Tip 1: Do What You Want
This one probably doesn't sound all that great, but as you dig deeper into writing you'll realize how important this is, so I wanna make sure that you understand from the start.
Although I will give you quite a lot of tips about what to write it all comes down to this: Write what you want to write, or don't do it at all.
This one idea you had while dozing off in math class? Go for it!
There's no point in writing if you don't have fun in the process.
If you don't have fun writing, readers won't have fun reading.
This is something especially older writers have to accept: Fanfiction is something you write, above all things, for yourself. As soon as you start writing only what others want you to, it won't be fun anymore.
And this will heavily influence the outcome of your stories.
So: Write what you want, whatever comes to your mind. Don't force yourself to write something you don't like! This is fanfiction!
Tip 2: The Thing With Cliché Stories
We all know them.
The 'I fell in love with my kidnapper' or 'sold to the mafia' stories.
The kind of stories we've seen hundreds of times before.
I really wanna tell you to not write those, but you know what? That's no good.
If you wanna write a good old cliché, then do it!
Because there's always a way to make a cliché work. To "un-cliché a cliché" in a way.
In order to do that, you have to be careful of two (2) main points:
Important is, to 'add your own spice'.
For example, an author who pulled the whole 'sold to the mafia' thing off amazingly is QueenLeeXD with her story 'Yakuza'.
If you do it correctly, you can easily transform a popular cliché into a completely new and fun experience, while keeping the popular trope! Don't be shy to come up with your own ideas and spice things up a bit.
What I mean by that is, that you take a popular concept - or elements of this concept - and use it as sort of a blue print to create your own work.
Add a twist, a new idea that'll make your story stick out from others.
If we go back to our example from 'Yakuza', it'll probably be easier to understand - here, the author morphed the often used mobster theme with the myth of the seven deadly sins. With that, she took a popular, well known theme and turned it into 'her own thing'.
Another important thing is good research.
God, I don't even think I can stress this enough: The better researched your story is, the better written it will be.
If you manage to make a cliché topic come over as realistic by using actual facts it won't even feel like a cliché anymore.
What I'm trying to say is, that good old clichés might have a kind of bad reputation, but if performed correctly they can be so good.
The problem with those oftenly used tropes mostly is how unrealistic they come across most of the time. Sometimes, you feel like the author lacks any common sense by writing something so ridiculously unrealistic.
Good research is the key to making a topic you aren't familiar with come over as authentic.
So, remember:
- add your own twist
- research properly
YOU ARE READING
How To Fanfiction (Tips for new writers)
FanfictionAfter three years of writing fanfics and a bunch of completed stories, I think I pretty much have the ability to answer your questions and give you tips. You wanna start out with writing? Here's some help for beginners.
