Tilde and Timerunner
here. We’re currently eating Shrimp Picante at a cozy café near
the University of the Philippines as we hurry to beat the deadline for
the November issue of "Red Hats". We’re really pressed for time,
so instead of the wonderful essay we were planning to write for you folks,
you get the following list.
A.
Why write fanfic in the first place?
- The plots on the show suck, we
must all write to compensate for Spelling’s inadequacies. (Charlie’s
Angels is only slightly better than his other masterpieces: 90210 and
Melrose Place.) After watching several seasons, one marvels at the iron
stomachs of all the actors. Imagine not only swallowing crappy lines
but also spewing them on national TV! Once again, the authors would
like to express their admiration for Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith, Cheryl
Ladd, and David Doyle. If Fawcett, Hack, and Roberts appear to have
such low IQs on the series, it’s because the writers keep shoving idiocy
in their faces.
- It’s fun. After you write your
first piece, you will find yourself coming back again and again to sit
in front of your monitor, plagued by a blinking cursor, waiting for
inspiration. In short, you will be reduced to a pathetic ball of flesh,
returning to your computer like a needy lover. You will become a funfic
junkie.
- We never got to see any sex on
the show, as Cheryl Ladd so aptly puts it…they were like "girl
scouts". So if you want to spice up the life of your favorite Angel,
just make sure you place the appropriate R or NC-17 rating before your
text. (Timerunner disagrees with this; he’ll speak about this later).
Oh, and please, no multiple partners, no animals, no children, and no
inanimate objects.
- The character of Charlie was obviously
not well thought out. If Charlie were this Kaiser Sose type, what the
hell would he need Private Investigators for? If Charlie were Cancerman
or some sort of shadowy powerbroker, what would he need PIs for? If
Charlie was Chewbacca… you get the idea… His entire character doesn’t
make sense. It’s not plausible to have a Charles Townsend based on the
information provided in the series. So giving others the real deal on
Mr. Townsend would be a great reason to write a story.
- It’s a great new way to introduce
ANCs (Annoying New Characters) which are nothing but mouthpieces of
the author or are purely for the purpose of fulfilling the writer’s
fantasies.
- They didn’t treat your favorite
Angel correctly, (which actually ties in with #5). You as the author
will give Sabrina/Kelly/Kris or even (God forbid) Jill/Tiff/Julie the
lines and situations they deserve.
- To delve into other aspects of
the character, to flesh out the characters more effectively than the
writers did. (This ties into #1). For example, Bosley is a highly underused
character. Think of it, here is a red-blooded male working with three
gorgeous young women, and thinking, "Great, how much did they spend
this time?" The only explanation for this sort of behavior is impotence,
homosexuality, or stupidity. None of which seems to fit Bosley’s character.
Tilde chooses to explain it as a fraternal sort of love for the Angels.
Timerunner thinks Bosley is a staid accountant/shaggy dog by day and
a gigolo by night. What do you think?
- You’re too lazy or too scared to
create characters of your own, hence you are borrowing pre-existing
characters. Much like the writers for Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and
Sweet Valley High. Eww. Well, look at it this way, it’s better than
writing for Mills and Boone.
- It’s good practice for your communication
and writing skills. Your readers’ comments and your own standard of
quality will push you to hone your talents.
- To get your fifteen minutes of
fame. Take it from Timerunner, whose anime fanfic has been published
in Germany. Timerunner is currently considering writing a piece about
the Angels.
- To alleviate boredom. (i.e. you
don’t like the plot that God gave you, so you’re making your own).
- You want to play God.
- You like having your name on the
by-line, and having people read your story all over the world. (ideally,
anyway).
- You have all these wonderful ideas
to share with the rest of the world. Again, see the item about ANC’s.
- You’re drunk.
- You’ve just been rejected by your
lover/husband/wife/father/mother/dog/credit company and you would love
to blame it all on someone, but unfortunately, it’s all your fault.
So you conjure up a person of your own making and blame it on him/her.
Blame it all on Charlie. The foreclosure of your house was all his fault.
- You have no life and would like
to share your non-life with the rest of the world. For guidelines, see
the Web Page "The Life and Times of a 41-Year-Old Virgin".
- You’ve been listening to country
songs all day and must find some way of recharging your brain cells.
Or alternately, you’ve been listening to country songs all day, and
would now want to write about "Jill: Ain’t She Peachy Keen".
