my wish list for fanfic writers

[maudite_a_deux]

I love reading fanfic. Really, I do. And I love that people write it, because everyone should at least try to translate their imagination into words on paper (or screens). It takes a lot of guts to put your writing out there for others to read -- perhaps one percent of mine ever makes it that far.

As someone who writes professionally (albeit not fiction), I make an effort to be tolerant of less-than-perfect writing, because I think the most important thing is that you put it out there; after all, your writing won't improve much if you don't get outside opinions on it.

Still, sometimes I feel moved to make a list of stuff that gets on my nerves. Since nobody actually reads this lj, it won't do any good to post it, but I'm going to anyway. So there.

Maudite's Fanfic Peeves
Vol. 1

1. That's my name, don't wear it out:
   In real life, how often do you actually use someone's name when you're talking to them? Not very often, I'm guessing. But in an awful lot of fanfics, characters seem to toss each other's names around like they're going out of style.
   
   It's an easy mistake to make, especially if you really like the characters' names. I catch myself doing it all the time. But it's also an easy one to avoid. To see if you're doing it, just pull all the dialogue out of a scene, ignoring everything else, and see if it reads like this (culprit unnamed for her own protection):
   

   “Mustang…”
   
   “Come Elric, tell me in my office.”
   
   “God Damnit Roy, What am I going to do?”
   
   “Ed…You could stay… I am not saying that you can’t resign but… in all honesty Full metal I want you here, where else would you go if not to me? Please Edward… stay with me…”
   
   “Envy has taken everything from me Roy, if you think I will let him live with that satisfaction then you are some bastard Mustang.”

   
   And yes, that's all consecutive lines of dialogue, taking place in the same scene, between the same two characters. It's an especially egregious example because not only do they use each other's names every time they speak, they often use multiple versions of the other's name in the same sentence.
   
   Does this read like a real conversation to you? If you were talking to someone, would it ever sound like this?
   

   "John, will you take out the trash, Smith?"
   
   "Okay, Doe, but just this once, Pookie, because it's actually your turn, Jane."

   
   I rest my case.



2. The spellchecker is not your friend:
   Spellcheckers are a good thing. I have an uncanny knack for spelling, and even I use a spellchecker -- we all make typos, after all, and it's just good practice to run a spellcheck before submitting a final draft of your writing.
   
   Unfortunately, all too often people seem to put more faith in spellcheckers than is actually warranted. The spellchecker in MSWord is especially insidious, because when it catches a word that has a homophone, it asks if you really meant a different spelling of the word. It looks like it's caught an error, when in fact it's just telling you to make sure you're using the right one.
   
   Another common spellcheck mistake happens when two words share a root or otherwise have a lot of letters in common, and the writer unthinkingly accepts the first suggested replacement without verifying that it's the right word. Sometimes the results are hilarious, mind you; I've seen 'esophagus' substituted for 'sarcophagus', and just this morning I ran across a story titled "Braking the Silence."
   
   This is why, unless you know the spellchecker is right, you should double-check with a dictionary.
   
   While I'm at it, a brief note about using the thesaurus: synonyms don't always mean quite the same thing, so it's a good idea to look those up before using them, too. You want to make sure the sense of the word (and its common usage) is what you intend... otherwise you might end up with, say, a cellphone ejaculating its battery across the room... which I suspect isn't quite the mental picture the writer meant to evoke.



3. Arousal, still not a body part:
   I've said it before, I'll say it again: 'arousal' is a physical state, not a part of the body. Thus you can feel someone's arousal, but it will not spring forth when they unzip.
   
   That thing that springs forth? It's called a penis. Cock. Dick. Prick. Shaft. Whatever works for you. But arousal? Not something you can wrap your hand around. You feel someone's arousal by noticing that their penis/cock/dick/prick/shaft/winkie/love torpedo is hard/erect/throbbing/engorged/swollen/quivering (but never, for the love of all that's unholy, ever 'turgid').
   
   Other things that are not body parts include passion, excitement, and tumescence.
   

This concludes today's lesson.

Comments

[skittled.livejournal.com]

I'm guilty of that last one, unfortunately. But on all other accounts, definitely agreed.

Another hilarious "typo correction" I saw once was someone attempting to write 'bowl' and having it replaced as 'bowel'. Oops.

Also, icon love. XP

[maudite-a-deux.livejournal.com]

Also, icon love. XP

Right back atcha. Heh heh heh. You know, I hadn't really considered Ban/Kazuki until today, but the pairing is really growing on me...

[skittled.livejournal.com]

*snrk* It's been my main pairing for... geez, a few years now. Sadly it still doesn't get a lot of recognition.

