Lazy fanfic writing that annoys you

[Traab]

Just a fun little topic. I wrote a similar one a year ago but this one isnt aimed at stuff you find creepy like 130 year old time travelers lusting after the 13 year old version of the love of their life, this is about the lazy things some authors do in their story that drives you nuts. As an example, in naruto is trained by "x" type stories, this mystery person shows up in konoha, says he wants to take naruto away from the village, and come back in several years, total pinky swear promise.

Instead of reacting by throwing this nutbar in jail and interrogating him for wanting to take the village demon vessel, the third hokage generally just goes, "Sure np, come back in a few years. Oh and here, take this shadow clone technique from our forbidden scroll, im sure naruto will make good use of it." There is no real attempt to confirm anything this stranger says, no way to make sure that said person would even bring back naruto, and yet within an hour he has decided that its perfectly ok and even gives away village secret techniques. It just makes zero sense and totally shatters any sense of immersion because thats so mind bendingly STUPID of the third hokage to do and yet we are supposed to just believe it.

Basically thats a big example, but in general its authors who dont bother to have their story make any sense. You have to justify your decision to have your characters act a certain way. As an example, in that naruto is trained by random crossover person, it would make sense for the third to insist on having one of his trusted ninja tag along if it would happen at all. There would have to be some form of guarantee to naruto coming back in addition to a rather large reason to trust this stranger. I have seen that done via the person saving naruto from a mob, being a long lost relative, or having knowledge of the kyuubi that noone in the village has and evidence to prove it. The last two are the only ones that would really justify sending naruto away with them, but by sending one of his ninja along the first can be acceptable, if only barely. Another is the standard, "Oh yes, we totally have contact with /insert universe here and mr so and so is an old friend, so of course naruto can go with him or her!"

Bottom line, you cant have people making random actions like that in a story, there has to be a reason for it to happen, one that makes sense in the context of the character.

[Ruslan]

Bottom line, you cant have people making random actions like that in a story, there has to be a reason for it to happen, one that makes sense in the context of the character.
A lot of fanfiction is irrevocably bad, and not just for the reasons you mention. Don't like it, don't read it. Find one you like, cherish it.

[Lethologica]

I filter past fanfic that are stupidly plotted pretty quickly. What gets to me is decent storytelling that needs an editor--I want to find out what happens, but the pedestrian wordsmithing makes it such a slog.

[Traab]

I can certainly agree with that Leth. There have been more than a few really interesting stories I have had to abandon because they couldnt run a spell checker, let alone find someone to look it over for grammar.

[Rater202]

Stories that try t include a romance plot, but then have the characters jump in bed together too early in the relationship, without any factor that would justify them jumping into bed that early. Especially if it segues into an explicit scene with no warning.

I also dislike stories that give the main protagonist a love/soul bond or psychic connection to an other character, but then instead of using it to explore the relationship between the to characters, they just use it as a cheap shortcut to breeze through all of that "actually building the relationship" stuff. Or as an excuse to give one or more of the participants powers without justifying iit in an other way.

Speaking of Powers, I absolutly hate with when the author gives a cool power to the Main Character, and then to keep them from being OP, throws in a buffalo dung weakness to "preserve the drama"-Great example, there was a Naruto fic I was reading years ago, where Naruto awakens a "Transcendent Bloodline"-I forget the name, but I remember that it translated to Mirror Flower Eye. It let him look at somebody, sense if they had an advanced bloodline, and, if he so chose, copy it into himself.

Sounds like an awesome power, but it's actually pretty balanced-his Copied bloodline is only as strong as the original wielders, he doen'st know how to use it automatically and thus still has to learn how it works, and counting his own he can only use one bloodline at a time.

so it's a pretty balanced ability, even without Naruto deciding not to copy bloodlines without the permission of the wielder.

However, on top of that, he could also create new bloodlines by exposing others to his blood.

