Bashing of the whole genre starting in one, two, three...
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
I think Complaining About Genres You Don't Like falls within the purview of the "No Complaining About Shows You Dont Like" rule, so if someone does that, I'd be within my right to holler the offending post for prompt thumping.
But for what's it worth: No complaining about the Harem Genre or fanfics based on the genre for the sake of complaining about them, please.
edited 17th Jul '13 4:12:26 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
...Welp, there goes any reason I'll have to visit this thread. 
Having read a bunch of harem series without liking the concept, I'll say that the most palatable make sure to develop specific bonds between the harem focus and the members who like him/her. The person they're all attracted to doesn't have to be a, "Who wouldn't like them?" character, but every person should connect with them on some level.
edited 17th Jul '13 4:16:30 PM by Immi
PM box is always open.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
There you go! Constructive civilized discussion. 
And I agree with you, Immi. Incidentally, that point you raised is invoked by the author of Kyon: Big Damn Hero in his approach to giving the main character a Big Damn Harem.
edited 17th Jul '13 4:22:19 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
As deconstructions go, I recommend The World God Only Knows. Keima is technically a Punch Clock Harem Lead.
"EEEEK!!! CATS!!" "Setsuna? Chill out."
Marq got a joke. Someone write that on the calendar. It will be quite a while before that happens again.
Now as for this topic, I do have a snippet of a story I had thought of written out titled How to Write Negima Fanfiction, but it was meant more as a poke at the Negima fanfiction and not Harem Stories in general.
I will post it if requested, but it is short and not all that good.
Madman with a box? I'm a madman with a semi, a pretzel bender and a Heart of Gold!
himitsu keisatsu
That's what she said!
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Well... Here's a don't:
Don't throw characters into the harem just to throw them in. And if you do, make it believable. If you've got to change their character randomly and with the only reason being so that they can be screwed by the lead... you're doing it wrong. Because what's the point of including that character when you take what makes them said character away?
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I.e. Character Derailment is bad and should never be done. When we say "Character Development doesn't have to be positive", we don't mean ruining the character's... well, character.
Please do post it. I think it's quite relevant, given the extensive influence (however minor or subtle) that Negima's Love Dodecahedron has on so many other things in its story.
Stop giving me more reasons to read/watch that manga/anime, dammit! XD
edited 17th Jul '13 5:08:27 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
"EEEEK!!! CATS!!" "Setsuna? Chill out."
You asked for it.
So... Here is the entire file that I have on How to Write Negima Fanfiction. Including the notes at the end of the file for the tropes I wanted to include.
Example: Chapter 1 The Normally Accepted Style of Negima Fanfiction
Something witty yet relevant can be placed here to briefly introduce the reader to the theme of the chapter. It can be a quote from someone, or it can be something like personal notes from a narrator, or even the author himself. However this is entirely optional and quite a few successful writers here do not use this convention.
It should be noted that most everyone that uses this writing convention place everything here in italics, so as to perhaps attract the readers' attention. At the very least it distinguishes itself from the chapter number and title, and the main text of the chapter itself.
Example: Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you mad. - Aldous Huxley.
Example 2: "We're not talking about the same thing," he said. "For you the world is weird because if you're not bored with it you're at odds with it. For me the world is weird because it is stupendous, awesome, mysterious, unfathomable; my interest has been to convince you that you must accept responsibility for being here, in this marvelous world, in this marvelous desert, in this marvelous time. I wanted to convince you that you must learn to make every act count, since you are going to be here for only a short while, in fact, too short for witnessing all the marvels of it." - Don Juan (Carlos Castenada)
Example 3: This is a work about various tropes. It is meant to be humorous, so don't take this too seriously.
In most cases, the story starts off with the main character, Negi Springfield, doing something or other somewhere in or near Mahora Academy. This makes sense as Negi is the hero of the story. Most every fanfic here has Negi solving some problem or overcoming an adversary. Those that don't can be classified into two categories: 1. Kono Setsu stories, or 2. Dreck.
'Dreck' is simply a fancier word for 'Crap.' I am going to try to use a broader vocabulary than some of you are used to. This is not unintentional. If you feel the need to keep a window open to Dictionary.com so you can learn the meaning of some of the terms that I use, then I will be satisfied in knowing I might broaden your own vernacular.
However, in this instance, we are going to focus on other characters within the Negima universe. So, without further ado...
[**POOF**]
Yue looked around as the cloud of smoke she appeared in dissipated. “Where am I?” she asked.
“Hello there.”
Yue blinked, “Who's there?”
“Just yet another fanfiction author tormenting all of you. Pay no attention to me.”
Yue's eyes opened wide, “What?”
“Wait, you understood that?”
“No.” she said. “But I did hear you say 'tormenting all of you.' That does not sound pleasant.”
“I was kidding when I said that! Can't you take a joke?”
Yue glance upward, “How am I supposed to tell that when I cannot see you, or for that matter see where I am?”
“Wait, what?”
Yue sighed. “I am in the middle of a vast expanse, with nothing to give me a reference point. Surely you know this?”
“Actually I didn't. Author Failed blah blah blah...
