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

And even if it does get contradicted, you could just turn it into an AU. That way you don't have to worry about canon at all!

Yeah, when I started my Knights of Gjallarhorn project, I was immediately aware that the characters I was creating personally would not have any counterparts in canon.

Speaking of which, people who say "adaptation" but only briefly recap on the actual canon-related bits by focusing on their OC/canon character ship actually annoys me.

Seriously, if you're gonna "adapt" a canon work with your own characters and ideas, then put in steps to properly integrate them, you know?

It's sort of the opposite to that peeve, but back when I was still reading Harry Potter fanfiction, something I did for a while was look for stuff started pre Deathly Hallows.

It was really interesting because you got a lot of different stories since the authors had to imagine their own ways for the plot to go.

I love the way you think Crossover Enthusiast!

Edited by AegisP on Jun 27th 2018 at 1:38:00 AM

I thought that if a major plot point in a fic was contradicted by canon events then the fic was immediately considered AU.

I usually just consider my fics AU by default. Then I don't have to fret about it.

Yup! Way to go!

Same.

Agreed. I like to tie into canon, maybe even nod to things that happen "in the future", but I don't consider my works to be in the same universe as canon.

If it's a missing scene type of fic, sure it's canon. But otherwise I don't expect it to be, especially since I do a lot of what-if/AU stuff

When you write a telepathic conversation or any telepathy at all, don't go crazy. Sure, these people didn't technically say them, but that doesn't give you the write to use bold, italics, underline, and asterisks all at once. I read X-Men fanfics, so I understand you need something to make something to make up for lack of thought bubbles, but going nuts is too much.

I just use italics in the few cases where I write telepathic conversations.

I tend to use italics in any situation where the character isn't speaking directly to another, such as over the phone or an intercom.

I always use italics, personally.

I’ve seen at least one fanfic that, while it was extremely well-written, felt the need to use single apostrophes instead of quotation marks for mental conversations. It was a minor thing, but I had to pay much more attention to punctuation than usual.

I too tend to use italics for inner thoughts (without quotation marks) or anything not spoken directly, like by phone or recordings (with quotation marks). So far I have not needed to use another font change.

I'm used to read Terry Pratchett, so I really don't mind about authors Painting the Medium.

I enjoy Painting the Medium as well when the opportunity presents itself. I once had a demon character who spoke entirely in bold to reflect his inherently darker nature and another who spoke in ALL-CAPS to project the fact that he has a very loud regular speaking voice. And yes, the characters in-story found it annoying too.

Italics for inner thoughts is generally what I do

I've always used angle brackets for telepathy, and italics for internal thoughts. Blame Animorphs.

I somehow got in the habit of using "<" and ">" for my internal thoughts/telepathic conversations while roleplaying.

...Which probably doesn't relate to actual story/fanfic writing, but it's something.

Not sure why I chose those, but I did.

Probably a very bad idea.

Edited by CrystalMemoria on Jul 1st 2018 at 7:51:42 AM

Honestly, I once met a guy who used dollar signs to signal telepathy. It was hilarious.

One red flag that I have is chat/script format. While it is banned on fanfiction.net, it doesn't stop some people from breaking that rule.

So they found a loophole?

Not a loophole. They just break the rule. FF Net mods aren't terribly strict about enforcing their own rules. It took them forever to get on with banning My Immortal when it first came out. So long, in fact, that it was the wave of copycats that got them off their asses, and not the drama caused by the fic itself.

I think it's more along the lines of, "There's so many stories to keep track of that unless a report is filed they don't do anything about it."

Edited by CybranGeneralSturm on Jul 2nd 2018 at 8:01:01 AM

Oh yeah, here's another thing. Authors who try to make excuses for bad writing. I mean, it's one thing for an author to use a trope. It's another thing for an author to get hated on for bad writing but try to defend it. It's a third thing entirely for authors to have a moment of bad writing, and then try to "It's not my fault!" it, or in some way try to say "You're wrong for blaming me."

Things like Parody Retcon, "Just Joking" Justification, and that kind of stuff drives me up the wall, when an author tries to say "It's not bad writing, you just didn't get it!/It's just a parody, gaizzz!"

I can look over the occasional bit of bad writing (we all do it, and I wouldn't like The Inheritance Cycle otherwise), I can even admire the author a bit if he fesses up, or even understand if he wants to defend it a bit. But when he tries to shift the blame for the "bad writing" onto the audience rather than take the ctiricism, that's where the problem is.