But, of course, the Kyuubi(Fem Kyuubi, because this is pre Kurama reveal) doesn't like her host giving power ups to others, so she infuses Naruto's blood with her chakra, thus making it poisonous to others.

In the end, that ability only gets used twice, once, by accident, while Sparing with Sakura and giving her an Earth+Fire=Metal Bloodline, and once, when Mizuki breaks out of prison, finds out about it, and tries to steal Naruto's blood to give himself a bloodline before he kills the "Demon Gaki" thus getting himself killed in a horrific manner when he exposes himself to too much blood.

So, the two abilities of the bloodline are, either inherently or by character action, balanced.

Then, for no adequately explained reason, the author reveals that Naruto using his mirror flower eyes to their full extent will drive him insane, and renders it so that their power can't be used at the same time as the nine tails chakra..

[An Enemy Spy]

Whenever I find myself browsing FF.net, I find some truly awful summaries.
"Don't like it, don't read it."
"Just a quick one shot that jumped into my head after the campfire scene in PP2. Established Jeca, Becloe friendship. Bring tissues. Please read and review, constructive critism is always welcome. Disclaimer: I do not own Pitch Perfect and make no money from this. :-("
"I DO NOT OWN HETALIA OR THESE CHARACTERS! WARNING MOST OF THESE STORIES WILL BE FULL OF ANGST AND POSSIBLY BE SAD."
"CaptainSparklez counter part, Spark, has a story too, and I am here to tell it. XD Summary sucks, just read man! Rated K PLUS for violence, cussing, gore, etc."
"ANOTHER JAQUE FANFIC BECAUSE THERE AREN'T ENOUGH OF THEM! Jaque has a huge secret! A new shen-gong-wu reveals it! How will the others react? Will Jaque be able to show her face again? What will Chase think! Read and Find out! Rated for certain reasons. Eventual Chaque ;p"
"All Credits to JoshuaGamer0626 for giveing me the idea, i know this was not alot of wrighting but i was sick and i got the flu...sooo sorry for not being very long"
"A "drabble" detailing how I feel our beloved characters would think / feel about the S10 finale. Very short, probably not worth reading, but posted anyway."

I found all these by clicking on the Just In button and scrolling down. I'm honestly surprised I only found on "I suck at summaries" example. That statement is usually an epidemic over there.
Some people don't seem to understand that summaries are the first impression a reader is going to have of a story. If you can't give me a short paragraph or even a sentence explaining why I should read your work, why should I waste time on it I could be using to read a story by someone who can? And if I see chatspeak, emoticons, all caps, gushing about how wonderful the story and the characters are, I'm also turned off(I'll give all caps a slide if it's used to warn about explicit content). None of that has any place in a work of prose, and it shouldn't be in the summary.
And as far as "Don't like, don't read" goes? To me, that translates to "my stories are terrible, and instead of listening to feedback and improving myself as a writer, I'm going to blame you the reader if you don't like it because I'm perfect." Also, how do I know I don't like it if I haven't read it?

Beige prose is also something that turns me off. A lot of stories just dryly tell what is happening with no flair or interest. Character X did this. Character Y did that. Rinse and repeat.

[J-H]

Anything with recurring major grammatical, spelling, punctuation, or capitalization errors is gets Back-buttoned. I just can't read it.

I use story summaries as a filter also. Anything that goes "What happens when X is different due to why?" is out; anything with repetitive wording, misspelling, etc. is also out. If someone can't bother to properly compose a 2-5 sentence summary, I can't expect them to do much better with a 10k word story.

[Rater202]

Oh god. Yeah. Grammar errors are bad.

I once got three chapters into a story where the author kept using "Hopefully" in place of "Thankfully", which wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't kept finding places to use it.

[Legato Endless]

Extraordinary economy of language. By which I mean, when an author can't be fussed to actually not repeat themselves every so many pages by indulging in stock. More annoying when it crops up in professional work, but still obnoxious regardless. The standout example for me is a World of Warcraft tale where the author had one, and only one phrase for when someone reacted severely to something.

