by T. Costa, forum member and Shinra Executive
There are certain things that just…annoy me…when it comes to fanfiction. And fiction in general. But mostly in fanfiction, because most pieces of fiction that I read have the benefit of editors, or at the very least people saying, “No, this sucks, change it.” These are the mark of a n00b in writing, and should be shied away from at all costs.
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Incorrectly written dialog (The noob litmus test) - Say it with me: “Punctuation is important.” No, seriously, it is. Let’s review how dialog punctuation goes:
“The meal was very good,” he said.
That is a properly-punctuated dialog sentence. Quotation, dialog, comma, quotation, lowercase he or she (or uppercase Proper Noun, as the case may be), said, period. Not:
“The meal was very good.” He said.
The problem with writing this way is that dialog sentences are one whole sentence. He said is part of the sentence. So when one reads this dialog they are hearing, in their head: “The meal was very good.” PAUSE. “He said.” Think about how irrationally angry that made you, just now, when I inserted the big bold PAUSE in there. Now you know how this makes me feel.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I was guilty of this. But because of that I am VERY. PICKY. ABOUT IT. And why not? This is the sort of thing you should be learning in school, especially if you want to write. LISTEN, LEARN, DON’T SCREW UP AGAIN.
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“OMG I suck at summaries, just read it, alright?” - NO. NO NO NO NO NO. I suck at summaries and I still try! Summaries are how you hook your reader. ALWAYS write a summary, even if it sucks. If you aren’t going to take the time to type out a summary, I am going to assume that you didn’t take the time to write a good story, either. And guess what? So will everyone else!
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Zero character development (AKA: Twilight Syndrome) - People do not stay the same for the entirety of their natural lives. Remember this because it is important. Where those people go to is up to you, but PLEASE REMEMBER THAT PEOPLE CHANGE, AND ALSO THAT THEY HAVE HISTORIES AND DID NOT SPRING INTO EXISTENCE FULLY FORMED. I mean, yeah, they did when you (or Square) created them, but the point is that people do not want to read about one-dimensional characters (All S. Meyer fans: Please Disregard), but people who, like them, have problems, solutions, and realistic backstories and futures. This is important to note!
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Realistic characterization neglect - OH MY GOD. Fandom is SO GUILTY OF THIS. Guilty, go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Instead of making your character do whatever you want them to do, you might want to read up a bit on the character. We have both Wikipedia and the Final Fantasy Wiki, people. There is no excuse for Yuffie to only be a sugar-high bubbly idiot, or Vincent to brood constantly, or Cid to do nothing but swear and smoke. Go read up and you’ll see what you look like to everyone else around you.
On that note, let’s not make the characters extensions of you so you can do a self-insert without saying so, hm? Keep it realistic, that’s all I ask!
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Overuse of adverbs - I’m guilty of this, too, but the difference between myself and a good chunk of other writers is that I am trying to change.
Let’s review here. Adverbs are those words that enhance upon verbs. For instance, in the sentence, “She grinned wolfishly,” the word wolfishly is the adverb, as it modifies the verb. This wouldn’t be a huge problem for the most part, except that nearly all adverbs end in -ly. One thing they teach you in writing school (that would be, any journalism course or creative writing course at a college or university level) is to stay away from the same words over and over, or words and syllables that sound the same. The reason for this is that your average reader will get bored and go try to find something ELSE to read. Overuse of adverbs not only sticks a huge amount of -ly’s in your work, but it’s tacky and senseless. If you MUST have some sort of verb modifier in there (although I personally do try to stay away from them), go with a modifying sentence, for instance:
“Well, I don’t know about that,” he said, glaring at her.
Instead of:
“Well, I don’t know about that,” he said, angrily.
While it’s still not the best thing to do, it at least takes the evil -ly’s out of there, and at least your characters are doing something. While I’m on the subject….
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All dialog and no action makes Tasha an angry person - Yes. I’ll be the first to admit it. I HATE ALL-DIALOG FICS. I think they’re shoddy and the sign of an inexperienced writer. Part of writing isn’t just figuring out what the characters are going to SAY, but what they are going to DO. Action is equally as important, if not MORE so, as dialog. The two have to be balanced. A decent scale measure would be that for every chapter in an average story, it should be two thirds action to one third dialog. Now, do not QUOTE me on this because every author’s needs are different, but people DO things more than they SAY things (your mileage may vary), so there should always be more action than dialog.
