azurelunatic | Celebration of Mary Sue, or, Writing Advice I Could Have Used at Age 14.

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Celebration of Mary Sue, or, Writing Advice I Could Have Used at Age 14.

Mary Sue as Feminist Icon; Other people's wish-fulfillment fantasies are often boring to read unless you share the selfsame fantasies. I wonder if the world needs a guide intended for young fanfic writers on the topic of "So you want to write Mary Sue stories" -- I probably could have used one, and I know a rather lot of the young ladies out there writing them could use them.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to put yourself in the story and writing about wonderful and beautiful things happening. Nothing at all. It's a great deal of fun for you; if you're writing your friends in it, it's a great deal of fun for them as well. It isn't likely to be a universal classic, though -- unless everyone knows you and your friends, and likes you and your friends, they're probably not going to be interested enough to read it, and would probably prefer to avoid it if given the option. It is possible that you've written a universal classic, but the odds are very much against it.

Whatever you do, don't stop writing. All this writing that you're doing is helping you hone your technical writing craft, even though there will be places that very much need some work. Idealistic self-insert stories may not help you learn some aspects of plotting or modern three-dimensional characterization, but they're definitely practice for description and narrative. A year later, you may look back at what you wrote and immediately see thirty flaws on every page. Realize that your ability to see those flaws is because of all that practice and experience you've racked up. I spent ten years working on a single book. I kept writing on it, and every now and then I would go back through and realize that one section or another did not stand up to the quality of the rest of the book. So I'd go through and re-write enormous sections of it. Some sections wound up being re-written several times. The direct result of all this literary navel-gazing is my current ability to write huge chunks of very readable first draft very, very fast.

If you have scenes that have to be cut, for gods' sake save them somewhere! Give each of them their own file, or make a big file with all the cut scenes. You never know when you're going to want to use that again, and if you have some turn of phrase you really like, don't throw it out just because it doesn't fit into your vision of the moment. Likewise, don't be scared to cut out a scene if it doesn't fit with the rest of the piece, even if you really really love it. You can save a copy of it, you can turn it into a stand-alone work, or at the very least you can put it up as an outtake. I have enough material in that would-have-been novel to write at least five books. The novel would have been huge and rambling and not at all good, but if I shredded it to pieces and sifted it into topic and found a plot for each topic in the book, I'd have about five books and each of them half-done.

Consider where you're sharing this story. Given that this is no longer the Century of the Fruitbat, you probably have it up online in some fanfiction archive or other, or in your journal, and you have the summary of the story written to be aimed directly at your intended audience -- your closest friends, the ones you're writing this to share with. The trouble with this is that while the story is your private little party, and you really wouldn't mind if the general public became friends with you and shared in the fun, the general public is not likely to share in your happiness with your shiny and would-be utopic (or dark and grim and would-be dystopic) bit of fanfiction. They're expecting fanfiction shared in that much public to be fanfiction intended for sharing with a wider and less specialized audience (all Harry Potter fans who like Hermione/Harry, for example, rather than all Harry Potter fans who like Hermione/Harry and are also your friends). If someone expecting a story of wide appeal comes in and winds up mistakenly reading your story of very narrow appeal, you may wind up in possession of a stinging review. And oh, how those fuckers hurt.

Instead of sharing on a fanfiction archive where anyone looking for the pairing you like can stumble across your fic by accident, consider archiving it only in your journal. The people who matter are going to wind up there anyway, and you can always post it to your favorite fanfiction archive site later, if the response you get in your journal from people who aren't close friends of yours is good enough to suggest that your story has wider appeal. Consider labeling your story with a summary that includes "Original character who is an idealized version of me", or "How would my friends and I fit into canon?" If people who really don't want to read those sorts of stories know this up front, then they'll be more likely to avoid your story and move on to something more to their taste.

Consider what you want to convey with the story. If you want to make the story be about someone having cool and fun things happen to them, go ahead and run with the plot where the idealized version of yourself winds up in that situation and everything works out perfectly, with only minor setbacks. (Stories like this sometimes grow up to be mainstream romance novels. If you're very good at writing this kind of story, there may be a career in it for you.)

