Welcome, fanfic fam! Subscribe to the channel for more content from a former fic writer who has transitioned to professional writing. *She blushes as her eyebrows raise and she lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding.*
Have a question? I am writing a Harry Potter based fan fiction that is also part cannon pairing based and part fannon pairing based. I am wondering. If I wanted to actually get it published and see it, as long as I change certain names and certain locations; could I pass it off as my own as a professional writer? Also is it a good idea to continue writing fanfic even as a professional writer? I ask that second question because I quite enjoy writing fan fiction.
OOH also I think a big thing I've noticed in my writing that comes from a background in (or a history of) fanfiction is too much exposition. Obvi exposition is a more general topic not specific to fanfiction, but I think what happened is I would want to spend so much time in my fanfiction that I would just write more and more details to slow the plot down so that I could extend the escapism. I think that had a major effect on my pacing, which I'm working on improving now.
what's wrong with blushing though? I mean I know a guy at work that blushes if you look at him too long. I can see how characters might do it... I don't blush but I also have a warmer complexion so even if i did it probably wouldn't be that noticeable anyway.
How can people see if you've written fanfiction before? Please answer because I wanna improve my writing skills to look good. I have written Warrior Cats fanfictions, does that count?
@@iclynnx it's mostly the tropes that they can be spotted and also because of the characters. There's also this thing often where the female protagonist think that every other female (except for her bff) is a superficial person with no brain...
You have to understand Bad boys baaaaaaad past. He was born with a rare disease that makes his face look like he is constantly smirking. He gets frustrated and depressive after some time because when he grew up he had no chance of speaking to a girl. Girls always thought he was a pervert because he kept smirking. It became so bad that he saw no other way than using his desease for something good. He started playing poker. Because he was allways smirking nobody could tell what he felt like. The perfect poker face. There he met some bad and criminal people, his future friends. He finally felt accepted. He was happy. They taught him how to use his smirking face, so woman will find him sexy. He did and became not only addicted to poker but also to woman and drugs. Because his friends are addicted to drugs and they lost all their money while playing poker with Bad boy so they had to pay their depts with drugs. Things couldn't get worse...that is what he said. However his twin brother Good boy had a nice, sexey girlfriend. Her name was Mary sue. Of course Bad boy would get jealous. The reason for that is that Good boy had it all since they were born: a normal face, the love and hopes of their parents and now a nice girlfriend. He had an fantastic idea and cursed the 3 of them with a dark magic spell. You know he had drugs. What he didn't know...there was a magic drink under the drugs. There he got his magic. The 3 of them shall be reborn with different names each time. Every time Bad boy trys to steel Mary sue (now also known as Sky, Angel, Destiny etc.) and every time he fails. Because the good allways wins in fanfictions (except when it doesn't). Now it is your turn. Go to wattpad and read and write their story. Because their story hasn't ended yet.
I feel like teachers really screwed over future writers with exercises like that. But I took English class all the way through high school, and in my last year, the teacher basically told us to throw all of the stuff we'd learned previously out the window. I was like, "Well what was the fucking point?" But I was also grateful for it, because I finally felt like I had breathing room in the creative writing exercise.
I ignored all my teachers since they couldn't even use the correct English grammar, even English teachers which was frustrating. You know it's bad when you're quietly correcting your English teachers' English :/
@@tsundereyoongi3869 same here. I'm from a non-english speaking country and I've met multiple English teachers who have very broken grammar. They usually liked to give me shitty grades if I spoke up about their grammar too, so I just learned to shut up in English
@@krixkhaos the same thing happens with and. Middle school teachers tell you to not start a sentence with it. I think it's because in middle school, learning to use more things instead of said and, well, and, helps you a lot to develop your writing and to make it more grown-upish. When you can control your writing though, those things are kinda useless because you don't need them anymore.
School teachers tell their students that they need to use everything but 'said', but take something like that to a real editor or publishing house, and they'll laugh you out of the city.
Personally, I think the word "said" is like "the": innocuous and your average reader would've sort of automatically filter that word out as they read the story. As for why people are incredibly salty about "said", I don't know lol Thesaurus is fine and all, but in certain situations, I had found that just "said" worked well enough. No need for "spoke", "voiced out", "yelled", "whispered", etc unless situation requires.
RIIIGHT I mean sometimes a colorful word is cool but we dont need to avoid "said" like the plauge, I hope elementary/middle school teachers have caught on by now
Yes and no. You're caught in the middle of the "Said Is Dead" argument, and the truth of the matter is, it doesn't have to be all one or the other. "Said" is natural, and nearly invisible... until it's all that you hear anymore. Then it's super auspicious. It's fine to use other words in your dialogue tags, but it's also cringe-worthy to keep using different descriptors for speech all the time. Use both, and have passages where you don't use any.
@@PrismCasillica "Golden orbs clashed with azure orbs in the war-torn skies of Aurelia, as the Librarian raised his staff adorned with a thousand holy scriptures, penetrating the hostile blackness of the night with the gilded beacon of his unshakeable faith in the God-Emperor. The smug grin contorting the visage of the Eldar Farseer slowly melted off her face - followed by the rest of her head as a thousand fists of fury rained down onto the smouldering terrain: a golden torrent of His sacred Judgement and divine Retribution. The reprehensible Xenos broke their ranks and took flight, yet were swiftly greeted by the bolters and chainswords of the 3d Company. On that day, every single Eldar was put to the sword." -)))
I haven't read Fifty Shades of Grey, but one out-of-context sentence doesn't prove anything. The only part that annoys me about the quote you gave is that I can't stand books written in present tense. Then again, I put up with it all the time in cruddy online roleplays. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'd probably get ticked off reading a published book that ended sentences in random emoticons, too. ;^)
Don’t blame fanfic for that! It’s the English teachers. They always say “never use “said”, it’s a flat and boring word”. And heaven forbid you use “get”.
