Hello, I'm an author in fan fiction and I'm very passionate about writing. Even if I stop suddenly in the middle. ---- [GUIDE TO WRITING! Why hullo! I'll be listing a bunch of things needed for an average story. :0 ----- Grammar. Grammar. It's crucially important. First of all, no "u"s or "r"s or any other abbreviations. It's vexing, us, the readers, don't like reading that. Have you seen authors writing a sentence like this?: "I like u. That was what I wanted 2 tell him so badly. I wished he luved me back." Yeah. It's that bad. As for puncuation, remember. A space after a comma and period. It's easier to read that way. :0 You need to put a comma in a sentence every now and then. Don't overdo it! A full stop comes after. Don't let it hanging. Paragraphs? Put a space after one. Don't right like this: ----- I like pie. Pie is so derpalicious, delicious, delicious, delicious, and delicious. Is it delicious? Do you think it's delicious? DO YOU WANT IT TO BE DELICIOUS, WOMAN?! Do you like pie? I LIKE PIE SO MUCH. ---- I've gone slightly off track with pie. .-. What I'm saying is, don't put a line after everything. It's painful to read, and it makes a huge gap in your story. Don't jam it together either. Like this: ------ Everything is so drab. Life is so drab. The atmosphere is drab. You are drab. I'm drab. We're all drab. Your outfit is drab. You make me feel drab. I'm dead inside. I like pie. Pie is yummy. Whip cream. Apple sauce. Fried icecream. Tomatoes. The world is flat. I am flat. No, I'm fat. You're fat. We're all fat. ----- That's a bit off track as well. It's fine if you have a long paragraph, but please seperate them every once in a while. If you're trying to add in a suspenseful effect, you can seperate sentences. Just don't do it so often, broski. As for the difference between "their", "there" and "they're". They're is short for "They are." E.g: *They're* so cruel, they use dirty tricks and trump cards to blackmail innocent people. There. We all know what it means, right? It's used to describe a place not so near you. Courtsey of "here". .-. E.g: *There* goes the last balloon, bro. Go buy me some more or I'll cry. And, finally, their. It's used to tell people it's... well, theirs. For example, if you have a dog and your neighbors have one as well, and a classmate comes over and says, "wow! Is that your dog?" You would reply, "No. That's *their* dog." Get the picture? If you dont, then here: E.g: *Their* toilet supply is almost out!! ROB THEM OF THEIR HYGENIC SUPPLIES, YEAH! And now, let's skip over to "you're" and "your". You're is short for "You are". I see very little authors use it. Come on, dudes. "*You're* so old, you should know this by now!" Not that old, but yes. It's not "Your so old, you should know this by now!" E.g: *You're* a horrible person! The shirt I lent you has a stain on it! A STAIN! OH MY GOD LOOK! IT'S A BIT CRUSTY AND THE STAIN IS THE SIZE OF MY PINKY NAIL!! As for "your", it means YOURS. Your posession, yours. E.g: "*Your* llama is cuter than your alpaca! Can I pet its shiny coat?!" Get the bigger picture? As for "its" and "it's". "Its" is to describe his or her posession, usually used when you're talking about an animal or thing. E.g: "*Its* hind leg is broken! TO THE VET, PEOPLE!" "It's" is short for "It is". E.g: "*It's* a llama. Not a flower loving alpaca!" ----- Now we're done with grammar, let's head over to storywriting. STORIES AND ITS BASICS Your story has to have an actual plot. Or meaning. Plot isn't always nessecary, but there HAS to be some sort of pillar that holds everything together. If there's no pillar, nothing will make sense. Now, ONTO THE BEGINNING! There are usually prolouges, telling the reader about the protagonist(main main character)'s background. Usually not, usually yes. It's optional, actually. But the first chapter HAS to actually interest the readers. Show your trump card! (If you even have one, anyway.) Now onwards! To the middle! *gallop gallop* Nobody likes a boring story. Well, depending on your views of what boring means. To me, boring is drab. In storywriting, it's just... lame. No descriptive or tricky words whatsoever. THAT, my dear rookies, is boring. Don't be like that or I'll cry from the trauma. Words such as "boisterous", meaning loud and noisy, "Impudent", (do I really have to explain it? Let's just say it's a cousin of insolent and ignorant.) "Egotistical", meaning arrogant. Something juicy that'll keep us reading, please! Now to the ending! *BADA BADA TRUMPETS BADA BADA BOOM!* There are also different types of ways to end a story. Cliffhangers, they're called that because of the suspense. It's like having a character hanging onto the cliff edge while the camera zooms out and leaves the person hanging there, shouting for the cameraman to go back. :3 Sappy ending: Those happy and typical Disney styled endings. Epilouge: I wouldn't really call that an ending. There's some books that end where nothing makes sense and the epilouge tells the reader what happened. o.o Let me repeat, not an actual ending. These are the three basic endings for beginners. Not basic, just EASY. Well, both are similar. Let's stick with basic. ---- TIPS AND ADVICE This is a section for random advice that, surprise, will actually help you. Don't always use "Rose did something Jason said. Rose didn't like it. Jason made her do it. Rose kept walking until she hit the wall, but Jason didn't care." Use "he", "she", "her", "him", "his", "her", "it", "we", "us", "they" or anything else. When using "She is", try using "She's". It's a lot less... serious... Or something. Not serious, it makes it sound less like some sort of boring documentary about an architect's life.