If you want to write a story about someone being faced with serious challenges and overcoming them, make sure that there is a good chance that they might not make it through their difficulties with everything being OK. If you're serious about wanting to write a story with big obstacles for your characters to overcome, write in a few obstacles that they fail at in the course of the plot. Write in some obstacles that they only partially make their way through. If your character is struggling with a big test, having her ace the test with no problems and wind up getting every question right may be deeply satisfying to the character, but does not convey struggle very well. Having the character encounter problems getting through the test, and wind up with a B conveys that despite the problems with the test, the character did very well and succeeded at overcoming the obstacle, even though that grade was worse than the grade of the character who had very little problem with the test.

A lot of idealized characters are stunningly beautiful, with perfect skin, lovely bodies, unique eye color, perfect hair in unusual colors, and so forth. If your idealized character has any of these things going on, or other things like special powers or something, consider giving some of these things (or if not those exact things, things similar to them) to those around your idealized character. If some of the other characters around your idealized character are supposed to be drab or even ugly, play that up as well. Why have a villain who looks like an ordinary man when you can have a villain who has glowing red eyes and a hint of scaliness about him? Why have a sidekick who looks ordinary when you could have a sidekick who looks so ordinary that he can never be accurately described by people who meet him because he's just that boring? Have fun with all the character descriptions, not just one or two! 100% unique characters in a world full of ordinary people do stand out, but it's not a distinction to be used lightly.

[Edit: More about appearance.]

If you're playing with characters who are people you know, but they haven't told you that they want to be in the story you're writing, insert some plausible deniability into the situation by renaming everyone. If they find the story (or if someone else finds the story and tells them) you can always claim to have been experimenting and making a composite based on several people. You can't really do that if you've got their name on their character. Similarly, if you're writing a how-things-might-have-been story based on the events of your real life, also go back through and change the names the moment the alternate universe situation sets in. You can keep a private (or not-so-private) casting sheet showing who is played by who, but consider the likely reaction of the mean biology teacher, if she should stumble upon a piece of fiction depicting a clone of her with her own name torturing puppies. It is not likely to be a good reaction. Even a fictional likeness that you think is as accurate and true to life as you can get it is likely to be disturbing to someone who doesn't want to think about the way that other people see them.

Speaking of names, try keeping your naming consistent. If everyone is named rather normal names, someone with a beautiful and exotic name may wind up appearing rather silly in contrast to everyone else, instead of achieving that beautiful exotic effect you were dreaming of. Try giving everyone lovely names, or search for a name for your character that's still lovely without appearing out of place compared to everyone else.

If you're writing this not just because you're telling a story that's fun, but because the story has a lot of deeper meaning to you, be careful about who you share it with and how you share it with them. Think about what would happen if the person you're thinking about sharing your story with got ahold of your diary somehow. How would you feel? Would you be OK with it? Would you be OK if they said you were wrong about a bunch of things? People who are asked to critique stories will go through and look for the parts that they think are wrong and bad, and tell you about them. They might or might not suggest how to fix them. If it's a really sensitive subject that you've been writing about and you would hurt all over if someone told you that any part of it was wrong, then you may not be ready to have the piece reviewed by someone who will criticize. It's OK to not want a critical review of something, especially if you're just starting out and building up the courage to write. Ideally, ask first if the person is OK with you showing them some writing and them giving feedback of the type you want -- and be sure to specify exactly what kind of feedback you want.

Showing it off in public is inviting criticism. If you can't take criticism, don't share it in public. There are many ways to share it that aren't in public, though. You can share it one-on-one with someone; you can share it via e-mail to a person or a group; you can put it up online in a restricted-access area (like a locked, perhaps even filtered post on LJ). If you do share it with someone, let them know what kind of feedback you're looking for, before they start looking it over.

synecdochic gives good advice on how to get the most out of someone looking the whole story over and making broad suggestions about it.