[maudite-a-deux.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's hard to picture a pair together until you find a fic in which the pairing actually makes sense. consensual Akabane/Ginji, for instance, is just so fucking wrong. But today I read a fic that made it plausible, albeit in a temporary, situation-specific way. There were a couple of off notes, and the whole thing was a grammatical nightmare, but for the first time, I saw how something like that could theoretically come to pass.

When I picture Ban/Kazuki, I imagine Ban feeling very uncomfortable about his attraction to Kazuki -- whether Ban considered himself straight or gay to begin with, a crush on such an effeminate man could be hard for Mr. Tough Guy to admit to. One thing I really liked about your story My December was how very, very painfully awkward Ban is about his approach.

We forget sometimes how young Ban and Ginji are. They're teenage boys -- there's no creature on earth more clueless, passionate, and utterly incapable of coherent communication. It made such perfect sense to me for Ban to just keep grabbing Kazuki like that, kissing him and then running away before Kazuki can react in any way that might disappoint him.

Okay, okay, I'm fangirling all over you now, but I really do like that story. I'm glad to hear you haven't abandoned it.

[skittled.livejournal.com]

Ha. Your thoughts on the pairing match mine quite well. ^_^

And really, I've thought of abandoning it quite a few times but it's been around so long and I've put so much work into it (even if reading back and seeing how atrocious my writing was then makes me cringe) that I can't bring myself to just trash it. Sometimes I get stuck, and sometimes (like right now) all I need is just a little nudge to see that someone is still interested in it and wants me to finish it. So. That being said, I think I might go work on the next chapter now. XD

[maudite-a-deux.livejournal.com]

Squee! I shall await with bated breath!

And I know what you mean about looking back at the beginning of a story and being so horrified by your own writing that you don't want to finish it. Although right now I have the opposite problem -- I recently re-read an incomplete fic I posted some time back and realizzed I don't dare try to finish it because I don't think I can live up to what I wrote before. I'm not sure what had me so inspired, but I have no idea how to get myself back there.

[skittled.livejournal.com]

I know that feeling, too! Heh. I had one Ban/Kazu one-shot I was working on, and - like you said - I don't know what inspired me but I had such a groove working on it.

...And then my laptop died and I lost everything I'd been working on. -_- But that's another story all together. Ahem.

[rolling-scone.livejournal.com]

...never thought about that third thing, actually... but I have an explanation for the name thing, at least in manga and/or anime fandoms. the characters' names are mentioned often in such series, and whether that is a pro or con when it comes to the fandom I do not know. at least the fans know the names. :/ I tend to use the characters' names a lot in my narrative text, because I am against the overly extensive use of pronouns that sometimes makes you completely confused as to who is doing what. I also do not like when authors use "the blonde man" (...for multiple reasons, one being that for males one writes 'blond') and "the other boy", "the raven haired hero" and other such annoying descriptions instead of names. So maybe I do use the names a lot, but I try to use it sparingly in dialog, and at least I avoid the minute long pauses where the reader is trying to figure out what's going on. then again, somebody might be annoyed by my style, but that's life, eh?

[rolling-scone.livejournal.com]

oh, and are you a memeber of gravi_badfic?

[maudite-a-deux.livejournal.com]

Er... no... should I be? Or should I be running the other way screaming?

[rolling-scone.livejournal.com]

it's only a bunch of tired gravi authors/fans who bemoan the sad fate of the gravi fandom. it's quite amusing. I've been badficced there :3 (with SA)

[maudite-a-deux.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely, I'm all for using characters' names in narrative text rather than going through absurd verbal contortions to avoid them. That goes on the same principle as using "he said/she said" vs. going crazy with the 'exclaimed/declared/intoned/ejaculated/etc.' It's best to write around the issue entirely, but when you have to identify who's speaking, their name will blend more easily into the background than "the tall, gun-toting American".

I should've been clearer with my peeve. It's in dialogue that endless repetition of character names gets to me so much. And yes, it does seem to be more common in anime in general, which is possibly a cultural thing. If I'm not mistaken, in Japanese one generally refers to someone by name rather than as the generic 'you'. (I may be talking completely out of my ass, but that's at least the impression I get via watching things in Japanese with English subtitles.

Of course, when writing in English, it's best to stick to English usage conventions in most cases. It's just it's easier for an English-speaking audience to read that way. (With the possible exception of Ginji calling Ban 'Ban-chan' in GetBackers fics, because only constant repetition adequately conveys Ginji's charming-yet-irritating level of clinginess.)

Most decent fanfic writers seem to have a good sense of how much foreign usage and idiom makes for good seasoning vs. how much is just plain overkill. Because, you know, Emeril can say "there's no such thing as too much garlic" as many times as he wants, but as a moderately accomplished cook (and serious garlic lover) I happen to know he's talking absolute pants.