to discover how people really do conform to the silliest stuff. So, as long as there's variety in your characters, don't be afraid to give them a stereotypical characteristic or two, even if they might be politically incorrect. Because, again, people aren't like that IRL. I've known utterly psycho LGBT people, money-obsessed Jews, tree-hugging hippies and I'm a *horrible* example of a nymphomaniac depraved bisexual myself. Admit that people are flawed and that those stereotypes do have some basis in RL, and then that will liberate you into writing a richer story. As long as your story isn't just full of them to the point where the characters become caricatures, you're fine. You don't want to go too far in the other direction and make them into caricatures of political correctness either; that's equally annoying or perhaps even more annoying because it always comes across as either really timid or really self-satisfied and preachy and smug. Just write, you know, people. With all their silly quirks and lamenesses in addition to the hot sexy bits. Or just someone who's so utterly fuckin' fabulous it's not true, if it's that kind of story.
-And fabulousness brings me to Mary Sues vs. OCs and alternative interpretations of characters. Now. First of all, a Mary Sue is someone who is *intrusive*. A Mary Sue is someone who comes into a *pre-existing* universe and makes everything revolve around her/him and who represents nothing but the writer's own fetishes. She or he is *not* some capable, cool OC who just comes in from time to time but doesn't force everyone to worship her/him. There's a big difference, and that may just be it--a Mary Sue is annoying because she twists everything in the fandom to revolve around herself, but a decent OC is there because she serves a narrative purpose. Mary Sue is someone of whom the characters will always speak of in superlative terms and someone who gets elevated to some sort of divine status, completely subjugating the 'verse to her worship. It's perfectly possible to write an interesting OC who has awesome sex with the guy the writer fancies but who isn't a Mary Sue. The older I get, the more I see people misusing the term "Mary Sue" of just about any female character who is capable and strong or hot (when what they really mean is that they hate that bitch for coming in the way of their favourite ship). I could mention certain examples from TV shows and movies, but I know that's just an invitation to a flamewar, so I won't. (Especially as you can always twist it so that just about every character ever written can be seen as a Sue in a certain light, and then the wankiness just goes out of control.) What I do mean is to say that it's actually OK to write OCs who are capable and hot without making them into Mary Sues. Make them human enough to be interesting and--importantly--make sure the other characters' lives don't revolve around them. And don't make them too kookily failtastic or supposedly adorkable or tragic to avoid Mary Sue accusations, because those are equally annoying and the fact that you're trying too hard becomes really obvious and painful after a while. Or, you know, you could just make them so outrageous they become tongue-in-cheek--it's possible to do even that without making that character annoying. Just try and think of what would work for the story and stay honest about it, and don't give in to *all* of your fetishes.
-Yeah, about those fetishes. I know. It's really fucking hard, isn't it? That's one of the biggest problems in fanfic. People seem to swing between two extremes with this one as well. Either a character or a fic becomes a complete fetish fest, or then the author takes many, many, careful and dignified steps away from the filth she just wrote and pretends that it's compleeeeeetely different from what they feel IRL, honest. Whereas here, the best thing is, again, to be honest with yourself. You can give into certain kinks because let's face it, you are writing this porn scene because you fancy the characters and/or what their dynamic does to you, and what sorts of sexual vibes they give you. You love the angst or the kink or their funny banter or something, so of course you're going to wallow in that. And their superhero arse looks just so fantastic in those tights, just begging for a spanking... see, this is actually one of my biggest problems. I freely admit I may have gone a bit overboard with applying certain kinks and certain emo angstfests to my favourite characters/real people because I've really needed to wank to the idea of that hot person indulging in my favourite fetish or suffering really badly because I've just had my heart broken. And that's actually ok if it helps you have orgasms and mental catharsis. But whether you should pretend that's always 100% in character is a different matter entirely.
All I can say is that it's best to try and do your best to stick to the original characterisation enough to make it all work. If you write longer stories and if you can sustain a longer development of the characters' relationships and their personalities *towards* them developing those kinks/situations, you will have more leeway with the kinks and the angst (or the happy fluff!) because you've now got a solid foundation for them. I had been writing Doctor/Master for so long that I'd forgotten what it was like to write a story where it would take ages and ages for my pairing to finally get together. Because with Doctor/Master, you can kind of hit the ground running because it's plausible they've been having an on-and-off relationship for the better part of a millennium. And then, oh shit, I got a ship of a guy and a girl who were meant to be on opposite sides in canon and where one of them was really scared of the other one and hated them... yeah, suddenly I realised I need tons of development to make it work if I wanted to get some deep emotions involved instead of just wallowing in cheery PWP. And that's how I became a longfic writer (I'm not sure if I can recommend it, so let that be an example to you, kids).
But what I mean to say is that if you really do want to indulge certain sexual or emotional or other fetishes, make sure they suit the characters, and ponder whether it's possible to make those fetishes fit after some decent development. If even after that development it looks unlikely that they'd indulge in fisting with gimp masks on, then... try and find characters you *could* see doing that after a bit of development. Or just write original fic. The rules are totally different for original fic, anyway. Or, again, in the name of honesty, go for complete fuckin' crack or just admit you're writing a PWP wank fantasy and that it's not meant to have serious character development. And yeah, that actually *does* make it magically okay because it's pretty certain there is someone else who wants to wank/cry/wail over that same fetish as well and they'll be delighted to read the story--just stay honest. Don't pretend it's a deeply subversive exploration of queer sexualities in the modern world if you honestly just want to see Tony and Steve do ass to mouth. Or Harry Styles doing furry diaper ageplay MPREG or whatever the trendy thing is these days, I forget. It's better to be an openly horny bitch than a pretentious git, trust me.
And in the end, ask yourself if you are actually the showrunner of your fandom and if you have certain obligations towards characterisation and plot and arcs and other stuff that's been established in the past. If you are not, that frees you up to do a *lot* of stuff. Fanfic is where you *can* do this sort of stuff without messing the entire canon up. I think we've got enough examples of fanboys writing canon now that we've all seen how disastrous it can get when they just pander to their own fetishes. Aren't you glad you aren't a showrunner and can actually write that fisting scene now? Yeah, exactly. There's a time and place for everything. And it's called fanfic.
-But the no.1 golden rule for getting away with all kinks, whether sexual or not? *Make them the reader's kinks, too.* Make them relatable, or simply understandable intellectually and/or emotionally. Pull the reader in, show them how and why that character develops in the direction where they can do a certain thing after a while. Make them not just your private, exclusive kinks that only you get off on, but expand upon them to involve the reader, through touching their reason and their emotions in places where they can relate. THAT is how you get away with it--show them *how* and *why* your character does that thing, and you can literally get away with incestuous-underage-scat-torture-murder (hi, Torsten and Laura). You or the reader doesn't have to like or approve of it IRL, but if the character is doing all that crazy shit believably, it can be made to work.
-Femslash still seems to be a waste of time, though, because only a small handful of people ever read it. She said bitterly. I hear a lot of cheering for it as a concept, but the hits/comments tell a different story. Can we change that? Pretty please?
