Disclaimer: Guess what? The characters and situations of the television program "Charlie's Angels" are the creations and property of Spelling-Goldberg Productions and Columbia Pictures Television, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.

Author's note: This essay first appeared in the November issue of Red Hats. We thank the editor-in-chief, Kim Freer for putting it up in the first place.

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?

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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?
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. To alleviate boredom. (i.e. you don’t like the plot that God gave you, so you’re making your own).
  12. You want to play God.
  13. You like having your name on the by-line, and having people read your story all over the world. (ideally, anyway).
  14. You have all these wonderful ideas to share with the rest of the world. Again, see the item about ANC’s.
  15. You’re drunk.
  16. 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.
  17. 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".
  18. 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".
  19. 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.
  20. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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?
  7. Avoid writing in the passive tense. It makes you and your characters sound indecisive at best and wimpy at worst.
  8. Keep your subjects and your verbs from feuding. I is serious about those.
  9. Have another person edit your work and summarize your story (theme, etc.) so you can see if your point comes across to the readers.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. Know when to separate your work into chapters. End on a suitable note. Do NOT end it on something like the following:
  16. 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…

  17. 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".
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. 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.
  22. 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.
  23. 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.
  24. This item is intentionally left blank. Are you still with us?
  25. 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.
  26. 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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