They try and push you away from those words in school because they want you to think creatively. That doesn't mean never, just attempt to find other ways to express what you are trying to say so that your writing is dynamic.
this is such a big pet peeve of mine, i used to do it all the time and i still catch myself switching tenses sometimes. this is why you need a beta reader lol
Would you believe me if I said that I do this all the time. And when I go back and fix them, I end up confusing myself even more. It's like, I'm so used to seeing these things that they've just integrated themselves into my grammar and syntax.
The thing about is that in day to day basis people mix present and past tense a LOT and I guess it's present in fanfics as a way to make it more seamless, more unpolished, in a way? In many cases it is a bad habit but it can make a fic easier to digest.
Why yes, the languages do often fight for dominance in multicultural environments. -) And I concur that the maritime shipping communities would be pretty knowledgeable about said phenomenon, it being closely related to international trade and such... -)))
Overusing of pronouns. Just. Say. The. Name. “The male walked over, looking at the tree. ‘What a lovely tree,’ said the green-eyed blonde. The young man proceeded to walk over to the other side of the yard. Once he had sat down, the human being proceeded to eat his sandwich. The sandwich was delicious, decided the carbon-based life form presently residing on planet Earth.”
There's overdoing it, certainly, but sometimes it's nice to break things up. Like every other point on this blog, it comes down to balance... Don't use one or the other exclusively; it's a blend.
"Just. Say. The. Name." Ok, I will. Joshua walked over, looking at the tree. 'What a lovely tree,' said Joshua. Joshua proceeded to walk over to the other side of the yard. Once Joshua had sat down, Joshua proceeded to eat Joshua's sandwich. The sandwich was delicious, decided Joshua. I just said the name. do you honestly think it's better?
@@sigurdgram Joshua walked over, looking at the tree. 'What a lovely tree,' he said. He proceeded to walk over to the other side of the yard. Once he had sat down, he proceeded to eat his sandwich. The sandwich was delicious, he decided.
sigurdgram yo I was just saying that all of these fanfiction writers that refuse to say the name is annoying, I didn’t say you can never use pronouns and stuff-
“I love you!!” He exclaimed, hot tears cascading down his cheeks like a waterfall, making his crystalline blue orbs with gold reflects sparkle in the moonlight. I gasped, my eyes widened and I felt myself blush bright red. “I-I love you too.” I cried, letting go of the breath I didn’t know I was holding”
i understand this, but when you blush you can feel your face heat up. so something better to write would be "my face began to heat up" or something like that haha
A Draco in leather pants is a villainous character that's portrayed way more positively in fanworks than in the original work, such as Monika from DDLC and Gavin Reed from Detroit: Become Human. Although they may overlap with the fanon Draco because those are usually attractive characters.
@@robokill387 I'm going by TV Trope's definition of Draco in Leather Pants, it's a little broader than the Fanon Draco as it doesn't mention oversexualization as a main point. The Ice King from Adventure Time and Marx from Kirby's games are Dracos in Leather Pants according to TV Tropes, but I wouldn't call them Fanon Dracos.
👁👄👁 i havent done this but ive done something in a way like it. Like the character was grabbing clothes out of his closet with a towel wrapped around him and like she was staring and he turned around and got really close to her before laughing and going to get dressed
My grade 3 teacher told me once, "you can't just use said," which lead to messy dialogue tags that weren't fully realized until I watched this video. Thank you. I will improve Oh Great One.
Same! I never wrote fanfic but my elementary school teachers always said it was repetitive/novice of me to use "said" more than once or twice per report. Jump 10 years ahead and now all my characters "proclaim," "recite" and "dictate"!
That's crazy how much school has changed. Because when we were in school teachers said to use said because its invisible and only use tags when important moments happen. Lol weird 😊
Ejaculated? That whole, "You keep using that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means," bit from The Princess Bride comes to mind. (Yes, I know it can mean to, "suddenly say something," but that usage is dated and modern readers think of it in...um, another sense.)
ik like they can be very weird sometimes, this isn't a dialogue tag but in the chamber of secrets it said a ' there was a very pregnant pause.' like wtf does that mean
the overuse of dialogue tags makes me so angry now because it took me so long to break it. i dont know if its just in my area, but in elementary/middle school, using "said" was frowned upon, and when being taught english, theyd bring out all these lists of words to use instead. thanks for that, school system:/
Canadian here. I think *everybody* got slapped with that bad advice when we were kids, no matter where we were, and now we're a heap of walking bad habits that need breaking before we can actually write well again. THANKS, EDUCATION!
Same. I don't really go down the "said (insert adverb)" route unless the situation specifically calls for it. Simpler to just say "he shouted, he cajoled, he simpered" etc, because it gets to the point faster? I prefer snappy and instantly understandable in writing.
The absolute worse thing I see in almost EVERY fanfiction is describing people by a trait (the redhead, the student, etc) when it's irrelevant to the situation. For the love of God, just use their name!
