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allisonilluminated · 6 years

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The Seven Sins of Fanfiction

Hey all,

This blog is primarily focused on helping newer writers (and maybe some older ones) improve their fanfiction and increase their views. Since that’s the case, it’s important to understand exactly what not to do when you’re writing.

These are the worst things you can do while you’re writing. I can guarantee everyone reading this post has done at least three of them, and probably all in some shape of form. This is the sort of thing that makes you want to click away immediately, that you cringe at when it’s in the first paragraph or laugh at how bad it is. These things that make you stop reading other stories, just think about it for a moment. What if fewer people are reading your own work because you’re making the same mistakes?

Yeah. If you want to improve, you gotta know what you’re doing wrong. Number Seven is the least worst, then the list descends to Number One, the worst thing you can do in fanfiction.

Note: This is a subjective list. There are people who disagree with some of these points (especially the non-grammar ones), so it’s important to remember that these are the things I find most degrading to the quality of the story being written. As a writer, you have the creative liberty to write whatever you want.

#7 – Bad Romance

“Wo-o-o-o-o, o-o-o-o, o-o-ah, caught in a bad romance fanfiction but it’s the only 100k fic for my OTP so I’m like contractually obligated to read it.” - Lady Gaga, mostly

We’ve all been here. You know that moment when two characters meet, then suddenly decide to kiss, and the next thing you know they’re screwing on the patio with some kinky ass BDSM shit. What about those cringe fics where suddenly Harry is spouting some creepy possessive stuff like “my only” or “softest light of my life” to twelve year old Ginny. You know what I’m talking about.

Good romance is an art. It’s about flawed characters (later) coming together in a beautifully intimate way (later) to make something even more beautiful. There is so much bad romance on FFN and AO3 that it just blows my mind.

Giving tips would take an entire post, so here’s a good article on the absolute basics you need to write a good romance: https://www.nownovel.com/blog/romance-writing-mistakes/

#6 – Bad Dialogue Tags

“No!” he howled.

“Yes,” she growled angrily.

She retorted snarkily, “Well, screw you.”

“Fuck you too,” he scowled sadly, before gratingly mumbling “I still love you though.”

Alternatively:

“No!” “Yes.” “Well, screw you.” “Fuck you too. I still love you though.”

There’s a glorious word in this social construct we call English, and it’s “said.” Use it.

You don’t need a fancy word for every tag. You don’t need a fancy word for almost all tags. Eighty percent of your tags should be said, exclaimed, and asked, and more of said than the others. Maybe a whispered or a yelled for some flavor.

Adverbs are your enemies. I struggle with this, but you should use them extremely sparingly.

On the flipside, if your reader doesn’t know who’s talking, your dialogue is meaningless to them. Also, use line breaks every time there is a new speaker.

The trick is finding some happy medium between the two examples. A handful of fancy tags, a lot of said, and if there are two people talking back and forth you don’t even need to tag every sentence.

#5 – Bad Messaging

I don’t want to put down an example for this one, because I think writers feel liberated to write some really awful shit in fanfiction because it’s “not a serious medium” or “it’s the internet, I have free speech.” Let me say this right now:

Stories that make rape a positive thing are not okay. Stories that portray suicide in a glorified light are not okay. Stories that show slavery, or torture, or all of the other horrendous things human beings do to each other in a romanticized or glorified manner are not okay.

I don’t care if it’s your fetish. I don’t care, it’s just not okay to write about these things in a positive light. The only reason this is so high on this list is because these stories aren’t as common as the rest, and are mostly marked M/Explicit so you can avoid them.

#4 – Overdescription

Hi my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). [[I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I’m in the seventh year (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow – My Immortal

Oh boy.

Writers, let me introduce you to this wonderful thing called your profile. Assuming you aren’t drowning in copypastas, this is the perfect place for your character descriptions. Alternatively, have you heard of Tumblr? Literally, stick them anywhere except the middle of your story, and I can guarantee you the readers that actually care will find them if you mention them in your A/N.