"____ took umbrage." That's it. In a 25 page story, that phrase appeared a dozen times. You're telling a bloody story. Learn how to actually describe something. Don't just parrot infantile phrases repeatedly.

[factotum]

I don't read fanfiction generally, but I can think of plenty of examples of actually published works which exhibit these issues--they're not limited to amateur writers by any means. The whole "people putting abnormal amounts of trust in strangers they've just met" thing is endemic. I think in a lot of cases it's because the author has a clear idea of where they want the *story* to go, but aren't really sure about their characters, so they railroad them into making decisions that no real person with a functioning brain would actually make.

[Traab]

Oh god. Yeah. Grammar errors are bad.

I once got three chapters into a story where the author kept using "Hopefully" in place of "Thankfully", which wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't kept finding places to use it.

Heh, in the Third Fang story, Once Again, he kept using obscure instead of obscene. As in, "Naruto used an obscure amount of energy in that attack" No, grammatically that isnt entirely wrong, but as far as common usage goes, its jarring. Normally when talking about a massive amount of something you dont want to specify, you just say obscene to say it was grossly excessive, but one of the definitions of obscure is "not clearly expressed or easily understood" which works for replacing an "its over 9000!!!! type of huge number, but is still kinda awkward. But his story is very very long, and there are a large number of times this is done.

And Legato, luckily this only happened in one part of a story, but no less than 3-4 times in a single sub minute conversation two people used the phrase "a great kunoichi of the leaf" Just back and forth.

"I know you can be a great kunoichi of the leaf."
"You think I can become a great kunoichi of the leaf?"
"Of course I do, I will even help you become a great kunoichi of the leaf"
"Then please help me become a great kunoichi of the leaf."

This is paraphrased since its been awhile since I read the fic (overall its pretty good) but yeah, that one scene. /shudder

[TheEmerged]

My pet peeves, your mileage my vary and all that.

>Random formatting. Yes, I know, I know, things get lost when reformatting across various text formats. Still, it's a major pet peeve. If you're submitting for a site, learn the site's formatting and use it.

>I'll second the "skipping straight to bed instead of developing the relationship" thing. Hey, I'm as bad of a shipper as anyone else, but as the old joke goes the point of shipping is supposed to be the delivery not the destination.

>Characters badly out of character. If you're going to take the shortcut of using established characters instead of your own... use the established character of the established character. Captian James Kirk can't have a 'true love'. Naruto isn't a genius. Ron Weasely is not an <expletive>, and so forth. If you're going to change a character, *show the change* and explain it.

>Rewinds\Hindsight, or whatever you want to call it a character gets to relive their lives "knowing what I know now". Okay, I know this is a popular fanfic genre but I can't *stand* it. I find it to be as lazy an excuse as "A wizard did it" or "...and then s/he drank a love potion."

>Waiting until halfway (or further!) through the story to reveal a retcon/major departure. I was enjoying a particular Naruto fanfic one time when suddenly, near the climax, Naruto's parents show up to help him. For anyone not familiar with Naruto, his parents being dead is sort of a major plot point. I stopped, went back to the beginning, and looked for any previous hints that this was an alternate history\dream sequence\not the Naruto universe you know and nope, not a one. Just all the sudden, WHAM. If this was meant to be a jump-shock, it failed me right off the page. If you're doing something like this, at least hint or foreshadow it. I'm not saying you have to all Heroes (TV-series) and show EVERYTHING in the first chapter but come on...

>Blatant Fanboism. I'm including this even though I realize it's a bit of a sliding scale; one of the whole *points* of fanfic in some continuities is giving third & fourth tier characters their due. Still, let me use an example here (to the good & ill) of why I'm including this as *laziness* instead of just bad fanfic.

