When I was a wee lad, fresh to the Internet, I heard about a wonderful thing called “fanfiction”. The first examples I came upon were fanfics for Final Fantasy 6; indeed, I was writing one, myself, at the time. “Oh, happy day!” exclaimed I, and I trotted off to read. “'Twill be grand to read a extension of a story so colorful and delightful, with pleasant and loveable characters!”
Oh, the horrors.
Most were poorly written. This leads to rule number 1, the Ultimate Rule. I’d call it the Prime Directive except I know that’d ensure that nobody would follow it.
RULE #1: Don’t write fanfics unless you CAN WRITE.
A lot of fanfics have humongous blocks of punctuation-free text and random conversational snippets strewn haphazardly throughout. It reads more like a continuous flow of babble from someone that smoked a tad too much pot… or like an overzealous high school kid who, proud of his 1337 writing skillzzzz, just started typing the very first thing that popped into his head without any thought to story, plot, character, feasibility…
… Which leads to the second rule.
RULE #2: Think about story, plot, character, and feasibility.
If you’re writing a Star Wars fanfic, don’t do a story about Boba Fett falling in love. It just doesn’t happen, people. That’s egregiously out of character. Don’t do a story about Darth Vader travelling back in time. That’s just idiotic. Don’t do a slash story about Han Solo and Chewbacca. That’s just… well, okay, THAT one is interesting. But don’t do the other ones.
But at the same time, don’t just redo everything (a lot of the official, published Star Wars material is like this, incidentally). Don’t do a story about Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise being put on trial. They already did this story. They called it Encounter at Farpoint. And, no, it’s NOT witty for you to title your story Encounter at Nearpoint. That’s just idiotic.
That leads me to the third rule…
RULE #3: Don’t just throw all the same old characters into one place and expect the story to write itself.
The recent glut of Pirates of the Caribbean threads involved one about POTC fanfics. One of the “better” ones mentioned started off with ALL the main and primary “good guy” characters (sans Jack) on a ship. Why? Only ONE of them had any business being there. Part of the fun of a story is watching a skilled author weave events that cause the characters to be brought together. It’s INTERESTING to see characters that would normally never interact being forced, by circumstances, to interact. But if those characters interact on a regular basis, it’s not quite so special anymore, is it?
Remember, most stories that are being used for Fanfic material are closed systems… the idea being that, after the credits roll, the characters in the story live happily ever after and go their separate ways. Some will stay in contact, true, but how often do you think Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner go out sailing on a ship of the British Navy with Commodore Norrington? Extraordinary circumstances must have dictated those events… why is the audience not being shown those extraordinary circumstances?
Speaking of “extraordinary”…
RULE #4: Don’t make the main characters invincible just because the source material did.
I know Legolas is a badass. I know he killed, like, eight million orcs in fifteen seconds with just his little short bow. That doesn’t mean the fucker can survive being stabbed, sliced, diced, bashed, crushed, and maimed a la Bruce Willis.
It’s not interesting to see a character that takes lethal damage, and by all rights SHOULD be dead, and then see him “miraculously” come back to life a few seconds later. It’s one thing to plot a clever escape for the character, or make him survive barely, just barely. It’s another to take it to cartoonish levels. If Legolas had a sword stabbed through his chest, he’s dead.
RULE #5: Don’t do a half-assed fanfic.
Jokes are fine, unless you want to be taken seriously. Don’t put the characters into an impossible situation and just laugh and say “But they’re the main characters, so they get out of it easily.” That’s idiotic. That’s a pain in the posterior. You’ve just wasted half an hour of my time, time I spent reading your fanfic, time that you threw into the garbage when you got to the point where you had to expend an iota of energy thinking of what direction the plot should go but were too lazy to do so. If a piano fell on you, I would shed no tears.
See, I’ve considered doing fanfics. I HATE fanfics, but I’ve considered doing them. I’m STILL thinking of doing a POTC fanfic. I’ve been spending three weeks thinking about it. Because thinking of a good story TAKES TIME. If you can pump out a half-dozen fanfics in an afternoon, you’re doing something wrong, I guarantee it.
Anyway, that about does it, I think. SPOOFE’s five rules of fanfics. Sure, there’s stuff like Mary Sue-ism, but I don’t think the concept of a Mary Sue is in and of itself the problem… half-assery is the problem, folks. People that get so blinded by their love for the source material that they’re afraid of trying to add to it, leading to pathetic fanfics.
BUT, with my guide, and a down payment of $29.92 and installment payments for the next ten months, YOU could be writing fanfics like a SPOOFE!