One of the most stinging quasi-constructive pieces of advice out there is the raw statement "Get a beta." The usual unhappy flailing response is either "I have a beta!" or "I can't find a beta!" Either way, that review means that there are so many technical and structural flaws in the piece that it shouldn't be let out in public on its own. If you can't find someone who is willing to read it and give you constructive feedback, don't worry too hard. Read up on everything you can about the writing process, and see if any of it applies to your own work. Keep writing. If you've reached the limit of what you can do on your own on any one given story, put it down and move on to another. That last story will still be there when you have found someone to look it over, and the things you learn while writing the next piece may be some of the things you were needing to know about the last one.

Spell-check. Always spell-check. There are some things that spell-checking can't fix; there are many things that it can. Grammar-check as well, if the program you're using offers it. http://docs.google.com is a free online document service, and has a built-in spell-checker. LiveJournal has a spell-checker. (It's bad, but it's better than nothing.) Regular use of a spell-checker that flags your misspelled words and makes you correct them will actually improve your spelling, especially if there are a few words that you consistently get wrong. Avoid asking your spell-checker to automatically change your common misspelling to correct it; this will make you more likely to misspell it in contexts where there is no spell-checker.

Be aware of your writing weaknesses. Maybe you have trouble building characters that people believe. Maybe you have trouble with your plot. Maybe you have problems with using the right words all the time. If someone's not willing to give you the full beta experience, but is willing to go through and highlight every time you use a word wrong, take them up on it. Even if they don't actually give you the answer, which word is right, you can look up the wrong word and figure out what it actually means and how it's supposed to be used, and you can probably ask someone else what is the right word that means what you want it to mean that resembles the word that was incorrect.

If you're really serious about wanting to improve your writing on your own, to the point where you'll do anything as long as it's not illegal and won't kill you, look up some of the sites dedicated to bashing the bumbling efforts of new writers, such as

deleterius and its ilk. All the quoted bits cited there are probably a Bad Example, but in their deconstruction of the source material, you may find some actual good advice that applies to you. You do need an incredibly thick skin to look at that sort of stuff, though, because a lot of the new-writer/bad-writer bashing can get personal, petty, and mean. You probably don't want to do any interacting with the people there, because you would be a new source of amusement to them and you would probably get flamed up pretty badly. Passively reading the archives won't clue them in to your presence. If you happen to see something you've written there, it really sucks, but getting into a fight with them probably won't solve anything.

If your reviewer suddenly winds up screaming and flailing at you and coming out of nowhere with a very strong and personal reaction that leaves you hurt and spinning, it may not actually be you or your work. You may have just managed to push the hot-button of that particular reviewer, one of the things that is guaranteed to drive them completely insane. Get a second opinion from someone who you don't think has that particular hot button.

Above all, just keep writing. You may only ever wind up writing for your own amusement; you may wind up at the top of the New York Times' Bestseller List; you'll never know unless you keep writing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

> If you have scenes that have to be cut, for gods' sake save them somewhere! [...]

Anyone doing any serious amount of writing - fiction, non-fiction, code, or otherwise - should be using a version control system.

Someone needs to write a stand-alone implementation of CVS or Subversion with a user interface that's accessible to your average writer. Decide you want to see what chapter fourteen looked like six weeks ago? No problem! It's all there - every single change.

The benefits for people doing collaborative work would be immense, too.

Simple version control: [filename][date][variable].[extension]. So if you were writing say, Barrayar you'd have barrayar01011992a.txt as your first save of the day on Jan 1, 1992. For a novel length work like Barrayar you might want to do multiple files so you'd do a directory with each chapter as a file.

Then for any change, do a save as instead of a save.

This is by no means ideal, but it does cut down substantially on problems if you need to roll back a change and don't have a real versioning system.

I'm not sure I'd call that simple - and it relies too much on the human doing the work. Most people just won't bother. Far better to get people into the habit of hitting 'commit' every time they make significant changes.

Simple in the sense of "human readable" and "doesn't require learning new software". Most people can handle the idea of keep track of saves by date, and the idea of don't overwrite an old save is easy to learn.

It's definitely not as easy as real version control that is set up right, but real version control at present takes a fair bit of training to set up. IIRC it took my partner and a coworker a full week to set up Subversion last time they upgraded. That covered a 10 developer office, with only about 3 developers doing any real collaboration.

