Any tips for fan fic writers? My usual tip is to have your characters REact instead of act. Never have them make the first move. Give them something to respond to. For example: Imagine a meteor crashes in Ponyville. Now imagine how each individual character you want to write about would respond to it. Rarity might want to use it to make a dress. Twilight would study it. Fluttershy would run away. Pinkie would concoct some story about evil aliens there it destroy them all that all too many people would believe and cause a panic. twilight would thus try to disprove Pinkie's theory and properly do so... except maybe at the end something would crawl out and try to attach itself to Gummy before Derpy accidentally crushes it. Etc.
That's for real writing. Fan fiction is somewhat different. So here are some more tips, since peopel keep asking me. 1. Learn how to spell and use proper grammar. Everyone, even professional author's make mistakes, but there is a limit to how much a fan is going to put up with. 2. Try not to make up orginal characters and if you do make sure they are not the main character of the story. Fan fiction is based on a show or some such because you like it the way it is. If you must have an original charact they should at least start out as a side character until you have a feel for who they are. Like how Applebloom, Derpy, and Doctor Whooves were just there as background ponies to start. 3. Try to get a feel for the characters before writing, even if it means clearing a day in your schedule to watch the whole show from the begining. You should know how each character thinks and would respond to any situation. 4. Don't have them act on their own. They should always react. A festival, a letter from the princess, a party, or a disaster. Otherwise they would be out doing their own thing. As a brief writing exercize try this. Imagine that The Cutie Mark Crusaders have a bag of those little pop things that explode when thrown ont he ground. Now they take them and throw one behind each of the main cast, one after the other, catching each of them by surrpise. How does each one react to that shock int he following order? Twilight Fluttershy Rarity Applejack Pinkie Pie Rainbow Dash Spike Princess Celestia Princess Luna 5. Always have a goal. You don't have to come up with the whole plot right away, but you should have an end in sight. Ultimately how will they solve the current problem? When will the party end? And so on. 6. Don't be afraid to erase everything if you write yourself into a corner. You aren't being paid for this. You're doing to for yourself and anyone who likes your writing. 7. Keep an eye on the show and make sure you know who has done what. Bad writing you can sometimes get away with. Get something fromt he show wrong and you'll never hear the end of it. Like now if you were to write a fic about Rainbow Dash dating Big Macintosh and did not at least mention that he's supposed to be dating Cheerilee... well you get the idea.
This one isn't necessarily true. It's just that original characters tend to be held to significantly higher scrutiny and standards. You have to build them from the beginning and make sure their personality is properly constructed and fleshed out. Their interactions with main characters are especially put under the microscope. For the latter part, it is a good idea to have them as a tag along to build up their characterization. You can build upon their characters starting with reactions to or alongside others. That's not to say it's a requirement, but consider it more like "training wheels" until you want them to become a/the main character or you're unsure about starting with them as a main character from scratch. I rarely read pure OC stories myself, and don't hold the same standards as everyone else for them, but I'm told Fallout: Equestria is a good example, though it's long.
According to a friend that has read it, 3 of the Mane 6 are in it as minor characters, but the others were considered dead or missing. I don't know, though.