I admit to doing this as well, mostly to break up repeating words or slip in some description (or in one case, where the MC didn't know the people's names and couldn't get a word in edgewise to ask), but I try to avoid doing it in excess because it gets annoying. XP To give an example: I'm currently reading a published (as in printed and sold) crossover between Doc Savage and the Shadow--Doc Savage is known as the Man of Bronze, and this book doesn't let you forget that *at all.*
That's called an epithet, I think. When you use something like "the blonde" or "the smaller boy," it makes the writing choppy, doesn't it? It bothers me too XDDD
But is actually repetitive to use their name all the time, it makes it really bad in the end. Imagine in every scene you put the name of the character nine times, or it has two women and you can't actually refer to them by pronouns without making it confusing. So it's a scape from becoming repetitive
@@edenorsomething7630 I see what you're getting at, but actually, readers are subconsciously trained to skim past the repetitive names, to the point where they hardly notice them at all. The flow of the writing stays smooth, even though there's repetition. With epithets, the reader is dragged out of the flow for a second to quickly figure out who the epithet is referring to. :)
@@waterfalldancer I particularly don't like to read the same name and it bothers me to no end when I see it repeat and repeat, but I think this is more to do with preference :p
Another big one I find in Fanfiction (particulatly gay fanfiction) is not refering a charater so their pronoun or name. For example if someone was writing Darry fanfiction instead of saying "Draco moved closer" they might say "the slytherin moved closer" or "the blonde moved closer". This always bugs me and I have only seen it in the fanfiction comunity not really in published novels.
I ONLY pull that one when I’ve used theyre name too much. I barely do it. I HATE calling eyes orbs it doesn’t seem right... it’s weird... also another pet peeve. When people overuse the word “quirky” it is ANNOYING.
"The shorter male gently stroked his ash blonde hair" pretty much every BakuDeku fic ever. I never really minded, except for when they always say "the shorter male". It gets annoying.
General comment to people struggling with any of these: Go buy the book: The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writers Guide to Character Expression. It gives you so many ideas of how to show emotion without reusing the same ones over and over. It also includes internal reactions for when you’re describing your POV character. It’s helped me filter out so many of these mistakes in my writing.
1:38: Overused dialogue tags. 2:51: The Over The Top Rakish Love Interest (Fanon Draco) 4:51: Melodrama (And Villain Monologuing) 7:19: Eye-based Reactions and POV Hopping
in WH40K: 1) guilty as charged. There's seemingly a competition on who invents the most repulsive phrasing to describe the simple act of speaking. Words are, therefore, vomited, excreted and bled out of the speaker's mouth - which, considering the fandom, may sometimes be a literal horrifying reality. -)) 2) In the Grim Darkness of the far Future, there is ONLY war. -) As one man put it, "love-hope-prosperity have been replaced by war, death and destruction: not necessarily in that order, but always in mass quantities". 3) Both sides monologue to their heart's content! ) The Heretics never fail to stress how the God-Emperor is nothing but a rotten corpse sitting on the golden (toilet) ahem, throne; while the Loyalists go on and on about how their Faith in said Emperor is a firmly erect golden Pinnacle of Righteous Might, and is thus harder than adamantium. 4) Is it "eye-based" if the psyker's eyes literally pop out upon seeing the Greater Daemon's raging murderboner? -)) 5) In the Grim Darkness of the far Future, humal lifespan is so short that no character's POV can ever last beyond 10-15 minutes, thereby making the aforementioned hopping a functional necessity. -)))
I don’t think eye-based reactions are really that bad. If I talk to someone, I read their emotions through their eyes and mouth. Take those away and how is your MC going to react to people? I also raise my eye brows on purpose if I’m skeptical or surprised. I don’t see what the big deal is it shows up once or twice in fiction. I do it and I know other people do it.
@@WritingSch When I use eye-based reactions, they're always intentional motions like a character intentionally raising his eyebrows for comedic purposes (Intentional "Keven silently arced his eyebrows in stunned disbelief his friend would say something so dumb" versus subconscious "Kevin's eyebrows raised in surprise"), or EXTREME reactions like a delayed reaction when someone realizes someone's casually admitted to literal murder to them. Things that actually WOULD make your eyes widen melodramatically. RARELY, they're EXTREMELY expressive characters (someone mentioned how Emilia Clarke actually DOES use her eyebrows like a fanfiction character), but when I do that, I'm careful to make it very explicit that they're usually expressive. But RARE is the operative word there. Doing it a few times in a single work might work. Doing it a few times in a paragraph does not. But the example in the pinned comment ("She blushes as her eyebrows raise and she lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding.") is just way too much no matter what. Especially when she notices she let out a breath she didn't notice she was holding.
Robin Lawnmower there’s nothing wrong with this. People get embarrassed and blush. It happens. It’s better than saying ‘She felt embarrassed’ which is painful telling.
Actually I quite like this one. But you know what i don't? I looked at some of my old drafts. And english is not my main language, so that might give me a pass, but I have written "my cheeks started to turn red as warmth crawled up on my face" 2 (!!!!!!!) times within 15 pages. I'm proud and disappointed at the same time LOL
Is it okay to use the phrase, "A warm sensation crept up from her neck up to her cheeks"? I'm a newbie to this stuff and only wrote drafts (some are unfinished). I get stuck with describing actions and minimizing the use of adverbs, especially since English is not my first language. I thought I would reach out online for tips so that I can improve. Kay thanks! 😁
The biggest tell for me is episodic writing. When each chapter feels like a short story that doesnt quite move along a greater plot, that is a huge sign the author is coming from fanfiction, because that's essentially how fanfic chapters are written and published, one at a time.
@@KaizenKitty All of the things on this list dont "necessarily" mean someone came from fanfiction, they're just common tells if someone did and hasnt adjusted their writing.
I've noticed that fan fiction is often very dramatic and "slow". As in, totally over describing small things so it feels like we're watching in slow-motion. :P Also, sometimes instead of writing "She grabbed the handbag" it's more like "A hand reached out, fingers curled around the shoulder-strap of the baby blue satin handbag and lifted it with a swift motion." Or something like that. :P A bit too much for something as ultimately uninteresting as someone lifting a bag. XD And it feels like it's body parts doing things rather than the character themselves.
LMAOAOAOAO ITS LIKE THEY NEED A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF WORDS TO FINISH AN ESSAY BAHAHA All seriousness I 100% agree with this and sometimes some are too fast and some are too slow.