One of my favorite Naruto fanfics is "Team 8" - it's based on the concept of how Naruto might have developed if he'd been on Kurenai's team with Shino & Hinata (with Kiba on Team 7 in his place). For the most part, the story does a good job of showing how Naruto might develop differently with a more nurturing influence, and how being with Shino & Hinata would change his development (he ends up with Turtle summons instead of Toad, for example, because the toads would eat Shino's bugs). However there is one moment of pure, unadulterated, unfeterred, and essentially inexplicable fanboism -

Naruto and Sasuke face each other during the duels immediately after the Forest of Death - and Naruto knocks Sasuke out with one punch

- without much explanation for why. I will give them credit for dealing with the consequences of that, but still - it was distractingly blatant.

>Finally, I'll also second the complaint about the Author's Favorite Phrase(tm). One of other problems in "Team 8" - which again, is otherwise one of my favorites - is that the author can't seem to go a whole chapter without using the phrase "killing intent". It might be a language thing but the author uses it way to often and when lesser terms (like "got angry") would be more appropriate.

[Lethologica]

>Blatant Fanboism. I'm including this even though I realize it's a bit of a sliding scale; one of the whole *points* of fanfic in some continuities is giving third & fourth tier characters their due. Still, let me use an example here (to the good & ill) of why I'm including this as *laziness* instead of just bad fanfic.

One of my favorite Naruto fanfics is "Team 8" - it's based on the concept of how Naruto might have developed if he'd been on Kurenai's team with Shino & Hinata (with Kiba on Team 7 in his place). For the most part, the story does a good job of showing how Naruto might develop differently with a more nurturing influence, and how being with Shino & Hinata would change his development (he ends up with Turtle summons instead of Toad, for example, because the toads would eat Shino's bugs). However there is one moment of pure, unadulterated, unfeterred, and essentially inexplicable fanboism -

Naruto and Sasuke face each other during the duels immediately after the Forest of Death - and Naruto knocks Sasuke out with one punch

- without much explanation for why. I will give them credit for dealing with the consequences of that, but still - it was distractingly blatant.
There is an explanation at the end of the next chapter. (https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2731239/15/Team-8) Honestly, it was a natural consequence of the way the author had written the story up to that point, i.e., high-op Kurenai (+ Hiashi?) in a low-op world--which is the real problem. Pitting upgraded Naruto against canon challenges gets boring eventually.


>Finally, I'll also second the complaint about the Author's Favorite Phrase(tm). One of other problems in "Team 8" - which again, is otherwise one of my favorites - is that the author can't seem to go a whole chapter without using the phrase "killing intent". It might be a language thing but the author uses it way to often and when lesser terms (like "got angry") would be more appropriate.
For me, it's "Naruto was not an idiot." Which can be folded into a more general complaint about the author taking pains to point out their grievances with canon.

[BWR]

Bad writing is the first thing that strikes me. Bad grammar, spelling, punctuation, incorrect choice of words (their/there/they're, etc.) Bad sentence construction and general wordsmithing follows almost immediately. Sentences that are too short, too long, badly formed, confusing or plain boring. Bad dialogue follows. It's fun when Kung Fury says "I'm a cop, from the future." People saying it dead seriously in what is intended to be a serious work is painful.
It takes a while before I get to actual plot details that annoy me.

[Hiro Protagonest]

I haven't read a lot of fanfic. But yeah, grammar and spelling errors. I once trawled through a page of some fanfic once, and came across one story that was full of these, including errors of the established names and at one point mixing up two kinda-similar names of characters (and doing so consistently - it wasn't just one absent-minded mistake, the writer apparently thought the guy had the clearly feminine name). Thankfully it was just two, maybe three book pages combined between the two stories from that writer, so it wasn't really a slog.

[Admiral Squish]

I'm just gonna lurk over here to make sure I'm not committing any cardinal sins against writing unintentionally...