And yes, most people don't bother with any form of version control or backup at home. Most people aren't using their computers as a business tool. When they are, there's an IT department to do backups for them. Most pro authors seem to compensate for their lack of paid IT support by using hardcopy backups, some form of manual version control, and some form of electronic backup. I know most volunteer software projects use similar tools if they're not using CVS.

Hence my comment that there's a need for a stand-alone (ie, no server set-up required) VCS with a simple UI that writers could use.

The problem is that writers don't know they need this, and geeky open-source types are happy using SVN or CVS (if they hate themselves).

Hobbyist writers don't know they need version control, same as many hobbyist programmers, artists, or web developers. Professional authors seem to be awfully busy writing and have versioning systems they're happy with (many of which seem to be variants of the one I described). I'd tend to say the main difference between the pro and proto-pro authors I know and the hobbyists is their use of versioning (and backups).

From a software developer's point of view, the hobbyist won't pay for software they don't know they need. The pro needs their software but doesn't have time to learn to use it (and from hearing various pros bitch about software changes, something as simple as changing "save" to "commit" would disrupt their work pattern for around a month). So the software developers are going to continue producing version control systems that are inappropriate for the average user for quite a while, because the main customers will be in industry.

It seems likely to me that we won't see a commercially viable version control system like what you're describing until after journaling file systems hit the average desktop. At that point an OS integrated version control system is pretty simple to design, since a fair chunk of the work is done within the file system.

(Admittedly, a team of software devs working with good marketing people could make what you're describing a viable product before then. It's just not a very sexy product and is a hard problem. That makes getting funding for initial development work hard.)

So yes, there may be "need", but need alone doesn't get software written. Unless a software development firm can figure out how to design, market and support the product effectively, it's not in their interest to produce it.

Looks like 'Time Machine' in the upcoming new Mac OS X might be halfway there, from the keynote notes: http://www.macrumorslive.com/

That is integrated backup software. Very handy, and absolutely not a substitute for version control. Depending on how they've implemented it, it may or may not use a journaling file system to make the backups work (there are around a half dozen functional open source journaling file systems that in theory could be incorporated into OS X, but from a practical standpoint this is unlikely).

It sounds like what you're really wanting is an OS integrated version control and backup system. That way the user doesn't notice it, because from their point of view, computers *always* log who changed a file and how, and can reverse the changes, and the file *always* gets backed up. MS isn't likely to do this any time soon, since they'd likely get hit with an antitrust lawsuit. And Apple will probably continue moving in this direction, because it will make things easier for their target market.

And I'll keep telling non-gamers to get a Mac, because they're making computers for ordinary humans, not geeks.

I did say 'halfway'. :op

The FS of choice on Mac OS X is current AFS+ with journalling, and the rumour (unsubstantiated even by the last Keynote, I think) is that it'll be moving to Sun's ZFS.

googledocs.

Under "file" you can click on "view revision history" and it's ALL THERE.

I could have really used something like that in the insanest days of my teenage writing. It would be a pain to put it all back together again now.

Hmmm I think this is for writers of all ages...

...it's hard to say it, but even if you've outgrown the 'mary sue' stage to a point (I think it's difficult to escape it entirely), all of this is good advice and nice reminders.

I suppose it does apply. I was thinking back to the early days of Ectogenesis, and especially my run-in with that English teacher.

A very well-thought-out article on writing, indeed! I'm with you on pretty much all of it... particularly about using discretion in where you post your fanfic. This should be required reading for people who want to post their "works of fine literature" on fanfiction.net or other such fanfic sites. ^^;;

*Adds to Memories* :D

There's so much raw enthusiasm that so many of those young fangirls have, and it's a shame to watch it smushed with bad reviews caused by indiscriminate posting of their too-early works.

This is wonderful, wonderful advice, and I wish I'd had it decades ago when I was writing this stuff.

Even a fictional likeness that you think is as accurate and true to life as you can get it is likely to be disturbing to someone who doesn't want to think about the way that other people see them.

