Kagome357 wrote:
7. If you've never had sex, don't write lemons. A bunch of "OOOHHH FUCK ME OH KAMI FUCK ME HARD" is not sexy at all. Sex doesn't always sell.

I laughed for like 30 minutes when I read this post. It is probably the best advice for lemons though.

3. Outlining. Have a file that is dedicated to outlining the story. It helps keep your story on track and striving towards an ending. The other thing it allows is place to quickly jot down the ideas that come to you about future scenes that you unable to write in their entirity at the time. It helps to organize for future use.

I don't know if that is one or two, but I see those things as mutual benificial.

emmaren

Let's do something that would benefit the writers (myself included...I aint JK Rowlings ya know). It'll be fun, educational and it will help the younger writers hone their skills better and who knows...old farts like me might learn a thing or two...

This is how you do it: Suggest one writing tip per post. If you include 2 or more, especially if they're preachy tips, the writer might get bored or worse, totally confused so one tip per thread will streamline things. I'll start first.

1. Printing Your Story For Final Editing - A good way to edit is, instead of relying only on the spell checker or worse, proofreading off of a glaring monitor, print your chapter BUT DON'T EDIT IT RIGHT AWAY! Put it away until the next day or so. You've probably written a 10,000 word nightmare and your eyes are tired so the letters and characters will start to play tricks on you and you're blinded by the monitor, so your chapter will be full of errors. That's normal. Rest your eyes and your mind for one day and then go back and, using a RED ink pen, edit your printed chapter. You'll be surprised by the number of mistakes you've made. Although no editing job is perfect and you'll probably post with a few of them anyway, that very few will pale in comparison to a completely illegible story.

Next!

2. Killing Your Darlings - ie, Cutting the Crap. When a writer puts so much work into their intial draft, they treasure every precious word, but when you edit, you should be prepared to hack and slash without mercy. Words, paragraphs, sometimes even entire scenes should go. Beginning writers are often reluctant to delete things they've written, but the fact is, not every word is gold. Extraneous wordage can weaken your story; when you edit, don't just look for errors, look for literary baggage. Setting yourself a word limit can help you develop this skill.

I know cutting those words hurts. But your story will be better afterwards. You can keep multiple drafts if you worry about changing your mind later on. But seriously. The delete button is your friend.

4. Focus. When beginning a story, be aware of the tone and the direction of the plot you're aiming for. If there are plot holes in your notes, deal with them before the chapter where they take place comes into play. Also, avoid changing chapters already posted, as making the readers aware through your author's notes may cause confusion for those not wise enough to read the notes. Finally, never lose sight of the end, as the final chapter is the knot which binds all the chapters together.

5. Don't write to make people happy
When I started writing, I was, in some ways, influenced by what reviewers would think if I did this or that with my story. It was like writing in bondage to those who liked my fic. Now, I pretty much do whatever I want, regardless of what I think reviewers will think of it. Not that they don't matter, but my stories are just that, and telling them any other way than the way the play in my own mind is a great disservice to the story, to myself, and to my readers.

6. Dialogue. When writing a story, make sure that you successfully utilize how this can help reveal a character through actions, advance the plot of the story, bring scenes to life, and adjust the story's pace. While writing, avoid long greetings and goodbyes which slow the story down and don't use dialogue as a substitute for an action. For example, say that Kagome is attacked or an earthquake happens. You shouldn't have her say "Oh my gosh! An earthquake!" but instead describe the event with details and show action. You should also use dialogue to convey a character by the way they speak or react. This brings the character to life more so the reader can successfully understand what is happening and why a character may be acting in a certain way.

7. If you've never had sex, don't write lemons. A bunch of "OOOHHH FUCK ME OH KAMI FUCK ME HARD" is not sexy at all. Sex doesn't always sell.

8. Physical discribtions. It is not necessary to discribe every physical detail of the characters (espeacially the main characters) or the houses, offices, apartments, etc. It is very unlikely that we will picture it the way you envision and often times it just slows down the flow of the story. This is up to the author to decide what is necessary for the reader to understand what is going on.

emmaren

9. Spacing - Big blocks of text is not only annoying to read, but it can also give readers a headache and make them not want to read your story. A good rule of thumb, never have more that one person talking in a paragraph. Each time someone else starts talking, hit your enter button.

10. Research. If the plot of your story revolves around a topic you know little or nothing about, look into it. Fill your story with fun facts about real places or mythical beasts, and the readers will be both impressed and amused.

Don't do research, and you're gonna get flamed (and rightly so).

11. OC's. Be very careful when you're writing a story where an OC is prominent. There's nothing wrong with writing them but if your story is primarily about Sess/Kags or Inu/Kags or whoever, don't allow your OC to overpower them. Young writers, and it happens quite a bit, tend to astroproject either themselves or their friends into the story and then write the entire story around them. That's what original fiction is for. When I read a fan fiction, I want to read about the characters of the series, not your peeps. It's no longer an Inuyasha story - it's just a story about your friend that happens to have an Inuyasha character drop by.

12. Find yourself a beta reader. DO NOT select someone who is a close friend, they'll tell you what you want to hear because they don't want to hurt your feelings. Find someone you admire or perhaps a reviewer that gave you a nice bit of constructive criticism and ask if they wouldn't mind looking it over for you.

Another pair of eyes always helps!