Let your fanfic be whatever it is! These things are fun in fandom. This video is just advice for if you want to make the jump to professional writing :)
Same. My first book was an original story. It was very dialogue-taggy and it had no plot it was basically “this homeless girl meets this guy his sister has a crush on homeless girl and magically homeless girl is no longer homeless and lifes magically going great for her” LOL
I hate that POV problem with describing your character's emotion through an action they can't actually see. In the first draft stage I'll throw in some trash like 'She felt her eyebrows raise' and then fix it in the second draft. Otherwise I sit there for half an hour! Love that you speak about fanfic from an honest but fond perspective - would love more fanfic-themed videos if you have them :)
I just wrote a list of words that are ALWAYS in my cringeworthy passages so I can find them easier and delete. "Felt' is on the top of the list. So is 'seemed.' I still do it all the time, but at least I found a way to tear it out. (The list has about 20 things on it and is still growing.)
@@teshara a writing class I took on Coursera.org had a list like this, "padding" words I think they called it. It cuts your prose down pretty tight without a lot of effort. The class was through Wesleyan Uni (it's free, unless you want to get peer reviews of your work), worth a look if you're interested in improving your prose in general. Making your own list is a great idea!
I feel like first-person writing lends itself to the "fanfic feeling" a lot and I'm really not a fan of it. First-person is very limiting, and makes author-avatars so much more obvious and intrusive. It's like you're reading someone's diary. I guess it works for YA but I prefer third person limited any day.
Schools hammer into you not to overuse anything. “Said”, the characters names, even sentence structure (kinda agree with that one). I remember writing about Andrew Johnson (17th president) in fourth grade and you were allowed to use just the last name once, the full name once, and Mr.last name once per paragraph. This led to me using “The man” and “He” when I really needed it to be specific. Schools aren’t so good at creative writing
@@khatunamezvrishvili6211 You have to learn to do it right before you can learn to do it 'wrong'. Schools can only give you the basics when they're trying to get everyone up to the same level. Teaching someone to be creative? Nigh on impossible.
also, turning Active sentences into Passive Sentences because we automatically do Active aparrently and so they need to teach us to write in Passives. Urgh
My favorite piece of advice was the one about a character blushing. I remember being on stage in eighth grade, receiving a pretty meaningless award for Chorus, and my body felt like it couldn’t cool down for a couple of seconds. According to my friends, however, my face was red and pink the entire time I was receiving the award and for the entirety of the last song. You don’t always know that you’re blushing. This has been my TEDtalk.
In my experience transitioning from fan fiction to original fiction, the issue has proven to be much broader. I've never had to describe my characters -my readers already know what they look like. I've never had to establish any kind of setting unless it's an AU -the audience is already intimately familiar with the environment. I had a base storyline that had already proven to be successful, worth experiencing -otherwise there wouldn't be fans to read about it.
Ikr? You didn't have to think much about the backstory which only shows how much of a lazy ass i was as a writer. 😂 writing an original piece takes more time and my initial excitement to write it disappears over time. QuQ
@@stupidass192 Actually, that's the reason I wanted to start writing fan fictions 😂 I thought that it would be easier to practice writing by writing fanfics - not seriously though but just in order to jump into writing and feel confident. Now I no longer know.. 😅
THIS!!! ALL OF THIS!! I never realized how RELIANT I had become on the fact people already knew how the characters/setting was! I'm still trying to break out of that mindset, though the easiest way I've found, so far, as been to try and get someone who knows *nothing* about the fandom you're writing to read that fic. Write from the POV the readers know nothing about the story. It helps balance out the details you put into world building between too much and too little--as the experienced readers will get impatient/feel patronized by too much explaining. For me, as far as "using fanfiction to practice" goes, it's been most useful trying to hone different "writing styles." Want to write like Terry Pratchett? Experiment with fanfics. Want a Stephen King style? Fanfics. A good deal of it is just me being lazy, though. Also heartbroken over canon stuff. (Neji never died in Naruto. He never died.) Edit: tfw you're adhd and you a thousand words.
This, so much 😅 Even when writing fanfiction I've always enjoyed AU a lot so having to teach the reader about my setting and the changed character backgrounds within the fanfic is something I'm used to and can do for original fiction as well, but omg I struggle with visual descriptions of characters so much because fanfiction never required me to..xD I mean, generally people know how they themselves look, so why would they think about a self description? And I don't wanna do the cliché mirror thing 😭 But waiting until an appropriate time arrives within the story also sucks because 300 pages in, any reader WILL already have their own idea how a character looks and introducing a description THAT late into it is just gonna confuse people and interrupt their imagination...it's honestly my biggest struggle.
I always find it hard to describe my characters because I don't see characters in my head, I feel their prescence, but if I had to draw them, they would look different than if, say, you had to draw them. And I am hyperaware of _how_ I describe them.
Just an FYI: You speak with your eyes way more than you realize. Your eye area is actually very animated. Many, MANY people speak with the eyes as that is the most obvious focal point when having a conversation, at least, if you are sober at the time. A look can kill is an adage for a reason =)
Never Too Old Gaming the point here was more that the POV character cant really observe these things on themselves, tho. especially in first perosn. but in general i agree with you. the thing is just that in writing these type of things can get very repetitive since we dont actually see an actor pull off all these subtle nuances with their expressions, instead we just read the same sentence over and over with slight variations lol
@@Vickynger You feel what you do with your facial muscles though. I get the repetition argument for sure, but "You don't see yourself doing it" is a horrible argument.
