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

How do you tell something like that?

I have read good fics with OCs, and with an OC protagonist- but OC protagonists work best if you're doing a 'this even through the eyes of an OC grunt/civilian'. If I want to read a fic about someone saving the day, I want it to be about a character established. It's not 100% going to put me off of any fic, but it will make me cautious. It's mostly OC heroes that put me off, though.

I have a OC villain (not by choice) in the works for one of my fanfics. The villainous side of said work was not really explored so there is a lot of room to expand.

The only problem I have is starting it up....

Reminds me of how there's an "All-OC Stories" group on fimfiction (the MLP fanfic site). The group's creator elaborated on the group page that it's meant for "Elseworld"-style stories like The Book of Friendship (which is about missionaries outside of Equestria) and Fallout: Equestria (which is set in, well, post-apocalyptic future). There've been a couple times where it's had to be elaborated that no, a story about an OC royal guard banging Princess Luna does not qualify.

edited 4th Sep '15 8:14:08 PM by Pannic

Finding a good OC centric fic is pretty hard. I think I can name only 1 fic that's completely OC centic and it's good.

@storyyeller: Ff.net tracks individual visitors to chapters, and on that day there was a new visitor to a few chapters that didn't have OCs in the title, and none that did. I suppose I can't know for sure whether or not that's really what happened, but it seems like a reasonable interpretation.

I dunno if I mentioned it before, but I have a special dislike for OCs being shipped with canon characters. OCs in general have to work a lot harder to make me care about them than canon characters,so trying to make me care about them in a relationship will be even harder. And it happens way too often -flashes back to that time when an entire page of Sky High fanfiction on fanfiction.net was filled with fics shipping Warren with OCs. An. Entire. Page.-

I like OC's and I dislike that.

edited 4th Sep '15 11:47:25 PM by heliosKAISER

I noticed that the few fics that do accomplish successful OC/Canon characters develop the characters interactions with each other over a long period of time. The problem with most OC/Canon romance fics from what I have seen is that they rush things a lot. On top of that they also tend to use cliches in regards to actual romance itself.

One of the things that I see in romance fanfics that drives me insane is the tired old conflict of Girl misunderstands boys actions towards other girls or the Girl misunderstands boy in general ones. Not only is that plot point really cliche but it is rarely ever done right.

The best romance fics that I have seen have used way more complex interactions and conflicts then that by far. It's sad that they a really small minority. You have to shift through a lot of crap to find the gems

The 'Misunderstanding' is the single most overused plot point in romantic stories ever, to the point that you can divide 99% of the romcoms that have been made over the past three decades into three parts:

1) Meet Cute

2) Misunderstandmenting

3) Misunderstanding cleared and Happily Ever After.

edited 5th Sep '15 6:43:08 AM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

It's hard to have a conflict otherwise though.

Well, yes, but only because the misunderstanding is so cheap and easy.

You can have a plot without it, it just requires actual effort, and that's not what they're trying to do with romcoms.

Misunderstandings are fun for me, as long as the characters aren't wangsting about it. And if it's not dragged on for too long. Like, they think the one they're crushing on is gay/straight/married, I enjoy those. They can be pretty fun, if a bit formulaic.

That's pretty much the problem I see appearing when it comes to the Misunderstanding romance plot. Characters go full blown wangst about it, the authors will even write characters who have no business wangsting for the plot (I am basically saying that they wrote someone horribly OOC just for the sake of the plot).

I have seen it done in a more satisfying fashion before but it's few and far in between.

edited 6th Sep '15 5:49:35 PM by Bleddyn

I thought Top Hat worked really well with having a "misunderstanding" plot.

Granted that's a movie from the 30s...

edited 6th Sep '15 5:49:27 PM by Pannic

I've loathed misunderstanding romance plots on principle for a few years now. There's no defense of them that will get me to change my mind on that.

edited 6th Sep '15 6:35:16 PM by VeryMelon

Not even if the defense is not only valid, but logical?

No, I really just can't like it anymore.

I just dislike romance plots in general.

Sometimes I just really don't like them, other times I'm all for it. Although I guess that mostly happens if I think the relationship was well done in canon, or the author will do it well. But I can't stand anything more than a one-shot that's solely focused on romance.

"Methods of Rationality" "Harry is practically an OC" "Good"

You lost me there Story yeller.

The hate on romance is really misplaced.

It's not that romance in and of itself is bad, it's that writing actual romance takes a lot of work to do right.

What most fanfic writers do is fluff without substance. It's basically empty and void of meaning. However, it's so prevalent that it's seriously souring people towards an entire genre.

Risking being called out on the No True Scotsman fallacy, I do have to say it:

No true Romance would just be empty and waffy fluff.

edited 7th Sep '15 2:58:46 PM by IAmNotCreativeEnough

And the fact that a lot of romance stories involve characters who have absolutely no reason to get together makes pulling this off successfully even more difficult.

edited 7th Sep '15 3:09:23 PM by C105

You lost me there Story yeller.

I suppose it's a YMMV thing. It's better than most of the fanfics I've read, though I agree it does have flaws.

Out of curiosity, what do you not like about it?

edited 7th Sep '15 3:11:30 PM by storyyeller