13. Honorifics/Japanese words. Yes I know a lot of writers use them. Some of my favorite writers use them extensively but for me personally, it's overkill and word fluff. If I have to keep looking up or looking at a legend to see what a word means, then I feel like I've wasted my time. Some stories, if they're really good, I'll power through them but if it's too much, I'll give up on the story. They make the story unnecessarily wordy. You don't have to be THAT authentic. You're an English-speaking writer writing for a majority English-speaking audience. I'll relate an experience. I work for a Japanese company and one of the guys there I discovered was an Inuyasha fan. I showed him some fan fiction that was littered with honorifics and Japanese words. He thought it was crazy to use them in an English-speaking story, many were used incorrectly and it was unnecessary. He used the example of when white people come around black people and start using Snoop Dog slang that they otherwise wouldn't use, or when people who come around Japanese or Chinese people and start speaking Jackie Chan english. It made sense. Just be considerate of your reading audience.

14.Humour in Parodies. The Inuyasha fandom has always been rich with parodies...with so many wonderfully flexible characters, and a free reign of imagination, it's only natural, that some authors enjoy poking fun at some of the weaker, absurd, or just plain annoying aspects of the series. But when writing a parody, please bear in mind that a parody is intended only to highlight these aspects, and in keeping with this, the humour should be at best, subtle and sardonic, or at worst, commonplace and goofy. Bashing the series, or a character you don't like by putting them into a series of highly cliched, crass and nonsensical plot points just to make them look stupid is NOT a parody. It simply downplays the strong points of the series, annoys fans, and causes you to lose readers.

Lemons. Not all of us make use of lemons in our stories, but, I myself am a lover of citrus! My tip is based mostly on lemons that I have read. The best lemons, in my opinion, are not done, just to draw readers in. I like to put them in my stories, as a way of building an intimate connection between my characters, not just to have attention grabbing smuttiness. I find that the best lemons are not too long, or too short. I usually devote somewhere around one full page, to a page and half to the actual lemon. Just enough to build up the excitement, live in the moment, and bask in the aftermath. I have read lemons where they are extremely long, and it just causes me to loose interest and become bored. I also like to use more abstract words to describe *ahem* the anatomy of the characters. This is a personal preference, simply because I want the reader to feel like they are reading something more romantic, as apposed the back cover of a porn magazine.

16. Believability in a Canon World. Sesshoumaru and Kagome are not characters who normally associate with one another or even like each other.

a.)To write an effectively believable plot line, you have to place them in a situation where they have to be together, whether they are willing to be or not.

b.)They have to rely on each other in some fashion or bonded for some honorable reason.

c.)They also have to be in a situation where Sesshoumaru is not in a position to kill her (she can't kill him either, but that threat isn't quite as probable).


This is all strictly Canon in scope while AU and Divergence have slightly different, more lenient rules.

17. This is FAN fiction, not original fiction.
I read fiction in this fandom for well over a year before I ever touched the InuYasha manga itself. When I finally read the manga I felt as though I hadn't read a single fanfic that actually kept Kagome in character, or portrayed Kikyou the way she was in canon. Don't make the InuYasha universe a setting for your original fiction. Before writing, read some manga or watch some anime to get the canon characterizations into your head.

18. I do not even feel qualified to give writing advise, as I myself am a total and complete novice with only one incomplete story under my belt....but I AM an avid reader! So the first thing that pops into my head is Beware of excessive use of adverbs to describe a situation, especially on tags. For example, "Hello, Rin! How are you?" Kagome said excitedly and enthusiastically. Just something I thought of, I probably do it myself, so I should take my own advise! LOL

Heartspasm had a question...

19. Find someone who you can bounce idea's off of. Sometimes when your stuck its nice to be able to message someone and tell them your ideas. Their feedback usually helps you to get to your goal.

20. Pacing. It's important to keep your plot moving along at a smooth pace, that is easy for your audience to follow. I can't tell you how many fics (and sadly published NOVELS) I've read that have gone absolutely nowhere by chapter 30; and thus lost my interest completely. Likewise, plots that progress too quickly tends to confuse readers causing them to lose interest as well. Periodically, go back and reread what you've wrote up until your current chapter to chart the progression. Make sure the plot is progressing how you want it and in an even manner, that there are no unnecessary lags to jumps in the plot. If a chapter feels like a "filler" chapter then chances are it is, and requires a critical eye as to its necessity. Chances are the "filler" will read more like an infodump, and lose and confuse readers as well as potentially stagnating the plot.

21. Do NOT be afraid to ask for help! If you have a question about grammer, spelling, characters, or the history of the characters in the anime, do NOT be afraid to ask someone. The most common mistake new writers make is trying to impress others with their writting. I am guilty of this myself. However, I have learned that it is always better to ask than to make a fool of yourself. There are a lot of picky readers out there, and justly so. I have been reading Inuyasha fanfiction for years, and writting them for about two years. I am picky about certain things. If you are writting a cannon, don't just assume that something happened and go from there. Make SURE you know what's going on in the anime. No one wants to read a story where the entire plot line of Inuyasha is mixed up. (This is subject to the stories that are meant to stay true to the Inuyasha plot line.)

-Akumi <3

22. Read your work out loud. When revising (and EVERYONE should revise), read what has been written out loud. If it doesn't make sense when it is read out loud it won't make sense to the reader either. We tend to understand what we mean but a good writer makes sure others can understand what is meant. I still flub, sometimes gloriously, but that advise (given to me by another writer) catches 98% of my mistakes.

23. Detail flow. I've been seeing this a lot lately so I decided to go ahead and add it here. When describing what your characters are doing do not start every sentence with a pronoun. Examples: I, he, she. Or even their names. Don't be afraid to start sentences with an action word. Like instead of 'I walked over to the bookcase to grab the dictionary. I sat down in the chair with the book. I began looking up the word pronoun.' Go for something more like 'Walking over to the bookcase, I grabbed the dictionary and made my way over to a nearby chair. Flipping to the P's, I began searching for the word pronoun.' Now the example is no where near perfect and I just wrote the first thing that popped into my head, but it does show a better flow to the descriptions. This way the story reads better and the details don't get interrupted.