I think it was meant that you do indeed feel these things happening but when you're in the midst of a conversation, particularly a very intense conversation, you don't consciously pay attention to your eyebrows raising or your eyes widening. Why would you then consciously point it out, if the character themselves would be more interested in the situation than what their eye muscles are doing?
DarkPrject You also don’t notice it either. I’ll furrow my eyebrows a lot when I’m concentrated and when someone tells me I was doing that I don’t even realize it lol
If you're gonna make a dramatic villain, just go all the way and put the fucker in a "flowing, red cape, make of luxurious silk. A feast for the eye." X'D
On your first one, my teachers in middle school actually encouraged is against using said too often. They wanted us to use more diverse words xD I definitely agree with the overly dramatic bodily reactions though. I picked that up from fanfic and dropped it when I saw it in published professional fic and.....hated it.
Middle school teachers encourage this as an exercise because kids often need encouragement to say *anything* except 'said'. But good books only use other words when they're preferable to 'said' for some reason -- when they tell you something important that 'said' doesn't. Like "try to write a lot of words to say something", avoiding 'said' a children's writing exercise that is not supposed to be taken into professional work.
My biggest struggle is descriptions. I have to work so much on figuring out what is relevant to the story and what I can cut. I always have to add more things. XD
Total opposite for me. I discard almost everything as irrelevant, so that my first draft usually reads only slightly more detailed than a police report :P
Lol yeah I’m the same. I keep getting told by everyone who reads my writing that its very concise and that it needs more description. I feel like adding is easier than taking away though so its not too bad.
@@DxityDoo That's great then! :D I guess no one is perfect on the first draft we just have to keep working and hopefully one day it will be a great book.
I'm in 7th grade and absolutely love writing. My teachers always tell me that I'm excellent for my level but I like to improve as I go. Writing fan fiction helps me improve along the way and even just making up stories. So I appreciate the tips! I'll definitely try them out.
At 7th grade (at time of your post), you're light-years ahead of most people at your age in terms of understanding what you don't know about writing. I'm sure your actual output is good, but lack grounds on which to say so. However, the fact that you are researching how to do better means you're far, far ahead most people at 12-13 who think their writing is the best of the best.
as someone currently in 7th as well, i wish you the best of luck! Writing is definitely painful and mistakes happen, but just know that a random person from the internet is cheering for you!!
I do something similar. I'm writing a lot of fanfic at the moment but I'm trying to write it like i would a professional story (No mentions of 'orbs' over here, yuck) so I can improve my writing skills so when i sit down to write an actual novel it doesn't turn out a pile of shit
Example of many fanfiction habits that we are all guilty of: “She stared into his ocean-colored orbs and he stared into her brown eyes, as brown as dirt with the reflection of amber in them, like golden fire. They blushed and leaned in, kissing passionately. They pulled apart, breathless. Now they knew what each other felt and let out a breath that they didn’t know they were holding.”
«His face concealed by the gasmask, she stared instead into its ocean-blue orbs - and he stared back: into her brown eyes, brown as the dirt of the trenches around them, yet sparkling with a faint reflection of ember, the golden fire of devotion. The commissar blushed and leaned in, kissing him on the forehead. The soldier smiled and reclined, breathless. Now he knew that he loved the God-Emperor and that the Emperor loved him. Relieved, he let out his final breath, onto which he had been desperately holding. The Commissar revved her chainsword and ordered the entrenched squads to charge. They obeyed without question. The guardsmen put their faith in the God-Emperor, and the Emperor protected: removing from them the pain of the flame, or granting mercy at their End.» -)))
I feel like most of these things don't come from fanfiction but from bad books (like "City of bones") which do come from fanfiction... I guess it's just a closed circle - authors write bad books based on how they wrote fanfics and other authors write bad books based on how they've read bad books based on fanfics... wow that was tough.
What gets even worse is when you have a whole subgenre of this, and these norms start to be seen as "good." Then when you write a book that doesn't do these things, reviewers call you out on it with negative reviews. :(
It’s funny I actually loved city of bones when I first started the series ( I saw flaws but glossed over them quickly ) but the books are so long and I’m already half way through I’ve decided for this particular series ignorance is bliss and I’ll just continue avoiding negative opinions of it because I know once I hear them I’ll agree and I won’t be able to enjoy them anymore. Also does anyone else hate the name clary? Like that actually bothered me so much while reading for no reason
@@eilz1495 CC used to write harry potter fanfiction lol not just draco x harry fanfiction. she sometimes wrote incest ships like ron and ginny and people think that's her books have a lot weird incestual tropes.
I disagree with the bit about "don't describe what your character can't see themselves doing," e.g. "I blushed" vs. "I felt heat flood my face." Imagine reading prose littered with "I felt my brows come together and lips turn downwards," instead of "I frowned," or "I felt my eyelids draw closer together, but not meet," instead of "I squinted against the harsh light." Even though the character doesn't see the external visual of what their body is doing doesn't mean they can't perceive and label it. Sure, saying "I blushed" is vanilla, and you can get fancier with descriptions if you'd like (being careful not to meander into purple prose and cliche), but the narrative can also get bogged down trying to describe bodily functions or common actions eight ways to Sunday. Sometimes, if it's just a passing moment of embarrassment or infatuation, it's fine for the character to say they blushed and then move on to what's more important in the scene, instead of stopping everything to focus on how their heart thrummed like bird's wings and their cheeks warmed. Yes, it's "telling," but saying "never tell" is akin to saying "never use passive voice" or "never use adverbs," when those are fine, too, in their own ways and time. Absolutes are always bad. (I squish one eyelid shut while I keep my other eye open. I mean, I wink.)
