things i learned in six years of writing fic:
I’ve recently taken a trip down memory lane and started re-reading all of my old (cringe-worthy, bad, miserable, awful, terrible) fic. And let me tell you - it is crap. There are Mary Sue OCs running around all over the place, there is plot stupidity that has to be read to be believed, sloppy writing, wholly unnecessary sequences, entire stories are out of character, and it is a big fat mess. But it's been really fun (and not just a little embarrassing) to read all the old stuff. I’ve been writing fic for almost six years (excluding some very wangsty clearly-written-by-a-depressed-teenager Star Trek Voyager fic that is now, thankfully, lost to the internet) and, in the process of the re-read, I've realized that there’s quite a lot that I’ve learned in those six years.
disclaimer: this isn’t to be meant as a guide for everyone or as a universal suggestion list or a rulebook; it’s full of YMMV items because it’s stuff I personally learned in six years. Not all of it is applicable to everyone and not all of it is great. Based on some interest mentioned on Twitter, I figured it was worth sharing.
Things I Learned in Nearly Six Years of Writing Fan Fiction
On Plot:
- Sticking to a predetermined structure is fine, but not at the expense of sensible plot.
- Outline. Even if it’s vague and in your head, know where the story starts, middles, and ends.
- No fair using out-of-genre tropes to get yourself out of a corner. (i.e., time travel and prophetic dreams have no place in a story/universe where weird metaphysical shit does not exist).
- Your outline is not infallible. If something is not working, or you just can’t write a scene, it’s okay to mix it up.
- There is a difference between “I can’t write this because it’s hard” and “I can’t write this because it makes no sense.” The latter is okay to scrap. The former is something you should probably work on.
- Plot is good. Plot is fun. Plot is a pain in the ass. Deal with it.
- If you recognize that this thing has gone off the rails and is now in WTF territory (and you have decided that that’s bad), it’s probably time for a Come To Jesus meeting with yourself to figure out what the heck just happened and how to fix it. It is not time to keep writing in the same wacko direction.
- Calling out your own plot bullshit in the author’s note does not actually redeem your bullshit plot.
On Character:
- If you cringe at something, delete it.
- If your character cringes at something they say, delete it. There’s a limited amount of lampshade-hanging that’s okay before you start looking like an idiot.
- Rewatch or re-read the source material if it’s been a while.
- Stop swearing so damn much.
- Having your own character interpretation is fine, but it should probably play well with canon.
- Even in AUs, these characters should be recognizable as themselves.
- Sometimes character details in older fics get Jossed. No one’s going to care that some specs are wrong in a fic from three years ago that you never even finished. And if they do, well, divination is not in your skill set.
On Technical Stuff:
- Kill every other adjective and adverb.
- If you can’t follow the sentence, there is no way a reader will be able to follow the sentence.
- For every semicolon, there must be a period. That ratio should never be anything other than 1:1.
- Parenthetical - and hyphenated (dashed? whatever) - asides should be used sparingly. And stop creating full sentences within the parentheses and dashes, especially when said asides occur in the middle of a sentence.
- Sitting down with The Elements Of Style to refresh your memory on commas is a valid way to spend an hour.
- If it seems unwieldy, get rid of it.
- Do not undervalue the benefit of a beta reader. Even if that beta reader is you the next day.
- Do not post anything after 1:00 in the morning.
- Do not post anything that you wrote while under the influence of any substance without first reviewing it sober.
- Sentence fragments make sense in your head and nowhere else. They belong in your head and nowhere else.
On Research:
- Two year-olds do not yet have the coordination to play kickball.
- Florida has cows.
- 98% of the research you do will not make it into the story. This is fine.
- Google Maps is your friend during road trip fic. So are AAA guidebooks.
- Details are really important, and often really fun.
- Do not infodump just to prove that you spent twenty minutes with Google.
- You will spend forty-five minutes trying to find out what kind of streetlights were used in Seattle in the 1930s. You will fail, and somehow end up looking at an article about the history of plumbing instead. That’s fine.
