Wow, have we really come to the end of another eight-week series on Writer’s Workshop Wednesday? I must be getting old, because I find myself saying stuff like, “Where does the time go?” more and more often and less and less ironically. Also, I’ve noticed I hurt more when the weather’s about to change and I need help with computers.

Also, there are kids on my lawn.

I must say, it’s been enormously liberating to talk about the process of writing fanfiction in a forum where no one is yawning, sidling away or openly mocking me. Sure, it helps that it’s my own blog, so technically, I could write an 8-part series on grilled cheese sandwiches if I wanted to. No one’s going to stop me. All the same, I’m glad I did it and just as glad to be able to get back to my serious work when this post is over.

Who would have ever thought my alien bugsex and zombie apocalypse romance would be considered my ‘serious’ work?

But okay, I’ve done enough of these to establish a protocol. The last part of any Writer’s Workshop series is always a rambling summation and it’s four in the morning as I write this, so I am in exactly the right headspace to ramble. Let’s do this!

Fans Who Fic

Part Eight

Tips, Tricks and Final Thoughts

So what are the tips and tricks to writing a wildly successful fanfic? Hell if I know. I think I’ve written a good one and I’m proud of it, but it by no means is wildly successful. On ff.net, even if all the reviews left on my works were posted (as opposed to more than half of them vanishing into an internet black hole; what the eff is up with that, ff.net?), I’d still only have a couple hundred reviews on each part of the series. Same goes for ao3. And don’t get me wrong, considering I started posting from a brand-new account, ‘a couple hundred’ positive reviews on each installment is awesome and I’m grateful for every one of them. However, it does make a “Tips and Tricks for Successful Fanfic” post somewhat premature. Fortunately, I have a wider pool than my own work to draw from.

One of my followers here (shoutout to Allie) recently asked me to recommend some fanfic, which gave me the opportunity to go back through my bookmarks and do some reading, reminding me not only of some great stories, but also how incredibly lucky I am to be able to do what I do for a living. Anyone else who spent three hours reading Harry Potter fanfics at work would be fired. Particularly since I’m not wearing pants.

I’ve spoken to HR about it, but I told me there’s really nothing I can do.

But as I was re-reading those stories, I noticed some things. These stories had thousands of kudos and glowing reviews; it obviously wasn’t just me who thought they were good. Why? What specifically did they do to elevate themselves above the countless other HP-fics out there? So I started looking at them more critically and I made some Holmesian deductions, by which I mean, they are almost painfully obvious.

My first observation is, they’re technically well-written. Little typos get by all of us and we all pick and choose our battles with the Big Book o’ Style and Grammar (I’ll give up my Oxford Comma when they pry it from my cold, limp, and dead hand), but without exception, the authors of the most popular and best reviewed works have turned out a polished, professional-looking product. I can’t tell you how many times I have gone a’browsing through the blurbs and seen some variation of “…Im just a bad spelr so ther (=^-ω-^=)”

People, you are literally typing that on a computer. You have no excuse not to run a spellcheck. And bragging about your incompetence on your own splash page is maybe not the best way to self-advertise. In other words…

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Ergo, Tip Number One: Edit. Go over it at least once before posting with a critical eye toward spelling, punctuation, grammar and formatting…and of the four of them, formatting is probably the most important. Nothing’s worse than clicking on a nice premise and getting slapped in the eyeballs with an unreadable brick of text. A little extra time and effort goes a long way toward setting your work apart from the rest. Without it, it just looks like the author didn’t care, and (sing along if you know the words!) if the author doesn’t care, why should the reader?

Observation Number Two: They all had a story to tell. This seems like it shouldn’t even need saying, but anyone who’s read a lot of fanfiction knows how much of it is either “A Day In The Life Of…” or “More Shagging Than A Carpet Warehouse In 1974.” In fact, if you read fanfiction, you can probably think of hundreds of examples of each of those types of stories. Now…can you name even one by title?

So yeah, Tip Number Two: Have a plot. Odds are good that what brought you into the fandom in the first place was a damned compelling story (along with a certain sexy character). If you’re writing fanfiction at all, it’s probably because you didn’t want that story to end. But it’s not enough to just add some more characters and shake it up. Agitation is not the same thing as tension. I think a lot of fanfic writers start out with a great idea for a character or a ship and then jump right in without working out what they’ll all be doing (apart from each other). When the summary for your book is ‘the one where Loki gets with Thor,’ you’re in trouble, because not only is that not edgy, it’s not interesting either.

You’ll never outweird the actual list of things Loki has slept with anyway.

