The Star Trek FanFic Rules
Time to watch out flist! A few of the insane musketeers and myself have come up with some helpful fic writing rules/tips. Not just myself to blame for this. aquila_star and dizilla can be blamed too and others who shall remain nameless who enable me on a regular basis.
1. The most important thing when contemplating writing for Star Trek, which has been around for a just little while, is that the older fans love nothing better than new fans coming in and making up smush names for pairings. Because they haven’t used them before doesn’t mean that they won’t love you coming in and creating new names for things. They obviously haven't been clever enough to consider the awesomeness that is a smush name.
2. Slash pairings. It is vastly important to make sure that when you are writing a slash pairing that you must ensure that at least one of the boys acts like a total girl. Preferably a teenage girl who likes nothing better than crying during sex and talking about their feelings openly. Even better if you can turn them both into girls.
3. Spock and Kirk were epic buds in TOS, so of course they are just going to throw their arms around each other and be BFF as soon as the movie ends, or even before even if there is contrary proof. That’s easily ignorable cause Zach and Chris are goofballs and are totally together in real life.
4. Uhura hates Kirk’s guts and nothing he can do will ever make her like him or respect him. She also must be shown to be a complete bitch with no redeeming features or talent. That is the best way to honour the BAMF that is Uhura.
5. Leading on from point 4. All women are to be used only to get the boys together and not get their squishy girl bits and inferior minds in the way of the slash. Why else would you need a female character in a fic?
6. McCoy is a complete rampant alcoholic and racist cause he had a flask of booze to help him get over his aviaphobia in one scene and that he called Spock a hobgoblin later on after Kirk said something nastier first. It’s ok for Kirk to say it cause secretly he just wants into Spock’s panties.
7. Star Trek is only about the epic love that is Kirk and Spock 'cause that is what TOS was all about. Gene never said that he created a threesome to represent a complete person. Nah McCoy isn’t important at all… Or Jim Kirk's best friend. Jim is actually really pissed off at McCoy and doesn't like him at all cause he is a big ol meanie towards Spock. He just pretends to like him. Spock is never mean back at McCoy.
8. McCoy doesn’t know how to follow any orders at all. He is disrespectful to anyone and everyone and doesn’t want to be there, hence why he has the rank of Lieutenant Commander. They regularly give that to people easily enough. I think he got it out of a cornflakes packet one morning in the mess hall. In fact all ranks are distributed via cereal packets.
9. Chekov is a puppy. Woof Woof.
10. You have to make sure that by the 23rd century they are still doing things exactly the same as we do now. There has been limited advances in technology in over 200 years. They can fly around in space using this thingy called warp drive. That was a complete fluke how they managed to acheive that. Latex condoms are totally still in use, cause they are the most awesome creation ever and will never be improved upon. Holodecks are totally created before Picard gets born. That is a technology that miraculously turned up ahead of time with no other explanation needed. It's awesome and fun, why let the future play with it?
11. Starfleet Academy is totally the same as college life as depicted in Porky’s and other quality films. Jim is able to get pissed every night, turn up late for class drunk, even not turn up at all and they will still let him take tests and not kick him out on his ass. They also have fraternities -- and Kirk is SO the type to want to join one like, OMG! Like totally!
12. Chekov is the dumbest idiot to walk the planet. This is why at 17 years of age he sits at the helm of the Enterprise. Someone who can’t speak English good obviously isn’t clever and wasn't vital in saving the damn world in the movie at ALL! Chekov also totally adores being called Checkers, especially if it is Jim or Bones who does it.
13. People need to write less Scotty into fics. There is just too much of him around.
14. When coming up with names of planets and aliens, why bother looking at Memory Alpha for ideas? Oh and Earth is just right next door to Risa. Only takes a few hours to travel there. Timezones completely work the same in space as they do on earth, where if it is 3pm on a Tuesday in London it is totally the same time in Australia.
15. Jim Kirk is allergic to everything. He is so allergic that it is amazing he hasn’t managed to die yet. He is also completely afraid of relationships. He is as allergic to those as he is to the vaccine for melvarian mud fleas.
16. McCoy’s aviaphobia is so bad that of course they allow him to serve on starships and travel in shuttles. He completely freaks out still and this is shown in the movie by him sitting by the window and looking expectantly at the Enterprise as they fly towards it in a shuttle.