- Always, always do major research first. Not when you suddenly realize you need it.
- It’s okay to need to refer to Wikipedia for the basic details of World War II.
- Sometimes Google and Wikipedia will fail you so you’ll write something like “he opens a sterilized needle and thread” in a story that takes place in 1939 and no one will notice but you. Take the win and move on.
- Sometimes you won’t even think it needs research and you’ll write something like “but Florida isn’t exactly a hotbed of cattle farming” when the state actually has a decent cattle economy and someone will call you out on it. Laugh it off.
- Pennsylvania does not border the Atlantic Ocean. New Jersey is in the way.
On World Building:
- 98% of what you create for the backstory will not make it on the page. This is fine.
- 98% of what you create for characters or their relationships will not make it on the page. This is also fine.
- Always have backstory and background information figured out first. You’re doing this so that it's there already for the 2% of the time when you need to reference something.
- Do not infodump on the backstory or world just to prove that you did the work. Unless your characters got displaced and need the infodump to be caught up on what the hell’s going on, then that’s fine.
- If it seems too complicated, it probably is. Kill 50% of the details and try again.
- It’s probably best to stay away from “stepped on a bug, changed history” situations if you don’t have an intimate working knowledge of that historical time period.
On OCs:
- If the OC role can be fulfilled by a character that already exists, use that character instead (especially in AUs and genre swaps; it makes the universe more believable).
- Unless it is 110% necessary for the plot, OCs should never appear in a scene on their own and should never be POV characters.
- “She’s not perfect, look, she stole a road sign” does not undo the previous 32,000 words of Mary Sue-ness.
- Admitting that all your OCs used to be Mary Sues is the first step in no longer writing Mary Sues.
- It’s okay to want two of your early OCs to go at it in a cage fight...and hope the place goes up in flames with them locked inside.
On Tropes:
- Tropes are not bad.
- Using tropes just for the sake of using tropes, however, is bad.
- There’s nothing like an Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking list to add some humor to the scene.
- Noodle Incidents are way funnier - and way more effective - than explaining the reference.
- One or two running gags per story. Otherwise it gets out of hand.
- Limit the amount of lampshade-hanging you do. There’s a very tiny window in which it is meta and successful before it becomes “look at me pointing out where I failed to write well.”
- TV Tropes is a fabulous resource to learn about writing (and sometimes even fix the scene you’re stuck on). It’s also a fabulous resource for wasting time.
- Spending three hours on TV Tropes is not a substitute for actual writing.
On Borrowing:
- Read. Read books, read stories, read fanfic. Once you realize what drives you nuts about other stories (tropes, characterization, plots, word choice, etc), you’ll stop doing it in your own writing.
- There’s nothing wrong with being influenced by other works or saying “hey, that’s a really neat conversational structure” or “woah, that’s a nifty way to convey necessary information” and using it in your own.
- This is fanfiction. You can do whatever you want, as long as you’re not charging for it. Reference other shows, other books, other movies.
- There are some scenes that are unavoidable and plots that everyone writes. But don’t steal a unique plot or lift direct language from someone else’s fanfiction. That’s rude. If someone calls you out on it, don’t be a dick. If you can, change it. Even if it means changing it to something that sucks.
- Don’t be afraid to call people out who steal plot or scenes or direct lines from your work. It’s yours, you worked hard on it. But don’t be a jerk about it. Pick your battles.
On Over-Committing and Being Picky:
- Don’t feel obligated to write sequels just because someone asked.
- Don’t agree to continuing a story unless you really know how it’s going to work (and it’s okay to change your mind about the continuation).
- It’s okay to drop out of stuff.
- If the story isn’t going anywhere, it’s okay to stop working on it.
- Don’t sign up for fanfic charity auctions unless you’re absolutely sure you can come through.
- Write what you want to write.
- It’s okay if you can’t write all the prompts.
