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

I practically can't imagine suing the original creator over use of concepts in my fanfic. Even assuming I have a legal leg to stand on, I would be thrilled if the original creator found my ideas good enough to use. (Indeed, there's an outside chance this has happened.)

Well, I would certainly be up in arms if someone would just copy my work, but otherwise it would be hard to tell anyway. There is no such thing as a truly unique idea when it comes to writing.

I very much agree with Karalora on this. To the point I was surprised that there is a precedent for suing original creators (but then, some people will sue for anything). Incidentally, this is also the reason show writers never look at unsolicited scripts.

It's also the reason why show producers won't even look at a story/script that's not submitted through a reputable agent.

Here's another one: Dialogue that consists solely of exposition.

Isn't that awfully hard to discover before reading a fanfic?

Also, occasionally you need a little exposition.

I think it depends on how that exposition is used. I'm not a big fan of "as you know" exposition, but if the characters legitimately don't know about a situation that another char needs to inform them of, it's kinda necessary. But I think there's a difference between weaving exposition into a conversation and infodumping.

I'm not complaining about exposition. I'm complaining about exposition at the expense of things like plot or character development. Textual Aid:

Actually, "exposition" isn't the right word, because exposition is actually plot relevant. None of the quoted shit has anything to do with anything that actually happens in the story.

edited 13th Nov '14 12:02:16 AM by Pannic

Yeah, that's just... a lot of infodumping that doesn't seem to be progressing the story at all. There's some character to it, but the way it's framed from that excerpt doesn't feel totally natural.

I think another key is to not present too much at once. Like, some characters ramble, but those are big paragraphs of spell logistics in chunks.

The only time stuff like that is okay is if it meets two criteria:

1. There's actually some character to the dialogue (i.e. having them actually sound like themselves rather than the narrator taking over for a Q&A)

2. The info is actually relevant to the story.

Gonna drop in here and add incest pairings to the list, because that stuff creeps me out.

Lemme give you an example: there are currently 87 fics in AO 3's Big Hero 6 section, and 20 of them are Hiro/Todashi. That's almost a fourth of the whole section. Why?

I thoroughly agree, especially if slash involved. This is going to turn into another Elsanna again is it?

And people wonder why movies tend to stick to romantic love instead of familial love for the main characters...

edited 16th Nov '14 1:09:07 PM by ObsidianFire

Or focusing on love in general when there's so much awesome to be had... coughdigimoncough.

x3 Except it's even worse because one of them is a minor.

Like, some characters ramble, but those are big paragraphs of spell logistics in chunks.

The only part that felt out of place to me where the spell descriptions. The rest seems fine.

It's supposed to be Harry Potter and Sirius Black talking. Does that sound anything like how Sirius or Harry talk?

And again, none of that big rambling block of nothing had anything to do with what was going on in the story. It's not foreshadowing, it's not a skill that Harry uses later in the story, it's not anything. It serves no story purpose. The only purpose is for the author to masturbate to the audience about how "smart" he is because the fic rips off of Methods of Rationality.

edited 16th Nov '14 3:51:48 PM by Pannic

I have a disease where my characters overthink the current situation for like five good-sized paragraphs. Generally tripping in some way over their unknown unknowns, always showing character, but I doubt I'm getting my word count's worth from most of these interludes. I diagnose this as compulsive worldbuilding compounded by too many viewings of Death Note.

I've found that problem surprisingly easy to solve by having the character get interrupted. It provides a good way to get them ambushed and move the plot along, keeps them from figuring out the mystery too early, but still lets you hand out tidbits to the audience.

It also adds a dose of Reality Ensues by making it so talking or thinking are not free actions.

I'm going to add having a large series where all of the works are less than 1000 words. It won't fully stop me from reading it but it will make me wary. Oftentimes, the works aren't actually stand alones but rather chapters that could have been combined into one single piece of work. Especially when one or more of the "works" ends with a cliffhanger.

I actually did that for a fic series where the premise was exactly that, short and simple solutions to problems.

It was made as an experiment on what it'd be like to have an actual smart protagonist rather than what your usual moron thinks is a smart protagonist, AKA the Booksponge that looks down on other bookworms.

The ones with the excessive vocabulary who do a thin palette-swap for Just Knowing Things? Lawks, I hate that.

Also - this comes close to ruining a fanfic that's good in all other respects - not putting a comma before addressing someone. "It is the choices we make Harry." Quite likely it's just the baleful spirit of Lynne Truss tormenting me rather than any kind of sign, but nnngh, I can't stand it.

I think that one has to do with how when people talk, they usually don't put in a verbal pause before/after people's names... But yeah, there are times when I really wish people would figure out the difference between spoken and written English...

It might be how it's spoken, but it's definitely not how it's written. Because I'm thinking about the choices that Dumbledore might've transfigured into Harry lookalikes, from that sentence.