17. Scotty spends all his time creating illegal stills in Engineering and not doing anything else. Or having random accidents. Starfleet doesn’t allow their staff to have alcohol on board. That was never seen in any episodes, ever, not at all. It is all just a figment of our imagination that they had booze and drank it regularly.
18. Gregorian calendar is what is in use out in space. It is known easily what day is a Monday or a Sunday. Even planets work the same as Earth cause it’s the bestest way! Right?
19. Religions are still exactly the same as now, or slightly more backwards.
20. Everyone still smokes in the future, even though Trip said that it was banned by Humans. Cause Nero coming in changed the past as well as the future.
21. Mirror verse is only about the sex. Or automatically just means blood play and D/S. There are never mental games being played. It has nothing to do about just being plain old evil.
22. Jim Kirk is a total woobie and waiting for a man to come along and save him with his magic healing cock.
23. Jim is also the worlds bestest captain. This means, never reading mission reports, throwing him and his crew into danger without thinking about the consequences at all, never following orders, sleeping with as many subordinates as possible and all these and more are why Starfleet gave their Flagship to him.
24. When writing a crossover/AU, it pays to completely follow the other tv show or movie completely and why bother blending the characterisation together? You call them Kirk everyone will still recognise the character. Also you don't need to have watched or read the crossover. Looking at pics or reading wikipedia is enough to ascertain if it will be HOT.
25. Bones loves nothing more than to be called Len or Leon by Jim and everyone else. He never introduces himself as Leonard to people. Never. Everyone else is allowed to call him Bones too. It isn't anything special between he and Jim.
26. Titles for fics don't need proper grammar or capitalisation and stuff. That's for losers. We are all e e cummings.
27. When you are writing about George Kirk and following canon you need to warn for death!fic. Cause nobody has seen the movie and they won't realise that he dies!
28. Captain Pike was serving on the Kelvin when he was about 14 and in a sexual relationship with George and Winona Kirk.
29. Pon Farr solves everything.
30. If you are going to have a permenant genderswap on a character then their background won't change at all. They will also need to act like boys properly if they have been changed from a boy to a girl. If it is going to be a genderswap later then they are going to think it is the most awesome thing ever and have no issues. Boobies are the greatest invention ever, unless they are getting in the way of the slash, then they need to be gotten rid of. If they do have issues, just handwave it away and don't bother writing that cause nobody likes to read angst about their characters or how they coped with the change in gender. Or better yet, just have another character tell others that it was hard but they have now dealt with it.
31. The Prime Directive is for losers. Authors and Jim never need to follow or consider it.
32. McCoy has never recovered from the breakdown of his marriage. Like Jim he needs a magic healing cock.
33. Because Sulu is of Japanese heritage and grew up completely in San Francisco he speaks Japanese fluently. He wouldn't know English and Spanish as his first languages.
34. Kirk using Gaila was not the act of a douchebag. He was totally justified in his actions. And is SO WEIRD.
35. Gaila is only in the Academy to have as much sex as possible. She is a former Orion Pleasure Slave, so of course once she escapes she wants nothing more but to have as much sex again as possible.
36. Jim is completely suicidal, cause he tried to stop the car, turn the wheel and jump out. Then when he jumps after Sulu, he does so because he wants to die with Sulu not save him. Kirk/Sulu are meant to be together because of this.
37. McCoy's favourite past time is to say "damn it, Jim" and stick a hard object into his best friend.
38. When creating icons/images for Chapel it is best to use images of an actress who played a sister to Karl Urban's character cause that has no squickly incestuous connotations at all.
39. Most importantly when posting your story for the first time, make sure you have created a HUGE header pic that will be too big for most people's flists. It will make them eager to click on your story. Also it is important to manip the characters as badly as possible and take longer to create that than writing the story did.
40. Begging for art, comments and ideas is the best way to go about getting more quality readers. Also posting to at least 4 communities with the same fic at almost the same time is very important, cause most people don't watch multiple comms and won't be pissed off at you at all for posting the same thing over and over. Beta's completely suck and never give you good advice or fix up spelling and grammar. So don't even bother with them, even better why bother reading your story again before posting? No one needs to do that. Oh and don't forget in writing your disclaimer that it is JJ that owns Star Trek! Not that Gene bloke that no one has heard about before.