I only have a hand full of tips. 1. If you write a fanfic where you take an existing episode and decide to have another character tell the story, then only keep about 10% of the original story. What I mean is that you can keep certain things in the fanfic the same, but you should change enough of it that it doesn't feel like we are just reading the episode. 2. Don't write a fanfic where the conflict can be solved in five minutes. For example, "Rainbow Dash wakes up without her wings, and she cries about it"! Magic, BOOM! Problem solved!!! (Not really a fanfic only tip, but it's more pronounced). 3. No author comments in the middle of the fanfic! For example: Twilight struggled in the magic duel against the magician draped in black. She was ever so slowly pushed back, and, try as she might, she couldn't stop it. She was then pushed back against a rock. (Rocks seem to play some role in MLP:FIM, so why not add it?) The magician draped in black said some ancient words, and black chains with shackles appeared, locking her hooves in them. The magician smiled at his work, but it was short lived. For two hands extended from the rock, and broke chain and shackles. Was that little comment really needed? Also, this applies to when you can't describe something, so you post a link in the story and say it looks like the picture. That's lazy! 4. Present reasons in the story of why alternative methods to solving the problem can't work. For example, Twilight is sent to the future using a spell that makes you go to the future when you point your horn to the sun, and it sends you to the past when you point your horn to the moon. Problem: Twilight can't travel back in time, because she is too weak. Solution 1: Twilight meets Celestia and she sends her back in time. Problem: Celestia is dead. Solution 2: Ask Luna. Problem: Luna sends ponies to the past via the sun, but the sun doesn't exist anymore. As shown, all possible solutions are out of the questions, and that means Twilight can't just leave whenever she wants too. 5. Try to continue writing your story to the end; even if you hate it. The reason is that it will be a good lesson for you, and it's possible that with it done, you will want to go back and edit it later. Those are my tips. I hope that they are helpful.
There's actually quite a lot of fanfic or writing expectations I overlook on submissions because most authors don't have the same aims as I do. Stuff like "Mary Sue," perfect characterization, or exceptional amounts of tell are *usually* not taken into account when I look something over. However, somethings such as line breaks between speaking characters are because, well let's face it, it's terribly painful to read with a bad format. While I won't really shoot a story down for a badly written story or characters, I would likely do it if the story was completely tell. I really don't think anyone would actually manage a story entirely of tell, though.
Always keep in mind what your characters are and what they should have and be capable of. For example if they have hooves, shaking hands isn't really an option. Ponies have magic, not telephones. I personally have no freaking idea how anyone but a unicorn can write anything without help. And so on. Also keep in mind the feel of the show. Genocide and MLP don't mix.
Proof-Reading is golden. Nah! That's probably come up already...err... How about wise sounding words I got from an interview with Graham Linehan - who wrote Father Ted, Black Books and The IT Crowd. Feed the subconscious by reading and watching as much stuff as you can in preparation for writing. Let your head churn then spit ideas out for you to use automatically. Games, TV, Websites, Youtube, Books, Fan Fics. Anything can be used as eventual pulp for your ideas machine.
If you're going to do that, rather than make it up yourself you can try parody. At least for practice. Turn someone from another show you're familiar with into a pony and see how it goes. You have a ready-made personality and openings for in-jokes. For example: http://www.everypony.com/forums/showthread.php?3940-The-H-Files&goto=newpost Another fun thing to do is MSTs. http://www.everypony.com/forums/sho...the-Elements-Friendshipis-magic-with-benefits While mean and hurtful (if you're doing it right) this is a good way tto review a fic so that you can give specific comments on things rather than "it was good" or "this sucked" which don't help the writer improve. I always encourage people to MST my fics whenever possible. If they don't I do it myself.
Well it is just fan fiction. You don't have to go overboard with the proof reading as long as the flaws aren't too obvious. Though I've seen some people who can't tell the difference between a period and a comma. But that's why they have spelling and grammer checkers.
Some tips I could offer, even though I am just a junior writer, are: 1. Describe things. Here is a comparison of how it helps: "The boy sat on his bed in the darkness." OR "The young boy rested himself on his bed, motionless in the blackness that surrounded him." Describing things makes your story longer and more enjoyable, but also don't overdo it. If you describe everything that way, your reader will soon be wishing that the story was moving faster and start skipping past the superfluous details. 2. Have an extensive vocabulary, and use it. This doesn't really help you right off the bat, but always try to learn new words for things. Use a thesaurus, if you must. It helps keep your writing interesting when you don't use the same description over and over again. "Twilight", "The purple unicorn", "The lavender mare", etc. Try to have some variety in your words. Kinda the same thing, but yeah. That's all from me.
