A Beginners Guide to Writing Fanfiction
By Nathan
Before we get to the topic at hand I would like to ask that you not head into writing fanfic as a way to get notice and acclaim from your readers. Because chances are you won't get a whole lot of feedback and what you may get won't always be positive regard. I merely ask this because it will save you more than a bit of trouble if you don't go into writing fanfic with false expectations. Okay, with that bit of digression done with we can begin.
Now as a recent fanfiction archivist, a slightly longer time fanfiction writer, and an even longer time fanfiction reader I have read, written, and archived a variety of fanfiction. In doing so I think I've picked up enough to offer, at the very least, some basic advice to beginning writers. Now this will not be one of those "method of writing" types of articles but will be focusing more on specific, basic things that will help a beginning author. For you convenience I will list my points numerically.
1. The very first things I will be addressing should be common knowledge as it has been harped on by people whose pages are more popular than mine but probably isn't as when I mentioned I would be writing this it was one of the first things suggested for inclusion. That is of course the need to use spell checker and get a beta reader for you fanfiction. This is important because, quite frankly, if your story is too difficult to understand due to these sort of errors most people won't continue with reading it (plus you may be receiving some unpleasant e-mails). The spellchecker should be on your wordprocessor and doesn't take much time to use. I realize this is basic but you'd be surprised how many spelling errors you inadvertently make that you don't catch.
A betareader is even more important as not only do they usually correct your grammar (which is a blessing to people like myself) but they can also point out plot errors, dialogue problems, and other flaws in your work. In matters like this, even if you don't take the betareaders advice at least you can have someone else's perspective on your work to take into account, which is a definite advantage. Now if you don't know where to find a betareader you can look in a couple of places. Firstly, you can advertise on the SFA posting board and take a look at who responds. The second way is to go to one of the beta readers that the BTVS Writers Guild has on their betareaders page (this link is to the Guild page itself, just go through the menus to get there). I have seen other places where you can get betareaders but I don't know any of the people there so I can't vouch for their quality.
2. A second piece of advice I'll give you is to always be willing to change you work. Whether this takes the form of changing whole parts of your story that aren't working out or endless rewriting. No matter how much you like certain ideas you have to be willing to jettison them if they don't work out. As a personal example, when I began "A Dark Future" it started out much different than what you see on my site and it wasn't a good thing at all. Well four rewrites later and "A Dark Future" part one ended up at least reasonably good. Now this doesn't mean that you'll always get a story done exactly as you want it to as writing is not a precise science by any means but it does mean that I feel that an authors owes it to their future readers to rewrite until they feel they have the story completed the best that they can.
3. Another thing I would advice you to do in regards to writings is to research. This is in regards to both show cannon and other, more topic specific, research. In regards to the show you had better have a decent knowledge of the cannon. Otherwise you will hear about it from you readers. In regards to other research, it is probably a good idea to have some feel for any special topics that are crucial to your topics as well as a decent knowledge of the geography of the region the story is set in.
4. Be very careful how you address social issues in your fanfic. If you want to work in an issue fine but I should warn you that preaching on an issue can turn off large amounts of readers and can ruin you fic. By preaching I mean that your fic can address a social problem but please do not blatantly use the fic to preach you position on whatever issue you feel strongly about. For example, I read a fic a few years ago (the title of which I don't remember), which featured a student bringing a gun into Sunnydale High and fatally shooting a cast member (which I recall was Buffy). Now there was definite potential in this fic to both tell an emotionally gripping story and take a solid look at a current problem (especially since when I read this it was before Columbine when the guns in school issue was not yet front and center in most people's minds). In my mind (and I hate to do this since, in general, I dislike critizing other authors) the author blew this chance as the fic moved unrealistically in the course of preaching the author's position on gun control. Now I'm not saying it's wrong to try to advance an issue through fiction (Upton Sinclair is etched in literary history for doing that) but you should remember that there will be people who disagree with you so you should convince on the way of telling the story instead of making the story's sole point to preach your position through the mouths of the characters.
5. Avoid over used story ideas. We all know that certain stories predominate (especially in Buffy fandom). Certain of these story types have been done so often that they have become a cliché (Such as the recent trend toward turning Angel human so he and Buffy can be together). If I were you I would tend to avoid pieces of this type unless you have a new way of looking at them. Not that the stories would be bad but it's just that if you've seen a story type done time and time again, exactly the same way, then chances are that your audience has as well. Now if you have a way that plays off the clichés of this common plot type to make the story into something different then that is a different matter.
6. Read, and not just fanfic either but a variety. Read novels, short stories, really whatever you'd like at it can make you a better writer. This happens when you read as a writer and try to realize what worked (or didn't work) in any given writing. Some of the best writers (including Gaston Leroux the author of Phantom of the Opera) have been prodigious readers.
7. Lastly, write what your happy with writing. Do not ever try to write to get a readership or to try to please your readers. Chances are that it won't work for that purpose nor will it likely be good fiction. As Kurt Vonnegut put it in the foreword to his short story collection "Bugambo Snuffbox": "If your story opens a window and makes love to the world then it will catch cold." If you write something that is truly a tale you want to tell, others will notice and they'll respond to it.
Now the list I've detailed above is by no means all-inclusive and you'll find other things that will help or hinder you in your efforts. However, I hope that with this list you'll have an idea of how to begin as well as what to avoid. With the rise of the internet fanfic writing is one of the only completely open, creative outlets around with a variety of voices coming from all sides. Hopefully this paper makes it a little easier for you to add your voice to the din.