-I know this sort of thing isn't popular any longer, but... run your stuff through a beta reader first. And make sure your beta is a fluent speaker/writer of the language you're writing in. And with English, being a native speaker sure as *hell* doesn't mean someone knows their grammar, especially if they're American (sorry, but I'm sure the Americans who are grammar nerds understand what I mean by that). Try European fans who have had to learn English as a second language and who have spoken and written it for years--they are often astonishingly good in comparison to the native speakers.
-If you are beta reading for someone, be honest. Yes, it hurts the author to have someone point out their typos or to be told some phrase is utterly incomprehensible when they thought it was really poetic. But it's necessary, and will help them become a better writer--there is a way of giving feedback in a constructive and friendly manner. The poorest beta I ever had basically skimmed through my fic really quickly and gushed at all the porny parts and squeed like crazy. Was it great for my ego? Yeah, it was. Did she do her job so poorly I still had tons of those incomprehensible phrases left? Yes. And with that, she was doing me a disservice. Please, for the love of God, be honest. If you and your friend stepped out of a restaurant and they had ketchup on their face, wouldn't you, you know, tell them? Do you honestly want to make the person you're betaing stuff for look like an idiot, and not help them develop their writing skills at all? Then what the hell are you betaing the stuff for? If you only ever want to leave squeey comments, remain a fan who leaves glowing comments. Don't agree to beta for them if all you can give them (or if all they want from you) is gushing. It's bullshit.
-Conversely, if you can't find a beta even after you've solicited for one loudly, and especially if it's a really short fic of under 1000 words or so, you may get away with editing it yourself. But I've had to self-edit several novel-length fics because they've been from such small fandoms nobody had ever even seen those movies. I wasn't happy about it and I still keep spotting typos and weird mistakes, all that stuff that you get from staring at your own words for too long, but the only other option would have been to just not post that stuff, ever. And when I've been writing something novel-length, you bet I won't let it just sit in my fic folder forever, waiting for the right beta to come along if they don't even exist in the first place. I would always, always prefer a beta, but it can't be helped sometimes. So I'd say that it *is* possible to post stuff unbetaed, but I would hesitate to recommend that to anyone who hasn't been writing for a long time or wasn't familiar with the usual pitfalls. So I'd recommend that you should only post unbetaed fic after many, many rereads and re-edits after you're so sick of staring at the page that you need to post it or jump off a cliff.
-And if you are the writer being betaed, try and take a step back from the fic and try and be as detached about it as possible when your beta gives you their comments. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I know. What a joke, right? I've got better at it over the years, but fuck, it still hurts. I think a lot of us are familiar with the thing where whatever you write or whatever you are fannish about is not just a hobby but a part of you, so it really can feel personal when someone criticises something you wrote, no matter how kind they are being. They might be your best friend and they might be perfectly right, but that image you had of that scene in your head was so vivid, damn it! It's like a knife to the heart to hear that what you described is probably physically impossible! And so on and so forth. It always hurts a bit, and I will never ever pretend getting crit is easy, but try to kick yourself up the arse and not be such a princess about it. You *can* say no to a beta's suggestion, of course, because sometimes it's just a difference of opinion. (I have honestly had betas say the weirdest stuff to me--certain Americans wanting to correct my grammar when there was nothing to correct and they were the ones whose grammar was wobbly, and some very strait-laced person sneering at various poetic phrases that worked fine.) But a good beta's opinion is always worth it--if only to help you decide what to keep. Even if you disagree, that'll help you realise which bits you really, really like and won't give up on no matter what. But most of the time, they mean well. Often it's handy to think of the knife that they're sticking into your flesh being a surgeon's scalpel. It hurts, but going to the doctor often hurts and they're doing what they do to help you and to make you better.
-You can use commas and semicolons pretty liberally if the prose is poetic enough. You can bend the rules of language and use weird phrases if you are aiming for poetry and can pull it off. BUT you have to know the rules first, before you start breaking them--if you are still learning English, don't go crazy just yet, until you get a good grip on the language first. Poetry is not an excuse for lazy writing and incomprehensible phrases that only make sense to you--you still have to "translate" your most poetic visuals to the reader to some extent, so it's not just a masturbatory exercise. I'm not saying I can do it perfectly, but I sure as hell try my utmost. There are more than a few famous authors who have done it, so it's possible. You might look like a right idiot at first (there are reasons I am glad some of my earliest stories have vanished off the internets), and it's best to get some experience first, but with practice, you'll get better. Trust me.
-You still need lube for anal, though. No exceptions. I've found that in het, if it's a woman receiving and if she's got some recent experience, it's plausible to use just lady juices (which are meant for lubrication anyway) in combination with spit, but that's about it. Otherwise, no fuckin' exceptions. If they've got magic at their disposal, use the magic to magic up lube. And since the amount of lubeless slash has gone up astronomically in the recent years, this is an important point to make. Don't do lubeless anal unless you want me to personally come over and stick an eight-inch dong up your bum. WITHOUT THE LADY JUICE. I'm still burning from that one novel-length story with amazing world-building and magic and realistic depictions of wounds inflicted in battle that ended with the other guy just jumping on top of another's dick like it was penis-in-vagina. (Apparently friction worked in that universe when it was some monster punching one of the heroes but suddenly friction ceased to exist when this same guy's bum was concerned.) Just, no. Don't do that. There are better rules you can break. There's a huge, huge difference between writing inventive and/or hot new alien/SF sex and coming across like an ignoramus who doesn't know how sex even works. If you're going to write sex, do your bloody research. Even the most outrageous thing has to be somewhat plausible in order for you to get away with it (and if it's applicable, you can use science or humour or magic or something like that to help the crazy along; a little goes a long way).
-Which brings me to the flipside of that: "Write what you know" is bullshit. You can be a complete virgin and write the hottest porn. If you've done your research and if you have a good enough imagination and really push it and hone it, you can write pretty much anything. If we always wrote about what we knew, the world of fiction would be dull indeed. I, for one, want to write about everything *except* my miserable disabled cat lady life and travel into different worlds and experience things through different bodies. I don't need to write about disabled cat ladies because I'm living that shit day in, day out and want some fucking respite! I want things that make me happy and horny *exactly* because there's a dearth of that in my life otherwise--I do it exactly to avoid depression. (I always think that the people who write really gritty, arty stuff you see in certain types of movies and TV shows must be really healthy and that they've really got their shit together and they aren't sensitive and easily depressed empaths. If they got as depressed as I do about human suffering, they would not be able to bear their own stories.)
