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

And it doesn't occur to them that there's a reason for that?

I know. I try not to be too hard on fanfic writers because I know most of them are very young...but it does seem like there's a lot of outright laziness in the fanfiction community.

I know A Song of Ice and Fire uses switching POVs, but it's third-person and switches on a chapter-by-chapter basis, rather than swapping mid-scene.

edited 20th Nov '14 1:38:17 PM by Pannic

I'm not entirely sure what "among the published" means in this context. The subsequent commentary seems to suggest that it's meant to exclude fanfiction; but if that's the case, it's a false distinction. Posting content to a website viewable by the public is legally considered publication.

Changing tracks a bit, one I've come to dislike are fics written someone more in tune with one fandom who moves to another fandom and forces the characters into roles from characters. This used to be pretty common with Harry Potter writers turning a other characters into Harry, Ron and especially Hermione.

Similar to that is people trying to turn one series into a series they're more familiar with with their writing. Like how a lot of early Young Justice fics were from Teen Titans fans who wanted to turn it into Teen Titans by way of changing the setting or the characters' backstories, swapping out characters and/or altering characters' personalities. It got to the point where a fic advertising that Raven or Starfire were showing up turned into red flag for me just cause I was used to bad uses of that.

I just hate when they say I Suck at Summaries.

Unfortunately for me, I obsess over my own summaries. The increased character count on ff.net has not helped.

Oh, and when someone warns that thier writing isn't the best, or they have a whole bunch of pairings in the summary.

edited 20th Nov '14 11:30:11 PM by Webidolchiu94

There are no awful ideas at that basic a level; just ones that are very hard to pull off. Everybody's gotta exceed their limits in blithe ignorance sometime.

What I never get is why so many people screw up the capitalisation in sentences following speech, even when their grammar is otherwise OK. I mean, they have read dialogue in books before, right?

@Night: The problem is that lots of fanfiction writers aim for the most difficult ideas right off the bat before they have the experience or knowhow to actually write something so difficult. There's pushing your limitations, and then there's attempting to write something that you have no idea how to actually pull off.

There are a LOT of rules in grammar. Half of those rules are never explicitly explained to people. Even in English classes, the lessons seemed to be focused on writing in general (essays rather than stories). Those that aren't are likely forgotten pretty quickly depending on the way it's being taught.

Not to mention, who pays attention to little things like that when reading? Did you really make space in your thoughts to pay attention to how special things are capitalized or where semi-colons were placed when you were engrossed in a book? I've been reading since I was little but only got into writing in my teens and there are a ton of grammar rules that I'm still just learning now, well into my twenties.

edited 21st Nov '14 6:17:42 AM by Notoyax17

That's a particular problem in the Total Drama fandom. TD writers are particularly enamored with "competition stories", which are new or remade seasons that may feature as contestants canonical characters, original characters, or both. (Some have no canonical characters at all, with an author avatar standing in for the host.) If the story has a lot of OC contestants, they're typically all introduced in the first chapter, leaving the reader with a (sometimes literal) boatload of characters to keep straight.

One of these competition stories represents an entire season of TV episodes, so you might imagine that doing one well is a massive undertaking, especially with OC casts. Not only that, but Total Drama is (allegedly) a children's cartoon, so its fanfic writers skew younger than in many other fandoms. And yet, all too many of these kids attempt a competition story right out of the gate, as their first fanfic. They're setting themselves up to fail.

edited 21st Nov '14 7:07:40 AM by Gideoncrawle

@Japanese Teeth- If a writer is first starting to write/enter the fandom, how do they know their limitations? Everyone needs to test themselves to see how far they can and cannot go at some point, and many writers who are first starting fanfiction have never had the chance to write more than some essays or short stories for school (I'm assuming here fanfic writers start out around the age I did- 11/12). If they've been writing for a while, yeah, they might realize that they need to have an outline or a decent chunk of an epic length fanfic before they publish so as to not abandon it with an excellent set up, but everyone needs their first bad piece of writing. It's just that many choose to publish their first fanfics as well.

That's definitely true, and I'm not blaming them for a lack of experience, but the fact that there's an explanation for why a fic is bad doesn't make it any better. If you have a bad fic, it might be bad because the writer has no experience, or because they do have experience and are just terrible, but the story remains bad either way. I was just trying to explain why they tend to be that way.