- You are not an asshole if you decide to leave a story as it is without continuing.
On Readers Not Being Stupid:
- Assume a basic level of understanding of everything you reference. There’s no need to explain that the “Eat Me” scene in Alice in Wonderland is the one where she gets really big.
- Assume a basic level of understanding of everything you reference. You should probably at least skim the Wikipedia article on brain tumors prior to writing about them.
On Shutting Your Mouth:
- Kill all author’s notes unless they’re related to your beta or any other references you feel compelled to note. No one’s interested in your finals/midterms stress, or the state of your apartment while you pack to move, or that the Ohio primaries are over so now you have time again. Really. They're not.
- Noting that it’s been a while since you updated only serves to call attention to that fact. Nobody probably even noticed.
- Noting that it’s the first fic you’ve written for a pairing/fandom/genre/ever only serves to make people wary of your story and probably not read it.
- An open statement asking for feedback on a completed, posted story - even if it’s in the context of “I had a bad day” and see the first part of this section about that - is something you shouldn’t do. Ever. It’s annoying. And you should be writing fanfic for yourself anyway, not because of the warm fuzzies you get when people say “that was great.”
- Just as you aren’t obligated to write fic for any of these people, absolutely none of the people who read your story are obligated to comment or otherwise act upon it.
- It’s okay to be a douche about readers and commenters, but you should probably not be a douche publicly.
- Nobody - and I mean nobody - cares that you’re watching a National Geographic special on Monster Fish.
On Being An Adult About This:
- No one owes you anything.
- Someone’s always going to be better than you. Deal with it.
- Someone’s always going to be better than you and not realize that their casual discussion of their stats upsets you. Don’t be a dick about it. (also: stop worrying about stats; it’s not a contest)
- People will always flail about those people who are better than you. Take a deep breath and remember all the times people have said that your writing is great, too.
- Someone’s always going to come out of nowhere and be a fabulous writer. Deal with it.
- Sometimes, commenters are assholes. They will whine about how short every chapter is, miss the point entirely, demand more sooner, point out irrelevant bovine research failures, complain about the prevalence of Happy Meals in American-written fiction and wonder why Burger King isn’t included more frequently, threadjack, “first!”, and just generally be dicks. Don’t even bother to acknowledge those, except in a reflective post about the past six years of experience.
On Reflection and Growing Up:
- You don't owe anyone anything.
- You are going to suck at the beginning while simultaneously thinking that you shit rainbows. Don’t worry, you’ll get over both.
- It’s worth it to re-read your old fic every so often to give yourself a pat on the back for improving so much.
- It’s worth it to re-read your old fic every so often because it is fucking hilarious. Livetweet it if at all possible.
- It’s totally okay to delete things from the internet.
- It’s okay not to share everything you write.
- It’s okay to share things with only a small group of people.
- The only way to get better is to write. A lot.
- Resist the urge to rewrite an entire series under the premise of “but I know how to do it better now.” Write new things instead.
- It’s okay to leave old, well-worn fandoms for new ones. It’ll feel weird at first, but it’s worth it.
- Come back every few years and visit fandoms you’ve abandoned.
- Always act like you belong here, even if you’re the new kid.
- It’s okay to write fic. You don’t have to move on to wholly original work if you don’t want to.
On The Things That Didn’t Fit Anywhere Else:
- For the love of everything holy, name documents appropriately.
- It’s probably better to have the whole story written before you start posting it.
- Sometimes, the sky is just blue. That’s it, blue.
- Referencing your own fic is neat and meta and awesome, but be prepared to be the only person who picks up on that.
- In long fics, there should be a reason for that porn scene.
- It is not a giant waste of paper to print out an 87-page draft so you can edit offscreen.
- Never delete anything in your fanfic folder on your hard drive. That unfinished fic from three years ago may have a premise or a scene that, once scrubbed clean of all the hallmarks of early fic, may be extremely relevant for a story that you’re working on right now.