But enough about John Simm me. Thing is, you don't have to feel like you aren't entitled to write about something. Yes, even different cultures, even if someone might yell at you for engaging in cultural appropriation or something, because that's total and utter rubbish if you just make sure you portray those cultures in a respectful way. I would never have learned as much about Islamic cultures as I do now if it weren't for a couple of white guys writing really interesting books about them, so that stuff can do a lot of good (as in educating people) instead of harm. The world needs more of that, people bonding past their usual boundaries. And I'd never pretend to be a gay guy either, but I've still received compliments on some of my slash from bi and gay guys. "Finally, some kissing when it's two guys!" Again, the most important thing is to be plausible and human (or an interesting enough alien) about it. Often historical and SF/F settings are useful exactly because the distancing effect brings some very basic human emotions and themes to the fore, underlines them and sharpens them, and extreme characters (like superheroes or those villains blowing shit up) serve as important crystallisations of certain desires, tendencies and characteristics. Just like a hippie might go to India only to rediscover herself and then return to her native land, having realised it's where she belonged, you too might learn something from taking a trip to a galaxy far, far away from where you are physically or emotionally or choronologically or whatever. (And you'll save the price of a plane ticket into the bargain.)
-Also, if you're writing historical stuff, don't modernise it too much. Please. The past was hella racist and sexist and there's been an unfortunate trend in telly and movies to make everything really up to date, which kind of defeats the point of setting it in the past in the first place. The intent may be to be all kinds of inclusive and correct, but the downside of that is that the more outrageous that gets, the less people will know about their history, especially if they're women, not white, queer, etc. If you make history look like there was no racism or sexism or homophobia or whatever, you are whitewashing it and that's... not good. So don't be afraid to use some even shockingly incorrect terms if it's a historical. Really. I have felt *so* shit about using the term "Negro" in a fic but it was said by a fairly racist guy in a fic set in 1940, so he sure as hell wouldn't have used nicer terms. And for goodness's sakes, don't make every female character into a weapon-wielding, trouser-wearing tomboy because that goes into the preaching and annoying "LOOK! I AM MAKING A FEMINIST POINT!" territory pretty fast as well. Especially since most of their sisters were still wasting away from tuberculosis in corsets, being used as baby machines. And I could go on about how wildly different the ideas of homosexuality were in various cultures in the past (I've written some medieval guys who thought they had that tendency because they were part female in soul), but I think you get the point. If you want modern values, write modern characters, or just go for some massively wild AU/fantasy universe thing.
-Although, remember that not all of history was oppressive either. It's just that people don't talk about that stuff much. The Devil's Whore/New Worlds was pretty good about portraying the proto-socialist ideas of early Puritans, for instance, dancing right there on the edge of modernity vs. historical integrity, and they pulled it off pretty well, I thought. It worked because they put tons of effort into historical accuracy in the language and the world and the values the characters were surrounded by. And of course, the past did have some of those sword-wielding tomboys in breeches--just use them sparingly if you do. The more you emphasise the fact that they were exceptional, the more amazing those characters become, because for that breeches-wearing badass chick to exist in a period that was even more crushingly sexist than the present day was pretty damn sensational. Exceptions are okay if you don't forget the context they happened in. If you can dig out the really interesting and unexpected historical stuff without making the story too preachy about it, it's even more awesome. I sure as hell have had fun with some of Abu Nuwas's incredibly dirty gay poetry from c. 800 AD. "I love skewering pretty boys on my cock! Ahhh, what delicious kebabs they make..."
-And exceptions bring me to the concept of rare or unusually awesome occurrences during sex. Back in the Nineties, I saw a lot of people complaining about how in bad porn fic, people always came simultaneously, a guy could come several times, a girl found it easy to orgasm, someone's first time wouldn't hurt, that sort of thing. These are all reasonable complaints and I agree that you shouldn't overuse that stuff. But--and this is a big but--I don't see why the hell these elements should never be used either. Imagine my surprise when after all these complaints, I experienced some of them in real life, several times. Yes, guys who could come several times a night, with little no refractory periods happening because boy, were we crazily in love, anal sex that worked with just pussy juice and where I could just sit on someone's cock and get it in my arse all the way instantly, simultaneous orgasms, that sort of thing. And guess what? Some guys have huge dicks! Some women have pussies as sweet as sugar! In! Real! Life!
So just because some things have become cliches, it doesn't mean they *never* happen. And again, I don't think it's that great a sin to write something you want to see happening in the bedroom, even if it's rare. That's been demonised a bit too much and considering fanfiction is all about wish-fulfillment, satisfying certain emotional and physical needs and indulging fetishes and so on, it can get a bit too hypocritical and guilt-trippy. But you *are* actually allowed to write someone into a perfect lover exactly because they're rare in real life--you are filling a gap in your life and that of others. You are allowed to indulge, for fuck's sake--again, it's not like porn directed at guys doesn't present the sorts of dream lovers very few flesh-and-blood women could ever aspire to. And no matter what certain people would like to tell you, you are not under any obligation to sacrifice your emotional/sexual needs upon the altar of somehow being better than the guys or being politically correct or whatever. When someone tries to tell you you shouldn't write about this thing or that thing or that certain sexual practices are Wrong, no matter what the reason (i.e whether they're conservatives or liberals), it's censorship. Nobody should have that power over you. Not Ms. Infuriated of the Internets or this fucking dork here trying to share fic tips on her blog. So enough with the guilt, and do write the sort of sex *you* want to read about. As long as you don't overdo it so that it becomes bizarrely unrealistic to the point where disbelief can no longer be suspended even in a SF/F universe, making your characters awesome at sex is *fine*.
-Push your limits. Write something so outrageous, something that's so out there that it turns even your own mind inside out. G'wan. Write people and stories you never thought you would, write kinks you don't have, write utterly crazy shit. It's good practice, and you might emerge from it a new person, because those things that you aren't into are good for recalibrating your own personality and your preferences and morals and kinks and things. Give it a go sometime.
-Or, just, you know, don't. Write happy fluffy comfort food fic if that's what makes you happy and horny. There's nothing wrong with writing things that make you feel good.
***
Basically, this was just a long-winded way of saying that you can write just about anything if you make sure you do it well--no matter what fandom or mundanes may tell you. And of course, you do have to know the rules before you break them--I have gone full circle with a lot of this stuff, the romance schmoop in particular once I started to write in a fandom where the characters actually spoke that way. But that's been a learning experience--it's a world away from the inexperienced n00b using cliches because they don't know better. It was exactly because I'd been warned off those cliches that I knew how to weave them in so that they worked in the context and wouldn't be OTT and intrusive--I was so worried about using them that that made me extra careful about using them sparingly. Just experiment and see how it goes, and don't be afraid to be a horny fucking bitch if you really want to see [censored] because it gets you off. Write Draco In Leather Pants if that's your orientation and if you know you can make it hot (after all, that trope was invented by fanboys who have no idea of what fantasies of sexy villains represent to women on a psychological, emancipatory level, but that's another--and massive--academic essay right there).
