What are your personal "red flags" before reading any fanfic?

I, personally, don't care about chapter length. I check actual length of the story and only that.

Nous restons ici.

I only consider chapter length a problem in terms of updates. Longer chapters tend to be more sporadic, which only compounds my problems with trying to remember what was going on. Honestly it depends on the writer, if they can turn out 20,000 regularly (and the story is worth that many words) then the more power to them. If that 30,000 appears months after the last one, then I'm apt to set it aside since I'll need to binge the whole story for context. And then I'll forget to until six months later when the next 29,300 words appear.

As for whole story length... when I'm on a light Archive Binge I'll collect those to read for later. Generally safe in the knowledge they won't update before I get to them. It takes a story being above 500,000 words for me to question binging it immediately. 100k isn't enough to scare me anymore.

With established relationships, I like those actually. They can be kind of rare. *checks own fics* yep, only 2 of my 11 have a pre-established relationship, and both of those are one-shots. It's nice to explore the nature of a pair's relationship beyond "they look interesting/cute/hot/etc" so seeing how they actually work as a relationship.

You must agree, my plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity! My Tumblr

With chapter length, it's really dependent on pacing. I'm burning through a 328K fic that has 37 chapters right now. I just don't like fics where there are extremely long chapters that are one scene, or a continuation of one scene. It's pretty annoying.

For me, it depends how the relationship in question worked in canon. For example, in Spice And Wolf, the relationship between Lawrence and Holo develops at an absolutely glacial pace. It doesn't help that they both have some good reasons to not let it go anywhere for a while. So, if a fic has them together right off the bat like there was never a problem, it'd be a bit weird.

Everybody's all "Jerry's old and feeble" till they see him run down a skyscraper and hijack a helicopter mid-flight.

Generally, I write chapters between 1,000-2,000 words long, but sometimes get around 3,000 or above. It depends on the pacing. I'll stop it where I feel it should stop.

...I'm hitting 12k a chapter.

They do have medals for almost, and they're called silver!

My normal chapter length is ~5k words.

However, in stories in which I am deliberately not following that length, they can be as long or as short as I need them to be.

himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari

Look, I started with a 1.4k chapter, the next was 1.7k, then 2.6k, then 7.6k, then 7.3k, then 11.8k, then 12.6k.

...I'm hoping to stay stable here, but the chapters only go as long as the pacing allows.

They do have medals for almost, and they're called silver!

The wordcount of my most successful story, broken down by chapter and rounded to the nearest hundred:

1. 1900
2. 2800
3. 1900
4. 2200
5. 1200
6. 7300
7. 6600
8. 5300
9. 10400
10. 11200
11. 1200

For reference, ch 1–6 were scene-setting and ominous foreshadowing. Ch 7 was where the action started picking up. Ch 9 was the climax, ch 10 was all denouement, and ch 11 was an epilogue.

edited 25th May '15 10:03:28 AM by MetaFour

There is no such thing as too much. I've read a 3.4 million word fanfic^note ~150 chapters and I've read a 1.3 million fanfic multiple times^note  32 chapters, which get longer as you go on. I know that some chapters in both those fics were over 100k. If it's established that they're a couple pre-first-scene, then I don't see how it matters. But I'm a fan of Fade to Black rather than lemons.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

Being on-topic is for the weak.

For the sake of not rehashing what has already been said in this thread dozens of times, I'll talk about my red flags when I'm reading fanfics from a particular thing. Which is pretty much the same as rehashing except with a specific thing, which is rehashing... So I have no idea why I even typed that.

The Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series is definitely interesting when it comes to fanfics, and I love that about it. You see a lot of cool stories with interesting new worlds and plots that focus heavily on characterization and adventure. Things I love.

But, you get some that aren't so good, obviously. In the games, you are the hero, and as you might imagine, this leads to a lot of obvious self-insertion. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it's pretty much always a detriment to the story. People can find it pretty hard to write themselves into a story without making themselves the entire focus, apparently. Yeah, obvious self-insert is an obvious red flag.

Funnily enough, the Pokemon that the protagonist starts out as can be a pretty minor red flag too. All too often you'll see an/a Eevee/Insert Popular Pokemon Here protagonist that just ends up being a self-insert. Which just ties back to the fact that people like to see themselves as something they think is cool, or whatever.

I just thought it'd be interesting to be a little more specific when it came to the self-insert red flag. In the end, my red flags are pretty much the same when it comes to any fanfic, no matter the fandom, and self-inserts are most definitely not unique to Pokemon fanfics, obviously.

This post was really long and rambly, bleh.

edited 25th May '15 12:36:36 PM by OhBoyTime

A long post is when the Gundam Thread gets going or I drop four pages of exposition from three-and-a-half hard facts about Nanoha. That's pretty normal.

Nous restons ici.

@Mr Mallard Depends on the series and depends if it's a one-shot. If it's a one-shot then I think it's okay to just out and say that these characters are already an item. If it's for a longer story and the relationship is the main point of the story then just establishing that they're together is kind of weak story telling unless they are already together in cannon material.

Hyped for Hyperdimension Neptunia V 2

I actually don't like fics with short chapters. If it's bellow 2000 it'd better be good and updated frequently. if it's bellow 1000 I won't even bother looking.

Also, a new red flag for me: Fics that are in continuity with other fics. Like if your fic description contains a list of five other fics that I have to read first to get what's going on, of course I'm not going to read it. And no, I'm not exaggerating when I say five.

