Thread: Advice for burgeoning fanfic writers (common mistakes to avoid, discussion).

I've been reading a lot of these lately in various places, and I keep seeing authors make the same mistakes over and over and over. Mistakes like these can quickly put your story in the massive "lame" category. Similarly, avoiding certain things can certainly put your story in the small "good" category. Having read these things since 1999, I've seen some good, a lot of bad, and many mistake. This is an attempt to enumerate the biggest.


INTERNAL INCONSISTANCIES

These are some of the more annoying mistakes that an author can make. A world that is internally inconsistant is a world that gets stupid fast. The games and anime themselves don't exactly help matters here, but just because they have an occasional inconsistancy does not mean that it's okay for you to have them all over the place.

Guns:
Easily the biggest and most widely-abused internal inconsistancy. Guns existing are going to have a very serious effect on your world. If just one character anywhere is packing heat, there had better be a damn good reason why other characters aren't. If guns exist there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for Team Rocket (or any similar villains) to not be using them heavily. Team Rocket's guns should be used as early and often as their pokemon. You will quickly realize that it is far more easy to have a world where guns do not exist.

Contradiction:
It seems obvious, but don't say one thing in one chapter and then completely forget about it or go against it in some later chapter. I think everyone does this at some point, try your best to avoid it or make it very small and unnoticable. Retcons are lame, readers have long memories.


USE OF ANIME CHARACTERS IN STORIES NOT ABOUT THEM

The best advice I can give here is "don't". Characters from the anime should never be major characters or influences in your story (video game characters are okay). It's undesirable, though acceptable, for them to be mentioned in passing for some purpose. I dislike this, however, because the author's idea of what a character should have accomplished and my idea of what a character should have accomplished are usually different. It makes me seethe with rage when I see Ash Ketchum as the champion of the Pokemon League. Some of your readers will not have the same expectations of a character's future that you will. Respect that.

If you must use an anime character in your story, make sure you get their personality right. (There are obvious and widely-known exceptions to this such as Pokemon MASTER, where the entire point is that everyone has changed. A lot.)

You don't have to make every pokemon center nurse a Nurse Joy. In fact, it's preferable if you don't make anything a Nurse Joy. Nothing screams unoriginality more than the generic pokemon center. Well, okay, that was some major hyperbole. But it is horridly unoriginal.

You do not have to use Team Rocket, though using them as villains is okay. If you do use them, please get their personalities correct. Despite what you see of Jessie and James, Team Rocket should be evil with a capital 'E'. They should carry and use guns if they exist. They should get physical with you. They should attempt to slit your throat. Above all, don't have your two agents and their cat use a motto-poem whenever they make their entrance. No one reads that crap, and smart villains wouldn't loudly announce their presence anyway.


NEW TRAINER FICS

Do something to differentiate yourself from everything else out there. A great example of such differentiation is a fic/novel called Sibling Rivalry*, where the main character finds himself in the center of a world-threatening prophecy that he must overcome. The author makes many of the mistakes I list in this post and the beginning is rough, but his ability to differentiate his story from everything else at the time and his exponential increase in writing skill was more than enough to make his story one of my favorites.

The "avoid using anime characters" rule goes double for new trainer fics; don't be Mary Sue. Video game characters are still okay. So is Team Rocket, but please make them evil.

Many readers dispair upon seeing the character start with some superpowerful pokemon like Mew. I'm actually okay with this, provided that it's worked into the story fairly well. However, the character shouldn't be getting this pokemon from Professor Oak.

* You probably haven't seen it unless you were reading these things around 2000 or so. It still exists, but it is somewhat unfinished and I'm pretty sure that the author died irl. Very sad, it was one of my favorites.


MISCELLANIOUS OTHER MISTAKES

I said it before under new trainer fics but it bears repeating. DO SOMETHING TO MAKE YOUR FIC UNIQUE. You can make every other mistake I list in this post here, but as long as you make your fic unique chances are that people will still think it's good.

Use correct homonyms. Understand the difference between affect and effect.

Pick one style of dialog and stick with it. There are two popular styles of dialog, and they go like this:
"Well," he said, "I suppose that that's enough training for today."
- and -
"Well." he said. "I suppose that that's enough training for today."
I'm pretty sure that both are correct; just be consistent with what you use.


Well, that's all I can think of for now. I hope that I've enlightened you to common mistakes that you might have made or are in the process of making, and convinced you to see the light.

So we can't write about the characters people know and love? That makes no sense.

And it's been firmly established that guns exist in the Pokemon world, and yet we've never seen a TR agent (or an agent of any other Team) use them.

Originally Posted by Blackjack Gabbiani

So we can't write about the characters people know and love? That makes no sense.

Ah, so I'm not the only one that noticed that?

What the hell is the point of fan fiction if we can't write about the character's in the cannon? It seems to defeat the whole purpose of fan fiction if we aren't allowed to use the characters..it might as well be original fiction then. You can't write crap about the games, as the character you play is yourself and then it's just an original trainer fic, and in a way, not really a fan fiction except for the pokemon and the world.

If the entire point of the fic is to be /about/ the anime characters, then they certainly can be used. I'm mostly talking about fics that are primarily about new characters, which would also make major use of anime characters. I guess that that was sort of ambiguous, so I edited my wording a bit to make it obvious.

And it's been firmly established that guns exist in the Pokemon world, and yet we've never seen a TR agent (or an agent of any other Team) use them.