And if you're a student at an American public school, if something bad happens to the person in your story, even if it's just because you needed it to happen to *someone* so your heroine can go and save them, you can get in trouble if your school finds it. I don't necessarily agree with that, but it is true in an increasing number of school systems. Renaming people can be helpful in that regard.

Oh yes.

Over ten years ago, my young, inexperienced, and tactless English teacher got my hopeful attempt at deathless prose. I was prepared to hear that my writing stunk and the different ways in which it stunk. I was not prepared to hear that the people I was writing about would neverneverneverneverever act the way that I'd written them, even though 99% of the story up to that point was a faithful reconstruction of events I'd participated in.

Neither of us were happy with the other after that point, but I went through and changed the names and stopped participating in her classes.

here via metafandom to applaud whole-heartedly. much is made of fandom's mean-spiritedness in dealing with new improving writers, but its rare to find someone actually trump the cries against wank and come up with useful, understanding, well-thought out advice. and now you have! terrific stuff, and, of course, a good read for everyone. you almost make me want to write mary-sues now. :)

Ack! I hope I don't inspire too many people who aren't already writing Mary Sues to start writing them!

Thanks. :)

but if they all follow your advice they will all, in fact, be well-balanced and adorable. all shall love us and despair, etc.

It still leaves the issue of Mary Sue vs. The Canon Setup -- generally, when your standard self-insert wanders into canon, she manages to steal the show in the time-honored fashion of the Guest Lady of the Week in TOS Star Trek, and your average fanfic reader is looking for the story where the crew carries on as usual without having to get to know a new character who's only going to be killed off or otherwise abandoned as the ship sails on.

that is a standing problem, but surely if the mary-sue story is treated as a genre in itself, the way we approach AU, then it becomes a matter of choice, and people who read these stories will do so for the pleasure of observing a well-balanced, adorable etc. character in familiar surroundings. i know that the odd mary-sue/'write a self-insert! challenges amongst established authors in fandom tend to work well, once the readers go in knowing what to expect. of course, stories produced in those challenges do tend to become exceptions that prove the rule.

but it seems like there should be an audience that goes looking for sues, even if it is only other sue authors, no?

I suppose there must be an audience for it when it's done right. The anime genre of "magical girl" does fairly well for itself.

Fixing the Spotlight Hog Sue

A character can be very lovely but still have things that are imperfect about their appearance. It's very tempting to go over the character bit by bit and make exactly every part conform to what you want for yourself, and give her supposed flaws with her appearance that are actually charming. Like the hair that will never lie down flat but always manages to get slightly tangled in a fetching way. Like those last three freckles on the bridge of the nose. Like an extra inch or two in the hip and bust. Like that unladylike bulge of subtle muscle. If your character happens to be lovely down to the last inch, let her know it and be self-confident in it. Artificial dissatisfaction with her own appearance undermines her loveliness, and highlights the fact that she's just this side of Barbie.

It's not at all ordinary to look as if you've just stepped out of a fashion magazine without a whole lot of work every day. There are all sorts of resources about the makeup and photo manipulation work that goes into making a supermodel look so super. If you're going for supernatural beauty that's understated, and don't want anything obvious, you can go for something like that. It's less blatant than an unusual eye or hair color or eye color that changes with mood.

If you're going for very pretty but actually human, you can show some of the work that goes into keeping the pretty going on. Include some vigilant face-washing, hair-brushing, and all the little beauty routines that are employed by those dreadful girls who seem to spend all their time worrying about their looks and not so much time on actually being interesting and fun to hang around with.

If you're going for ordinary, I'm sure you've run into enough realistic appearance issues yourself; I probably don't need to list off any for you. Zits, bad haircuts, that moment of triumph when you finally manage to master eyeliner properly, and the utter panic of realizing that omg, there are no clean clothes.

There is something small I wish to add to all of the wonderful stuff you've said here, may it come to help the people who are honestly looking to improve. :D

If your character happens to be lovely down to the last inch, let her know it and be self-confident in it. Artificial dissatisfaction with her own appearance undermines her loveliness, and highlights the fact that she's just this side of Barbie.