But, really. The more you write, the more you will realise that the old rules don't always apply, and sometimes, your characters and your stories *demand* that you break those rules. Fanfic, and slash in particular, started out as something that broke the rules and took the characters in directions that were different from canon, and that's how it should be--but remember that just as you don't have to accept what TPTB tell you about the characters, you don't have to always accept what fandom tells you about them either. Fandom used to hate slash! Fandom used to hate RPS! People used to say both were demeaning to the characters and the actors. Yeah, would you believe it? I still remember those days, though. There were slash defense letters and RPS manifestos and disclaimers we had to give out to the people who thought we were disgusting. Honest. So don't let anyone bully you into writing only this type of story or only this pairing or this form of sexual orientaton or whatever. Experiment and believe in yourself and take time to craft your stories well and it will pay off in the end.
Well, maybe. I know I still slip and write a huge load of indulgent bollocks at times, but I can't say I haven't learned anything on the way. This list is as much for me as it is for any other fanfic writers, and it contains things I have to slap myself on the head about, so it isn't like I'm being a perfect fuckin' fanfic guru here or anything--just another horny geek who's been doing it long enough to have something to share. And I know there are people who disagree with me about certain things and that's okay; this is not about me dictating what kinds of fic people should write. Write all the weepy MPREG you want if that means something to you--you wouldn't be writing even the most outrageous crack/kink if it didn't do something for you on some level or another. My point is that fanfic is different in that it does serve the writers' and the readers' needs more than canon ever could (or even should without derailing the entire show), and that people should have absolute freedom to write those stories if they need them emotionally and sexually.
In fact, this list has been partially inspired by my frustration at fandom trying to set down *any* rules and a certain faction of Tumblr fans trying to shove political correctness down fanficcers' throats (or reading everything in a really literal way or associating the writer with their stories). If there's one thing I *would* strongly encourage fanpeople to do, it'd be to stop policing each other and taking everything so bloody literally, because fiction--and life--is far more complicated than that. It's a series of negotiations and of having to give up certain things, having to give room for others beside one's own self. For a long while, I was exactly the sort of autistic arsehole who whined at her favourite authors to pander to their kinks and who suspected dodgy values behind certain stories because I couldn't see beyond my own moral blinkers, but I got better. And then realised I had to write the stuff I wanted myself, because nobody else would do it for me. And that helped. A lot.
So, you know, write whatever, if it's appropriate for the characters and if you've done your research and if it works. And if it doesn't, be honest about it being an utterly, gloriously gratuitous fantasy.
As long as you remember the lube.
ETA: I wrote some more meta on writing around cliches and about guys in slash/fanfic in general here.
ETA 2: Tumblr link post to this list in case you wanted to share it somewhere.
Grouse's List Of Things That Are Actually Okay In Fanfic (Even If Some People Might Tell You Otherwise)
***
-Romance novel terms and phrases, in modern fic, are Bad. But--and this is an important but--if your characters are the sort that might use some overly old-fashioned and romantic terms, it can easily look much worse if you don't. You can really go overboard in the opposite direction and slap modern language onto the sorts of characters with whom it wouldn't work. Don't try and make Loki sound gangsta (unless he's taking the piss). Or make a chaste medieval maiden talk like a porn star. As long as you avoid the throbbing members and azure orbs and limpid pools, it's ok to use setting-specific language. For instance, I've written historical fics where "fuck" just hasn't worked (at least immediately--I've had to build up to it) and in that context, especially if the original fandom has had super-romantic fairytale language (hello, Thief of Bagdad!) it's been perfectly appropriate for me to write the Princess gasping "take me" to Jaffar. Would I ever use it if it was a Doctor Who companion? Hell no, unless it was Victoria or something. A really good rule of thumb is that before the end of the 1960s and the sexual revolution, "take me" is okay because it was used all over the place and in a really bold context as well, whereas afterwards it started to sound corny and gushy. But for a woman and a certain type of gentleman before the Sixties, using "fuck" would have been fairly uncouth and unsophisticated, perhaps something akin to how the c-word is used today. Especially in het contexts, it's something you'd only hear in a brothel or from people who were pretending to be in one. So it's best used when the characters are getting really rough and nasty. Anaïs Nin (who was sexually pretty damn open-minded) used "take me" all the time back in the day, and if it was good enough for her in the Thirties and Forties, it's good enough for me.
Again, it all depends on context. I was told that you shouldn't really use "impalement" to describe the feeling of someone taking a cock inside of themselves because that's a cliche. And it is a cliche, definitely. But that just makes me wonder if the people doing the complaining have ever really taken a big cock up themselves, especially up the arse. To say nothing of someone sticking something harder than a penis, like a dildo up you. Because impalement is what it *feels like*. So that's one of those terms I've gone full circle on--from being told it was Bad And Corny to "wait, actually, that works." Of course, if *you* feel something is corny, don't use it. The whole deal is to just trust what you feel and not follow arbitrary lists of other people's pet hates. Do read those lists to get an idea of what turns most people off, but then make the final decisions yourself. Because whatever terms you use for sex, someone's going to hate them anyway--a good example would be the terms people use of lady parts. There is no consensus about that whatsoever--I'm fine with "pussy" and use it of my own bits IRL but some women utterly loathe it (which was... kind of strange to hear as it felt like they were harshing my sexual choices, but that's another rant for another time). Just stick with what you think the characters would use and what you yourself don't find too corny/harsh/offputting. Obvy, there are some terms that are cornier than others (I would close the tab immediately if someone described an anus as a "brown eye,") but if it's something that's really popular, you have a better chance of it working.
-Although even the popular terms can be hideously wrong: please, for the love of Venus, don't call the entire lady part a "vagina" because that's only the part that's inside your body. I don't care if you come from a culture where sex education is wobbly, it's as ridiculous as calling the penis "balls." And really worrying from a feminist perspective, considering it's a pretty important body part, something half of humanity gets judged by--women, even feminist-identified women not knowing what that part is called is pretty frightening. The outer part is the vulva; the vagina is the channel between it and the uterus. "Labia" means "lips" in Latin, and alone, refers to the outer lips (labia majora--the major lips)--the ol' bacon flaps are labia minora (the minor lips). Call the entire thing a sex, a foof, a pussy, a fanny, a cunt, a box, a snatch, a front bottom, a cunny, a yoni, the seat of her pleasure or a mossy cleft or whatever, I don't care; just don't call the entire thing "vagina."
-Everyone sounds corny sometimes; even the best writers do. The thing is to accept that sometimes there is just no other way to say a thing apart from a really boring and/or cliched way. Some of these phrases have become popular exactly because they work. You can get really neurotic about this whole avoiding cliches thing--to the point where it can get really wanky when you try to sound all original and as a consequence, your prose will start to sound more than a bit pretentious. Or just lame. So allow yourself to use some familiar phrases now and then. It's not the end of the world. It's fine if you say that something "made shivers run down your spine," for instance. As long as your entire work isn't just cliche after cliche. And remember that people *do* say corny things IRL. Especially guys in bedrooms. I mean... saying corny things in bed is a dude staple. So why wouldn't your guys do that? Just use it sparingly, and denote that others find those phrases corny.