- Try new stuff every few months. Start something that’s in a new genre, attempt slash or femslash, dive into poly, see if you can write gen. Mix it up.
- Stop writing fic at work. Your boss will notice that you’re typing a lot more than usual and ask if you’re upset about something because you generally only type lots when you’re annoyed.
- There is not a damn thing wrong with writing exclusively apocafic for nine months straight.
disclaimer: this isn’t to be meant as a guide for everyone or as a universal suggestion list or a rulebook; it’s full of YMMV items because it’s stuff I personally learned in six years. Not all of it is applicable to everyone and not all of it is great. Based on some interest mentioned on Twitter, I figured it was worth sharing.
Things I Learned in Nearly Six Years of Writing Fan Fiction
On Plot:
- Sticking to a predetermined structure is fine, but not at the expense of sensible plot.
- Outline. Even if it’s vague and in your head, know where the story starts, middles, and ends.
- No fair using out-of-genre tropes to get yourself out of a corner. (i.e., time travel and prophetic dreams have no place in a story/universe where weird metaphysical shit does not exist).
- Your outline is not infallible. If something is not working, or you just can’t write a scene, it’s okay to mix it up.
- There is a difference between “I can’t write this because it’s hard” and “I can’t write this because it makes no sense.” The latter is okay to scrap. The former is something you should probably work on.
- Plot is good. Plot is fun. Plot is a pain in the ass. Deal with it.
- If you recognize that this thing has gone off the rails and is now in WTF territory (and you have decided that that’s bad), it’s probably time for a Come To Jesus meeting with yourself to figure out what the heck just happened and how to fix it. It is not time to keep writing in the same wacko direction.
- Calling out your own plot bullshit in the author’s note does not actually redeem your bullshit plot.
On Character:
- If you cringe at something, delete it.
- If your character cringes at something they say, delete it. There’s a limited amount of lampshade-hanging that’s okay before you start looking like an idiot.
- Rewatch or re-read the source material if it’s been a while.
- Stop swearing so damn much.
- Having your own character interpretation is fine, but it should probably play well with canon.
- Even in AUs, these characters should be recognizable as themselves.
- Sometimes character details in older fics get Jossed. No one’s going to care that some specs are wrong in a fic from three years ago that you never even finished. And if they do, well, divination is not in your skill set.
On Technical Stuff:
- Kill every other adjective and adverb.
- If you can’t follow the sentence, there is no way a reader will be able to follow the sentence.
- For every semicolon, there must be a period. That ratio should never be anything other than 1:1.
- Parenthetical - and hyphenated (dashed? whatever) - asides should be used sparingly. And stop creating full sentences within the parentheses and dashes, especially when said asides occur in the middle of a sentence.
- Sitting down with The Elements Of Style to refresh your memory on commas is a valid way to spend an hour.
- If it seems unwieldy, get rid of it.
- Do not undervalue the benefit of a beta reader. Even if that beta reader is you the next day.
- Do not post anything after 1:00 in the morning.
- Do not post anything that you wrote while under the influence of any substance without first reviewing it sober.
- Sentence fragments make sense in your head and nowhere else. They belong in your head and nowhere else.
On Research:
- Two year-olds do not yet have the coordination to play kickball.
- Florida has cows.
- 98% of the research you do will not make it into the story. This is fine.
- Google Maps is your friend during road trip fic. So are AAA guidebooks.
- Details are really important, and often really fun.
- Do not infodump just to prove that you spent twenty minutes with Google.
- You will spend forty-five minutes trying to find out what kind of streetlights were used in Seattle in the 1930s. You will fail, and somehow end up looking at an article about the history of plumbing instead. That’s fine.
- Always, always do major research first. Not when you suddenly realize you need it.
- It’s okay to need to refer to Wikipedia for the basic details of World War II.
- Sometimes Google and Wikipedia will fail you so you’ll write something like “he opens a sterilized needle and thread” in a story that takes place in 1939 and no one will notice but you. Take the win and move on.