I hope this advice was valuable to all the writers out there. I know that I endeavour to follow them as closely as possible! /sarcasm ;)
Addition One to the rules now here
1. The most important thing when contemplating writing for Star Trek, which has been around for a just little while, is that the older fans love nothing better than new fans coming in and making up smush names for pairings. Because they haven’t used them before doesn’t mean that they won’t love you coming in and creating new names for things. They obviously haven't been clever enough to consider the awesomeness that is a smush name.
2. Slash pairings. It is vastly important to make sure that when you are writing a slash pairing that you must ensure that at least one of the boys acts like a total girl. Preferably a teenage girl who likes nothing better than crying during sex and talking about their feelings openly. Even better if you can turn them both into girls.
3. Spock and Kirk were epic buds in TOS, so of course they are just going to throw their arms around each other and be BFF as soon as the movie ends, or even before even if there is contrary proof. That’s easily ignorable cause Zach and Chris are goofballs and are totally together in real life.
4. Uhura hates Kirk’s guts and nothing he can do will ever make her like him or respect him. She also must be shown to be a complete bitch with no redeeming features or talent. That is the best way to honour the BAMF that is Uhura.
5. Leading on from point 4. All women are to be used only to get the boys together and not get their squishy girl bits and inferior minds in the way of the slash. Why else would you need a female character in a fic?
6. McCoy is a complete rampant alcoholic and racist cause he had a flask of booze to help him get over his aviaphobia in one scene and that he called Spock a hobgoblin later on after Kirk said something nastier first. It’s ok for Kirk to say it cause secretly he just wants into Spock’s panties.
7. Star Trek is only about the epic love that is Kirk and Spock 'cause that is what TOS was all about. Gene never said that he created a threesome to represent a complete person. Nah McCoy isn’t important at all… Or Jim Kirk's best friend. Jim is actually really pissed off at McCoy and doesn't like him at all cause he is a big ol meanie towards Spock. He just pretends to like him. Spock is never mean back at McCoy.
8. McCoy doesn’t know how to follow any orders at all. He is disrespectful to anyone and everyone and doesn’t want to be there, hence why he has the rank of Lieutenant Commander. They regularly give that to people easily enough. I think he got it out of a cornflakes packet one morning in the mess hall. In fact all ranks are distributed via cereal packets.
9. Chekov is a puppy. Woof Woof.
10. You have to make sure that by the 23rd century they are still doing things exactly the same as we do now. There has been limited advances in technology in over 200 years. They can fly around in space using this thingy called warp drive. That was a complete fluke how they managed to acheive that. Latex condoms are totally still in use, cause they are the most awesome creation ever and will never be improved upon. Holodecks are totally created before Picard gets born. That is a technology that miraculously turned up ahead of time with no other explanation needed. It's awesome and fun, why let the future play with it?
11. Starfleet Academy is totally the same as college life as depicted in Porky’s and other quality films. Jim is able to get pissed every night, turn up late for class drunk, even not turn up at all and they will still let him take tests and not kick him out on his ass. They also have fraternities -- and Kirk is SO the type to want to join one like, OMG! Like totally!
12. Chekov is the dumbest idiot to walk the planet. This is why at 17 years of age he sits at the helm of the Enterprise. Someone who can’t speak English good obviously isn’t clever and wasn't vital in saving the damn world in the movie at ALL! Chekov also totally adores being called Checkers, especially if it is Jim or Bones who does it.
13. People need to write less Scotty into fics. There is just too much of him around.
14. When coming up with names of planets and aliens, why bother looking at Memory Alpha for ideas? Oh and Earth is just right next door to Risa. Only takes a few hours to travel there. Timezones completely work the same in space as they do on earth, where if it is 3pm on a Tuesday in London it is totally the same time in Australia.
15. Jim Kirk is allergic to everything. He is so allergic that it is amazing he hasn’t managed to die yet. He is also completely afraid of relationships. He is as allergic to those as he is to the vaccine for melvarian mud fleas.
16. McCoy’s aviaphobia is so bad that of course they allow him to serve on starships and travel in shuttles. He completely freaks out still and this is shown in the movie by him sitting by the window and looking expectantly at the Enterprise as they fly towards it in a shuttle.
