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

Yeah, that "high chapter but low word" really gets to me. I mean, you have 15 chapters but only 2,000 words? What the hell?

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."

Or you have 15 chapter and 15,000 words, but if you look into the fic, half of them are actually authors notes.

Self Inserts or OCs based off of your self are an instant no for me unless it's played for a one chapter comedy.

OCs depending on the fandom. I've read only two fanfics that are heavy on the OCs and it does it real well.

edited 4th Aug '13 2:50:50 PM by mega-dark

Hyped for Hyperdimension Neptunia V 2

That depends - I've read a couple of good ones that say specifically it's written vignette style, and each chapter is supposed to top out at 1k words. It is something to look for, though.

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

I deliberately wrote a series of 500-words-or-less stories for Bubblegum Crisis and I think it's honestly some of my best work.

Nous restons ici.

I'm talking about an ongoing story here...chapters with less than 1.000 words are just not long enough to allow be to "sink" into a story. If it's a collection of related short stories or similar, that's something entirely different. Though I personally prefer long stories and rarely read anything under 5.000 words, but that's a personal preference.

Hm... let me think. There are probably several red flags for me.

1. A pairing that I don't like (but it depends on the characters involved, honestly; some characters aren't in many fics, so you need to take what you can get)
2. Typos, as many other tropers have said before me
3. Any summary that mentions the rating changing in later chapters, indicating that the author has not written the story out beforehand
4. A Mary Sue Original Character rising. You know it when you see them.
5. An overall generic summary that doesn't do enough to rise above the other summaries
6. Tags are important to describing certain fics, but an overabundance of tags turns me off for some reason
7. "Crappy summary, I know"

On a side note, wow, has FF.net changed since the last time I was on the site. o.o

edited 4th Aug '13 9:06:31 PM by BearyScary

I liked it better when Questionable Casting was called WTH Casting Agency

For the better or for worse?

I've only really written one fanfic... but you can find it here http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8476612/1/After-the-Fall

I would say for the better...the new filter is pretty neat, because now you can not only search for certain things, but also exclude.

It's less a high number of tags which put me off, but a certain kind of tags. Those which are more or less a summary in itself and are not helpful at all to find the story because no one else will use them. And I hate it if an Author puts every character which turns up in the story on the tag list, even if its only a short cameo.

Any fanfics with non-canon heterosexual relationships. It's not because Het Is Ew as much because said fanfics frequently either devolve into Relationship Sue territory or slash-bashing, both things I could do without in a good story.

Otherwise, I am willing to read anything from fandoms I enjoy.

edited 5th Aug '13 2:30:20 AM by peryton

Having A/N's at the beginning of each chapter (or at the end) thanking readers and such doesn't bother me.

I mean literally halfway through or during the story.

For example:

"I wanted to tell you something, Alice." said Bob. (A/N: Oooh! Do you guys think Bob is going to confess his love to Alice? Keep reading! :D)

It's very distracting, and it throws me right out of the fic. I like how Pratchett at least puts his extra info in * asteriks and footnotes.

Even when your hope is gone, move along, move along just to make it through

Dear God why would anyone do this.

What said. That's just annoying.

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

That distinctly reminds me of Plumbers Dont Wear Ties.

I'd say I'm being refined Into the web I descend Killing those I've left behind I have been Endarkened

@ Misuki: But I figure that an overabundance of Author's Notes wouldn't be much of an improvement either, huh? I find myself going overboard in that department, since I have a habit of explaining my thought processes for various story elements, as well as the occasional miscellaneous piece of trivia (more often the former than the latter, though).

"Oh no, Sanji's Chronic Simprosis!" - Kou The Mad

Summaries that basically make it clear its just a Follow the Leader Fic using the same overused cliches or plot lines that have been done to death (more often badly then good). I just get the impression the writers are more interested in writing what gets reviews (and thus make them look popular) then writing an actual story.