So yeah, you need a plot. And not to get mean or anything, but a lot of the time, the plot for fanfiction is “OC saves the day”. But from what? Why? How? What makes a story memorable is not the victory, but the risk. It’s not enough to just throw in a bitchy rival or introduce a villain who kidnaps the love interest two chapters before the end of the book. A good plot is like good sex: There’s an introduction, a certain mood is set, events are set in motion, there’s an increasing sense of urgency and action and growing tension leading to a climax, followed by a little time to rest and reflect, and then it ends and hopefully, you spend the rest of your life thinking about it at odd moments with a little smile. Have a look at this:

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This is the basic model for probably 90% of all stories in the history of storytelling, and the reason it is used so often is because it works. If you’re new to writing, you might consider drawing out an outline first, both to help you keep track of plot points and to help keep canon elements straight. I don’t usually write with an outline, but you better believe I did for Everything Is All Right. The outline for that series is six pages long, which is nothing compared to the sixty-plus pages of notes and maps, let alone all the websites I bookmarked for research. This is time-consuming and can feel tedious, especially when you’re itching to get at the actual story, but realism and details are what makes a story immersive, and that’s what your readers will remember about it and the author who wrote it.

Observation Number Three: Characters are well-developed. This doesn’t necessarily mean all canon characters are portrayed exactly as they appear in the source material, but they’re usually at least recognizable. And even when they’re not, they can still be great characters. A lot of fanfic writers try to make the villain sympathetic; the ones who succeed do it not by making the villain suddenly do and say sympathetic things that are grossly out of character, but by writing from the villain’s PoV, so that the reader gets to ‘see’ more of that villain’s thoughts and motives. Then when they do say or do things that would seem out of character, it’s understandable. When it comes to original characters, they are introduced in a way that feels natural and have balanced traits, with strengths and flaws. They ‘fit’ in the world, drawing from and adding to its lore. They can interact with the canon characters without upstaging them or turning into the pretty lamp that everyone is fighting over. Dialogue flows naturally, is consistent with the personality of the character speaking, and is tagged to make it easy for the reader to follow.

So, Tip Number Three: Keep characters consistent. Write up a character sheet if that helps and don’t forget the negative traits. Perfect characters are the enemy of all good books. Make sure each character has his or her own voice and style. Writing every character the same way, with the same responses and the same speech patterns, makes everyone equally forgettable. Oh, and remember that nothing dates your book like slang and pop culture references, so use it sparingly. Same goes double for swearing, and yes, that is hilarious advice considering it comes from someone who once wrote the line, “I’m a grown-ass woman and I’ll talk however the hell I want to, so yeah, fuckity fuckity bitchtits fuck.” Taken in the context of who was speaking, who she was speaking to, and what the situation between them was in that scene, that line was 100% justified.

So there. (=^-ω-^=)

Observation Number Four: They legit know their shit. Even those authors who write AU are clearly familiar with the canon and can use it with great effect to make their version of events feel ‘real’. Some of the best fanfiction is used to explore theories, and although I consider myself a purist, even I don’t mind seeing canon twisted as long as it tells a good story and is still identifiable within the fandom’s universe.

Tip Number Four: Know your canon. You don’t have to know every character’s birthday or favorite food and be able to trace their family tree back at least seven generations (although it couldn’t hurt), but you do need to know the world in which those characters live. Muggle, mutant, Jedi, warp drive, nazghul—every fandom has its own unique language; you need to be able to speak it. And remember that while you’re writing for the people who have been in the fandom as long as you have and who know the lore as well as (if not better than) you do, you are also writing for people who may be much newer to it. Do not introduce canon characters with nothing but a name and assume your reader knows everything they need to know about him or her. Ideally, anyone should be able to pick up your story and enjoy it, whether they’re a fan or not.

Now if this is all starting to sound suspiciously like a lot of basic advice that could apply to any book and not just fanfiction, that’s because it is. Fanfiction is just another genre, no different from any other. It can evoke all the same feelings. It deserves all the same respect.

Obviously, there are exceptions.

And, if I can leave you with one last piece of personal advice, it is this: Write because you’re a fan, not because others are. People grow. Their tastes change. The population of every fan community is constantly changing as new episodes, books, games, or movies come out…or don’t. Some members will move on, new people will join, and only time will tell if a fandom has staying power. If the source stops producing or its star of popularity begins to dim, does that mean you shouldn’t start writing that fanfic after all (or worse, stop writing once you’ve started posting)?

To bring this down to my level, each time a new FNAF game appears, people come out of the woodwork to proclaim that it’s ‘dead’ and the fandom is ‘toxic’ and the community is nothing but 10-year-old edgelords who want to fuck furries. Whatever, dudes. My love of a thing is not reliant upon approval from a YouTube comment section. Nor do I define ‘toxic’ as ‘people who write fanfiction or create fanart’. I don’t necessarily approve of everything out there in the community, but until someone appoints me Supreme High Judge of FNAF Fanworks, I guess that’s not a problem. If I don’t want to see dicks and boobs drawn on animatronics, I don’t Bing it. It’s as simple as that. Are there 10-year-old FNAF fans? Sure, probably even younger. But I’m not. My 70-year-old father is a FNAF fan now (after being introduced to it by way of my fanfic, incidentally) and I doubt he’s the oldest.

A fan community is the same as any other community. It’s made up of all kinds of people, people of all ages, all shapes and sizes, all occupations—all individuals. So relax. You’re not alone and you’re not wrong or dumb or toxic just for liking anime or orcs or animatronics. For other reasons, maybe, but not for that. So love what you love. Write stories, write songs, create art, make videos, make games…and share them. The only thing better than being a fan is being the reason someone else becomes one.