- You’ve found an old story of yours
that had you starring in it, but are too ashamed to use your real name,
so you substitute Kelly/Bosley/Kris/Sabrina/Charlie’s name for your
own. Anybody who’s done this, raise your hands. Oh, hello Tilde. Shut
up, Timerunner.
- They stopped showing Charlie’s
Angels on cable and you’re going through withdrawal. Hey, it worked
for Tilde. Didn’t I tell you to shut up?
B.
Concrete tips for writing fanfic:
- Watch your grammar and spelling.
We beg you, use the grammar and spelling tools in your word processing
program. If your word processing program doesn’t have one, then you
owe it to your readers to either get better software or have your gradeschool
English teacher check your piece. Alternately, you can check out tip
number 9.
- Get a style guide. It’s worth every
penny. For one thing, you’ll write better fanfic knowing that there
is no such word as "till" unless you mean "tilling the
soil." The correct contraction of "until" is ‘til, and
even that isn’t quite kosher in formal writing. A style guide is nothing
but that – a guide. It does outline some very basic, unbreakable laws
of grammar, usage, and spelling; but otherwise you can use "till"
till Johnny comes marching home. More importantly, a style guide will
polish the same skill you use to write resumes, proposals, memos, and
business letters.
- All plots must be plausible to
the reader. If you can write well enough to make your readers believe
that the Angels can fly off in a rocket and rescue E.T. from Marvin
the Martian, then go for it. All you have to do is make the story believable,
make it real for your readers.
- It may be a good idea to use a
pseudonym or pen name, just in case you can’t handle being insulted
with your own name. Kidding aside, some fanfic authors are antsy about
getting sued or having their employers find out about their fanfic addiction.
- Flesh out the plot first, then
write in the details. It’s good to have a skeleton to build descriptive
and narrative paragraphs around. But no 70 page descriptions of the
Paris sewer system, please.
- Use expressive language. Too many
brows have furrowed and too many characters have been shoulders to cry
on. You can use the old reliable metaphors (clichés) or be adventurous
and come up with your own descriptions. Frankly, we think that the Angels
were characterized about as accurately as you were in your high school
yearbook. That’s not saying much, is it?
- Avoid writing in the passive tense.
It makes you and your characters sound indecisive at best and wimpy
at worst.
- Keep your subjects and your verbs
from feuding. I is serious about those.
- Have another person edit your work
and summarize your story (theme, etc.) so you can see if your point
comes across to the readers.
- Vary your perspectives…(omniscient
third person, intense first person, objective second person). Not in
the same story though. The advantage of writing in third person is that
you get to "read" everyone’s thoughts. This is certainly advantageous
to a romantic or day-in-the-life story, but would lack the immediacy
and intimacy that a first-person perspective can provide a piece that
is your homage to Lethal Weapon.
- Learn to take constructive criticism.
Naturally, we all think our finished piece is something that should
be narrated by Anthony Hopkins and/or filmed by Martin Scorsese. Tilde
is often less than pleasantly surprised to find out that her plots are
as holey as Swiss cheese.
- Learn to separate yourself from
your work. Your readers should be left alone to build their own intertextual
relationship with your piece. As long as they were touched on some level
or made to think twice about something they took for granted, you have
succeeded as a writer. Remember, fanfic was made to be enjoyed by other
equally fanatic people. So as long as people enjoyed it, then you’re
doing fine.
- If you get flames or any nasty
mail, it is always your CHOICE to feel bad about it or not. If you feel
that this reader’s harshness is unwarranted then you should just ignore
it. Never listen to the IQ-deficient or the tactless. It’s a waste of
time. On the other hand, if this reader’s comments are justified (he/she
was just bitchy about it) then you should pay attention to their ideas
and forget their snideness. We’re glad to say that the Angel fans live
up to their halos. Readers are generally very nice and tactful.
- Try not to ‘tell’ your readers
everything. ‘Show’ is much better, as it gives your readers a chance
to form their own opinions about your piece. Personally, I like to steer
my readers into forming a certain opinion close to my original intent,
but then again; I’m a control freak.
- Know when to separate your work
into chapters. End on a suitable note. Do NOT end it on something like
the following:
Kelly ran into
the woods, pursued by a hundred million thugs all with one thing on
their minds. She tripped and twisted her ankle.
But anyway, Jill
was busy, getting the gum out of her voluminous hair.
Then again, this
could be an effective way to get your readers to demand more. However,
this could also be an effective way to get yourself lynched. (Note to
the mob of Farrah fans: Timerunner can be reached at keiichi@i-manila.com.ph.
I had nothing to do with it. He’s the sarcastic one.)