-It's ok to write het if you want to. Slash hasn't been all that subversive for the past ten years or so, because it's become so popular that it suffers from all the same godawful dreck het fanfic used to be guilty of. Just projected onto guys. So if you feel like het, go for it, even if you may feel pressured not to. That's the only way those attitudes will ever change--and the same goes for female bodies being subjected to ridiculous amounts of shaming from sexists and/or over-the-top politicising from certain types of feminists to the point where whatever you write, it's Wrong for *someone* out there. But that's not how it should be. Sex is fun, and it's about time women started to enjoy it too. Women will never stop being victims if we constantly associate sex only with being objectified or shamed or abused, and that's an important point to remember. WE ARE ALLOWED TO ENJOY SEX, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, and if RL makes that difficult the way it does now, that's all the more reason to enjoy it in fic at least. Obviously, you should never feel forced to write anything you're too uncomfortable with, but I can definitely recommend writing all sorts--it's harder to write about female bodies, but when you succeed, it feels great. I get messages time and time again saying how cool it is that I'm writing het as well as slash and making it just as kinky and dirty and so on, and that was a huge relief because I just expected the good old "eww, vaginas" types of flames.
If anything, writing some wildly sexual woman is more subversive than the sort of slash that just turns the guys into the worst possible weepy heterosexist cliches of women. The latter used to be fun and subversive in a "hey, let's make the guys go through what we go through" way about... oh, those ten years ago. Now it just becomes as painful as when they make chicks do it. I mean, it's ok to write that if that's your thing and you really want to make the bastards suffer, and it is easier than het and I enjoy doing that sometimes myself, but whether that's *subversive* any longer is another matter entirely. It may be subversive in good ol' patriarchal *real life* (and therefore will serve a purpose as long as male socialisation is what it is) but in *fandom,* it's not exactly new. So don't be afraid to write whichever gender combo you want, really. Don't ever think you're boring or lame or heterosexist or whatever if the characters you ship happen to be a man and a woman; it should always be about whichever characters get you going. If you write it well enough (or, let's face it, kinkily enough), you *will* get readers, and intelligent readers, and it's great to see how that's changing a bit now at least, so that we can have smut of all kinds of genital combinations. Which is nice. More smut for everybody!
-Having said that, this is another important one: YOUR FIC DOES NOT HAVE TO HAVE A MESSAGE. It doesn't have to be politically correct. You don't have to write het if it makes you uncomfortable. You don't have to write slash if it makes you uncomfortable. You don't have to write sex at all if you're just not that into it. You don't have to write anything at all if it makes you uncomfortable just because someone on the internet wants you to write a certain type of thing. It's your fic. It doesn't have to be subversive. Your characters don't have to be some paragons because IRL, people rarely are. So your story doesn't have to have the female characters bustin' balls and blowing stuff up. They can be weepy. Or they can be butch or anything in between; whatever floats your boat, and the same goes for the guys and the pan-gendered alien beings. As long as they are interesting characters. The slash doesn't have to be a grittily realistic portrayal of modern gay men because, hello, is straight or girl-on-girl porn directed at guys a realistic portrayal of women or just a, you know, wank fantasy? There you go. You are actually under no obligation to try and be morally superior to the guys if you want to just have a good, honest wank. It's only human to have a libido, and at least when it's fic, you're not harming anyone.
Because so much of fanfic is about venting and exploring fantasies anyway, it doesn't have to have that much to do with your real values or what you'd do in bed or whatever. That's kind of the point--in fic, you can do stuff you wouldn't normally do, or have characters behave like complete dicks because it works for the story. Don't let anyone shame you for not being PC or "justifying" a villain's actions if you really, really, really want to see the Master blow up your school and then wank over the ruins. You're writing that so you won't go and blow that school up yourself, and aren't you glad fanfic exists for that? Yeah. Even the most awful of villains serve a purpose, and for the villain-fancier, they can be incredibly cathartic. Do not ever, ever associate yourself or let other people associate you with the values and ideas represented in your fic unless that fic is a manifesto and presented as such. Write whatever the fuck you want. Write what gets you off. Write what sets you free. Write stuff that's so sick it makes you want to throw up if you feel like the experience of writing it is worth it. Despite what the PC squad or even the law enforcement might think of the stuff your characters do. Freedom of speech and all that.
-And following on from that previous one: remember The Agatha Christie Rule. She knew a lot about murder, but she didn't have a backyard full of bodies. Thomas Harris isn't, contrary to all evidence, a cannibal. And apparently Stephen King isn't possessed by a supernatural power from beyond the grave (despite the unearthly volume of output he's capable of). Yeah, weird, I know.
-And further on the whole paragons thing: think of what stereotypes and cliches apply to your own life and the people around you. You'd be surprised to discover how people really do conform to the silliest stuff. So, as long as there's variety in your characters, don't be afraid to give them a stereotypical characteristic or two, even if they might be politically incorrect. Because, again, people aren't like that IRL. I've known utterly psycho LGBT people, money-obsessed Jews, tree-hugging hippies and I'm a *horrible* example of a nymphomaniac depraved bisexual myself. Admit that people are flawed and that those stereotypes do have some basis in RL, and then that will liberate you into writing a richer story. As long as your story isn't just full of them to the point where the characters become caricatures, you're fine. You don't want to go too far in the other direction and make them into caricatures of political correctness either; that's equally annoying or perhaps even more annoying because it always comes across as either really timid or really self-satisfied and preachy and smug. Just write, you know, people. With all their silly quirks and lamenesses in addition to the hot sexy bits. Or just someone who's so utterly fuckin' fabulous it's not true, if it's that kind of story.
-And fabulousness brings me to Mary Sues vs. OCs and alternative interpretations of characters. Now. First of all, a Mary Sue is someone who is *intrusive*. A Mary Sue is someone who comes into a *pre-existing* universe and makes everything revolve around her/him and who represents nothing but the writer's own fetishes. She or he is *not* some capable, cool OC who just comes in from time to time but doesn't force everyone to worship her/him. There's a big difference, and that may just be it--a Mary Sue is annoying because she twists everything in the fandom to revolve around herself, but a decent OC is there because she serves a narrative purpose. Mary Sue is someone of whom the characters will always speak of in superlative terms and someone who gets elevated to some sort of divine status, completely subjugating the 'verse to her worship. It's perfectly possible to write an interesting OC who has awesome sex with the guy the writer fancies but who isn't a Mary Sue. The older I get, the more I see people misusing the term "Mary Sue" of just about any female character who is capable and strong or hot (when what they really mean is that they hate that bitch for coming in the way of their favourite ship). I could mention certain examples from TV shows and movies, but I know that's just an invitation to a flamewar, so I won't. (Especially as you can always twist it so that just about every character ever written can be seen as a Sue in a certain light, and then the wankiness just goes out of control.) What I do mean is to say that it's actually OK to write OCs who are capable and hot without making them into Mary Sues. Make them human enough to be interesting and--importantly--make sure the other characters' lives don't revolve around them. And don't make them too kookily failtastic or supposedly adorkable or tragic to avoid Mary Sue accusations, because those are equally annoying and the fact that you're trying too hard becomes really obvious and painful after a while. Or, you know, you could just make them so outrageous they become tongue-in-cheek--it's possible to do even that without making that character annoying. Just try and think of what would work for the story and stay honest about it, and don't give in to *all* of your fetishes.
