Live Blogs Valiona Liveblogs Bad Fan Fiction

Valiona2015-01-11 20:54:41

I'm going to be doing a liveblog on certain less than stellar works of fan fiction, as something of a side project that I'll update from time to time. As usual, I'll provide commentary as I go through them.

I'd like to point out a few things before I start, though.

1. The stories are from a variety of fandoms. You don't need to know the canon all that well, because odds are the authors don't know it very well, either.
2. The titles will often point out which fandom they're based on, often at the start (for example, Half-Life: Full Life Consequences), but if not, they will have it in parentheses in the entry title. (For example, "a sad story (Harry Potter)"
3. Most of the stories will only be a single chapter long, and will be fairly short, typically between 1,000 and 5,000 words long, with some less than 1,000 words long.
4. I'll occasionally be doing numbered lists of everything that's wrong with a specific passage or event that contains several blatant mistakes, usually with regards to canon, in rapid succession.
5. I'll also do The Bechdel Test for the works I cover. To give a refresher, a work passes if it has 1)two female characters, 2)who share at least one conversation, 3)that is not about a male.

So there you have it. Check the Table of Contents for a list of the fan works I'm doing here, and if you find one that interests you, click the link to read its entry.

Comments

RyochiMayeabara Since: Dec, 1969

Dec 31st 2014 at 9:48:34 AM

Oh dear lord. For someone who wishes to be a good storyteller through animation someday, this is utterly painful to read.

The formatting is painful and disgusting and I wouldn't even call this a chapter. Since this is apparently supposed to be a narrative, we're supposed to be at the establishing point before the emergence of the First-Plot Point. Here she went from Establishment (I think thats what its called) all the way to (supposedly) the Midpoint without any pacing or establishment.

Plus the characteris so painfully unsympathetic that I could barely SKIM the entire passage. The spelling is also awful which makes it even MORE painful to read. We also BARELY know anything about the characters which makes it even HARDER to care.

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Ah, its nice to test how much I know about storytelling by reading bad ones or reviewing them. Can't wait for your next abomination (the fanfics to clarify).

Valiona Since: Dec, 1969

Jan 2nd 2015 at 10:39:41 AM

RyochiMayeabara

At this point, I'd say that as rushed as Kiya and Layton's relationship is, we're still in the first "act" of the fic, so to speak, if not the prologue. The summary indicates that most of the action will take place seven years from the time Layton and Kiya first meet. Of course, when you read a Dead Fic of any quality, it's difficult to determine how far along they are in the plot unless the author explicitly says so.

I agree about most of your other points, though, and am glad that you're interested in these.