How to write great Fan Fiction!

[Playful Pony]

If your SW fan-fic doesn't have Lando and Han in a steaming Cloud City sex scene, your doing it wrong. Or, if your not that crazy about homosexual relationships, there is only one alternative. Leia crashlands her ship on an abandoned planet, and after some exploring discovers Padme frozen in carbonite. She wasn't dead after all, and perfectly preserved as a young (sexy) female! Candle-lit dinners and moist bedsheets follow.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if it turns out the two examples I just gave ARE indeed out there...

 

[Legion]

I wish I had artistic talent. I'd love to do a graphic novel fan fiction of some series that I like. I think I'd have the writing side covered, but I am terrible at drawing.

*sighs*

EDIT: Is it just me or is the escapist incapable of seeing the positive aspects of anything? Aw well, maybe I'm biased as someone who's tried really hard over the last half decade to write GOOD fan fiction.

The internet in general is like that unfortunately. I once saw a video on youtube of a song I liked and the comments section was full of people arguing over religion. The sad thing is, although the song had the word 'sin' in it, the song itself wasn't really about religion in any way.

My advice for avoiding writing bad fan fiction is very simple. Don't write fan fiction. No good can come of it.

Why not? It's not like anybody is forced to read it, or pays for it.

Don't get me wrong, I have seen some horrific fan fiction, and wondered what on earth they were thinking, but if they enjoyed doing it, then I don't see the harm. It's only when they are terrible at it, ask for feedback, get negative feedback and get pissed off about it (even if the feedback was polite) that it's an issue.

 

[deathbydeath]

Remember, if you ever fail at writing with depth, you can always make a Warhammer 40000 fanfic! Who cares about pacing or character development, it's just Bolter porn, and every single chapter needs to have explosions and people getting their faces torn off! Because blood is so important and "edgy"!

[small]Don't shoot me, I actually am writing 40K fics. Trying to avoid constant warfare and break up the monotony with introspection on the characters and how the conflict changes them.[/small]

Wait, so if you can't write with depth, write 40K shit?

While you do have a point, as 40k was designed to be fan fiction, your point is still negated in one word: Eisenhorn. Eisenhorn.

 

[Blunderboy]

How to write good fan fiction.

Don't.

 

[Vault101]

I wish I had artistic talent. I'd love to do a graphic novel fan fiction of some series that I like. I think I'd have the writing side covered, but I am terrible at drawing.

*sighs*
.

perhaps find a willing artist

or learn to draw yourself....it takes time and effort but it IS doable

 

[Melon Hunter]

I wish I had artistic talent. I'd love to do a graphic novel fan fiction of some series that I like. I think I'd have the writing side covered, but I am terrible at drawing.

*sighs*

EDIT: Is it just me or is the escapist incapable of seeing the positive aspects of anything? Aw well, maybe I'm biased as someone who's tried really hard over the last half decade to write GOOD fan fiction.

The internet in general is like that unfortunately. I once saw a video on youtube of a song I liked and the comments section was full of people arguing over religion. The sad thing is, although the song had the word 'sin' in it, the song itself wasn't really about religion in any way.

My advice for avoiding writing bad fan fiction is very simple. Don't write fan fiction. No good can come of it.

Why not? It's not like anybody is forced to read it, or pays for it.

Don't get me wrong, I have seen some horrific fan fiction, and wondered what on earth they were thinking, but if they enjoyed doing it, then I don't see the harm. It's only when they are terrible at it, ask for feedback, get negative feedback and get pissed off about it (even if the feedback was polite) that it's an issue.

Yeah, this cynical streak that runs through the Internet in general is really rather depressing. Someone wants to create something? What a weird, sad person. According to most people in this thread, someone who writes fanfiction is a terrible, terrible person, no matter what quality it is. Like claiming it would make them happy to see Fallout Equestria served with a C&D for daring to exist. Yay for childish vindictiveness, I guess.

Also, if you wanna make a fanfiction, go for it! I would suggest looking around DeviantArt or somewhere similar for fans of the franchise you wanted to make a graphic novel about. I'm sure there would be artists around who would be happy to pair up. Collaborative efforts can be a great deal of fun!

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Remember, if you ever fail at writing with depth, you can always make a Warhammer 40000 fanfic! Who cares about pacing or character development, it's just Bolter porn, and every single chapter needs to have explosions and people getting their faces torn off! Because blood is so important and "edgy"!

