Get your own Free HomepageTake a look at these two story extracts:
Mr Benn leaves the shop. He walked down festive road.
The shopkeeper stood behind the wooden counter, regarding him from under his ever present fez. "I hope you enjoyed your adventure, sir" he said. "Why don't you keep the feather as a souvenier."
Mr Benn looked at the roc's feather. It glittered in his hand, and he could almost feel the ancient desert winds of Arabia ruffling his hair again. "Thank you," he said, and tucked the feather away into a trouser pocket.
He took a final look at the outfit he had just removed: the jacket, pantaloons and turban; the curly toed sandals that were still covered in sand. He passed the garments to the shopkeeper and left, a bell jangling as he opened the door.
Outside, the air was warm and unstirred by wind. Mr Benn walked away from the magical fancy dress shop and returned to his home on Festive Road, passing the children playing in the street, the man walking his dog, the neighbours gossiping - and he wondered which outfit he would choose when he next went to the shop, where his next adventure would take him. He'd just have to wait and see.
Which did you prefer? If you said "2" (and I hope that you did), then you recognise that the quality of writing in a piece of fiction is important. And if you've read through many of the fanfics on the web, then you'll know that there are far too many stories written in the style of the first extract out there.
What makes a good fanfic? Well, usually the best fanfics are written in a professional manner; that is, the authors try to make their stories as stylisticly close to a piece of fiction that you'd buy in a bookstore as possible. To do this, they have to have read enough fiction to understand what makes a good story. There's a very good reason why you don't read Peter and Jane books any more!
Of course, what really makes a good fanfic is style. Take the ER Holdridge My So-Called Life scripts, for instance. Not only are they so professionally written it hurts, but they drip style by the bucketload. Each story creates an atmosphere that is hard to shake off after the end of the script - it's like you've just lived through the events with the characters.
Of course, that doesn't matter if you don't have characters to hang on to, good guys to cheer and bad guys to boo, or preferably, guys who are good *and* bad, just like people are in real life. The Holdridge scripts were a continuatuion of a series that lasted just nineteen episodes, and while the writers and actors of the series did create some great characters, it was ER Holdridge who infused them with life. Why else would so many fans of the show become even bigger fans of these scripts?
Of course, that doesn't matter if you don't have a good plot. Each of the ER Holdridge scripts weaves a spellbinding story that is by turns moving, funny and gripping. A decent plot should contain original ideas and great twists, and a well thought out ending.
Of course, great dialogue is also necessary. Forget Shakespeare and English class; write what the characters would say. The ER Holdridge scripts contain the staticco gen-x mumblings so beloved of the teenagers in the series, as well as the more mature but still fumbling in the dark lines of the adults. There are great put downs and poignant musings.
In fact, the only thing you don't really need in a fanfic, is intimate knowledge of the show.
Of course, if you want to please the fans as well as providing a good read, then it helps.
Take everything above, add impeccable spelling, grammer and punctuation, and you might just produce something so hot it sears the eyes of those who read it.
Alternately, write until it feels good. Write from the heart. Read like hell. And at least try to address some of the points above. When you've written good fanfic, people will let you know. Just ask ER Holdridge.
Here are some of the fan fic no-nos that I keep coming across, and don't ever want to see again.
1. He walks down the stairs. He put on his hat.
Once you've chosen a tense (preferable before you start writing), stick with it. Tense switching reads badly.
2. He said what?
Communicate with your reader, don't let them get confused unless that is the effect you are after, and don't ever use a word unless you know what it means.
3. Deja vu.
Don't use lines, scenes, etc that have already appeared in your show, unless it's part of the plot. If Unicron turned Megatron into Galvatron, have a flashback to it by all means but don't rerun the exact same scene, changing the names to those of your characters. Fans will spot it a mile off.
4. So Scully believes? If you are going to change the disposition of an established character completely and without reason, be prepared to suffer hate mail. No one likes to see their heroes being slaughtered.
5. Funny ha-ha? If you are doing a comedic story, for God's sake make it funny! And never ever steal someone else's jokes.
6. South Park meets The X-Files. (I apologize in advance if there is already a fanfic by this name)
Why must all crossovers be the same with the same old characters? Mulder and Scully have met everybody by now, and it looks as though Cartman and friends are about to do the same. How about using Rocky and Bullwinkle, or Sunset Beach? My personal favourite idea for a crossover is the Gremlins in Eerie, Indiana. If anyone wants to do that one, and does a good job on it, they get a special mention. (now there's an incentive!)
7. The plot is out there!
In a crossover, make sure that there is a plot. Just having two sets of characters meet is tedious.
Hopefully, this will help out those people who write fanfics and read fanfic, and consequently make the fan fiction world a better place. There is one last point, though. With net fan fiction, you can do something easily, once you've finished reading, and that is emailing the author. An author is more likely to write better fiction if they are praised when they do something well, and as an author, there is nothing finer than being complimented on you work.
Dan Ness, May, 1998
© Dan Ness, 1998. So you want to redistribute this, huh? Well tough! This is my work, and it stays here. Link to the title page.
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