I think have several stories in the same continuity is okay, as long as you don't make it so you have to read it in order or be confused.

If fics are in continuity I consider them one long fic. Like say any of the many separate-fic-for-each-hogwarts-year sets out there. So if the totally length is over 500k so far I'm not likely to invest myself. Unless the premise is intriguing (so not say, simply slytherin!Harry).

Also I'm totally guilty of the fic continuity thing. I'm currently working on the 3rd/1st (rl pub / in fic chron) of 3. None consider the others required reading at this point though.

edited 26th May '15 6:47:38 AM by Luthen

You must agree, my plan is sheer elegance in its simplicity! My Tumblr

I also have several of my fics in continuity with each other, but pretty loosely. They're separate stories that just cross over with each other here and there. Kind of like what the MCU does with movies.

...I confess I'm not sure if my Nanoha stories count as in continuity. Life After Hayate and In The Service share a number of supporting characters in various places; notably the al-Faddils.

But they can't be in continuity directly because In The Service takes place much later than Life After Hayate and, well, Hayate's alive in In The Service.

Nous restons ici.

I admit this can bother me as well. Crossover characters are fun to me because they're still able to do the things they can do but now must adjust to an unfamiliar setting. If there's a good reason they have to hide it they I don't mind but situations like that just bug me.

Something I noticed in quite a few fanfics (My Little Pony:Friendship Is Magic gets this ALOT) where a character essentially ends up getting transported from real life into a certain fandom universe for some reason or another. This concept isn't bad provided it's done well

Sadly it isn't most of the time and usually the red flag that tips me off to that is that the character simply saying that they know what happens in the fandom universe because they watched it as a TV show. This little concept will completely destroy my immersion real quick. I have only seen it done well once out of countless fanfics I have tried to force myself to read.

My Little Pony has a whole subset of fanfictions that have this appearing quite often. Simply named Hi M (Human in Equestria). Human in Equestria suffers under bad Brony in Equestria fanfics were some random brony gets sent to Equestria and essentially becomes a Marty Sue. I have only seen one of these type of fanfics done well and that was simply because it was not a brony and it was done realistically (the character flipped the fuck out once he realized what happened and that he was stuck in a show universe where he could not see his family or friends again).

On that topic if you have a character travel between dimensions such as the real world and a fantasy world please for the love of god don't make your character play it off as no big deal without some SERIOUS character development with some suitable angst for being forced to ditch a family or whichever. I have seen plently of fanfictions were a character got stuck on another world and they acted like it was no big deal. There reaction to being stuck there was almost nonchalant. If your going to do this put a damn good reason for it or I am dropping your fic.

Another thing to include that can be a rulebreaker. If you are going to do subtle foreshadowing please for the love of god do not do it for important personality trait or something else important to know like say a character's sexual orientation in an romance fic. Very recently I read a fanfic that completely blindsided me via confirming the main protagonist as being gay when it appeared he was building up an straight relationship with another character. The author explained briefly after when people were understandable confused and a bit disappointing (this fic was shaping to be an interesting straight romance fic) that he did foreshadow it but it turned out that the foreshadowing was so subtle that it ended up completely being missed. If he/she didn't do that I would have next to no issue with reading the rest of the fanfic. This can happen outside of romance fanfics in mystery fanfics (obviously) and drama ones.

edited 31st May '15 3:49:43 AM by Bleddyn

Could you PM me the fic that blindsided you? I think I know about it, and even if I dont I agree.

Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.

Not a fan of that premise in general mostly because those stories often get way too meta (that's correct to use here, right?) while taking it seriously, thus ruining suspension of disbelief for me. Meta plots like that work better in comedies, and even then you need to be careful because those are pretty hit-or-miss in terms of joke quality.

If a tree falls in the forest and nobody remembers it, who else will you have ice cream with?

Yeah the basis of those specific fics is very hard to pull off. Some end up being Marty Sue fics, others end up becoming off the walls absurd, some are rushed beyond belief. The one I did see done well actually was done with a space traveler that was not even human

I am starting to write fanfictions myself now and that is simply not one of the ideas I will even touch. There's too many pitfalls for that concept.....

Hold on. It's a crossover fic with Pokemon (It's part of the A New World A New Way verse) so if you don't like that then I wouldn't click my link in the PM.

edited 31st May '15 3:58:40 PM by Bleddyn

The thing is, I love Fish out of Water scenarios, so I'm all for that kind of premise. It's just so hard to find any that don't fall into at least one of those pitfalls. There's been multiple cases where I started reading such a story, was really getting into it, and then the human character turns out to have some kind of supernatural powers or latent kung fu ability or something. Is it really that hard to write this kind of character in a way that doesn't make them a blatant Marty Stu? I almost want to try it myself just to find out.

Incidentally, one of the few I liked was also MLP and also about a space traveler (though a human one). Apparently, that premise works strangely well with this.

edited 31st May '15 5:38:02 PM by Berserker88

Okay, another one. Slash pairings... but one of them was genderbent. I don't mind (much) if it's possible to do it in-universe (Like say, Castiel from Supernatural changes his vessel), or if it was a temporary thing. But if one of them was genderbent just because, then I'm gonna skip it.

What's the point of reading fics for slash pairings if not for the gay? At the very least genderbend them both.

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