manicmuffin the thing is though saying “i squinted” is still the narrator describing an action, like what theyre doing. I cant know if im blushing because i cant see my face, but i can know if my face is warm and im probably blushing. A better analogy would be saying “the sunlight hit my cheekbones and gave me a natural glow” or some other kind of external description of how the narrator looks that they couldnt know unless looking in a mirror. I would agree a lot of the time sometimes the simpler action is better but if it’s something thats totally out of the POV as a reader its very distracting and also, yeah, obvious this person is used to fanfic tropes
@@crstph Yeah, a first person narrator can't know the sunlight hitting their face is giving them a natural glow, but they can say, "The sunlight hit my face and warmed my chilled cheekbones," because it's a bodily sensation. Similarly, you can feel yourself blush. "You're making me blush" is even a common saying. Sure, you can't narrate, "My cheeks turned a cherry red," because THAT is something you can't see, but recognizing the sensation of blushing and narrating it as "I blushed" is fine. It's certainly better than using, "I felt my cheeks grow warm," or "Blood rushed to my face," and other variants that are now so cliche it's painful.
@@manicmuffin i get what you're saying and I think we're pretty much in agreement except for the semantics of the meaning of the word blush: i see it as a thing you can only see, not necessarily feel. so as a reader, if i read a first person narrator saying "i blushed" it takes me right out of POV, even if the narrator meant it as "i was probably blushing"
@@crstph People can feel themselves blush. It's no different than something like, "I fell headlong into the ground, mud caking my face." The narrator can feel the mud caking their face, even if they don't know the splatter pattern it makes. Saying, "The mud on my face made a Rorschach pattern." would be breaking POV, but acknowledging the physical sensation a character has doesn't. Ergo, "I blushed, my cheeks a deep red." breaks POV, "I blushed, my cheeks fever-hot." doesn't.
Simple question. What do you think of cliches or tropes? I generally see them as mere narrative tools, it just depends on the writer when it comes to making them interesting.
“eye-based reactions & POV hopping” “anything where you’re describing your reaction with the main characters eyes- the *pov character’s* eyes” me, a not-so-big-fan-of-first-person-pov fanfiction writer: **laughs in third-person**
Well, actually, whenever someone looks at me awkwardly, I smirk and wag my eyebrows around as a way of saying "I see you..." and "I will keep doing this until you look away. People don't look at me unless I talk to them now. I'm proud.
I remember growing up and learning from teachers to rarely use the word "said" because it's repetitive and "boring." Then when I was older and started to really love Stephen King, I quickly realized that he used said A LOT & I thought to myself, "how come I was always taught not to use this word but a famous author can get away with it just fine?" and so I started using it myself & it's improved my writing a ton.
I srsly need to step up my writing game. I feel attacked by this video haha. It just hurts so much when you have an interesting plot idea but know that you can't write for shit. It makes me uncomfortable to use the word 'say' because in German there are SO MANY synonyms for it. My characters blush a lot because I blush extremely easily too. And my characters are super unrealistic, which I know but don't know how to fix. Sometimes you have a really great idea for a specific scene but you don't find the right words to describe the feels or atmosphere. Yeah, that sucks.
@@whatnameshallitake2033 Are you native? Because my English isn't the best haha so it could be difficult. Also, would you write fanfiction or regular fiction? Because my go to is fanfic of specific fandoms.
I’m not a native speaker but I’m more than decent at it don’t worry xD And I dunno it depends on what you like. I’m okay with anything you want as long as there’s no explicit smut or bed scenes xD
I know exactly what you mean. And having "hundertdrölfzig" ways to to say say, being encouraged by teachers to use them to make your story interesting etc. Especially this point made me upset, too. It felt from "exciting ways to let someone talk" to "plain, boring say say". Sometimes it's better to let your char whisper or yell, instead of saying something in low or high volume. The rest I can agree on.
You want some help? I'm german so we can talk in german about our problems. I wrote fanfiction for a long time and even if I got a lot of experiance and can probelly help you with characters (cuz listen, I wrote 200 pages about ONE character once. Not a story, literally just a 'sheet' to look how he is and... apperantly I went overboard.) I personally believe everbody is able to write, if he is ready to learn and work trough it! I wrote like... four books. And none of them will ever see the light of day, because they are basically SHIT. Maybe one or two good ideas, but thats it. So... If you wanna team up I can sent you my twitter or facebook or whatever you like more. I also read beta for a lot of friends, so if you want somebody to critic your work, I can do that too! Hope you reply and wish you best! (Und nur um sicher zu stellen, dass wirklich klar ist, dass Ich deutsch bin, nochmal etwas in deutsch. Fachmännisch mit genug Kommers, um jeden Englischen Schreiber zu schockieren. Urgh, mit Nebensätzen muss ich auch üben. Warum haben wir eine Sprache, die uns die möglichkeit gibt, zehn Kommas in einen Satz zu hauen ohne damit den gramatikalischen Sinn zu zerstören? xD)
As someone who has pretty active eyebrows in conversations (I raise one a lot when incredulous, confused (like I'm asking for clarification), etc.), eyebrow movements in books don't bother me. Plus, you can feel when you raise your eyebrows. I guess I don't understand how that one takes you out of the POV.
that's true: in moderation, eyebrows can be a good tell for several different emotions, especially in cases where it's a character you can't see into the mind of, and have to read his emotions with visual cues. but like everything, if you do it too much it kind of gets like, "oh, does this character just not have any functioning parts of their body aside from their eyebrows". use the eyebrows in tandem with visual cues with other parts of the body. and if you can, if you're writing in first person try to minimize cues that are externally seen, as opposed to internally felt. edit: I kind of strayed from the topic and didn't directly answer the question, sorry ^^
Kaitlyn Barkley It’s also the writing. “His eyebrows jumped” sounds better than “he felt his eyebrows jump”, since “felt” is filler. Think “seem”. While the verbs are helpful, there’s a time and a place.