-Yeah, about those fetishes. I know. It's really fucking hard, isn't it? That's one of the biggest problems in fanfic. People seem to swing between two extremes with this one as well. Either a character or a fic becomes a complete fetish fest, or then the author takes many, many, careful and dignified steps away from the filth she just wrote and pretends that it's compleeeeeetely different from what they feel IRL, honest. Whereas here, the best thing is, again, to be honest with yourself. You can give into certain kinks because let's face it, you are writing this porn scene because you fancy the characters and/or what their dynamic does to you, and what sorts of sexual vibes they give you. You love the angst or the kink or their funny banter or something, so of course you're going to wallow in that. And their superhero arse looks just so fantastic in those tights, just begging for a spanking... see, this is actually one of my biggest problems. I freely admit I may have gone a bit overboard with applying certain kinks and certain emo angstfests to my favourite characters/real people because I've really needed to wank to the idea of that hot person indulging in my favourite fetish or suffering really badly because I've just had my heart broken. And that's actually ok if it helps you have orgasms and mental catharsis. But whether you should pretend that's always 100% in character is a different matter entirely.
All I can say is that it's best to try and do your best to stick to the original characterisation enough to make it all work. If you write longer stories and if you can sustain a longer development of the characters' relationships and their personalities *towards* them developing those kinks/situations, you will have more leeway with the kinks and the angst (or the happy fluff!) because you've now got a solid foundation for them. I had been writing Doctor/Master for so long that I'd forgotten what it was like to write a story where it would take ages and ages for my pairing to finally get together. Because with Doctor/Master, you can kind of hit the ground running because it's plausible they've been having an on-and-off relationship for the better part of a millennium. And then, oh shit, I got a ship of a guy and a girl who were meant to be on opposite sides in canon and where one of them was really scared of the other one and hated them... yeah, suddenly I realised I need tons of development to make it work if I wanted to get some deep emotions involved instead of just wallowing in cheery PWP. And that's how I became a longfic writer (I'm not sure if I can recommend it, so let that be an example to you, kids).
But what I mean to say is that if you really do want to indulge certain sexual or emotional or other fetishes, make sure they suit the characters, and ponder whether it's possible to make those fetishes fit after some decent development. If even after that development it looks unlikely that they'd indulge in fisting with gimp masks on, then... try and find characters you *could* see doing that after a bit of development. Or just write original fic. The rules are totally different for original fic, anyway. Or, again, in the name of honesty, go for complete fuckin' crack or just admit you're writing a PWP wank fantasy and that it's not meant to have serious character development. And yeah, that actually *does* make it magically okay because it's pretty certain there is someone else who wants to wank/cry/wail over that same fetish as well and they'll be delighted to read the story--just stay honest. Don't pretend it's a deeply subversive exploration of queer sexualities in the modern world if you honestly just want to see Tony and Steve do ass to mouth. Or Harry Styles doing furry diaper ageplay MPREG or whatever the trendy thing is these days, I forget. It's better to be an openly horny bitch than a pretentious git, trust me.
And in the end, ask yourself if you are actually the showrunner of your fandom and if you have certain obligations towards characterisation and plot and arcs and other stuff that's been established in the past. If you are not, that frees you up to do a *lot* of stuff. Fanfic is where you *can* do this sort of stuff without messing the entire canon up. I think we've got enough examples of fanboys writing canon now that we've all seen how disastrous it can get when they just pander to their own fetishes. Aren't you glad you aren't a showrunner and can actually write that fisting scene now? Yeah, exactly. There's a time and place for everything. And it's called fanfic.
-But the no.1 golden rule for getting away with all kinks, whether sexual or not? *Make them the reader's kinks, too.* Make them relatable, or simply understandable intellectually and/or emotionally. Pull the reader in, show them how and why that character develops in the direction where they can do a certain thing after a while. Make them not just your private, exclusive kinks that only you get off on, but expand upon them to involve the reader, through touching their reason and their emotions in places where they can relate. THAT is how you get away with it--show them *how* and *why* your character does that thing, and you can literally get away with incestuous-underage-scat-torture-murder (hi, Torsten and Laura). You or the reader doesn't have to like or approve of it IRL, but if the character is doing all that crazy shit believably, it can be made to work.
-Femslash still seems to be a waste of time, though, because only a small handful of people ever read it. She said bitterly. I hear a lot of cheering for it as a concept, but the hits/comments tell a different story. Can we change that? Pretty please?
-I know this sort of thing isn't popular any longer, but... run your stuff through a beta reader first. And make sure your beta is a fluent speaker/writer of the language you're writing in. And with English, being a native speaker sure as *hell* doesn't mean someone knows their grammar, especially if they're American (sorry, but I'm sure the Americans who are grammar nerds understand what I mean by that). Try European fans who have had to learn English as a second language and who have spoken and written it for years--they are often astonishingly good in comparison to the native speakers.
-If you are beta reading for someone, be honest. Yes, it hurts the author to have someone point out their typos or to be told some phrase is utterly incomprehensible when they thought it was really poetic. But it's necessary, and will help them become a better writer--there is a way of giving feedback in a constructive and friendly manner. The poorest beta I ever had basically skimmed through my fic really quickly and gushed at all the porny parts and squeed like crazy. Was it great for my ego? Yeah, it was. Did she do her job so poorly I still had tons of those incomprehensible phrases left? Yes. And with that, she was doing me a disservice. Please, for the love of God, be honest. If you and your friend stepped out of a restaurant and they had ketchup on their face, wouldn't you, you know, tell them? Do you honestly want to make the person you're betaing stuff for look like an idiot, and not help them develop their writing skills at all? Then what the hell are you betaing the stuff for? If you only ever want to leave squeey comments, remain a fan who leaves glowing comments. Don't agree to beta for them if all you can give them (or if all they want from you) is gushing. It's bullshit.
-Conversely, if you can't find a beta even after you've solicited for one loudly, and especially if it's a really short fic of under 1000 words or so, you may get away with editing it yourself. But I've had to self-edit several novel-length fics because they've been from such small fandoms nobody had ever even seen those movies. I wasn't happy about it and I still keep spotting typos and weird mistakes, all that stuff that you get from staring at your own words for too long, but the only other option would have been to just not post that stuff, ever. And when I've been writing something novel-length, you bet I won't let it just sit in my fic folder forever, waiting for the right beta to come along if they don't even exist in the first place. I would always, always prefer a beta, but it can't be helped sometimes. So I'd say that it *is* possible to post stuff unbetaed, but I would hesitate to recommend that to anyone who hasn't been writing for a long time or wasn't familiar with the usual pitfalls. So I'd recommend that you should only post unbetaed fic after many, many rereads and re-edits after you're so sick of staring at the page that you need to post it or jump off a cliff.