[Douglas]

>Characters badly out of character. If you're going to take the shortcut of using established characters instead of your own... use the established character of the established character. Captian James Kirk can't have a 'true love'. Naruto isn't a genius. Ron Weasely is not an <expletive>, and so forth. If you're going to change a character, *show the change* and explain it.
In this vein: Established characters reduced to one-dimensional caricatures of themselves. I was reading a Naruto fanfic with a premise and initial start that seemed interesting, and it was completely ruined for me when it became blatantly obvious that the author hated certain characters and was deliberately portraying them in the worst possible light, exaggerating their worst traits far out of proportion and completely discarding any and all good traits they should have had.

Another one: plot device characters that don't stay plot devices. I started reading "Yet again, with a little extra help" on Traab's recommendation a while ago, and it started out well. The beginning was well done and promised to be an interesting story, following Naruto on a one-shot redo as he tries to make history take a different path the second time through. I likely would have read and enjoyed it to the end, provided only one thing: that the character (original to the fanfic) who turned back time actually sat back and watched the way his initial characterization suggested he would, taking no further story role except maybe occasionally dispensing enigmatic advice on request. Instead, he constantly states "it's all up to Naruto, really!" and "I won't help when it really matters", while in actuality going all around Konoha actively fixing every single problem the village has and teaching and training Naruto more and better than Jiraiya did. What the story was advertised as, and what I came to read, was "bored god gives Naruto a second chance because it's entertaining to watch"; what I got was "bored god decides to fix the world".

[Traab]

I would like to argue about once again, but I cant. I tried to type out this justification of how aside from training they tend to stay in the background driving everyone insane, but ghost and crew really do show up a lot. For example, the chunin exam battle happens, and they mostly stay out of it, barring picking a fight with a squad of goons sent specifically to attack them. Then I remembered they beat up manda, and also helped out the sandaime against orochimaru and then I gave up trying to justify their actions. :smallbiggrin: Honestly, the regular characters do most of the leg work and fighting, but the OCs are there usually in at least some minor way, but they almost never step in and take care of things outright. I kinda describe them as DMPCs done right. They are mostly there to make the story more epic while the actual players still do most of the work. They could easily drift over into the bad dmpc area by doing everything by themselves with no effort but they dont.

One last thing that doesnt become truly obvious till much further in. This isnt just a reset and do better this time, this is virtually omnipotent beings deliberately arranging a better story. They are setting everything up and intend to mainly sit back and see what happens. But they still have to do all the setup first. They are basically setting up the background for a new fanfiction by manipulating events instead of typing on a keyboard. Nudging events so they dont follow the canon path, because thats boring. And trust me, things go off the rails quite rapidly and eventually spectacularly.

[Douglas]

They could easily drift over into the bad dmpc area by doing everything by themselves with no effort but they dont.
Whether they use it or not, the fact that they have the ability to do that and take any active story role at all is itself an enormous problem. Power of that scale can a) not exist, b) be used extremely sparingly (such as a one-off use at the start to set up the premise), or c) take over the story. If you're not doing options a or b, the story ceases to be about the nominal main characters and is instead about the meddling of the meddlers - and if you're writing a story about how these new original characters meddle with things, the setting they're meddling in becomes little more than background.

[Traab]

Well its a matter of taste I suppose. I can certainly understand being unhappy when you go into a fic expecting one thing and get another, I know I have stopped reading otherwise decent fics because something I didnt expect popped up.

[An Enemy Spy]

How about when an author makes no attempt to have characters act in character? They essentially end up with people who are that character purely in name, with their attitudes, beliefs, mannerisms, even their appearances completely changed. At what point does it stop being fanfiction and just become original fiction hidden behind a thin veneer of an existing work?
Also, when they change a setting to the point that the original context of the story is utterly irrelevant. Like writing a story about John Carter, only it's set on Earth in the modern day and all the characters are high school students and the aliens are all human now and John Carter is the captain of the lacrosse team trying to win the heart of drama club member Dejah Thoris. Other than the names, none of that has anything to do with John Carter.

[Lord Raziere]

What the story was advertised as, and what I came to read, was "bored god gives Naruto a second chance because it's entertaining to watch"; what I got was "bored god decides to fix the world".