- Sometimes you won’t even think it needs research and you’ll write something like “but Florida isn’t exactly a hotbed of cattle farming” when the state actually has a decent cattle economy and someone will call you out on it. Laugh it off.
- Pennsylvania does not border the Atlantic Ocean. New Jersey is in the way.
On World Building:
- 98% of what you create for the backstory will not make it on the page. This is fine.
- 98% of what you create for characters or their relationships will not make it on the page. This is also fine.
- Always have backstory and background information figured out first. You’re doing this so that it's there already for the 2% of the time when you need to reference something.
- Do not infodump on the backstory or world just to prove that you did the work. Unless your characters got displaced and need the infodump to be caught up on what the hell’s going on, then that’s fine.
- If it seems too complicated, it probably is. Kill 50% of the details and try again.
- It’s probably best to stay away from “stepped on a bug, changed history” situations if you don’t have an intimate working knowledge of that historical time period.
On OCs:
- If the OC role can be fulfilled by a character that already exists, use that character instead (especially in AUs and genre swaps; it makes the universe more believable).
- Unless it is 110% necessary for the plot, OCs should never appear in a scene on their own and should never be POV characters.
- “She’s not perfect, look, she stole a road sign” does not undo the previous 32,000 words of Mary Sue-ness.
- Admitting that all your OCs used to be Mary Sues is the first step in no longer writing Mary Sues.
- It’s okay to want two of your early OCs to go at it in a cage fight...and hope the place goes up in flames with them locked inside.
On Tropes:
- Tropes are not bad.
- Using tropes just for the sake of using tropes, however, is bad.
- There’s nothing like an Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking list to add some humor to the scene.
- Noodle Incidents are way funnier - and way more effective - than explaining the reference.
- One or two running gags per story. Otherwise it gets out of hand.
- Limit the amount of lampshade-hanging you do. There’s a very tiny window in which it is meta and successful before it becomes “look at me pointing out where I failed to write well.”
- TV Tropes is a fabulous resource to learn about writing (and sometimes even fix the scene you’re stuck on). It’s also a fabulous resource for wasting time.
- Spending three hours on TV Tropes is not a substitute for actual writing.
On Borrowing:
- Read. Read books, read stories, read fanfic. Once you realize what drives you nuts about other stories (tropes, characterization, plots, word choice, etc), you’ll stop doing it in your own writing.
- There’s nothing wrong with being influenced by other works or saying “hey, that’s a really neat conversational structure” or “woah, that’s a nifty way to convey necessary information” and using it in your own.
- This is fanfiction. You can do whatever you want, as long as you’re not charging for it. Reference other shows, other books, other movies.
- There are some scenes that are unavoidable and plots that everyone writes. But don’t steal a unique plot or lift direct language from someone else’s fanfiction. That’s rude. If someone calls you out on it, don’t be a dick. If you can, change it. Even if it means changing it to something that sucks.
- Don’t be afraid to call people out who steal plot or scenes or direct lines from your work. It’s yours, you worked hard on it. But don’t be a jerk about it. Pick your battles.
On Over-Committing and Being Picky:
- Don’t feel obligated to write sequels just because someone asked.
- Don’t agree to continuing a story unless you really know how it’s going to work (and it’s okay to change your mind about the continuation).
- It’s okay to drop out of stuff.
- If the story isn’t going anywhere, it’s okay to stop working on it.
- Don’t sign up for fanfic charity auctions unless you’re absolutely sure you can come through.
- Write what you want to write.
- It’s okay if you can’t write all the prompts.
- You are not an asshole if you decide to leave a story as it is without continuing.
On Readers Not Being Stupid:
- Assume a basic level of understanding of everything you reference. There’s no need to explain that the “Eat Me” scene in Alice in Wonderland is the one where she gets really big.
- Assume a basic level of understanding of everything you reference. You should probably at least skim the Wikipedia article on brain tumors prior to writing about them.