==========
“Let's see here. Ah. Suitable for teens, 13 years and older, with some violence, minor coarse language, and minor suggestive adult themes.”
“See?” smirked Haruna.
“Which means you can draw the tentacles, but I can't let you use them. So there.”
“Aw crap!”
==========
Tropes to mention:
Accidental Nightmare Fuel
Anvilicious – learning the mistake made with the Accidental Nightmare Fuel
The Artifact
Ascended Extra – Nutmeg
Alternative Character Interpretation
All Myths Are True – Explains how the story evolved...maybe
Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering
Author Avatar – DUH!!!
Breaking the Fourth Wall
Book Dumb
The Coconut Effect Comically Missing the Point Critical Research Failure
Did Not Do the Research
edited 17th Jul '13 5:24:19 PM by UberNimrod
Madman with a box? I'm a madman with a semi, a pretzel bender and a Heart of Gold!
@Nimrod: No, that's Eva-kun who can't get jokes.
"EEEEK!!! CATS!!" "Setsuna? Chill out."
I seem to think we've made more fun of Marq for that than we ever did for Eva.
That might be because I've only been on here for a year. The rest of you have been around longer.
Madman with a box? I'm a madman with a semi, a pretzel bender and a Heart of Gold!
12 posts it took us to derail this thread. A new record!
Revolution of Ruin
As mentioned on the Marry Them All page, harems only make sense if the members are attracted to each other as well as the center character, or at least really like each other. You're not going to share your love interest with someone you dislike or are indifferent towards, and writing characters as doing that breaks Willing Suspension of Disbelief so hard.
Just because a character is the center of the harem doesn't mean they should be the center of the plot. In many ways it's better to make them a Decoy Protagonist and have the plot follow the concerns of the harem members.
, Get back on the rails, slackers.
edited 17th Jul '13 5:48:25 PM by Neep
You've lost. You're the Bomb Squad after the bomb's gone off. I'm the blast ongoing.
"EEEEK!!! CATS!!" "Setsuna? Chill out."
Seriously though,
Isn't that quite a bit harder to pull off?
And for the record, I have posted the first snippet here, so there.
Revolution of Ruin
It's harder to pull off and yields a better result. Fanfiction.net is full of shitty harem fic in which everyone's lives revolve around the nominal protagonist.
To-Love-Ru Darkness is doing it. The Harem is Rito's, technically, but it revolves around what the girls are doing, especially Nana.
Princess Ymir's knightess
Never read a good harem fic (and probably never will), but an annoying theme is giving the protagonist women who are in canon relationships without any development except suddenly bashing the hell out of their canon love interests.
edited 17th Jul '13 6:26:35 PM by kay4today
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Incidentally, here's an honest question that I want to ask: I'm not the only one here who thinks that there's nothing inherently wrong with writing a harem fic premise for the express purpose of wanting to see said premise being employed, am I? I mean, I have nothing against say writing a story where Shinji Ikari ends up picking Asuka over Rei unless it's written badly, but what's wrong with wanting to read/write a story where Shinji ends up becoming a Chick Magnet to all of prominent female characters of Evangelionnote ? I ask this because there have been times when I wanted to discuss a particular story premise of mine with other tropers on a few of the fanfic thread, but refrained because I was too apprehensive about the potential reaction to the harem aspect.
It's a whole other matter to say that it's pretty easy to write such a premise so wrong that it ruins the whole thing, of course; that's one thing I won't argue against.
Well, I did say in the OP that Character Derailment and Ron the Death Eater are bad things to do in the course of writing harem fics, no?
edited 17th Jul '13 6:28:25 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Mad Scientist Wannabe
Don't forget to include EVA's typical deconstructive bent by showing the toil THAT would have on Shinji's psyche.
Ah, one more thing to drive Shinji insane. Actually, in all stories, both fanfic and manga (except Naru-stu fics), insanity IS a common result, except in Shinji's case it's not played for laughs.
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
What if I wanted to subvert the Dysfunction Junction? That's almost mandatory for EVA comedy fics, excluding the ones whose comedy aspect relies on the insanity stuff.
edited 17th Jul '13 6:40:45 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Princess Ymir's knightess
B-But Shinji is a strong independent man who don't need no woman.
Except his mother. He's utterly emasculated without his mother...
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
Really? Doesn't seem to be the case from what I've seen — though admittedly I've seen few EVA haremfics, but only because the not-badly-written ones are so few.
What I really want to see, however, is a Shinichi x Ran x Haibara/Shiho (and maybe x Ayumi) haremfic.
Wrong Shinji, Kay.
I think we could use a thread for discussing the general concept of "harem fan fiction"** , how to write such fanfics, how to not write them, and other miscellaneous related topics that I may have not yet thought of. Maybe we could even end up creating a guide on the topic to add to TV Tropes "How to" Guides. Who knows?
So here you go. I myself am interested in what people here think of as the most common problems the average fanfic writer tends to fall afoul of when writing a harem fanfic. And to get this out of the way: Character Derailment of the harem's members is one of the biggest of such problems, as is the Ron the Death Eater treatment.
PS: See also Harem Genre.
edited 17th Jul '13 4:09:45 PM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.