Natsuki

.bluefang.

Age 33
Female
Minnesota
Seen July 16th, 2015
Posted March 22nd, 2012
5,046 posts
18.2 Years
All right, I've kind of edited this thread from the last one I made. So here we go! Please fasten your seatbelts and keep your arms and legs inside the thread at all times. ^.~


Basics of Writing Fan Fictions
As I have read the different fan fictions in this section. There are some problems that occur more than once in each fan fic. Here are some helpful tips to make you become a better and hopefully more adamant wirter. ^_____^

Keyboard Usage

Enter/Return: This is one of the most useful keys. Use it whenever you have finished with one idea and are ready to move on to the next paragraph. Use it when one person has finished speaking, and another is about to start. When doing so, hit it twice, to produce a blank line between paragraphs. This makes it a lot easier for your readers to tell where your paragraphs start and end. Large blocks of uninterrupted text are hard to read.

Shift: Another important key. Hold it down when typing the first letter of a sentence, the first letter of a name, or the letter 'I' when using it as the first person singular subject pronoun.

Caps Lock: Often used as a substitute for the 'Shift' key. Don't do it. Text should not be in all capital letters unless someone is SHOUTING! XD

The Spacebar: Hit it once after every word or comma, twice after a period. ^^

Tab: Unfortunately, this does not work to indent paragraphs on these boards. This is why a blank line between paragraphs is essential. ^_____^

Other Keys: Your keyboard, unless it is defective, comes with a full complement of letters. Don't be afraid to use them. There is no reason to type 'u' instead of 'you', or indeed to use any abbreviation you learned in a chat room. There is no penalty for taking a few seconds longer to type complete words.


Composition

Paragraphs: Use these as your basic unit of composition. Each paragraph should be used to set forth a single idea. If a paragraph seems to long, it probably contains multiple ideas, and should be split up for clarity. If it seems too short, expand on the idea.

Sentences: A sentence should contain exactly one action or statement of existence. If it contains more than one, split it into two or more. You can also use the ';' key to add two sentences together that are reletively talking about the same thing. If it contains less than one, finish the sentence. Run-on sentences are often confusing, while fragments make the reader feel that something is missing.

Description: Make sure that your reader can visualize what is happening. Don't just say something like "Kelsey walked around, enjoying the evening." Add more to it. Describe where Kelsey is and add little tid-bits about her sourroundings. Maybe state what the sky was like during the sunset. Were there any animals around? Explain your writing. ^^

A description is not just a list of attributes. When describing a character, don't just list their name, age, height, and hair color. Bring this information out gradually when the person appears in a story. Don't just have Something random happen in the story and have everything known about the person appear right away. Take your time, this is how you can build a good climax to your story.

Punctuation: OK, I've seen this problem with many fan fictions and poems alike. By using proper punctuation, you can avoid run-on sentences. Here's an example of a run-on sentence: "I went to the store to buy some milk but then I thought I should buy some chhese too then while I was at the store I was a rally good friend of mine and we began talking for the longest time boy was it fun." o.O Please, don't be afraid to use proper punctuation like commas, colons, periods, etc. to really make you writing stand out. ^.~

General Advice

Plot: The plot is the basic outline of what happens in a story or piece of writing. The plot is almost like the main goal, a story is not a story without one. ^____^ Try to be as descriptive as you possibly can with your plots. Even describing the smallest things helps so the reader can get a better picture in their head as to what is happening.

Climax: The climax in a story is where the conflict in your piece of writing has reached its peak. This is usually where to most action occurs, and the story gets very exciting. ^o^ This is also a good spot to foreshadow things in your ficcies. ^^

Spelling/Grammar: Write your story in a word-processing program. Use the spellchecker, but don't depend on it completely. It can tell whether your word matches the spelling of a real word, but it cannot tell whether it is the word you wanted to use. Use grammar checkers with extreme care, for they are not always correct in checking your grammar for you. They cannot actually understand what you are saying, and often make mistakes. XD

OK, now I'm going to close and sticky this. Please please refer back to this thread when writing a fan fiction, for it really is very helpful. ^_~

~Kelsey