On Shutting Your Mouth:
- Kill all author’s notes unless they’re related to your beta or any other references you feel compelled to note. No one’s interested in your finals/midterms stress, or the state of your apartment while you pack to move, or that the Ohio primaries are over so now you have time again. Really. They're not.
- Noting that it’s been a while since you updated only serves to call attention to that fact. Nobody probably even noticed.
- Noting that it’s the first fic you’ve written for a pairing/fandom/genre/ever only serves to make people wary of your story and probably not read it.
- An open statement asking for feedback on a completed, posted story - even if it’s in the context of “I had a bad day” and see the first part of this section about that - is something you shouldn’t do. Ever. It’s annoying. And you should be writing fanfic for yourself anyway, not because of the warm fuzzies you get when people say “that was great.”
- Just as you aren’t obligated to write fic for any of these people, absolutely none of the people who read your story are obligated to comment or otherwise act upon it.
- It’s okay to be a douche about readers and commenters, but you should probably not be a douche publicly.
- Nobody - and I mean nobody - cares that you’re watching a National Geographic special on Monster Fish.
On Being An Adult About This:
- No one owes you anything.
- Someone’s always going to be better than you. Deal with it.
- Someone’s always going to be better than you and not realize that their casual discussion of their stats upsets you. Don’t be a dick about it. (also: stop worrying about stats; it’s not a contest)
- People will always flail about those people who are better than you. Take a deep breath and remember all the times people have said that your writing is great, too.
- Someone’s always going to come out of nowhere and be a fabulous writer. Deal with it.
- Sometimes, commenters are assholes. They will whine about how short every chapter is, miss the point entirely, demand more sooner, point out irrelevant bovine research failures, complain about the prevalence of Happy Meals in American-written fiction and wonder why Burger King isn’t included more frequently, threadjack, “first!”, and just generally be dicks. Don’t even bother to acknowledge those, except in a reflective post about the past six years of experience.
On Reflection and Growing Up:
- You don't owe anyone anything.
- You are going to suck at the beginning while simultaneously thinking that you shit rainbows. Don’t worry, you’ll get over both.
- It’s worth it to re-read your old fic every so often to give yourself a pat on the back for improving so much.
- It’s worth it to re-read your old fic every so often because it is fucking hilarious. Livetweet it if at all possible.
- It’s totally okay to delete things from the internet.
- It’s okay not to share everything you write.
- It’s okay to share things with only a small group of people.
- The only way to get better is to write. A lot.
- Resist the urge to rewrite an entire series under the premise of “but I know how to do it better now.” Write new things instead.
- It’s okay to leave old, well-worn fandoms for new ones. It’ll feel weird at first, but it’s worth it.
- Come back every few years and visit fandoms you’ve abandoned.
- Always act like you belong here, even if you’re the new kid.
- It’s okay to write fic. You don’t have to move on to wholly original work if you don’t want to.
On The Things That Didn’t Fit Anywhere Else:
- For the love of everything holy, name documents appropriately.
- It’s probably better to have the whole story written before you start posting it.
- Sometimes, the sky is just blue. That’s it, blue.
- Referencing your own fic is neat and meta and awesome, but be prepared to be the only person who picks up on that.
- In long fics, there should be a reason for that porn scene.
- It is not a giant waste of paper to print out an 87-page draft so you can edit offscreen.
- Never delete anything in your fanfic folder on your hard drive. That unfinished fic from three years ago may have a premise or a scene that, once scrubbed clean of all the hallmarks of early fic, may be extremely relevant for a story that you’re working on right now.
- Try new stuff every few months. Start something that’s in a new genre, attempt slash or femslash, dive into poly, see if you can write gen. Mix it up.
- Stop writing fic at work. Your boss will notice that you’re typing a lot more than usual and ask if you’re upset about something because you generally only type lots when you’re annoyed.
- There is not a damn thing wrong with writing exclusively apocafic for nine months straight.