This 'dissatisfaction' should not be mistaken for a character who is dissatisfied with the fact that the only thing people notice about her is her looks. A prime example is Buttercup from "The Princess Bride", who was not just extremly beautiful, but also intelligent on top of this. The person she fell in love with was the one person who loved her for the second trait, not the first.

So you've got your story up, and someone who you don't know comes along and gives you a review that does not contain even one little speck of "this is good" about your story. You've probably learned in English class that your traditional constructive criticism starts out with something good about the story, goes on to mention improvements that could be made, and finishes up with another good thing. And this is definitely not that.

But is it a flame?

What can be gained from it?

Obviously, it's going to hurt. You didn't put your fic up expecting that there were so many problems with it that this reviewer couldn't even find one good thing to say about it, and learning that even one person thinks that it's that bad is going to sting.

What's the content of the review? Does it make technical suggestions about your writing? Does it make structural suggestions about the story? Does it talk about your characters? Does it try to personally insult you?

"You suck" is a fairly straightforward personal insult. It says nothing about your story. You really can't get anything more out of this review, except to note that your reviewer is an unimaginative, small-minded twit with nothing better to do than roam around the internet and insult people that they don't even know.

"Your story sucks" is another one that you can't get much out of. It doesn't say anything about you personally, though; your reviewer is confining their imprecise imprecations to your current work, or perhaps even your entire body of work, if they go so far as to mention it.

"Your spelling sucks" is actually a reasonably useful review. It's not polite, but it brings up a very valid point. You may think that spelling does not matter, or should not matter, but spelling does matter. However, it is not necessary for you to know how to spell absolutely every single word. This is why there are spell-checkers. You do need to know the difference between similar words; if you get regular spelling flames after you've started consistently spell-checking yourself, look up the words that you're not sure of and make sure you're using the right words, because you probably aren't. Consider it part of the learning process, if you can. Poor spelling is a problem, but one that can be improved by working on it. Even if you're dyslexic, it is possible for you to at least attempt to spell correctly. My roommate's dyslexic. I cut her some slack, but her spelling has improved remarkably now that she's using a browser with a built-in spell-checker. (Firefox. Know it, love it, download it, use it.)

Note that a blunt note that says "You got X word wrong" is not a flame. It's direct, constructive criticism, albeit criticism without a positive part. How you handle something like that shows your maturity. If you pitch a fit over being told that you got a word misspelled, you should re-think the posting fiction in public bit. If you brush it off and don't correct it, you should also re-think whether you're ready to post in public. If you take it as constructive and fix the spelling problem, and make a mental note to look out for that in the future, you're taking the criticism as it was intended; more power to you. People will point out spelling mistakes and other typoes as a courtesy to other people, because it's very embarrassing to have something up in public with errors in it.

If a negative review mentions something specific about your story, like the plot, the pacing, the characters, the characterization, think about what might have caused them to leave that review, and think about whether you think that thing is a problem or not.

Say you had a surprise twist ending, and someone complains about not liking the ending. Are they complaining because your ending really stunk, or are they complaining because they don't like plot twists? Perhaps they're complaining about everyone using magic in your story. Hi, this is a Harry Potter story. People use magic. Perhaps they're complaining about giant robots in your story. Hi, this is a Harry Potter story. Where the hell did giant robots come from, anyway? Hmm, perhaps it's time to re-think the giant robots part.

No matter what you write, people will probably complain about it. My roommate writes one-shot stories, ones that are labeled as such. People complain because there's no sequel. There's no pleasing some people.

Run the negative review you got by some of your writing friends, and see if they think there's any merit to any of it. It helps if it's a review that has substance to it, like "The ending was way too abrupt" vs. "The ending sucked." They may think your ending was just fine, or maybe someone might say "Well, it was kind of rushed."

It's not necessary to make corrections to an existing story to suit what reviewers are saying about it. If you really feel like re-writing a story because you're getting bad reviews about it and you want to correct those things, go for it, especially if you can see exactly how to fix it. But really, there's no need. Just keep the constructive parts in the back of your head the next time you write, and ask your beta readers to keep an eye out as well if you know it's something you have a hard time spotting.