In other news, somebody over in the pony thread mentioned another red flag: When the protagonist's name is the same as the author's. To quote, he ran across this:

Unless it's a parody, there's going to be a problem.

edited 21st Nov '14 10:58:51 AM by JapaneseTeeth

I recall me doing a perspective flip mid-chapter in one fanfic chapter where the heroes split up, with the protagonist keeping his first person while the allies get third person.

The Megamorphs books changed between first-person viewpoints. It didn't work there, either.

@Japanese Teeth- that's absolutely true that a bad fic is a bad fic no matter what. However, the reason I point out the age thing is because as agonizing as reading bad fics is, if it's someone who has no experience they might blossom into a good writer a few years down the road with well written critical reviews to guide them and more experience, and I'm wary about people who attack new writers. (Not accusing you of doing that, but merely pointing out that some do.) If a fic is mediocre, but shows some promise, it's not a bad idea to leave a detailed review pointing out how they can improve so they do improve.

Actually, I have a question for those who dwell in continuity laden fandoms (like myself); at what point do you care/not care how much the writer has read? Obviously, it's ridiculous to expect everyone to read every single Spider-Man comic in existence or be strict about continuity when the writers themselves don't care. However, the writer should know a certain amount about the material they're drawing from. So, opinions?

I usually think of fanfics as alternate universes to the main canon universe. So, as long as the work is written decently and the characterization makes sense with in the story, it's fine to go off the rails some. And if it's an ongoing series and the story is set in the future of the series, it's bound to be different. Just don't turn the Cape into a complete evil jerk!

Here's another thing: the protagonist is a dick, and the author doesn't seem to notice.

I see that too often on the Na No Wri Mo forums. Guys, having your protagonist act like a cumbox doesn't make him "wacky", it makes him a bint.

Not to mention, who pays attention to little things like that when reading? Did you really make space in your thoughts to pay attention to how special things are capitalized or where semi-colons were placed when you were engrossed in a book? I've been reading since I was little but only got into writing in my teens and there are a ton of grammar rules that I'm still just learning now, well into my twenties.

Honestly, yeah, that is how I learned that stuff. Slight grammatical differences can change the meaning of a passage enormously - compare "let's eat, Grandpa!" with "let's eat Grandpa!" Similarly, capitalisation after speech indicates how closely related the bits inside and outside are to each other. For example, compare:

• "This is awful," he groaned.

with

• "This is awful." He groaned.

One indicates that he was groaning out the words, while the other indicates that he said 'this is awful' and then groaned. It's a small nuance, but can be quite important.

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.

So the real problem is not exposition but violation of Law Of Conversation Of Detail. I mean, I can easily imagine context in which the dialogue makes sense, it's just that Law Of Conversation Of Detail exists for a reason.

I ask again...where do they get the idea that they should do this? Don't they ever get any creative writing assignments in school? Don't their teachers shut this sort of thing down? I learned to write primarily from example, by reading a lot of published books. I learned to write because I love to read, I love words, I love how versatile language can be. Why the hell do these people write? They obviously never voluntarily read anything except, perhaps, other fanfiction. Where are they getting the drive to create written works if not from a love of the written word?

This, so much.

The body of work which is first person and switches POV is vanishingly small among the published.

I can think of a number of works that switch POV, but it's always done on a per chapter basis or occasionally on a per scene basis. Doing it more often is just insane.

I see that too often on the Na No Wri Mo forums. Guys, having your protagonist act like a cumbox doesn't make him "wacky", it makes him a bint.

To be fair, it's common in published works too.

Switching First Person PO Vs can be well done ( Bringing Out The Blue is a prime example), just depends on the writer.

TBF, I'm pretty sure there's a large swath of tropes about the protagonist being a jerkass and author favored.

I kind of hate crossovers with series that have completely different tones.

Mpreg stories, either the author needs a sex education class or medication for the delusions.

To me, it depends on the fandom. I am not particularly keen on them, because more often then not they are just an excuse for what most writers consider fluff (and I consider boring...it's like watching reality TV), but there have been a few writers which pulled them off fairly good, and in a magical setting, you can get away with more or less everything.

I will sooner like any protagonist with a bit of a selfish/cruel streak over one with no personality beyond being an ISO-standard hero-type. :P The best thing, though, is to have a main character who has two or more personality traits.