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Badly-written erotica - Look, here’s the deal. If you can’t write erotica worth beans, you shouldn’t. Understandably, you may not know if you can write erotica. There are several guides available on the Internet (one of my favorites is here – NSFW – although you can find several by Googling “Writing erotica.”), but the best way to find out if you write good erotica is by asking people – SEVERAL people. Don’t just post it on FFN and ask “How’d I do?” Go to a good place with good writers (my personal favorite is, of course, the Genesis Awards Forums) and ASK. ASK if someone who has experience with the written word AND with erotica can please let you know if you did okay. While my rule of thumb is that a virgin shouldn’t write erotica, them having never done the act itself, I won’t hold to that – there are some virgins who are very talented at writing it, and some nonvirgins who suck beans. More than anything, you need to ask.
If you are a girl writing sex from a man’s point of view, understandably, you are not going to know what it feels like from the male perspective. The same is true for men writing from a female POV. You can either get the pen and notepad out and interview a few people of each gender about what their climaxes and sex feel like (which I did, with my husband – BOY was he embarrassed!), or you can Google it. Either way, it’s important to be realistic, above all else.
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Random hyphens - This is a big’n. When you are writing, it is important to figure out which words need to be hyphenated, and which ones do not – and more importantly, which ones are actually ONE WORD. I’m not going to go into detail about the rules, but I will provide you with a guide, which you can read right here. Go, read, learn, do not repeat the mistakes of yore.
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Misused words and random capitalization - This is ALSO very important. It is a measure of how decent a writer you are. It’s not about spelling them right – between spell check and a decent beta reader you ought to be able to catch those – it’s about USING THEM CORRECTLY. When you write insecure when you meant insincere it really throws the reader for a loop, and makes you look like a jackass. Along with this goes the difference between their, they’re, and there, and it’s and its. Misusing any of these words will ALSO make you look like a jackass.
On that same vein, You Do Not Capitalize Every Letter In A Sentence. If You Can’t Figure Out Which Letters You Need To Hold Shift Down For, Please Step Away From The Keyboard, Walk Over To The Bookshelf, Pick Up The Dictionary, And Hit Yourself Across The Face With It. This Is Your Punishment For Killing The English Language. KTHX.
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Misused epithets - Once again, one I’ve been guilty of in my line of work, but I changed. For the uninitiated, an epithet is when you substitute the use of a word for another word. The most commonly-used one in fandom is orbs instead of eyes.
Let me be frank. Eyes, as they are set in the face, are not orbs. Eyeballs, outside of the face, are orbs. Materia are orbs. Planets are orbs. Eyes are not orbs. Get over it!
In fact, fandom in general really does overuse description of eyes. No one notices eyes as much as Final Fantasy characters, apparently. It’s really screwy.
Back to epithets. Some are acceptable, some are not. I routinely call Vincent, “the gunslinger,” instead of Vincent. I’ve found that using occupation tends to be a little more acceptable than any other kind of epithet – it all goes back to what I said earlier about overusing sounds and words. I use them to shake it up a bit, but like everything else it can be overused. Keep in mind, it does depend on situation and use. When using an epithet, my rule of thumb is to say it aloud. If it sounds ridiculous, don’t use it. There was a fic I read forever ago that routinely referred to Cloud as, “the buster sword wielder.” What a mouthful! If it sounds retarded, it is retarded. Don’t use it.
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Proper formatting - This is a HUGE issue, especially on FFN. It is also, naturally, one I was guilty of in the past and have since fixed. Here are a few basic points:
- You need to make sure there is a space in between every paragraph, since FFN does not do indents properly. Otherwise it makes my eyes bleed.
- DO NOT CENTER OR ITALICIZE EVERYTHING UNLESS THERE IS A SERIOUSLY NEEDED REASON.
- Look at my above sentence. Does that make you angry? DOES IT TURN YOU INTO THE HULK? Yes. Stay away from allcaps unless there’s a good reason, as well.
- Make sure there is a scene divider of some sort in there. FFN doesn’t allow any sort of scene divider except for the horizontal rule, although there are apparently ways to get around that. But something…! Anything…! Don’t just willy-nilly start a new scene with no split!