Making a public fuss about getting bad reviews makes you look like the immature one. It's OK to be upset about getting bad reviews, especially if they're particularly un-constructive bad reviews. But flaming back at your reviewers is not going to get you anywhere, and will probably get them laughing at you, and will encourage them to pick on you more. If you really feel like interacting with them, try and get some useful information out of them. If someone goes on about how it sucked, ask them what sucked about it. If someone is hating on your favorite character, ask them what they hate about your character. Ask for details and examples, and suggestions about what could be changed. If the person who's reviewing you is at all interested in helping you improve your writing, they may surprise you. If they're just interested in being obnoxious and picking on you, they'll give you useless answers (like "all of it" or "because it sucks" or go into personally insulting you) and you can probably cut off dialogue with them right there.

Blow off steam somewhere in quasi-private if you need to.

This is lovely, thank you! I'm bookmarking it so that I can hand it around at the appropriate time. Unlike, it seems, most of the fandom, I don't have a rabid dislike for Mary Sues - I just take them as a first step in the art of writing. I don't normally read them though, because I never feel I have the time to say all of this stuff in an encouraging and detailed way. Now, however, I can say 'I love that you're writing and your passion for this really shows, if you're interested in a bit more technical advice, read this...' and link to this meta. Which is a great public service! Thank you :)

You're welcome.

I evidently have a lot to say on this front, because I keep finding myself thinking of more things to say, like while in the shower. If I do ever wind up making a formal series of posts, or even a formal series of pages on some external webspace, I'll make sure that something in this entry links forward to that.

One of my pet peeves when reading a fic is when a pairing that isn't canon and doesn't have what I consider a lot of subtext in canon comes up, and the writer takes the pairing as a given and doesn't bother to tell me how they got together or anything, just expects me to accept it.

I don't, I won't, and unless I get sold on it, I'm through reading the story. Harsh, but I only have so much time and attention to go around, and one of the things that I won't do is read something that expects me to just go ahead and levitate my already-suspended disbelief a little higher. The original canon author got me to buy wizards and magic powers and a rather creepy budding dystopia. Now you're expecting me to buy happy-household!Harry/Draco on top of that? I'm sorry, no.

If you're writing fanfic and one of the premises of the fanfic -- or more than one -- is significantly different from canon, you're going to have to sell it to me. Map me out how we got from canon to where we are now.

The big thing about pairing characters who have a hard time going together is that usually putting them together requires that they act differently. I won't accept a Draco Malfoy who acts syrupy-romantic in public. Draco Malfoy is a damn sarcastic bastard, and he loves showing off and peacocking around like he owns the place. He may be afraid of any real conflict that he doesn't think he can win, but he has attitude like fuck-all. He's not going to magically drop that attitude when he falls in love. No, he's going to be an arrogant son of a bitch even then, making arrogant assumptions about his partner, showing off his partner like a prized possession, acting with cocky bravado but probably if there's a real fight between them, running and turning tail and claiming that he never loved his partner anyway and it was never real and you-can't-make-me-admit-I-was-wrong-but-I-don't-want-you-to-see-that-I-want-you-back.

If you're trying to sell me an established serious difference from canon, I need three things.

First, establish how it came to happen. It had to start somewhere, and it's only polite that you catch me up. It may warrant a whole story in and of itself, but the time for that story may not be now. You may need to summarize. It might be that the characters won't discuss it with you -- fine! But SAY THAT. "One day Draco showed up dragging a bemused Harry around by the hand. When Ron tried to get the story out of Harry, Harry mumbled something about alcohol and turned bright pink. Hermione grabbed Ron by the ear and made him stop pestering Harry. When Hermione tried asking Draco, he sneered at her and declared that he was not about to start discussing his personal life with someone of such low breeding. That pretty much put a stop to all the questions."

Second, establish how it is now; define the edges of how it differs from canon. What is it that they're doing that's non-canon, and do they have a reason for doing it. Draco and Harry may have overcome some of their differences because they found each other hot. Draco and Harry may hate each other to death, but they may have a common enemy and therefore a common purpose. You don't need to spend too long doing this either. (I'm tired; I'm just drafting this out as an outline.)

