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[04 Jan 2005|04:27pm] |
Seven Easy Steps to Being a Good Fanfiction Author:
1. Start with badfic. Suefics, badslash, whatever. Yes, start with this. Why? Because you're probably young and don't know any better. It's how I started.
2. Listen to the criticism offered by people when they give it -- even if it's meanly given (which will be unavoidable in some cases). If you get overly emotional when you first read it, take a step back. Come back to it the next day, or the next week, or whatever, when you're ready to ignore the jibes and look at the actual content. Compare your own writing to, for example, the writing of some of the more popular authors you see in your fandom, or to one of your favorite published authors (who aren't always the best examples anyway, damn published authors filling the world with canon!Sues...). Look at how the criticism offered bridges the gap between your story and that of those other authors. Does it look like it matches up with some of the differences?
3. Keep writing. On your next fic, get a friend, or someone else online, to look it over for you. It doesn't matter whether or not you actually know them, as long as they'll either a) tell you that this particular story completely sucks (in which case, trash it and start this step over again), or b) tell you how you can improve the story. It doesn't need to be perfect this time, but if you can make it better than your last story was, you're already winning half of the battle. Post this new story.
4. Look, more reviews! With any luck, you'll get some people back again. With a bit more luck, they'll comment on how you've improved, and offer some more advice. Some may just point out what's wrong with this one, too, but hopefully, they won't rag on you like some of them might have last time. Again, if anything makes you too angry, take a step back and return to it later when you can think about it objectively.
5. Start talking to other people online. Join some communities on LJ, for example, and look at what they ridicule, and what they like. Some of them are very harsh on new and/or badfic authors, but luckily, you're not one of them anymore, eh? Again, even if they are harsh, they often know what they're talking about, so look at what they ARE ragging on. See what they're doing wrong; hopefully, it's stuff you're already working on, or maybe you weren't even doing it wrong to begin with. :)
6. Sit down. Think about a story idea. Write it out. Write down everything you can think of about the story. Don't start writing the story itself, just start writing ideas for it. Get out everything you can -- when it takes place, what characters it focuses on, what new elements it needs to introduce, etc. Then, wait one week; don't think about it at all, if you can help it. Afterwards, come back to it and look at your notes. If it still seems like a really cool idea, go for it. Start writing. Ask your friends for advice on it. See if it really works; maybe something that makes perfect sense to you isn't quite as clear to someone else. Spend time on it. Do a second, or even a third draft. Get a real beta, who will critique the story, double-check it for grammar, and even iron your underwear (I'm joking about that last bit).
7. Post. Wait for reviews to come in. Maybe this new story is not perfect, and maybe people will find things wrong with it... but you've put a helluva lot more effort into it than anything you had before this, and that is something to be proud of. Not only have you written something, and posted it, but you've improved.
Now that you know the secret to being a good fanfiction author, spread the word. ;)
Ganked from ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif) jonathlee on LJ.
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