Show, don’t tell is one of the fundamental principles of writing. When you’re describing a character, you probably don’t need more than three adjectives and a one sentence description of their outfit. Yes, that applies even if your character has a special non canon outfit. If we must know, work the details into the story. Info-dumping description is telling, and is one of the worst world building and characterization mistakes you can make. Period.

#3 – Epithets

The blond girl walked to the door, and started as a burly man opened it. “May I help you?”

“Yes, I’m here to get a consultation,” the graying businessman said as he ran a hand through his oily hair.

The youthful therapist nodded as she shut the door behind him. Rummaging on her desk, she asked, “Why are you here?”

“Well,” said the jaded economist to the buxom woman. “This author thinks they’re being clever by not giving out names, but they’re ruining this story.”

The best way to get someone to leave your story is epithets.

Epithets do not create mystery. Epithets are not a good substitute for proper nouns. Epithets will not make a clever opening, or add variety to your dialogue.

Epithets will ruin your story, and should not be used.

They come in varying degrees of horror.

The noun. You might be able to get away with saying just “the woman” or “the child” under certain circumstances. This is almost an excusable offence.

The noun with one adjective. This is already unacceptable. If you though you were going to solve Sin #4 by doing this, you’re digging yourself an even deeper hole.

The noun with one modified adjective. Because they can’t just be sexy, they have to be shockingly sexy.

The noun with multiple adjectives. This is automatically overdescription on top of being a horrible thing to subject another person to.

The noun followed by a relative clause. Because there’s always a way to make it worse. “The girl who was now holding his hand” is absolutely disgusting, and so is “The girl that was sitting across from her” or especially “the girl she knew had a chocolate bar somewhere in her pocket.

The noun followed by a relative clause with adjectives. Put it together and what have you got?

Compound Epithets. Oh. My. God. This deserves its own sin. Even if your character has blue hair, you should never ever ever call them a bluenette. Ever. Ever ever ever. AAAAAAAAH!

The author has made her point.

#2 – Bad Grammar

I find bad grammar extremely agitating, mostly because there are a lot of great tools and easy fixes to solve the problems. Most word processors have a built in spell checker, and a lot of them check for grammar as well. If you need an alternative, grammarly.com has a good free version that’ll catch a lot of mistakes. Of course, proofreading your work before posting is always a great idea. Here’s a quick list of some of the most common grammar issues you should be on the lookout for:

A new paragraph for a new idea.

A new paragraph for a new speaker.

Dialogue formatting

Periods

Commas

Run on sentences

Using line breaks

Spelling

Capitalizing starts of sentences

Capitalizing proper nouns

Choosing CONSISTENT capitalization for canon terms (Pokemon vs pokemon, for example)

Repeated words.

Sentence fragments

Tense

#1 – Bad Characterization

“What?” you’re probably asking yourself right now. “How is bad characterization possibly worse than poor grammar? Than epithets?”

Allow me to explain.

When an author writes a story, a good story, they are creating characters who act like people. They have wants, needs, hates, motives, and a concept of who they are, even if they’re only fictional. The author gives them life, spirit, a spark that keeps you reading and wanting to learn more about them.

That sense of identity is what makes them real to us. Why you binge a show on Netflix, or read a novel in one night. Reading is a connection with these characters on a deeper level than you might realize, and this connection brings them to life.

Take that away, and your story is dead.

Your gray OOC Gary Stu overpowered Ravenclaw Harry who grew up with Snape and has a goblin half brother AU is not a story about Harry Potter. It’s a story about an OC named Harry Potter, and Harry loses any integrity he had as a character in Rowling’s books.

That’s why there are fics with horrible grammar and massive following, alongside fics with incredible grammar and sentence construction but no followings. Unless you maintain a basic level of your character’s identity, the essence of what makes them empathetic, you’re not writing about that character. This is the worst sin, because even with all of the others in play, if there is good characterization you can still create an incredible story.

