Minor fanfiction sins

We have a thread about instant "red flags" that can ruin a fanfic for someone, and a much much shorter one about instant "green flags" that make them automatically interesting and enjoyable.

This thread, in contrast, is about "minor sins" you notice in fanfiction. By themselves they aren't enough to ruin a fic. You might even be able to ignore them entirely if the fic is otherwise good. Nonetheless, they constitute small annoyances or slightly bad writing habits.

I'll start with one: bland names for OCs. It seems like some writers, perhaps in an effort to avoid overly flowery Mary Sue names, go too far in the opposite direction. Most of the fanfiction I read is probably by American writers, but you'd never know it from the character names, which sound like they were drawn exclusively from the ranks of the English middle class. The first names can display some decent variety, but the surnames tend to be along the lines of Thompson and Miller—Top 20 stuff. Where, in fanfiction, are the Barclays and Spinellis and Rojases and Wongs and Ibrahims?

Depending on how important the OC is supposed to be, the bland name might be intentional and even preferred.

If the guy is just there for one or two scenes and then is never referred to again, I wouldn't want him having an unique, memorable name. Every time I have to include an OC of that kind in my stories, I mentally refer to all of them as 'Steve', 'Dave' or 'Joe'. Yes, even the females. It's an easy and simple way to remind people that these characters aren't important and you shouldn't get attached to them.

A minor sin of fanfiction?

...

Pointless deaths.

I'm not talking like, deaths as a statistic or anything of the sort, no. I'm talking about when characters are killed off pointlessly. I'm a firm believer in that characters should die only when the circumstances are right, IE, the combination of their circumstances and character means that there's no way outside of plot fiat that they could escape this Death.

Killing off your characters is wasteful, and while not enough to make me backpedal out of a fic instantly, it's still a minor annoyance to see characters die off for no reason other than to make the fic seem 'edgy' and 'dark'.

Sometimes, I read fics that have a pretty nice story setup, deep themes and a nice flow that commit some cardinal grammar-sins.

"There blue eyes," and such.

It happens a lot with the there/their/they're set, and its vs. it's.

The people writing these stories are often young, or they are writing in English as a second language, being European fans and whatnot. I am quick to forgive the grammar-errors, but I'm actually sure how to "teach" anyone out of them without saying "Let me paste this in word and give you a full red-penning and send it back to you," which I think would be rude. Also, I occasionally screw up with the it/it's thing, myself.

General rule of thumb on its vs it's: "its" is the possessive of "it". "it's" is explicitly and AFAIK pretty much exclusively a contraction of "it is".

Thus, one must simply ask oneself, "do I wish to say, 'it is', or '[x item] in the possession of it'?" If the former, put that comma in the sky, son. If the latter, keep it grounded for later deployment.

edited 20th Jul '14 9:46:39 PM by EvaUnit01

SPAG mistakes^** Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar, though I also include in this missing words, wrong words, etc. that are occasional but not frequent. Happens to everyone, myself included.

Passive word-tense, or overly long sections of exposition or narration that don't really advance the plot, advance world-building^** and that assumes I want to see world-building in a particular fic, or advance Stations of the Canon in an inventive or interesting way. IMO, if nothing significant would change, skip those stations and go on to what really matters!^** Now, obviously, this mainly applies to single-genre fanfics, as you probably will not be getting readers who are unfamiliar with what you're describing. Crossovers are different, as you will end up with some readers who are only familiar with one of the works in question, so covering everything is better. Readers who already know what's going to happen can skip ahead.

Copy/pasting the summary at the start of the first chapter. Seriously, I already read that!

Anyone who uses the same title as a fic I've written.

^^ It [i]s: It's cold out.

It [ha]s: It's got a coat on.

It [wa]s: It's ten days ago that it happened. Very, very rarely, and only when the context makes it clear that it's intended to be past tense. In most cases, "it's" as a contraction for "it was" will still be read as "it is". If you must contract "it was" "'twas" is is usually a better choice.