---- As I was saying after my rude interruption, advice! Using emoji after a sentence to describe how the character is feeling is pretty sad. Like this: "My face was like and June's face was like and Carmen's face went like and Joan's face went like " Seriously? That's even more tragic than when Jersey Shore was introduced to the world. Please, stick with words. It's a story, not a show where you show off your expressions. This should be in the grammar column, but I don't really... care. Tense. Past, present, future. "I did something. It wasn't productive though." Past tense. "I'm doing something. It isn't productive though." Present tense. "I will do something. It won't be productive though." Future tense. A story works better with past or present tense. When a story is written in future tense, it's a bit confusing. You can mix future tense in with present tense though, Sortof like "I'm doing dishes, June will do something later, mom!" Yep. But not "I will doing dishes, June is will do something later, mom!" Second one. No. Sense. AT ALL. And for emphasis. Using italics, bold and underline will help you. A LOT. Whether for sarcastic remarks in your story, or a dialouge, or any other crap. It makes it interesting to read. Using all three together emphasizes it a lot. Like having a two ton brick drop on your head and it goes "WHAM, BITCH!".
Thank you Katie. I'll post more tips in the future! Authors are welcome to post their tips, it'll help the fan fiction community even more!
I find it that if the author creates a sort of bond between the main protagonist and the reader then the reader will stay interested as they want to see what happens to said character
Indeed, Hero. That's why descriptive words are created. Using said words to describe said person would make it intriguing for the reader, which in many many cases is good. :0
Yes, most certainly, you seem very literate, from this I'm guessing you're either about 16/17 years old or a 11 year old child prodigy... Or, I might be totally wrong
Ahh. I remember when I used bad grammar. Of course I only used it to write faster, but I'm still ashamed. Great tips, bliz!
Oh god, kids used to not be able to write at this level, what has this world come to?! You're obviously Asian, they kinda own at nearly everything
Lmao. Thanks. 12, that's understandable. I used to rush through my LA assignments last year. I regret it dearly. If I hadn't, I would be in seventh grade. It's called rushing, my dear sir. It's like traffic when you decide to rush through and bulldoze the other pitiful vehicles. It's regrettable, but it's the past, broski! No sweat, it's all about learning from mistakes! Even if it wasn't a mistake, you could learn from it. :3
Awesome Blizzy! Oh, and can I say something? I really don't like it when people don't use quotation marks (" and ") and when they do, the 'he said' , 'I said' are right beside each other so it's like, "I hate you"he said."I hate you more." i said."Maybe if.."she said.he got mad after."you are jerks."i said."no you are."he said Sorry, only dialogue i could think of. So yeah. Put a space in between conversations. Okay. Andi out. Awesome thread! Really helps!
Oh! Right! Thank you Andi! ----- Extra: Said is dead. Using said way too many times makes me click the Back to Fan Fiction button like it's my gag reflex. Creativity, guys?? ----- "The world will crumble, and when that time comes, you will all fall down to hell pitifully." He laughed. His cruel tone made me glare at him before a man in the crowd spoke. "We are strong! We are one, we are a resistence! Your tyranny will end when we find our king!" the determined man let his strong voice shake the crowd. My grip on the handles tightened when he said "King". "Silence!" the tyrant boomed. My cousin Blair only took my hand in hers before looking sympathetically at me. One day, he shall burn. ---- See?
Lol Chloe. I don't think I've ever laughed that hard before. As for the emoji section, thumbs up! I absolutely hate it when fanfiction authors write like that. It's always some thing along the lines of... Here's my puppy dog look I think I'm gonna throw up Bianca was like And so on Anyway, cheers!