I pretty much wrote this only to show off this new poster. The story behind it feels significant to me. My Maria and I were making posters for my school's Korean Language club, but Maria was very tired while I was running on a fresh cup of coffee (not that she knows this). She started drawing and one thing led to another and soon she was drawing Lee Minho for me. She really hates this picture (which is why she wrote I hate you under her signature) but I LOVE it! So I photoshopped a bunch of stuff together and this is the wonderful result. This might be a permanent addition.

On a side note, everything that I wrote for this reflects my opinions completely. Seriously, if I see one more person...

As I like to define, fanfictions are fictions written by fans about what that fan is a fan of. It’s kind of like a parody for a video, a doujinshi for a manga or anime, or a mashup of songs. While fanfic writers mostly create their own content, they are also taking something that already exists and making something new. Just because Lee Minho is a character is a fanfic, he definitely is not something made by the author.

I don’t really have a transition into the next part. This is going to address why it’s not recommended to use some writing styles, clichés, and so forth.

Firstly, let’s talk about clichés. The reason I say to avoid overused plots is that they often sound stupid. In order to not sound stupid it has to sound realistic or probable. Some people like to twist around the meaning of the word realistic, but they ing know what I mean. If, under the conditions in the story, this situation happened, is it possible? Is it possible for Zelo to transfer to your school in this universe? Is it possible for men to get pregnant? Are superpowers real? How does the government work? What is the structure of society? In fiction anything is possible, but it has to fit in with the circumstances.

A lot of us get our ideas from other Medias like televisions shows or comics or movies, etc. It’s great to have so many ideas and cultivate them, but it requires taking a visual and auditory sense and turning them into words. The feeling from reading “He wept” is completely different from watching tears drip down someone’s face and cling to grubby fingers while a wailing sound echoes in the wind.

It’s easy to believe the things you see in a movie and hear on TV because you can see it being done, you can visualize it, and you can conceptualize an idea and accept it as real. Oh, it sounds crazy that a man could travel through time? What’s the science or magic behind that? Wow, now that I’ve seen it done, I accept it more. This is because your most powerful sense is your sense of sight. Seeing something has a very large role in cognition and recognition. Seeing is believing, as the saying goes.

That’s why when you see something in a manga, in a picture, on TV, in a drama, or in a movie, you don’t question minor details that would throw you for a loop if you were reading it in a novel. Reading requires a different cognition, and your strong sense of sight won’t deceive you as much.

When you write about an innocent and shy girl transferring to a new school and falling in love with the first guy she sees, think about that. Are you sure that makes sense? Explain it more, please.

This means that stories need to have more description and more explanation of plot and background. My best example of this is when you think “Wow, I really love this,” and you explain it to someone else and the story just sounds awful. That’s when the writing is good. There were two different occasions, about two different stories, and two different authors, that I have tried explaining one of my favorite stories to my Maria and she has thought they have sounded dreadful. How frustrating. If you don’t understand this feeling, you haven’t read good enough fanfics yet.

I say avoid clichés altogether for this reason. A lot of people aren’t at that level yet. I know people want to write these fantastical ideas, but either sit down and think it out or don’t and up your story.

Let’s move on to fanfiction versus another piece of literature. Since I was just addressing visual media, my first topic will be script writing. As we all know, script writing is forever banned from any half decent potato story. I think it is absolute taboo. The only time anyone should ever even consider putting script writing is for text messages or a chat room. For normal dialogue or description, script writing is very bad.

There are many types of scripts. There are movie scripts and play scripts and computer scripts and more, but those are not fanfictions. Movie scripts do not explain plotlines or emotions. Their purpose is to create a visual scenario. They have to have enough description that a set can be made and the actor can be the character. That is it. There isn’t a pause to consider things nor a helpful back narration. Everything is very straight forward and often confusing. Play scripts are similar. Instead, try not to tell a story through conversations or other things that would only have an effect in real life.

With fanfics, it is important to remember that these are meant to be read not seen. There are other literature methods that I do not recommend for fanfictions. I say recommend because I think that if you a good enough writer to pull off a different writing style, then it’s nobody’s business to criticize just because it’s not the norm. I don’t mean using diction as an excuse to break grammar rules, but something along those lines.

And you know what I have seen solely in play scripts? Character introductions. Only in works like Antigone have I ever seen characters introduced. The extent of those introductions? Puck: Woodland fairy or something to that extent. Not Lee Minho, large nose and ridiculously curly hair. Has an infamous streak for getting last in the school on all the exams. That is never acceptable. Never.

In the last chapter I talked about second person perspective and I said I don’t recommend it. I stand by that statement. Even though second person is used in a lot of literature from poems to novels to whatever other forms of literature there are, they are not fanfictions. My beginning statement was the definition of a fanfiction for this very reason. Fan. Fan-fiction. That is to say that these are stories by nonprofessional writers. You can understand why I have reservations about authors whom still use their writing training wheels wanting to hop on a BMX bike and join the X-games.

The gap between what sounds good and what sounds bad is very big in some cases. Of course, if you can handle not riding with training wheels, you should take that next step, but of a lot of us are still just teetering along.

I see the counter argument being that because these are fanfictions, they shouldn’t be treated with the same severity as a published work. You guys can’t have it both ways. If you make excuses about trying out known writing techniques, you are going to receive the criticism that that technique deserves.

If this was a bike race and the training wheel author is racing with their new shy girl transfer student and character profile fic against a mountain bike veteran author with a huge fanbase and lots of ideas and a serious author who explores new writing styles and uses them well, guess who would win? It’s not going to be the training wheel author. AFF is a huge racing ground, and most authors are on this track trying to win.

So when people defend certain writing styles and say they are acceptable, I can agree –if they are used on purpose and correctly.

Fanfictions and novels are very different yet the same. Basically, the characterization and plot doesn’t need to be as deep to sound interesting because we become invested in a story by simply knowing who it is about. But, like any story, the more characterization and background plot put in, the better it sounds. But the flipside is that it is very easy to over glorify a character or plot and make it sound too absurd. It’s not black and white; there is a middle ground.

It is okay to draw outside the lines, but too much ruins the picture. Remember, fanfictions are a completely different media form. They need to be treated like novels that people like without too much effort.