191: Penning the Perfect Fanfiction

[pparrish]

Penning the Perfect Fanfiction

The quickest way to a gamer's heart is through his imagination - and what better way to capture it than through a delicious piece of fanfiction? Peter Parrish offers five and a half easy steps to crafting your videogame-inspired masterpiece.

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[Sylocat]

It's really surprising how many games in established franchises really play out like giant fanfictions.

The Paper Mario series includes it all: Friendly members of the opponent races you usually just massacre, the Literary Agent Hypothesis, the uncharacteristically biting humor, and in the later games, a bigger evil that causes Mario and Bowser to be fighting on the same side for a while.

Final Fantasy X-2 was the first real "sequel" in the FF series, and has you on a quest to bring a character who died at the end of the last game back to life, while putting the female characters in a variety of Stripperiffic outfits. Oh, and you have to fight a brand-new villain, the logic of whose presence is dubious (terrific stuff, isn't it?).

Many of Sonic's recent games have been rather fanfiction-esque too. And the Dead or Alive X-treme series... well, you get the idea.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

You are a very, very, very bad man and now I have to pick muffin fragments out of my monitor... or explain their presence to IT somehow.

Well done.

-- Steve

 

[Nivag the Owl]

Let's be honest, Diddy Kong would win.

 

[Triggerhappy938]

You are a bad, bad person. My inner writer is writhing in pain now. I hope you are happy.

 

[Solipsis]

I may have tried to read this on my lunch break at work. I may also have wound up looking like a lunatic laughing hysterically while choking on cornbread.

I shall take your excellent advice as soon as I get home. I'm seeing an unlikely romance between Kairi and Thrall. I'm envisioning it unfolding in the Star Wars universe... You see, Kairi can travel between worlds, and Azeroth is actually in the Outer Rim....

I'm gonna be a hero.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Dark Messiah-Bratz Ponys you say....

One thing you missed out on though. NO MARY/GARY SUES!

If I see one more damn "Reader Fantasy Character", I'll assume it's just Russel T gone back to his original idiocy.

 

[John Funk]

I may have tried to read this on my lunch break at work. I may also have wound up looking like a lunatic laughing hysterically while choking on cornbread.

I shall take your excellent advice as soon as I get home. I'm seeing an unlikely romance between Kairi and Thrall. I'm envisioning it unfolding in the Star Wars universe... You see, Kairi can travel between worlds, and Azeroth is actually in the Outer Rim....

I'm gonna be a hero.

My god, it might just work. Consider me subscribed to your fanfiction.net account until this epic tale has been told.

 

[vaga_koleso]

Actually, some advice as to the best places to publish your fanfiction would have been handy

Other than that, cute article, but if anyone is planning to take it seriously, be careful with #3: planning to write a 500 page epic will yield an unfinished 500 page epic 99% of the time. Start small. The deviant porn will get you enough attention even with a modest 5-pager

 

[Clemenstation]

Other than that, cute article, but if anyone is planning to take it seriously, be careful with #3: planning to write a 500 page epic will yield an unfinished 500 page epic 99% of the time. Start small. The deviant porn will get you enough attention even with a modest 5-pager

"I'm pretty sure nobody is going to take this seriously," he said snidely, striding manfully down the hallway with his laptop computer balanced precariously on his super pimped-out TV tray. It was totally inlaid with diamonds and also more diamonds, which is what made it so pimp. "Hark! A parody do I see!"

 

[pparrish]

One thing you missed out on though. NO MARY/GARY SUES!

If I see one more damn "Reader Fantasy Character", I'll assume it's just Russel T gone back to his original idiocy.

You're absolutely right, fanfiction is rife with this. I was already pushing at the limits of my wordcount though, so I don't think I could've addressed it with anything more than a throwaway line - probably not enough to do the problem justice, alas.

And of course this piece is supposed to be taken seriously ...

 

[Alexe123]

I got a good chuckle out of that, nice little story. Any plans for a follow up?

 

[Raven28256]

This was a hilarious article that poked fun at many of the reasons why I consider fanfiction to be the bane of ANYTHING; video game, anime, TV show, or other. I do agree that you left out a major part by not mentioning Mary/Gary Sues in some way, which are ridiculously common in fanfictions. Other than that, I think a lot of the stupidity that occurs in most fanfics was mentioned.

 

[elricik]

I agree with most of the article. But one thing that really bugs me is that fanfiction is for the fans. If it's not then why write it. The thing is most people want it to be like the game, not a replica but seriously, who wants to read a comedy about the characters from a video game, if their not going to act like they do in the video game. It's possible to write a very good comedy about Solid Snake, but it shouldn't just be random stuff like "Snake beats up on old women on the side of the street, the lights up a joint." And that's the main problem with fanfiction, it doesn't appeal to the fans.

 

[DoctorNick]

Ya' know, as tempted as I am to point and laugh at fanfic writers, I have to stop and remeber that I'm the guy who writes the stories with furries in them and thus have no ground to stand on here.

Yeah... <_<

 

[Ultrajoe]

*frowns*

My rage burns with the passionate fire of a thousand black suns, and i will brutally and monstrously tear your soul asunder before casting it into to the pit in which even angels weep. And then Gandalf will join forces with Richard to fuse your essence into a soda. Which i will drink, epically.

In all seriousness, using the overwhelming amnount of shit fanfic to discolor the practice as a whole would be me like immediately discrediting your article because of all the poorly worded rants that utterly flood the internet. There is good stuff out there, but you tend to only see the shit unless you dig. You see people drawing idiotic stick figures every day, but you still know that works like the Mona Lisa exist.

Fanfiction may be full of crap, but so is everything else. If i may humbly suggest, it's your own fault for not ignoring the utter garbage.

 

[Charli]

*ponders about following this guide word for word*

A Challenge most absurd and dangerous. Alas, I am not worthy enough to attempt such an act of Evil. (Thank god)

 

[Ronwue]

I laughed a great deal. If somebody actually uses this and does something worth reading, it would be hilarious.

 

[Chaos Butterfly]

Great article. Especially tip #4. If I have to beta read one more chapter needlessly littered with various forms of "to be," I will reach through the internet and slap the offending writer. Learn grammar, peons!

Er... *ahem*

There's one thing I would have liked to see addressed: the cliche. At a minimum, a writer should be aware that they are falling into a literary trap. Not that I expect most fan fiction writers to pay attention to them... No, I expect most would be authors to trip on the edge of the pit of cliches and fall in without ever noticing it to begin with. The 1% of good fanfic writers out there (yes, they do exist) either notice cliches and avoid them or deliberately put up big neon signs pointing to the "cliche of doom" in their writing.

Anyway, nice article

 

[Thunderheavyarm]

I read [and riff them with a friend afterwards] fanfiction. Had to kinda think about this, on the one hand I can't tell if the author is being sarcastic with some of his tips and advice. On the other hand, if it makes people write better fics, I'm all for it.