When your fanfic just doesn't sound like it's working

What do you do when your fanfic just doesn\'t sound like it would actually work? For awhile now, i\'ve been trying to visualize how my stories would sound if they actually were on TV, but in recent days, nothing i think of sound right. It\'s gotten so hard to think of the right things that the characters would likely say or do, i can\'t even stay decided on what my OC should sound like.

Is it possible that you're simply overthinking it?

Watch/read/play what your fanfic is based on nonstop until you pass out, then sleep until you wake up, down some Z-Quil, and sleep some more. Then go outside and do something.

A few months later, suddenly remember that you were writing something and hurriedly produce another chapter out of guilt.

Use the source material's wiki. I'm sure it has one. They often have details that you might have otherwised overlooked, and can provide a source of new ideas for your story.

Imagining how your stories work on TV is something I try to avoid doing, because it tends to subtly warp how I write and makes me over-describe a lot of the time. Writing them out is a completely different way of rendering a story than putting it on TV, so it's probably best if to focus on how it's going to be narrated.

So, yeah, you're probably overthinking it.

My advice is to not overthink fanfic. Fanfic is weird. I don't compare my own ideas so much to "would it really happen?" - as in, would there be a game of this, tv of this so much as I compare to the other weird junk that other fanfic authors write. People pretty much feel free and let fly.

I mean, I wouldn't write most of what I do for the things that I do if I thought in terms of "I am actually a hireling writing for this property" because, well, I specialize as a Dark Fic writer and... um... lately, I like writing Nintendo-based fic, and as dark as they can actually get (play Ocarina of Time, Under the Well level), I do stuff to their characters they'd never approve of. That's the freedom of fanfic.

And, if something really isn't working for you? Just abandon it. Come back to it later maybe, or accept that you'll come back to it never and work on something else. Sometimes, ideas come charging out the gate only to be stillborn.

Currently, I wish I could get some of my ideas together for an Attack on Titan / Super Smash Bros. fic I started and wrote a single chapter of to "work." I have ideas for it, but can't quite get them coherent and I really want to if only for the fact that the idea I have in mind, unlike other long/multichaptered fics for Smash I've done will actually have All Deaths Final this time. I've gotten too spoiled on the use of a certain, well-known cosmic MacGuffin to create happy or at least bittersweet endings. I need to try to do more Downer Ending stuff!

My own personal advice: just write. You can always go back and revise later, and at least having something written gives you material to work with. Sure, you might end up rewriting a lot of it, but at least you have something to rewrite.