I'll usually let grammar/typos slide as long as 1. they aren't pervasive and 2. it isn't in a Wham Line. Fanfiction is an amateur pursuit and an expecting it to be completely devoid of minor errors is an unreasonable standard. Heck, I've had times where I literally had a dozen people proofread something for me and we still didn't catch all the typos.

Not using periods at the end of sentences in quotation marks.

^ That's a Commonwealth English/American English thing.

Seeing a story that would be better off listed as a crossover placed in a single category.

derp, nvm

edited 23rd Jul '14 12:55:29 PM by EvaUnit01

Their is a few writers that I have seen that rushed there plots way to fast, leaving me annoyed as the viewer even if the plot was actually good. I get the dissatisfied feeling if the writers have rather slow-burning plots although for a different reason. The writers I have seen so far with slow-burning plots usually either don't finish there stories or update it very slowly, the ones I have seen usually have rather interesting plots but there RL problems get in the way so the story never sees completion....

• Lavender Unicorn Syndrome

• Too many gratuitous references to the show

• Grammar mistakes, as mentioned above

• 2nd person narration in the rare cases it isn't an outright red flag.

edited 25th Jul '14 12:05:46 AM by storyyeller

For clarification for people who aren't involved in the MLP:FIM fanfiction world, Lavender Unicorn Syndrome is the practice of authors using gratuitous descriptions of characters in normal narration, rather than just using the character's name. For example:

A lot of authors seem to think that spices up the narration, when in fact it usually just looks stupid.

edited 25th Jul '14 12:48:03 AM by Unknownlight

For me there is no such thing as a "minor fanfiction sin". Anything that doesn't bother me enough to count as "major" is something I won't notice as a specific, recurring problem anyway.

And we really need to come up with a good non-fandom-specific name for Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. Or turn the whole world into bronies; that works too.

This is starting to sound like the red flag topic...

Anyway, minor sins for me is gratuitous swear words - especially if the original source material isn't rife with them. The fact that characters drop the Cluster F-Bomb whenever the situation gets serious is one of my biggest peeve about On the Way to Greatness even though I still think it's one of the best fanfics out there.

Lots of swearing in any fic, even in ones where the characters do swear, is a minor sin for me. Particularly because amateur authors think it makes their stories 'edgier' and 'more mature'... and much like a little kid pretendign to be adult and mature, it only makes them more immature.

Okay, that does it. I'm writing Samuel L. Jackson in Equestria.

DO EEET!

Re: Lavender Unicorn Syndrome. The non-fandom name you're looking for is 'Burly Detective' Syndrome.

Midnight I will point out that your second suggestion on that trope sounds like a reference to The Conversion Bureau. On the topic of fics that completely demonize one side on 2 warring species....I swear I can only stand that for so long. I really can appreciate a grey to grey mentality from the authors who write war fics but these authors...or hell just people in general whom think of everything as white and black disturb me and annoy me at the same time and those are not a pleasant combination of feelings that a viewer can have towards an author.

edited 27th Jul '14 2:36:42 AM by Bleddyn

Yeah, I've heard that name before. It wouldn't work as the name of a trope, though, because it doesn't indicate at all what the concept means (neither does "Lavender Unicorn Syndrome", of course).

My second suggestion on what now? I don't follow...

Samuel L. Jackson in Equestria would be intentional. And hilarious. ("I've had it with these motherf*cking ponies in this motherf*cking world!")

Midnight, you mentioned turn the whole world into bronies when talking about the Lavender Unicorn Syndrome and the first thing that appeared in my head is The Conversion Bureau. I personally hate that fic but found that comment amusing nevevertheless

edited 27th Jul '14 1:14:01 PM by Bleddyn

And so another thread has been derailed by Ponies.

With regards to "the Burly Detective", I hold the opposing viewpoint: only stating the names of the characters in your fanfic without any descriptives in the narrative strikes me as a sign of lesser quality. I mean, sure, fans of any degree will know that, e.g. Twilight Sparkle was a lavender unicorn, but it's nice to be reminded every once in a while. It becomes more important when letting in a back-bencher, and doubly so for a One-Scene Wonder. Also Twilight's Upgrade at the end of Season 3 shouldn't be taken for granted either.