Well because when you're in conversations I doubt you're aware of every single movement your body does, are you? My eyebrows are active too, but the thing is I don't notice that when I'm in conversations because my mind is focused on whatever topic I'm talking about and not my body movements. The only reason why I know my eyebrows move a lot is because my friends told me that I've very expressive eyebrows. And the movement of eyebrows aren't the only indicator you know, if you ONLY describe the eyebrows then it's gonna be silly because we're always making gestures with our body, not just eyebrows. Eyes squinting/widening, pursing our lips, hand gestures, straight sitting position or slouching, etc. If you only describe the eyebrows, then the character is going to come across as boring and unrealistic.
I use my eyebrows a lot. Lot's of people remark on it. I am, however, never aware of doing it. Therefore, any character being aware of their own eyebrow movements throws me out of the POV and out of the story.
How about when people use too many ellipses? Ex. _"I'm sorry... I'll try harder next time..."_ _"Good... you better..."_ It bugs me so much. I've never seen much of it in published books, but I know it's a bad habit for fanfiction writers because I see it all the time. I understand that you're trying to drag out the sentence to influence the tone of the character, but it's not good when used excessively. Say something like "She paused" between dialog and replace a lot of ellipses with periods. The readers should be able to understand the tone or hesitance of the character without having to look at ellipses at the end of every single sentence.
Once I noticed that jk Rowling uses a LOT of ellipses in her HP books, I couldn't go back to reading them without noticing every time. Still isn't the same
"Most people don't use their eyebrows in excess." Me, who's family and friends have always told her she is CONSTANTLY excessively using her eyebrows to express things: What?! They don't?
my eyebrows are apparently so expressive that some kid was imitating it when i was arguing with him in like 5th grade- i literally only remember that bcz it's the first time anyone's pointed that out abt me
@@prplraven arm gesticulation is a lot more common of a physical communication tool than eyebrow waggling, raising, etc. when i am having conversations with people, they always use their hands or arms to help convey what theyre saying, but rarely are eyes/eyebrows a point of interest unless the person is silently communicating. i mean if you dont like what she is saying, you dont have to watch it.
@@triprs4896 "It was at this moment that the entire galaxy was converted into ammunition for the Xeelee against the ongoing battle with the Photino Birds since the Big Bang. It was inevitable as they were accidentally caught in the crossfire of an unknown war."
I’m beginning to see Fan fiction as almost a genre of its own and published or professional work is a different genre. Things work for fanfic genre that just does work for the prof genre. Those things aren’t inherently bad, just a genre clash that doesn’t work.
As a reader things I hate in fanfic are the terms “eye bulging,” “ jaw dropped to the floor,” and first person POV. Also excessive description of clothing and makeup.
Fanon Draco is. That's the point :) Harry Potter fandom basically invented a fanon version of Draco that suits what we wanted him to be in fanfic. There are distinctions between canon & fanon Draco and people would label their fics as such, very often.
Draco in Leather Pants is the official trope name, and it's basically taking a character who's (at best) difficult and morally grey or (at worst) a horrible and antagonistic person and making them sympathetic and sexy in fanon.
@@AlexaDonne one important thing to remember is that Draco in Leather Pants is a bit like Harry/Shinji/Whoever In Name Only in that it only really applies when the character is different from the moment of, or before, the point of divergence in an Alternate Universe. Canon characters remaining canon after their story diverges in a big way from canon can be just as cringe as flanderized/mary-sue/author-avatars, for the same reason: they don't feel like real people.
@@AlexaDonne I think it's an extreme case of "you have to know the rules before you can break them" but it's not taught as that, it's taught as "you have to know the rules so you don't break them"
OMG yes, every fandom has a Fanon Draco character Loki for one Is that type for me but to be fair that is how I felt about the man when I first saw Tom Hiddleston I'm sure you can tell
@@shannonwhitaker5 That's Loki's last name. It essentially means "son of Laufey". Typically children would have the father's name with son or dottir (daughter) tacked on, but Loki actually had his mother's name (in the mythology). When adapting to the comics the known convention resulted in Laufey becoming the male Jötun king we know today. While norse women never took the husband's last name when married, she likely made it Sigyn Laufeyson to imply marriage.
Thank you for your critical, yet non-judgmental video! Usually traditional book authors look down on people who come from (or still) write fanfic and use a slightly belittling tone when talking about similar issues. Not the case with you!
Former fanficer and still in love with it. Yet, writing my first original novel took four years because I DID ALL OF THESE. Yep. Every single one. My first draft was a hot mess of exposition and telling. I lost count of the brow raising and the eye widening and my editor slapped every mention of 'her cheeks stained with a blush.' Final product is still flawed but I need to move on and wattpad was the right place for it. Second book is almost done and I can already tell it's better even before it is edited.
"quip" is a really irritating example of those dialogue tags imo Like this is writers trying to show how witty their characters are when in actuality, the wit should come from the remark itself
@@claryy5782 If you're writing first person works just fine for the person they're talking to, because then it let's you know how the POV character sees that comment. Also, whether the reader thinks it's a quip is not the same thing as if the POV character does, and that sometimes matters. Let's say you're writing something a bit meta where the audience is meant to know that a character is bad news based on ALL THE RED FLAGS but the POV character is fond of them for some reason. It might be possible to show their changing attitude, and as the shine wears off they go from describing something as 'quipped' to 'snarked'. (Or something of the sort, I'm not a pro.) As a reader though I love that kind of thing, when I catch on.
"Serenity" "Amelia" And- THE WORST ONES- things like "Raven LeShadow" or the sort. Most original name I've seen was Lynette, but it was ruined because her last name was La'va
Im not here to transition to published writing I'm just here to be a better fanfic writer lol. Ive read a LOT of fanfic in my life and even though I haven't written a lot I still know when I'm reading something good or bad but sometimes I don't know..WhY its good or bad. So thats why I'm here.