-And if you are the writer being betaed, try and take a step back from the fic and try and be as detached about it as possible when your beta gives you their comments. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I know. What a joke, right? I've got better at it over the years, but fuck, it still hurts. I think a lot of us are familiar with the thing where whatever you write or whatever you are fannish about is not just a hobby but a part of you, so it really can feel personal when someone criticises something you wrote, no matter how kind they are being. They might be your best friend and they might be perfectly right, but that image you had of that scene in your head was so vivid, damn it! It's like a knife to the heart to hear that what you described is probably physically impossible! And so on and so forth. It always hurts a bit, and I will never ever pretend getting crit is easy, but try to kick yourself up the arse and not be such a princess about it. You *can* say no to a beta's suggestion, of course, because sometimes it's just a difference of opinion. (I have honestly had betas say the weirdest stuff to me--certain Americans wanting to correct my grammar when there was nothing to correct and they were the ones whose grammar was wobbly, and some very strait-laced person sneering at various poetic phrases that worked fine.) But a good beta's opinion is always worth it--if only to help you decide what to keep. Even if you disagree, that'll help you realise which bits you really, really like and won't give up on no matter what. But most of the time, they mean well. Often it's handy to think of the knife that they're sticking into your flesh being a surgeon's scalpel. It hurts, but going to the doctor often hurts and they're doing what they do to help you and to make you better.
-You can use commas and semicolons pretty liberally if the prose is poetic enough. You can bend the rules of language and use weird phrases if you are aiming for poetry and can pull it off. BUT you have to know the rules first, before you start breaking them--if you are still learning English, don't go crazy just yet, until you get a good grip on the language first. Poetry is not an excuse for lazy writing and incomprehensible phrases that only make sense to you--you still have to "translate" your most poetic visuals to the reader to some extent, so it's not just a masturbatory exercise. I'm not saying I can do it perfectly, but I sure as hell try my utmost. There are more than a few famous authors who have done it, so it's possible. You might look like a right idiot at first (there are reasons I am glad some of my earliest stories have vanished off the internets), and it's best to get some experience first, but with practice, you'll get better. Trust me.
-You still need lube for anal, though. No exceptions. I've found that in het, if it's a woman receiving and if she's got some recent experience, it's plausible to use just lady juices (which are meant for lubrication anyway) in combination with spit, but that's about it. Otherwise, no fuckin' exceptions. If they've got magic at their disposal, use the magic to magic up lube. And since the amount of lubeless slash has gone up astronomically in the recent years, this is an important point to make. Don't do lubeless anal unless you want me to personally come over and stick an eight-inch dong up your bum. WITHOUT THE LADY JUICE. I'm still burning from that one novel-length story with amazing world-building and magic and realistic depictions of wounds inflicted in battle that ended with the other guy just jumping on top of another's dick like it was penis-in-vagina. (Apparently friction worked in that universe when it was some monster punching one of the heroes but suddenly friction ceased to exist when this same guy's bum was concerned.) Just, no. Don't do that. There are better rules you can break. There's a huge, huge difference between writing inventive and/or hot new alien/SF sex and coming across like an ignoramus who doesn't know how sex even works. If you're going to write sex, do your bloody research. Even the most outrageous thing has to be somewhat plausible in order for you to get away with it (and if it's applicable, you can use science or humour or magic or something like that to help the crazy along; a little goes a long way).
-Which brings me to the flipside of that: "Write what you know" is bullshit. You can be a complete virgin and write the hottest porn. If you've done your research and if you have a good enough imagination and really push it and hone it, you can write pretty much anything. If we always wrote about what we knew, the world of fiction would be dull indeed. I, for one, want to write about everything *except* my miserable disabled cat lady life and travel into different worlds and experience things through different bodies. I don't need to write about disabled cat ladies because I'm living that shit day in, day out and want some fucking respite! I want things that make me happy and horny *exactly* because there's a dearth of that in my life otherwise--I do it exactly to avoid depression. (I always think that the people who write really gritty, arty stuff you see in certain types of movies and TV shows must be really healthy and that they've really got their shit together and they aren't sensitive and easily depressed empaths. If they got as depressed as I do about human suffering, they would not be able to bear their own stories.)
But enough about John Simm me. Thing is, you don't have to feel like you aren't entitled to write about something. Yes, even different cultures, even if someone might yell at you for engaging in cultural appropriation or something, because that's total and utter rubbish if you just make sure you portray those cultures in a respectful way. I would never have learned as much about Islamic cultures as I do now if it weren't for a couple of white guys writing really interesting books about them, so that stuff can do a lot of good (as in educating people) instead of harm. The world needs more of that, people bonding past their usual boundaries. And I'd never pretend to be a gay guy either, but I've still received compliments on some of my slash from bi and gay guys. "Finally, some kissing when it's two guys!" Again, the most important thing is to be plausible and human (or an interesting enough alien) about it. Often historical and SF/F settings are useful exactly because the distancing effect brings some very basic human emotions and themes to the fore, underlines them and sharpens them, and extreme characters (like superheroes or those villains blowing shit up) serve as important crystallisations of certain desires, tendencies and characteristics. Just like a hippie might go to India only to rediscover herself and then return to her native land, having realised it's where she belonged, you too might learn something from taking a trip to a galaxy far, far away from where you are physically or emotionally or choronologically or whatever. (And you'll save the price of a plane ticket into the bargain.)
-Also, if you're writing historical stuff, don't modernise it too much. Please. The past was hella racist and sexist and there's been an unfortunate trend in telly and movies to make everything really up to date, which kind of defeats the point of setting it in the past in the first place. The intent may be to be all kinds of inclusive and correct, but the downside of that is that the more outrageous that gets, the less people will know about their history, especially if they're women, not white, queer, etc. If you make history look like there was no racism or sexism or homophobia or whatever, you are whitewashing it and that's... not good. So don't be afraid to use some even shockingly incorrect terms if it's a historical. Really. I have felt *so* shit about using the term "Negro" in a fic but it was said by a fairly racist guy in a fic set in 1940, so he sure as hell wouldn't have used nicer terms. And for goodness's sakes, don't make every female character into a weapon-wielding, trouser-wearing tomboy because that goes into the preaching and annoying "LOOK! I AM MAKING A FEMINIST POINT!" territory pretty fast as well. Especially since most of their sisters were still wasting away from tuberculosis in corsets, being used as baby machines. And I could go on about how wildly different the ideas of homosexuality were in various cultures in the past (I've written some medieval guys who thought they had that tendency because they were part female in soul), but I think you get the point. If you want modern values, write modern characters, or just go for some massively wild AU/fantasy universe thing.
