Self-survey on Fanfic Writing

[aadler]

 
I saw this at BW Fanfic Ezine, and thought I’d check myself against it:

10 Sins Your Fanfic Readers Can’t Forgive (And How to Avoid Them)

(1) Bad smut.
Sorry. Don’t write smut. In fifty-odd stories, I’ve written precisely one sex scene, and that was pretty bare-bones.*

*Oops, make that two. The first was “Beg to Differ” (2005), but “Otherwise a Perfect Sky” (2010) also qualifies. Forgot about that.

(2) Grammar mistakes and typos.
I know I make mistakes, but I also know I’m much better than most when it comes to basic spelling and grammar. Plus, I re-read my own stuff on a regular basis, and occasionally catch small things that snuck by me.

(3) Tighten your tense!
Really not a problem for me. I’ve experimented with different tenses for narration, but I’m pretty consistent within each story.

(4) A rose by any other name …
If you’re going to write fanfiction, be certain that you know your characters. This includes the names they call one another …
Almost all my fanfic is in Buffy or Angel, and I’ve seen most of the episodes multiple times, so I’m fairly solid on names and nicknames. If I’ve ever missed a favored nickname (something that one particular character regularly calls another), I’ve never used — or worse, invented — a grossly uncharacteristic nickname. (I’ve also never been guilty of “Druscilla” or “Rosenburg”, though I do insist on “Wesley Wyndham-Pryce” even when I’ve seen it spelled “Windham-Price” on official sites. I just plain like my way better.)

(5) Know your kids!
Working with children can be tricky …
Nope. Don’t write kids.

(6) Choose your battles carefully.
If you’re going with a hot-button issue like rape, incest, or character death, tread lightly …
I don’t really do hot-button issues, and even when I touch on one of the above-listed items, my treatment generally isn’t going to inflame anybody. I’m just not that lurid.

(7) The curse of the endless fic.
The longest I’ve ever written (in partnership with sroni) was a bit over 50,000 words. I’m just not given to epics.

(8) The thinly-disguised play-by-play.
How often have you read a fic promising new insight into a scene played out on the screen, only to realize that the author is essentially just describing exactly what happened on the show, with a minimal dash of inner dialogue to keep things going?
I also don’t do retellings, so this one isn’t even a potential weakness. The closest I’ve ever done is to briefly describe a scene that appeared in canon, in order to use it as a springboard to take the story in a direction of my choosing.

(9) Mary Sue self-insertion.
The only Mary Sues I ever did were deliberate, in “Unbidden the Day”. It was a conscious near-parody, and a lot of fun. I’m a middle-aged male, so Mary Sue is not a consistent vulnerability on my part.

(10) Learn to write a summary.
This is one that could very well apply to me. I don’t really do summaries at all, because I don’t want to give away anything in the story. In their place, I do what I call teasers. Essentially, if someone knows me, they know that I write stuff worth reading (or, maybe, know that the kind of thing I write just doesn’t appeal to them). At this point I don’t see any reason to do anything differently … but summaries are a weakness for me, even if I don’t really put much value in them, so it’s a place where I have something I could learn.

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So, on looking it over, I find that I’m guilty of none of the top-10 ‘sins’ (with the possible exception of #10). Most of them don’t apply to me because I just don’t do any of the things that turn into a problem if done badly. A few of them — grammar/spelling, tenses, avoid-Mary-Sue — are no danger to me because I happen to be particularly good in those areas.

I’m sure I do have fanfic-writing flaws, and in the nature of such things, I’m almost certainly unaware of the most egregious. I happily welcome any feedback on areas that strike an outside reader as problem points.