Its less "fix the world" and more like "bored gods are just doing all this for their own entertainment."

like, its only fixing in the sense that they're solving their militaristic/power problems, but as you read on, you start to get the feeling that people keep getting more and more insane. Take Two Round Two is basically all about how Naruto has freaking PTSD from seeing too many worlds from beyond his own and how freaking horrible it is to see cosmic beings beyond your ken far from home, its treated as a bi problem by everyone in Konoha, and the gods in question don't think anything of it because they deal with it every day.

oh and more things start to go wrong in Take Two, like y'know that girl in Naruto who can see the future whom naruto accidentally made a marriage vow to? she shows up, knows about the time travel with her own power and is treated as a problem because of it, Jashin himself suddenly bursts out of his worshipper and causes problems, and it soon becomes apparent that the end game for all this is that the Naruto world would become connected to a wider universe of insanity that features world-destroying beings, gods that can reshape reality and while they're watched over by the most powerful gods ever, there is a lot implications that being caught up in their cosmic politics is anything but safe.

Edit: also, that the gods kind of subsuming them into a wider cosmic empire of their own....

[DJ Yung Crunk]

I think expecting any form of quality from fanfiction (at least the fanfiction you find on tumblr or FF.net) is a delusion. Heck, I'd settle for mediocrity.

[Rater202]

So.

On a scale of one to ten, with one being "Canon Naruto at the very end" and ten being "Canon Naruto at the end Power+Permanently fusing all Nine Tailed Beasts with his own Soul and Chakra+Plus a decade worth of Shadow Clone Assisted Super Training in controlling his Elements, his chakra, using his sage powers, and in general just building up power, permanently fused with a Sasuke at end power levels who took the senju arm, used the Chimera Technique from that one Movie to absorb Kabuto(for his stolen bloodlines and powers), and that guy from the Movie with the Tenseigan, and two non element based Bloodlines(I'm sure the movies or fillers have examples, but I can't think of any confirmed bloodlines of the top of my head) and finish it off with Absorbing Obito. to add is unique sharingan Abilities to Sasuke's own and give yet an other Upgrade to Sasuke's Susanoo, with Sasuke having a decade of Shadow Clone assisted training to master all of those powers, using a method of fusion that runs on DBZ logic(So it'd be multiplicative, not additive), with that permanent fusion also granting a major power up in addition to the power of the fusion, since they're recombining massive amounts of the Sage's chakras together, how strong a guy do they need before the world isn't screwed?
I think expecting any form of quality from fanfiction (at least the fanfiction you find on tumblr or FF.net) is a delusion. Heck, I'd settle for mediocrity.

I would direct you to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong. It's high quality writing, regardless of opinions on the subject matter or the story proper.

[Rodin]

One reason I've never been able to get into fanfic is how pissed off I get over filler episodes and non-canon movies. And those are done by professional writers.

Since Naruto is the example du jour, I'll go with that for mine - I recently tried to watch the second Naruto Shippuden movie. I didn't make it 10 minutes in because the premise was so absurd. Let's see here:

New clan that comes out of freaking nowhere, just for the movie.
They have a high tech fleet of ships, despite no such equivalent technology being seen anywhere in the setting (almost forgiveable, given how bizarre the tech level is in Naruto)
They're able to launch gliders en masse, which nobody else in the world is able to do.
They all have machine guns. No, really. In a setting which has no firearms whatsoever, this clan and only this clan have machine guns.

That's the stuff the professional writers are putting out. And it's both sides of the pond - the only Babylon 5 movie that was worth anything was In the Beginning, which was canon, and even there they had elements that annoyed me.

I'm sure there are some great stories out there. They just aren't for me.

To quote Vegeta from DBZ Abridged: "This is so non-canon it hurts."

[Rater202]

DBZ Abridged counts as Fanfiction.

[DJ Yung Crunk]

I would direct you to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong. It's high quality writing, regardless of opinions on the subject matter or the story proper.