17. Scotty spends all his time creating illegal stills in Engineering and not doing anything else. Or having random accidents. Starfleet doesn’t allow their staff to have alcohol on board. That was never seen in any episodes, ever, not at all. It is all just a figment of our imagination that they had booze and drank it regularly.
18. Gregorian calendar is what is in use out in space. It is known easily what day is a Monday or a Sunday. Even planets work the same as Earth cause it’s the bestest way! Right?
19. Religions are still exactly the same as now, or slightly more backwards.
20. Everyone still smokes in the future, even though Trip said that it was banned by Humans. Cause Nero coming in changed the past as well as the future.
21. Mirror verse is only about the sex. Or automatically just means blood play and D/S. There are never mental games being played. It has nothing to do about just being plain old evil.
22. Jim Kirk is a total woobie and waiting for a man to come along and save him with his magic healing cock.
23. Jim is also the worlds bestest captain. This means, never reading mission reports, throwing him and his crew into danger without thinking about the consequences at all, never following orders, sleeping with as many subordinates as possible and all these and more are why Starfleet gave their Flagship to him.
24. When writing a crossover/AU, it pays to completely follow the other tv show or movie completely and why bother blending the characterisation together? You call them Kirk everyone will still recognise the character. Also you don't need to have watched or read the crossover. Looking at pics or reading wikipedia is enough to ascertain if it will be HOT.
25. Bones loves nothing more than to be called Len or Leon by Jim and everyone else. He never introduces himself as Leonard to people. Never. Everyone else is allowed to call him Bones too. It isn't anything special between he and Jim.
26. Titles for fics don't need proper grammar or capitalisation and stuff. That's for losers. We are all e e cummings.
27. When you are writing about George Kirk and following canon you need to warn for death!fic. Cause nobody has seen the movie and they won't realise that he dies!
28. Captain Pike was serving on the Kelvin when he was about 14 and in a sexual relationship with George and Winona Kirk.
29. Pon Farr solves everything.
30. If you are going to have a permenant genderswap on a character then their background won't change at all. They will also need to act like boys properly if they have been changed from a boy to a girl. If it is going to be a genderswap later then they are going to think it is the most awesome thing ever and have no issues. Boobies are the greatest invention ever, unless they are getting in the way of the slash, then they need to be gotten rid of. If they do have issues, just handwave it away and don't bother writing that cause nobody likes to read angst about their characters or how they coped with the change in gender. Or better yet, just have another character tell others that it was hard but they have now dealt with it.
31. The Prime Directive is for losers. Authors and Jim never need to follow or consider it.
32. McCoy has never recovered from the breakdown of his marriage. Like Jim he needs a magic healing cock.
33. Because Sulu is of Japanese heritage and grew up completely in San Francisco he speaks Japanese fluently. He wouldn't know English and Spanish as his first languages.
34. Kirk using Gaila was not the act of a douchebag. He was totally justified in his actions. And is SO WEIRD.
35. Gaila is only in the Academy to have as much sex as possible. She is a former Orion Pleasure Slave, so of course once she escapes she wants nothing more but to have as much sex again as possible.
36. Jim is completely suicidal, cause he tried to stop the car, turn the wheel and jump out. Then when he jumps after Sulu, he does so because he wants to die with Sulu not save him. Kirk/Sulu are meant to be together because of this.
37. McCoy's favourite past time is to say "damn it, Jim" and stick a hard object into his best friend.
38. When creating icons/images for Chapel it is best to use images of an actress who played a sister to Karl Urban's character cause that has no squickly incestuous connotations at all.
39. Most importantly when posting your story for the first time, make sure you have created a HUGE header pic that will be too big for most people's flists. It will make them eager to click on your story. Also it is important to manip the characters as badly as possible and take longer to create that than writing the story did.
40. Begging for art, comments and ideas is the best way to go about getting more quality readers. Also posting to at least 4 communities with the same fic at almost the same time is very important, cause most people don't watch multiple comms and won't be pissed off at you at all for posting the same thing over and over. Beta's completely suck and never give you good advice or fix up spelling and grammar. So don't even bother with them, even better why bother reading your story again before posting? No one needs to do that. Oh and don't forget in writing your disclaimer that it is JJ that owns Star Trek! Not that Gene bloke that no one has heard about before.
I hope this advice was valuable to all the writers out there. I know that I endeavour to follow them as closely as possible! /sarcasm ;)
Addition One to the rules now here