Just by fixing these seven problems, your fic can instantly jump from bad/meh to incredible in the way people perceive it. Hopefully this list can help you determine things to either go back and revise or work on for future chapters. When have you committed one of the seven sins? What other sins do people make all the time in their writings?

Thank you to all of the amazing people who have followed, Allie

Support Me: Fanfiction.net - Archives of our Own

#fanfic #fanfiction #seven sins #writing

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thrashermaxey · 6 years

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Ramblings: Reinhart Signs, Line Combinations, Defence Rankings – September 20

The 2018-19 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide has everything fantasy owners need to get an edge on their competition. There are: line projections; player projections; articles for scheduling, advanced stats, specific categories, and more; a draft list for different leagues; notes from each team. Be sure to head to the Dobber Shop and get yours today!

Sam Reinhart signed a bridge deal with Buffalo for two years with an AAV of $3.65-million. He was one of the handful of remaining RFAs left.

Reinhart has been quietly productive on a very bad Buffalo team in his young career. Riding shotgun with Jack Eichel both at five-on-five and on the power play, as both start to enter their primes, should be a huge boon for the team. Right now, I have him as a starting RW in 12-team leagues that start three right wingers, coming in as RW33. If the Sabres can start producing more at even strength, he has 60-point upside. Just be wary of over-drafting him; I would not take him in the first 10 rounds of a 12-team league and he might climb there in some leagues now that he’s signed.

Wednesday afternoon I started a best ball draft over at Fantrax.com. It’s officially a Beat Dobber league where the goal is to beat the man himself.

For those unfamiliar with best ball (I guess best puck) drafts, they’re essentially no-moves leagues. You draft your team and that’s it. There are no trades or waiver wire moves. Whomever accumulates the most points through the season wins.

These types of leagues gained prevalence in fantasy football so it’s nice to see FanTrax step up and provide something similar for hockey fans. For those that don’t have the time (or inclination) to set your lineup, assess your team, stay current on information, or negotiate trades on a daily basis, this is the league for you.

Calgary and Boston played their second and final preseason game in China yesterday. Jake DeBrusk had a nice goal in the first period, driving wide and going under Mike Smith’s arm. That’s where the good news ends for fantasy enthusiasts like myself who are high on DeBrusk this year. It was Ryan Donato, and not DeBrusk, skating on the top PP unit along with Marchand and Pastrnak.

That’s the problem here. DeBrusk has a lot of upside if he can get those minutes but will be hindered if he doesn’t. On the flipside, this is a huge boon to Ryan Donato’s value. The team rain winger pairs of Marchand/Pastrnak and DeBrusk/Donato which means the latter two could flank David Krejci to start the year. If Donato is on that line at five-on-five and on the top PP unit, there could be a big year coming. He should be highlighted on draft lists right now.

Matthew Tkachuk didn’t dress for the game but it’s said to be a precautionary move and not a serious injury of any sort.

All summer I’ve been railing against drafting Rasmus Dahlin where he’s being taken – often inside the top-100 players – mainly based on the fact that he wouldn’t get top PP minutes for the Sabres. Without those top PP minutes, there just wasn’t much upside, especially considering the quality of the team.

Well, Tuesday night it was Dahlin, not Rasmus Ristolainen, on the top PP unit. It was a mostly-full roster, too, with Skinner, Eichel, Okposo, and Mittelstadt all playing. Assuming Sam Reinhart is the fourth forward, Dahlin may be in line to at least start the year on the top PP unit. He’s still overvalued but it’s a good sign for Dahlin backers.

A quick update on Zach Werenski from Aaron Portzline of The Athletic. He’s set for a checkup on his shoulder today and if all goes well he’ll be able to sustain some “controlled contact.” The hope is still for him to get in a preseason game or two and be ready for the start of the season. Things can change quickly with injuries but for now it looks like Werenski may be fine for opening night.