-Although, remember that not all of history was oppressive either. It's just that people don't talk about that stuff much. The Devil's Whore/New Worlds was pretty good about portraying the proto-socialist ideas of early Puritans, for instance, dancing right there on the edge of modernity vs. historical integrity, and they pulled it off pretty well, I thought. It worked because they put tons of effort into historical accuracy in the language and the world and the values the characters were surrounded by. And of course, the past did have some of those sword-wielding tomboys in breeches--just use them sparingly if you do. The more you emphasise the fact that they were exceptional, the more amazing those characters become, because for that breeches-wearing badass chick to exist in a period that was even more crushingly sexist than the present day was pretty damn sensational. Exceptions are okay if you don't forget the context they happened in. If you can dig out the really interesting and unexpected historical stuff without making the story too preachy about it, it's even more awesome. I sure as hell have had fun with some of Abu Nuwas's incredibly dirty gay poetry from c. 800 AD. "I love skewering pretty boys on my cock! Ahhh, what delicious kebabs they make..."
-And exceptions bring me to the concept of rare or unusually awesome occurrences during sex. Back in the Nineties, I saw a lot of people complaining about how in bad porn fic, people always came simultaneously, a guy could come several times, a girl found it easy to orgasm, someone's first time wouldn't hurt, that sort of thing. These are all reasonable complaints and I agree that you shouldn't overuse that stuff. But--and this is a big but--I don't see why the hell these elements should never be used either. Imagine my surprise when after all these complaints, I experienced some of them in real life, several times. Yes, guys who could come several times a night, with little no refractory periods happening because boy, were we crazily in love, anal sex that worked with just pussy juice and where I could just sit on someone's cock and get it in my arse all the way instantly, simultaneous orgasms, that sort of thing. And guess what? Some guys have huge dicks! Some women have pussies as sweet as sugar! In! Real! Life!
So just because some things have become cliches, it doesn't mean they *never* happen. And again, I don't think it's that great a sin to write something you want to see happening in the bedroom, even if it's rare. That's been demonised a bit too much and considering fanfiction is all about wish-fulfillment, satisfying certain emotional and physical needs and indulging fetishes and so on, it can get a bit too hypocritical and guilt-trippy. But you *are* actually allowed to write someone into a perfect lover exactly because they're rare in real life--you are filling a gap in your life and that of others. You are allowed to indulge, for fuck's sake--again, it's not like porn directed at guys doesn't present the sorts of dream lovers very few flesh-and-blood women could ever aspire to. And no matter what certain people would like to tell you, you are not under any obligation to sacrifice your emotional/sexual needs upon the altar of somehow being better than the guys or being politically correct or whatever. When someone tries to tell you you shouldn't write about this thing or that thing or that certain sexual practices are Wrong, no matter what the reason (i.e whether they're conservatives or liberals), it's censorship. Nobody should have that power over you. Not Ms. Infuriated of the Internets or this fucking dork here trying to share fic tips on her blog. So enough with the guilt, and do write the sort of sex *you* want to read about. As long as you don't overdo it so that it becomes bizarrely unrealistic to the point where disbelief can no longer be suspended even in a SF/F universe, making your characters awesome at sex is *fine*.
-Push your limits. Write something so outrageous, something that's so out there that it turns even your own mind inside out. G'wan. Write people and stories you never thought you would, write kinks you don't have, write utterly crazy shit. It's good practice, and you might emerge from it a new person, because those things that you aren't into are good for recalibrating your own personality and your preferences and morals and kinks and things. Give it a go sometime.
-Or, just, you know, don't. Write happy fluffy comfort food fic if that's what makes you happy and horny. There's nothing wrong with writing things that make you feel good.
***
Basically, this was just a long-winded way of saying that you can write just about anything if you make sure you do it well--no matter what fandom or mundanes may tell you. And of course, you do have to know the rules before you break them--I have gone full circle with a lot of this stuff, the romance schmoop in particular once I started to write in a fandom where the characters actually spoke that way. But that's been a learning experience--it's a world away from the inexperienced n00b using cliches because they don't know better. It was exactly because I'd been warned off those cliches that I knew how to weave them in so that they worked in the context and wouldn't be OTT and intrusive--I was so worried about using them that that made me extra careful about using them sparingly. Just experiment and see how it goes, and don't be afraid to be a horny fucking bitch if you really want to see [censored] because it gets you off. Write Draco In Leather Pants if that's your orientation and if you know you can make it hot (after all, that trope was invented by fanboys who have no idea of what fantasies of sexy villains represent to women on a psychological, emancipatory level, but that's another--and massive--academic essay right there).
But, really. The more you write, the more you will realise that the old rules don't always apply, and sometimes, your characters and your stories *demand* that you break those rules. Fanfic, and slash in particular, started out as something that broke the rules and took the characters in directions that were different from canon, and that's how it should be--but remember that just as you don't have to accept what TPTB tell you about the characters, you don't have to always accept what fandom tells you about them either. Fandom used to hate slash! Fandom used to hate RPS! People used to say both were demeaning to the characters and the actors. Yeah, would you believe it? I still remember those days, though. There were slash defense letters and RPS manifestos and disclaimers we had to give out to the people who thought we were disgusting. Honest. So don't let anyone bully you into writing only this type of story or only this pairing or this form of sexual orientaton or whatever. Experiment and believe in yourself and take time to craft your stories well and it will pay off in the end.
Well, maybe. I know I still slip and write a huge load of indulgent bollocks at times, but I can't say I haven't learned anything on the way. This list is as much for me as it is for any other fanfic writers, and it contains things I have to slap myself on the head about, so it isn't like I'm being a perfect fuckin' fanfic guru here or anything--just another horny geek who's been doing it long enough to have something to share. And I know there are people who disagree with me about certain things and that's okay; this is not about me dictating what kinds of fic people should write. Write all the weepy MPREG you want if that means something to you--you wouldn't be writing even the most outrageous crack/kink if it didn't do something for you on some level or another. My point is that fanfic is different in that it does serve the writers' and the readers' needs more than canon ever could (or even should without derailing the entire show), and that people should have absolute freedom to write those stories if they need them emotionally and sexually.
In fact, this list has been partially inspired by my frustration at fandom trying to set down *any* rules and a certain faction of Tumblr fans trying to shove political correctness down fanficcers' throats (or reading everything in a really literal way or associating the writer with their stories). If there's one thing I *would* strongly encourage fanpeople to do, it'd be to stop policing each other and taking everything so bloody literally, because fiction--and life--is far more complicated than that. It's a series of negotiations and of having to give up certain things, having to give room for others beside one's own self. For a long while, I was exactly the sort of autistic arsehole who whined at her favourite authors to pander to their kinks and who suspected dodgy values behind certain stories because I couldn't see beyond my own moral blinkers, but I got better. And then realised I had to write the stuff I wanted myself, because nobody else would do it for me. And that helped. A lot.
So, you know, write whatever, if it's appropriate for the characters and if you've done your research and if it works. And if it doesn't, be honest about it being an utterly, gloriously gratuitous fantasy.
As long as you remember the lube.
ETA: I wrote some more meta on writing around cliches and about guys in slash/fanfic in general here.
ETA 2: Tumblr link post to this list in case you wanted to share it somewhere.