I also like the the new filter FFN created, I especially like being able to exclude "Romance" from other Genres like Friendship or Hurt/Comfort when I'm trying to find a platonic True Companions Fic.

edited 6th Aug '13 8:58:42 AM by WorldTurtle

• Typos in the title or summary.
• Bad spelling or grammar.
• Bad summary. Especially if summary says something like "I'm bad at summaries" or "It's a lot better than it sounds", since it never is.
• Bad formatting. If the work has something like walls of text or looks it will be difficult to read, I won't bother with it.
• If the work is one AO3, I check the tags. I won't read anything that's heavily cliched or has a trope that's rarely or never done well.
• Any original characters as one of the main characters.
• Crossovers that really shouldn't go together.
• OOC
• Crack pairings

edited 6th Aug '13 9:40:01 AM by allboyband

• Slash
• Most shipping in general
• X-rated stuff
• Self-Insert Fic
  • Summaries along the lines of "An ordinary boy/girl finds themselves in [X]..." They are sometimes downright painful to read, since they're the real-life weird fantasies of another living human being.
  • "A new boy/girl finds themselves in [X]. Can they [X]?" Potential Mary Sue incoming!
• Most "introspection" fics, i.e. nothing but character X thinking stuff, reflecting on events, dwelling on their past, etc. I just don't find them interesting.
• Compliment Fishing ("this story sucks, I know") and I Suck at Summaries
• Something common in the MLPFiM fandom: stories based around one random, half-baked idea (with a title along the lines of "[character] does [stuff]", e.g. "Fluttershy Gets A Paper Cut"), which inevitably will feel like a pointless waste of time, despite being short.
• Crack Fic
• Bad spelling/grammar in the summary
• "Contains spoilers!" Not a "red flag" per se, but still annoying (who would be dumb enough to not expect canon spoilers in a fanfic?) Obviously doesn't apply to non-obvious stuff like "contains spoilers for the upcoming leaked episode", etc.
• Extremely cryptic summaries which tell you nothing whatsoever about the story.

edited 6th Aug '13 10:54:17 AM by Korodzik

I actually try to read the damn things before giving myself pre-set impressions.

The word "mysterious" in the summary of a High School AU. As if those weren't bad enough on their own.

Also OC/canon character pairings. I've literally never read a good fic including that, and I've even read good High School AUs.

edited 6th Aug '13 11:37:44 AM by kay4today

What's so wrong with an OC being a main character??

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."

OC-insert fics. I mean, there's nothing wrong with OCs, especially if they're new allies or new villains who are not given protagonist or deuteragonist status, but when that does happen, generally a reason to shy away. High School AU and, yes, I Suck at Summaries

There's nothing wrong with an OC being the main character if what you're reading is not a fan fiction. But the thing is, people read fan fiction to hear tales about characters that they are already familiar with in situations that didn't (or couldn't) happen in canon. They don't want to hear about Bob Mcawesomepants from Super Earth can defeat Voldemort, Orochimaru, Lord Zedd, and Godzilla combined while blindfolded, with an arm tied behind his back, and dying of cancer. They want to hear a dramatic story about how Harry Potter, Uzumaki Naruto, and Tommy Oliver team up with the JSDF and barely manage to pull off a win against Godzilla being mind controlled by Voldemort and powered up by Zedd's magic while Orochimaru sabotages the JSDF's defenses.

People read fan fiction to read about characters that they already know and care about. Not to hear about some new kid who can mysteriously outclass everyone that the readers came to the story to read about, steal the spotlight, and fly through canon with the greatest of ease (trapeze optional).

edited 6th Aug '13 3:32:54 PM by Hyp3rB14d3

That is such a lie.

Yes, but what if the OC is a big character but they don't steal the spotlight and aren't some uber hero?

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."

@44 Thank you! There are some occasions where reading the story that looked like a red flag turned out to be a great idea—one Fire Emblem fanfic that I thought from the summary was a generic pairing-bashing fic for my OTP turned out to be a hilarious parody. On the other hand, it has happened that I've started reading a promising fic and had to click away because my favorite character was so ridiculously OOC it was painful to read. And I know some of my work has been praised in the "normally I don't like stories with X, but here I thought it was good" manner.

But here are some things I generally won't read. These aren't flags the fic is bad, and in fact they may be widely considered masterpieces, but flags that I, personally, won't like them:

• Stories over 100,000 words in length, especially if they're about characters I'm only a little invested in.
• Most adventure stories.
• Shipping stories about characters I don't have much investment in, unless I really trust the writer.
• Stories in fandoms I don't have an obsessive interest in at the time I'm reading.
• Stories with a too dense OC-to-canon character ratio, especially those which include the setting alone. Changing the setting but keeping the characters, however, I often do like.