Speaking offensive defencemen:

Erik Karlsson has been skating mostly with Marc-Edouard Vlasic, while Justin Braun has been with Brent Burns. Joakim Ryan not out here, though, probably because he played last night #SJSharks

— Kevin Kurz (@KKurzNHL) September 19, 2018

Arizona played a pair of split-squad games a couple nights ago against the Kings, but they had a lot of their top guys on one team. Notably, Alex Galchenyuk and Clayton Keller skated together at both five-on-five and on the power play, contrary to where they were slotted when camp opened. (Shout out to HockeyViz.com for the line combinations). Richard Panik was skating with Derek Stepan at five-on-five and those two were also on the PP unit with Galchenyuk and Keller.

My hope had been that the duo of Galchenyuk-Keller would skate together this year and we may get that opportunity yet.

As a small aside: Stepan’s line was largely matched against the trio of Carter-Toffoli-Pearson, leaving Galchenyuk’s line take softer matchups.

Carolina ran these PP units in practice a couple days ago:

Faulk and Hamilton together for some PP work, along with Aho, Necas and Teravainen.

In the other group, Kuokkanen seeing time with Slavin, Staal, Ferland and Williams.

— Cory Lavalette (@corylav) September 17, 2018

I’ve stated I’ve been hesitant to downgrade Justin Faulk, even after the acquisition of Dougie Hamilton, just because we didn’t know if they were going to run a 4F/1D PP with a new coach in town. Well, they aren’t. At least not right now. The only person missing from the groups at that practice was Svechnikov.

Let’s talk about Nashville for a second.

We’re only a week into preseason. We have nearly two more weeks to go. Things can change quickly and they often do when coaches are trying to figure out what they want their lineup to look like for the first regular season game in October.

With that said, the Preds ran these lines a couple days ago:

I'm intrigued by the Predators' potential top nine, keeping in mind that it's the preseason and it's possible these lines won't be used in the regular season:

Forsberg-Johansen-Fiala Jarnkrok-Turris-Arvidsson Tolvanen-Bonino-Smith

— Adam Vingan (@AdamVingan) September 18, 2018

That is great news for Kevin Fiala owners, or potential owners. It’s bad new for Craig Smith backers as he’s pushed to the third line. Smith had a rebound year in 2017-18 and the line of he, Fiala, and Kyle Turris were very good together.

Further on the Smith front, Vingan also said recently in a fantasy hockey piece on The Athletic that Eeli Tolvanen “should receive ample power-play time.” All of Smith, Forsberg, Johansen, and Arvidsson, their top PP unit last year, but they’re all right-handed shots. Tolvanen is a lefty. Getting a forward with a left-handed shot on that PP quintet makes sense. Keep an eye out as preseason continues.

For what it’s worth, Tolvanen was on the second PP unit in practice yesterday with Smith still on the top unit.

The Dallas/St. Louis game a couple days ago was interesting from a roster perspective. Dallas went with this top-6: Benn/Seguin/Radulov and Janmark/Spezza/Nichushkin while St. Louis had a top line of Maroon-O’Reilly-Kyrou.

Dallas also used Spezza as the fourth forward on their top PP unit instead of Nichushkin. If Nichushkin doesn’t get those minutes, it’ll be hard for him to have much fantasy relevance in most leagues this year.

It also seems likely that Maroon starts the year somewhere in the top-6 for St. Louis. He’s been practicing with both O’Reilly and Brayden Schenn with Robby Fabbri practicing often on the third line. That should bring relevance to Maroon in 12-team leagues even without those top PP minutes.

Something important to note from last night's Florida/Montreal game.

The Panthers had pretty much their NHL lineup for this game, including their full top-6, Ekblad, Yandle, and Luongo. The top PP unit did not have Jonathan Huberdeau with the trio of Trocheck/Barkov/Hoffman, rather it was Evgeni Dadonov. That is a significant adjustment in fantasy value for both Huberdeau and Dadonov should that persist.