[small]Don't shoot me, I actually am writing 40K fics. Trying to avoid constant warfare and break up the monotony with introspection on the characters and how the conflict changes them.[/small]

Wait, so if you can't write with depth, write 40K shit?

While you do have a point, as 40k was designed to be fan fiction, your point is still negated in one word: Eisenhorn. Eisenhorn.

Dan Abnett is the exception to the Norm. How many fucking BATTLES OF THE SPACE MARINES books are we going to get?

 

[LordDPS]

Remember, if you ever fail at writing with depth, you can always make a Warhammer 40000 fanfic! Who cares about pacing or character development, it's just Bolter porn, and every single chapter needs to have explosions and people getting their faces torn off! Because blood is so important and "edgy"!

[small]Don't shoot me, I actually am writing 40K fics. Trying to avoid constant warfare and break up the monotony with introspection on the characters and how the conflict changes them.[/small]

On a more serious note, although I don't expect much from extended universe novels (Halo, Star Wars, etc, I still enjoy them) I've been tentative to pick up Warhammer 40K novels because I'm worried it would be like that.

You have the entire Ciaphas Cain series if you want Blackadder in space, you have Eisenhorn if you want epic space opera. You also have all the Karren Travis esque bull that C.S Goto writes. Some goods, some bads, some fan fiction that just happened to get officially published.

 

[deathbydeath]

Dan Abnett is the exception to the Norm. How many fucking BATTLES OF THE SPACE MARINES books are we going to get?

There's a fuckton of Space Marine chapters, and some are stories worthy of telling, but as far as I can tell, it's just "MAIM BURN KILL!!" except for the Emprah.

They really need to make a damn Astral Knights book.

 

[Genocidicles]

Yeah, this cynical streak that runs through the Internet in general is really rather depressing. Someone wants to create something? What a weird, sad person. According to most people in this thread, someone who writes fanfiction is a terrible, terrible person, no matter what quality it is.

Well I personally dislike fanfiction because it's either:

1) Hilariously awful

Or

2) A waste of talent that could've been better spent on an original story.

 

[Melon Hunter]

Yeah, this cynical streak that runs through the Internet in general is really rather depressing. Someone wants to create something? What a weird, sad person. According to most people in this thread, someone who writes fanfiction is a terrible, terrible person, no matter what quality it is.

Well I personally dislike fanfiction because it's either:

1) Hilariously awful

Or

2) A waste of talent that could've been better spent on an original story.

On the first point, definitely. I think everyone's heard of the woeful attempts some people have made. But the second point? Not so much. An actually well-written fanfiction can set up stories with characters the readers are already emotionally attached to. Also, talent isn't a finite resource, it's something that can be built up over time. Let's face it, what's gonna get more attention and feedback, a well-written fanfic released to a large audience already aware of the characters, or a well-written, entirely new world released to an audience that knows next to nothing about it? Fanfiction is a way for budding authors to hone their talents and learn how to create worlds of their own, in an environment that can readily give feedback. That, I can appreciate. It's also why it annoys me when those people who want to improve themselves as a writer are lumped in with the self-indulgent timewasters who fall into the first category. They're not the same thing at all, and they're certainly not 'a waste of talent'. A cynical Internet, indeed.

 

[blackdwarf]

I really don't like fan-fiction, because... well, it is fan fiction, why would I want to read someone else's view?

But I always think of your first rule when I think about FFic. Why are they so obsessed to tell how the toilet looks? Sure, it is to fill their text and hide the fact the have nothing of meaning to write, but still... They also use the weirdest words for which normal people use logical words. Especially with colors.

And then you have to people who take theirs (or someone else's) fic an itsy-beets to serious.

 

[Kotaro]

I actually find it easier to write a story from scratch rather than work as fanfiction with an established franchise. Why? Because it's far easier to fall into the trap of having the characters act out-of-character, or to break an established rule of the setting, if it's not something you made yourself.
Yes, there are some talented fanfiction writers out there, but they're just about 1 in 1,000,000,000. Probably due to the reasons I've cited, most talented writers tend to make original stories (though that's not to say that every original story is good--far from it).

 

[Lilani]

Nothing says 'artistic genius' like Dante and Vergil or Thor and Loki shipping!

I now feel like drawing a picture with Thor and Loki sailing a ship together.