Third, most importantly, now that you've established what's up, *keep on showing it*. I'm not going to believe that Draco and Harry are a couple if they treat each other like crap, not without a reason for them to stay together. I'm not going to believe that Remus and Sirius are a couple if they don't indicate it somehow. I'm not going to believe that Dumbledore is a good and well-meaning guy unless you demonstrate it, and keep having him do things that are not batshit-insane.

If you have so many original characters and so forth that you're stretching canon painfully, and you're spending most of your writing time trying to establish how it differs from canon, you may be working with an embryonic original fic. Examine all the ties it has to canon, and ask yourself if canon really needs to be there. Figure out what you have to rebuild and replace for your fic to stand on its own. If you can't convince your readers to like it as a fanfic because of how different it is from canon, you may be in original fiction territory.

A telltale negative review that indicates you may be wandering into original universe territory is "canon rape" -- you have so many things different, and unsupportedly different, that your reader cannot bear it. If the story has to be told, it has to be told, but is there really a reason to tell it in the universe you're trying to tell it in? See if there's another place it could go.

It's OK to take your fanfic and spin it off into its own universe. Sometimes pro fic starts off this way, though you have to be very careful to remove all references to the original and make sure it stands on its own twice as hard. Writing an original universe from scratch is comparatively easy; getting someone else's universe out of your spin-off is hard. But it can be done!

Don't feel like you have to force your characters to comply with the original universe just because all your friends are still writing there.

This is quite lovely. Informative and encouraging. My teen scribblings were fortunately or not, pre net, but this would have been great to read in any case. I do hope you find someplace to post it where beginning writers(of any age) will have access to it.

I'm going to wind up with Grown-Up Webspace at some point in the future, and by that time I should have it hacked out into more of a viable resource and less of a rambling rant.

(over here via

metafandom)

This is really engaging and, oh, how I wish I had gotten my hands on it when I was a little fangirl, just starting out on ff.net! That said, this is still a pretty tremendous resource, even for grown-up fans, and thank you for posting it.

You're welcome. It seems that now that I have knocked a few problems off my day-to-day worry list, all the creative babbling is due to start coming out.

This is helpful - thank you.

THIS. All of this is what I honestly try to tell Suethors who are willing to take the time to listen to me, rather then going into a rant about how I was mean to burst their little bubble. These are things that I can't easily say in a review either, because it is long and complicated, which is why your article is so long and in depth. My most favorite part of the article is this.

Whatever you do, don't stop writing. All this writing that you're doing is helping you hone your technical writing craft, even though there will be places that very much need some work. Idealistic self-insert stories may not help you learn some aspects of plotting or modern three-dimensional characterization, but they're definitely practice for description and narrative. A year later, you may look back at what you wrote and immediately see thirty flaws on every page. Realize that your ability to see those flaws is because of all that practice and experience you've racked up. I spent ten years working on a single book. I kept writing on it, and every now and then I would go back through and realize that one section or another did not stand up to the quality of the rest of the book. So I'd go through and re-write enormous sections of it. Some sections wound up being re-written several times. The direct result of all this literary navel-gazing is my current ability to write huge chunks of very readable first draft very, very fast.

I honestly can't tell you how much I LOVE my Suethors who don't give up on something despite the fact it is convolted and the characters could definitly use work. I tell them to add in an author's note on the first chapter, that they know the work is the way that it is and that they are finishing for the sake of finishing, to hopefully prevent flamers.

I also don't critique because I want to be mean or belittle a person. (If I ever do belittle a person, call me on it.) I do it because I feel it is cruel to click on a story, see that the writing is problematic and not tell the person the truth about what I see. I expect the same back, truth be told, though I bet there are some things that I will disagree with a person on, simply because of canon interpretation. I also LOVE seeing young writers improve. Some take longer to take critique then others.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Celebration of Mary Sue, or, Writing Advice I Could Have Used at Age 14.

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three years later, one word...

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Bravo!

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Fixing the Spotlight Hog Sue

More about appearance

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Handling an unsolicited bit of criticism from a stranger

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Hook, Line, and Sinker: AU, OC, and OU

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