Last week when I released my rankings I said there would be some tweaking to come. The Tweakening has come.

Mostly, the changes had to deal with power play time and usage. There are some players whose usage was undervalued because of limited prior experience – names like Mikhail Sergachev and Colin Miller – as well as some players who’ve just changed teams, which could lead to different usage.

Below are my rankings for my top-61 defencemen this year and the rankings are for standard Yahoo! leagues, which include goals, assists, PPPs, SOG, hits, and +/-. More names will be added by the weekend to try and help those in leagues deeper than 12-teamers.

As with the rest of my rankings, these try to account for positional scarcity. This is something I’ve come around to more over the last year or so, especially with regards to defencemen. I’ve come to see the light that Steve Laidlaw has been shining. I’ll explain why.

The way I account for positional scarcity is by finding what a replacement-level player at a given position produces – it’s an average of the output in all categories by a handful of players that are deemed to be at the top of the value list on the waiver wire. Then it’s figuring out how much value does a given player provide above (or below) this amalgamation of a replacement-level player in each category, with the value total summed. The results are a bit startling:

Brent Burns is my number-1 defenceman. Kris Letang is my number-12 defenceman. The excess in value I have Burns providing over Letang is about 39 percent. Conversely, Alex Ovechkin is my number-2 forward and Brock Boeser is my number-24 forward. The excess in value I have Ovechkin providing over Boeser is about 40 percent. Relative value is a real thing that matters a lot.

The top of my rankings won’t differ much from others. The top-10 will have a bit of shuffling around but they’re mostly heavily-used defencemen with a grasp on the top PP unit from likely high-scoring teams.

Once you get past the top-20 defencemen, there isn’t much of a difference between the next dozen or so. That means once you get past guys like Matt Dumba and Alex Pietrangelo in drafts, there isn’t a huge difference between grabbing Ivan Provorov or Jeff Petry, or Oliver Ekman-Larsson or Kevin Shattenkirk, for example. If you’re targeting someone in that range, you may be better served waiting a few rounds to grab someone similar and keep drafting forwards or adding to your goalie pool instead. I’ve added tiers to my ranking to reflect this reality.

I don’t directly address plus/minus here, but guys who will likely be killed by it (Ristolainen, Shattenkirk, and Leddy, to name a few) have had their rankings adjusted to reflect this. For most players, it is ignored. (We, as a community, need to eradicate the scourge that is plus/minus in fantasy leagues).

Here are my updated defence rankings.

2018 Fantasy Hockey Rankings powered by FantasyProsECR ™ – Expert Consensus Rankings ADP – Average Draft Position

Notes on players that are ranked higher or lower than rankings from others on Fantasy Pros:

I am much higher on Oscar Klefbom than most. I get that recency bias is a thing and Klefbom’s 2017-18 was miserable. He was also battling a shoulder injury that flared up before the season even started and nagged him most of the year. He looks to be healthy now, though, and is locked on the team’s top PP unit. If that Oilers PP can right itself, Klefbom is in line for 40 points with 200-plus shots. He’s a steal right now by his ADP.

The only thing Jacob Trouba needs to be a top-30 defenceman is to stay on the ice. Health has been an issue for him in his young career, but if he can manage even 75 games, he can easily be a 30-point guy with strong peripherals even without top PP minutes. That type of player – and we can add guys like Parayko, Provorov, and Ekblad to the list – is valuable.

I like Keith Yandle a lot and don’t have any real particular issue with where he’s being drafted. That said, his ADP right now – and generally where he’s being ranked – is about where he finished last year in a 56-point season. He’s a safe pick, but where he’s being drafted, I don’t think there’s a lot of upside/profit to be had.

I guess I won’t be drafting Jake Gardiner much this year.

These rankings will continue to be tinkered with until the season starts. Any questions or projections requested? Hit the comments.

from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-reinhart-signs-line-combinations-defence-rankings-september-20/

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