4Kids has been trying pretty hard to change their existance. But even so, the world being internally inconsistant already is no real excuse to continue its inconsistance. It can get pretty silly pretty fast if you have one scene where a character is being threatened with a gun. Then Team Rocket, or whoever is tracking the character, later comes in with orders to eliminate this threat, and somehow doesn't have a gun or anything capable of dealing bodily harm except their own pokemon. At some point the writer is going to have to deal with the fact that a group that robs, kidnaps, and even kills does not use guns even though they are available and would make obvious sense to use.

I'm pretty sure that if TR was meant to have guns, they would have been shown by now. Especially with the base guards and the like.

Why the hell would you use guns when you have the almighty POLES!

And Pokemon, who are pretty much packing more power then a gun.

Yeah, I fail to see the reasoning behind having an organization that uses pokemon, using guns. I mean, really, which is more accurate and powerful? A highly trained pokemon, or a gun, which needs to be aimed by the user?

Granted, guns have been used in a few fanfictions of mine, consistantly through one, and in one or two scenes in others.

I think your advice, Surgo, was in parts more to do with your own preference than actual things that a fanfic writer should know. Advice concerning grammar, inconsistencies (yes, i realise i can't spell...) and general writing stuff is valid and such but you can't just tell people what to write (ie using anime characters or guns). I think that has more to do with your own pet-peeves (conveniently there's a topic going on about such a thing right now!)

MistyRocks: In parts, I suppose; I actually made sure to keep some things that I was certain were pet-peeves out of it. Not using anime characters isn't really a pet peeve though --it's a Mary Sue avoidance.

On TR and guns (again): Pokemon may be powerful, but so are guns. Guns are also cheap, far cheaper than pokemon, so if we wanted to talk about reasoning and making sense, TR would be carrying lots of guns and not as many pokemon :P

Cheap? Pokemon are free, last time I check. Just buy a Pokeball or something.

Plus, Sceptile > Gun.

I'm gonna agree with Habunake on the guns are more expensive than pokémon thing. Last time i checked a pokéball was pretty cheap. hell, you can find em lying round sometimes. and you even get given some when you visit the lovely professors.. or some such... but guns are expensive in comparison. I'd think they'd be more dangerous too. i mean, you can get disarmed with a gun right? depending on who you come up against obviously. but they can't exactly disarm you of your pokémon... well... they could steal it ok. but given that it's TR which are in the pokémon stealing business i don't think they'd worry about that.

also, if you go around shooting people wouldn't it be easier to trace the bullet? i think it would be slightly harder to trace a pokémon's attack. well, unless it was like a bite attack cause then the teeth marks could probably be traced or there might be saliva left behind. am i getting too into this? hehe ^^;

don't get me wrong Surgo, i'm definitely not having a go at you over any of the things you've said. actually, i'm finding it sorta interesting comparing the use of pokémon with guns

how's the use of anime characters the same as use of Mary Sue type characters, can i ask? with the anime characters, alright so you're taking ready made characters, i can see where maybe you'd find unoriginality with that. but the whole fanfiction thing would give the licence to put the characters in new settings/different time in their lives/whatever and give your own spin on them (obviously keeping it close enough to what you'd expect from the character). i don't understand your protest to that because... well isn't that fanfiction? i don't see why you think it's okay to use the game characters but not the anime characters. is that because the game characters aren't developed really at all?

Cheap? Pokemon are free, last time I check. Just buy a Pokeball or something.

Plus, Sceptile > Gun.

Last time i checked a pokéball was pretty cheap.

If you want them to starve, sure. Pokemon are living creatures and require feeding, extensive training, and all that sort of thing. Which is quite expensive and time-consuming when compared to, say, a saturday night special.

MistyRocks: Again, I'm talking about anime characters mixed with original main characters, which often leads down the path of the Mary Sue. And yes, game characters aren't really developed so I'm fine with them.

Originally Posted by Surgo

If just one character anywhere is packing heat, there had better be a damn good reason why other characters aren't.

This makes no sense. If one character (a villain, for example) carries a gun for self-protection, why does that mean that every character has to carry a gun? Not everyone wants to own a gun or use a gun.

If guns exist there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for Team Rocket (or any similar villains) to not be using them heavily. Team Rocket's guns should be used as early and often as their pokemon.

I guess I agree with you here. I've read a few fanfics where 9mm guns were used by TR members. If the writer wants it that way, then so be it. However, if the choice were between using a level 50 Charizard or a 9mm gun, I'd go with the fire-breathing lizard every time. Remember, TR is a tiered organization. Higher agents likely have better trained (and more powerful) Pokémon that could conceivably immobilize someone carrying (and even aiming) a gun at them.

Really, I can imagine a flamethrower vaporizing a bullet before it hits the pokemon or the trainer (if the pkmn's has a high enough level)

This makes no sense. If one character (a villain, for example) carries a gun for self-protection, why does that mean that every character has to carry a gun? Not everyone wants to own a gun or use a gun.

It doesn't mean that every character has to carry a gun. "Hey, I don't want a gun" is a fine reason not to have one. Most real people don't want guns.

I do think it would make more sense for TR agents to carry both level 50 charizards AND 9mm handguns :D

Really, I can imagine a flamethrower vaporizing a bullet before it hits the pokemon or the trainer (if the pkmn's has a high enough level)

It's possible, yes, but it would work the same way as dodging: you have to do it before the gun fires. Though it would probably be a little easier!