Ahem. Anyway…
- Music is a good way to get you
in the mood. Uh, to write, that is. Wine helps for some; other just
tend to ramble when inebriated. For example, Tilde’s "The Star".
- Putting a rating on your work only
serves to make little Timmy want to read the ‘good parts’ all the more,
so I don’t bother. Tilde, on the other hand, likes tormenting horny
14 year-olds and not give up the goods. In her writing, that is. In
real life, she tends to torment older horny bastards.
- A darker mood does not a story
make. Just because you reveal Charlie as someone who lost his dog to
the mob doesn’t mean you have a better story because of his angst, no
matter how dog-loving your readers may be.
- If your fanfic is just going to
be some excuse for literary smut (not that we disapprove, mind you),
you might just want to make it good smut. As in, no anatomically impossible
positions unless you reveal Jill to be a contortionist. Fanboys, take
note. It helps to have an inkling of what the act is like. If you’re
simply shooting from the hip (bad metaphor), it’ll show you for the
deprived person that you are.
- Have a sense of humor about the
series. I mean, come on. It may have been good for it’s time (and maybe
not even that), but we’ve lived through the 80’s (God, did we have to
live through the 80’s) and the 90’s, we’ve seen better. Just ask the
Pamela Lee fans :P. If some authors choose to make comedic fanfic, you
shouldn't send them hate mail. Flame them if it’s BAD comedic fanfic.
Kidding aside, most of us live in free countries. Otherwise, you wouldn’t
even have been able to watch the series.
- Aaron Spelling is not God. Get
that through your heads. That goes to all you Kindred: The Embraced
fans, too. Therefore, you shouldn’t really respect canon all that much
either, if you find it stifles your writing. I mean, if you were going
to write Casper and the Charlie’s Angels (dear God, no), some break
from canon is required.
- That being said, Aaron Spelling
is not an idiot either. Never post any story/poem/essay without first
crediting Spelling, Goldberg, and Columbia Pictures. Timerunner and
I could probably afford to go commando (sans disclaimer), but that’s
because we live in the Philippines and we’re college students. It would
be difficult to sue us. You may not have the luxury of living on the
other side of the planet, however, so we strongly suggest using disclaimers.
- This item is intentionally left
blank. Are you still with us?
- Support other people who write
fanfic. Read their stories and e-mail them your comments. It is as important
to them as it is to you.
- PLEASE end your stories properly.
As an example of what NOT to do:
Okay, so Jill
finally got the gum out of her hair. Unfortunately, the thugs got
to Kelly and forced her to do all sorts of nasty evil things with
them. Like tearing the tags off of pillows. But at least Jill was
happy.
The End
Did you like that
ending? Granted, you didn’t the story, but that’s not the point. Always
give your characters the ending they deserve. With the possible exception
if Jill, Tiff and Julie. If you gave them the ending they deserved, the
series would have ended prematurely. (Once again, I may be contacted at
keiichi@i-manila.com.ph.)
As an addendum
to that…it is important to END your stories in the first place. Unlike
Timerunner, who feels that it is okay to leave his readers hanging after
a particularly gratifying, violent, and gory action scene…you should plan
the ending ahead of time. Don’t make your readers suffer, they have a
nasty habit of nagging you via e-mail to finish the fanfic series.
FINALLY…
There are very few
Angel fans out there who are brave enough and confident enough to write
fanfic, but there are a big bunch of people who love to read it. We hope
that this hurried list/essay helps transform some of the readers into
writers. The odd thing about fanfic is that the more you read it, the
more you want to write your own fic. Please take the plunge and post your
story. It doesn’t have to be literary; it doesn’t have to be long… it
does have to be honest. Write about the things you care about or know
about, and your readers will pick up on that passion.
About the Authors:
Tilde (~) wrote "Angelic
Phenomenon" for the maiden issue of Red Hats. She keeps promising
to unveil her WINGED website, but her sufferings as a Bio major at the
University of the Philippines allegedly keep her from doing so. (Tilde
lusts after an M.D.) She has one finished fanfic "The Star"
and has two unfinished series languishing in her hard disk. She can be
reached at thetilde@geocities.com.
Timerunner is planning
to write "Hairball" his tribute to Jill’s stunning intelligence
as soon as he finishes his current anime fanfic series. He is majoring
in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines and plans to
become a lawyer and rule the world. He can be reached at keiichi@i-manila.com.ph.
You may send hate mail, but Tilde retains the exclusive right to irritate
and injure Timerunner.
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