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I don’t need no stinkin’ beta! - NO! BAD PUPPY! Everyone needs a good beta reader. And please let me reiterate this: a good beta reader. A Yuffentine fic I read some time ago, one that still gets my goat to this DAY, was a good ninety plus chapters long. This writer had a BEVY of beta readers. And yet there were errors up the wazoo – spelling errors, grammatical errors, misused words, formatting errors. Note that ALL of those are technical errors, nothing to do with plot or characterization. And yet her three or four beta readers didn’t catch it. My single beta reader catches errors every time, and I’m anal about using proper grammar and spelling. If I need a beta reader, so do you – and not just one of your friends who likes your stories! Someone who knows what they’re doing! But there is a light at the end of the tunnel – the whole Beta Readers for Hire section of Tifa’s Office on the Genesis Awards. Go there. Now.
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Using big words where small ones will suffice – This. This especially. Occasionally, a big word is needed. But I’ll be frank, here – I’m a former journalist. One of the first things they teach you as a journalist is that you need to cut out the excess. Length does not equal quality. Do not say diminuative when you could say small. Do not say masticate when you could say chew. There’s no need for big words with smaller counterparts, unless you’re really trying to make your reader feel stupid. If this is the case, well, now you know why you never get invited to parties, don’t you?
In all actuality, sometimes a big word is called for. I’m sure scientists don’t walk around in their lab using simple words to describe immense discoveries. I’m sure doctors would refer to it as “the aorta” rather than “that big thinger comin’ out of ‘is heart!” But think about it: Would Yuffie say, “The doctor performed an appendectomy on my lower torso,” or , “The doc took my ‘pendix out! Look at this nifty scar!”
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Not calling a duck a duck - Okay. Let’s get something straight here. I have no problem with Original Characters, and I actually do not have any problem with self-inserts. What I have a problem with is 1. Mary Sues, and 2. Thinly-veiled self-inserts (even those that are not Mary Sues) that do not come out and say they are self-inserts. ALL I ASK, people, is that you be honest with me. I, at least, am not prejudiced against your original character/self insert, and if it’s well-written I will read it.
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Mangled Original Characters - This goes along with what I was saying about characterization before, but it’s a big one. If you are going to create an original character, I am one hundred percent totally and completely cool with this.
That said, take extreme caution when doing so. Creating an original character is a wholly different entity than playing around with someone else’s, pre-created, ready-to-be-used characters. Your character needs to have a definite place in the world, an occupation at the very least. Do they have family? Friends? Any special talents or faults? What do they look like? What is their background?
Answer all of these things. Then go back and reread them, and decide whether it’s ridiculous or not. Some points:
- Very few people have eyes that change color, especially in accordance to their moods. This is huge Mary Sue territory, so generally, stay away from unusual eyes unless it’s a required plot point.
- Very few people are astonishingly beautiful. The world, unfortunately, is not full of Angelina Joli’s and Brad Pitt’s. Your character may be beautiful, and that is fine, but unless there’s a reason for all of this, you don’t need to even go into detail with description of them other than the basics: height, weight, hair color, skin color, basic stuff. For instance:
“He was of completely average and nondescript height, allowing him to blend in with a crowd at a moment’s notice. His sandy blond hair was also nothing out of the ordinary, being close-cropped and coming in at just above his utterly boring, unpierced ears. While his skin certainly was not bronzed, there was a bit of coloring to it, showing extended time either at the beach or in a tanning bed. Really, the only unusual things about him were his startlingly blue eyes and the laugh lines around them, both of which were easily hidden by keeping one’s head low.”
I’m not one to brag, but that’s an okay descriptive paragraph (and I wrote it just now). It contains everything you need to know about the person’s appearance, leaving a great deal of detail up to the reader. When people are reading, they like to put people they associate with that character into places, anyway – a prime example is for Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonrider’s of Pern series. She has a character, the Masterharper of all of Pern, named Robinton. Robinton is well-loved and respected throughout the entire world. He was never described thoroughly, and because of that, I substituted his image with my (may he rest in peace) middle school band teacher, who had been a second father to me. Readers do this sort of thing all the time – it’s best to let them decide on their own. They ain’t stupid, yanno. - There is a time and a place for a character who is physically superior to your cast. Determine if your character really needs to be, for his or her part in the storyline. If not, axe that.
- Human beings have quirks, and many of them not so endearing. Make your character bite their nails or have an eye-twitch. Anything to make them something other than cookie-cutter cutouts.
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There we have it. My fanfiction peeves, all condensed into one huge essay. I’ll be adding to this as peeves occur to me, of course, but for the most part, if you’ve read this, taken it to heart, and decided to learn from your mistakes, you’re one step ahead of all of your peers. Now go forth and correct your mistakes! I command thee!