Fanfic Resources

[Llywela]

'If something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into the writing.'

Enrique Jardiel Poncela

All writers, whether great or small, need to put in some research at times. Now, elsewhere in the fanfic section, there are plenty of links useful for this research scattered here, there and everywhere. But they can be hard to find.
So, we thought it might be useful to draw them all together into one easily recognisable place.

Links below have been supplied by a variety of dedicated fic-writers and readers. More will be added to the list over time, as they are recommended, so keep checking back!

GRAMMAR: The basics - can't write without it.
Arduinna's Chrestomathy - a personal favourite of mine. This site is absolutely fantastic for anyone struggling with proper grammar and structure for their fic-writing, and is full of useful fic-writing hints and tips. If you go nowhere else, visit this site. Read and learn!
Common Mechanical Pitfalls
Buffy Slanguage - because, duh.
Aka for all characters - character details from the show, useful for keeping your characters, well, in character.
Spike's glossary - what it says on the tin
http://www.geocities.com/lapassiondu...ire/grindstone - guide to writing historical fanfiction.
http://littlecalamity.tripod.com/Text/Dictionary.html - fanfic glossary
http://www.ifrance.com/fanficcafe/fa...c_lexique.html - same here but in French.
http://www.englishchick.com/badfic/ - Bad Fanfic! No Biscuit! Apart from glossary you can find there a list of the most common fanfic errors and sex tips for writers.
From http://www.writing4success.com/tipsheet22.htm#article - advice on writing fight scenes
http://www.livejournal.com/users/tightropegirl/?skip=20 - Interesting link to a professional writer who wrote, and still writes, fanfic.
http://wordsmiths.net/Essays/slashessay.htm - Melina Clark's "Slash: Another View" essay talks about gender roles in slash and is well worth a read through here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_fiction - Wikipedia's encyclopedic look at Slash and its origins, history, and evolution.
http://www.tiedtothetracks.com/storytelling/ - Sara Donati/Rosina Lippi's Weblog "Storytelling"
especially:
http://www.tiedtothetracks.com/story...nes/index.html - her "On Writing Sex Scenes" series of articles.
On Writing Penises - with a title like that, you need a description?
Dictionary.com
http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-ca...6313.htmlstory - on the rules of TV.
Doug Marland's Ten Rules for TV writing:

Spoiler:

During the 1980s, the US soap As The World Turns had a legendary headwriter: Douglas Marland. He had 10 rules for writing a soap:
1) Watch the show.
2) Learn the history of the show. You would be surprised at the ideas that you can get from the back story of your characters.
3) Read the fan mail. The very characters that are not thrilling to you may be the audience's favorites.
4) Be objective. When I came to ATWT, the first thing I said was, what is pleasing the audience? You have to put your own personal likes and dislikes aside and develop the characters that the audience wants to see.
5) Talk to everyone: writers and actors especially. There may be something in a character's history that will work beautifully for you, and who would know better than the actor who has been playing the role?
6) Don't change a core character. You can certainly give them edges they didn't have before, or give them a logical reason to change their behavior. But when the audience says, "He would never do that," then you have failed.
7) Build new characters slowly. Everyone knows that it takes six months to a year for an audience to care about a new character. Tie them in to existing characters. Don't shove them down the viewers' throats.
8) If you feel staff changes are in order, look within the organization first. P&G (Proctor and Gamble) does a lot of promoting from within. Almost all of our producers worked their way up from staff positions, and that means they know the show.
9) Don't fire anyone for six months. I feel very deeply that you should look at the show's canvas before you do anything.
10) Good soap opera is good storytelling. It's very simple.

All very simple and all very logical and, although obviously not all are applicable, I think a lot of these rules could apply to writing fanfic as much as to the writing of the show itself.

Workshop: Finish That Epic! - valuable advice for anyone taking on a large project such as VS or novel-length story.

Brit-speak and related links

so you want to write fanfictions on the internets
All your characters sound the same, and they're not a hive mind - a really interesting article on how to give original characters unique voices.

Scriptwriting Guidelines - useful for anyone attempting to write in that format.

Beta links:

http://www.fangedfour.com/deadboy/betas.htm

http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=Beta+Reader

http://www.livejournal.com/interests.bml?int=Betas

http://www.redssoulmates.com/beta-readers.htm This might direct you to the main page, just click on Fanfiction and choose Beta-Reader.

http://community.livejournal.com/find_me_a_beta/

The Firefly-Serenity Chinese Pinyinary here: http://fireflychinese.home.att.net/
A dictionary of British slang - surely a must for anyone attempting to write Giles, Spike et al.
All About Homonyms - more help with spelling and grammar
Crafting the Hook: a pragmatic writer's guide to snaring reader interest: http://minisinoo.livejournal.com/340525.html
A fan fiction glossary: http://www.subreality.com/glossary/terms.htm for new reader/writers and old ones.
learnenglish.org.uk chock full of grammatical information and advice for novice writers.
Tips for Writing Better Fanfiction - this one is gold. Anyone serious about writing should take a look.
If you're looking for a quote or paraphrase then you could do worse than wikiquote. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page or for something a little more colourful, why not try urbandictionary.com

[Llywela]

'When asked, a group of editors from top publishing houses, responded that the following are the most often seen mechanical errors in works submitted by authors.

By removing these errors from our works, we greatly enhance our potential for publication-and strengthen our writing skills.'

Common Mechanical Pitfalls - it's only a short page, and well worth a look.

[Llywela]

Workshop: Finish That Epic!

One of the communities over at livejournal has just posted a fantastic workshop entitled Finish That Epic!: Using an Outline to Sustain a Novel-Length Fic

It's full of useful advice, and definitely worth a read by anyone working on a full-length story of virtual season

Follow the link to the workshop


And here's another excellent article on writing fanfiction, well worth checking out:
so you want to write fanfictions on the internets

[Eiress]

I found this thread to be useful and want to thank whoever's idea it was and just say, I will be adding this links to my own list of helpful sources. Thanks again.

[Llywela]

I found this page of Scriptwriting Guidelines that looks really useful for anyone attempting to write in that format.

[Llywela]

Found an article on Kurt Vonnegut that listed his 8 rules for storywriting:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character s/he can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things: reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

[Prism]

All great advice! Thanks for posting.