You waggled your eyebrows the entire time you were talking about eyebrow waggling. Perhaps it happens more than we think, we just don’t pay attention to those specific parts enough to notice?
@@AlexaDonne To go scientific for a second, according to some studies, westerners tend to focus on the mouth to tell emotion while people in other places focus on the eyes. It's the same reason why emojis in places like Japan place more focus on the eyes and anime characters have the huge eyes. My guess is that in the west we in the west just think about the eyes less, because we focus on them less irl, but we still speak with our eyes a lot regardless. As for the video, I think it's something like the POV character's eyes widening, then that should be scrapped, since we can't notice ourselves doing that. But things like quirking a brow and wiggling your brow, I think long as it's not overdone, or to a point that it's over the top, then it's fine. Idk, that's just me. I'm not a published writer, so not sure if my opinion has much weight.
I think if the POV character doesn’t do it _on purpose_ then you shouldn’t include it. You can describe _another character’s_ active eyebrow wagging if they aren’t doing it intentionally, but not your own, because if it’s unintentional you usually don’t know you’re doing it. Unless it’s an intentional pointed thing, like pouting, or an exaggerated frown for a joke or something. Otherwise _most_ people don’t intentionally control their facial expressions, so they don’t know when they’re making specific ones.
I know Star Wars has Anakin and Han. Though Luke and Obi-Wan are sometimes used. I think. I don't read slash so I am going by what I see in descriptions.
@@BlueDragonknight375 Dude, I read Star Wars fic too but I don't think we're using the same sites, lol. When I see it, it's usually Obi Wan or Poe, with the occasional Han, maybe Anakin, and whenever I see Luke written romantically, it's never him being all suave and sexy, he's usually a massive heckin dork
What is your fandom of choice? We could enlighten you ;) I can think of some characters for my favorite fandoms, but those characters DO tend to be overly sexual, smug, flirty and devilish in canon as well so...in all of those cases, the fandoms just kinda ran with it?
"God, the said thing annoys me so much. So this is back in school, when we still did fiction writing and not just all reports and analyses and that boring stuff. On exams our teacher would literally FAIL us if we used the words "said" or "walked" more then ONCE, and even using it once, ONLY ONCE, got you a worse grade. I rationally know that this is complete and utter bullsh*t, but i still get that awfull felling in the back of my head whenever i use said or walk. I'm telling you, i'm gonna write a full 300 page long book never using the same word to describe saying or walking twice and i will personally hand it to my teacher, because those 4 years destroyed my writing.", i SPOKE, while i STRODE into the room (my go to words)
I absolutely know when I'm blushing, and shouldn't have to use a long winded way of describing it if it, "I felt my cheeks grow hot" is not automatically better than just saying I blushed; I'd rather not wax poetic about blushing because it's normally from embarrassment, not from a hot guy noticing me. People you are talking to can see you blushing and it changes how they talk to you sometimes, so it is relevant to the conversation in those cases.
@@annana6098 Same here. I blush easily, unfortunately. And most of the time I can feel myself blushing and that'll make everything so much more embarrassing/awkward for me.
I was told that in second grade. So now it’s engraved in my mind to add more to said or another word. I catch myself writing “she said, closing the door.”
Here are all the tips used in the video: 1 Messy dialogue tags (don’t be afraid to use said) 2 The ott rakish love interest (Over-the-top sexiness) 3 Melodrama + villain monologuing (unrealistic villain) 4 Eye-based reactions 5 POV hopping (if it’s in 1st person, don’t say you’re blushing)
Whenever I'm writing dialog, I always try to place myself in the characters' place so I can more accurately write what they would actually say and not what I want them to say...this works a lot except when I find myself getting fed up with another character or the situation so I just sigh...a lot...and then the characters sigh...like pretty slow but heavy breathing trains...
That just seems like amateur writing in general. I'm old enough to remember when fanfic wasn't really a thing. There were people going to conventions and exchanging memographed sheets of Star Trek Kirk/Spock fic, but there wasn't an internet. But, these bad writings things showed up all the time in Harlequin, Signature & Zebra paperback romances--the kind where the imprint was more important than the author's name and they sold a lot of them through monthly subscriptions. I can't say for sure those authors weren't writing fanfic, but since it was a really underground thing, I doubt they were. But I'm pretty sure a lot of the authors were young and first starting out--since some of the more successful ones are still writing books 30-40 years later.
I've seen some articles from the academic side of fandom about how the early K/S writers were using the tropes common in romance novels, because those were the models they had for writing a romantic story.
@@werelemur1138 That makes sense. There's also the fact that certain tropes are just very functional for certain genres. Fanfic or profic, there's only so many ways for two characters to fall in love. Of course there's no accounting for weird ideas that get to be popular for awhile then disappear--those tend to diverge between pro/fanfic. Like fanfic is doing coffee shop AUs and romance novels are suddenly heavy on biker stories.
This. Long before I ever heard of fanfic, I consumed mass quantities of romance novels and soap operas and pretty much all these tropes were present in droves. Soaps specifically do close ups of character's eyes for intense dramatic expression and melodramatic romantic and villain monologues were common. Dialogue tags as well, heroines sighed, heroes growled, etc...basically all of my bad writing habits came from there. If anything fanfic writing improved my writing because of the way they police it(not that it is a good thing) but you get influenced by people talking about the stuff they hate in writing....to this day I cringe at "the tall man, the younger woman, the bushy haired girl etc... as constant descriptors rather than character names or simple pronouns.... because it got called out so much in certain fanfic circles as bad writing.