It's been recommended to me in the past. That it's considered in the upper echelon of fanfiction rather proves my point, I feel.

[TiaC]

I have a few I can think of.

1. Completely missing to point of and undermining the original story. This is things like those Harry Potter fics where actually, muggleborn do steal magic and the muggles want to dissect wizards. I don't mind it if the author disagrees with a theme and wants to challenge that, but sometimes they seem to do so without even noticing that it existed in the first place.

2. Headcanon take thats. Some writers will make a change to the world they're writing in and then berate characters for being idiots because their canon actions don't make sense after the change. One example that sticks out to me was a MLP fic where they made some big changes to dragon biology seemingly just so that a dragon could tell off Twilight for failing to properly take care of Spike. Thiese usually are bashfics that bash them entirely based on fanon.

3. Pointless grimderp.

Edit:

It's been recommended to me in the past. That it's considered in the upper echelon of fanfiction rather proves my point, I feel.
I find it says more about the taste of fanfic readers. There is good fanfiction out there, but a lot of the most popular works are really bad.

[Rodin]

DBZ Abridged counts as Fanfiction.

Technically, I suppose. It's more of a parody. They aren't writing their own story using existing characters, they're taking the existing story and exaggerating the characters existing personalities for comic effect. It's fanfiction in the same way that 8-Bit Theater is fanfiction of the first Final Fantasy game.

It doesn't annoy me that Jeice is from Space Australia because it's a joke in a ridiculous series that's making fun of the Australian accent that was randomly given to that character in the English dub. In a serious work of fanfiction, stating that Jeice is from Space Australia and then trying to work that fact into a new plot would turn me right off.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I could answer the OP so many ways, but the short version is 'Everything'. Frankly I gave up on Fanfic a while ago, and most fiction has followed in the years since.

[DJ Yung Crunk]

I find it says more about the taste of fanfic readers. There is good fanfiction out there, but a lot of the most popular works are really bad.

Part of it is that I really really don't enjoy the kinds of things fanfiction writers enjoy. I don't like this sci-fi/fantasy stuff, with a few exceptions, and the types of stories and themes fanfiction writers enjoy exploring seem incredibly juvenile to me.

[TiaC]

I could answer the OP so many ways, but the short version is 'Everything'. Frankly I gave up on Fanfic a while ago, and most fiction has followed in the years since.

I don't think this is a useful response. There is no on-topic discussion that can follow from this.


Part of it is that I really really don't enjoy the kinds of things fanfiction writers enjoy. I don't like this sci-fi/fantasy stuff, with a few exceptions, and the types of stories and themes fanfiction writers enjoy exploring seem incredibly juvenile to me.

Well, you're on a message board that formed around a fantasy comic, so that preference seems a little strange. However, most fanfictions writers are juvenile. This is mainly because a lot of them are young. There are some mature writers who can write well, but it's not like published literature.

[Douglas]

Its less "fix the world" and more like "bored gods are just doing all this for their own entertainment."

like, its only fixing in the sense that they're solving their militaristic/power problems, but as you read on, you start to get the feeling that people keep getting more and more insane. Take Two Round Two is basically all about how Naruto has freaking PTSD from seeing too many worlds from beyond his own and how freaking horrible it is to see cosmic beings beyond your ken far from home, its treated as a bi problem by everyone in Konoha, and the gods in question don't think anything of it because they deal with it every day.

oh and more things start to go wrong in Take Two, like y'know that girl in Naruto who can see the future whom naruto accidentally made a marriage vow to? she shows up, knows about the time travel with her own power and is treated as a problem because of it, Jashin himself suddenly bursts out of his worshipper and causes problems, and it soon becomes apparent that the end game for all this is that the Naruto world would become connected to a wider universe of insanity that features world-destroying beings, gods that can reshape reality and while they're watched over by the most powerful gods ever, there is a lot implications that being caught up in their cosmic politics is anything but safe.

Edit: also, that the gods kind of subsuming them into a wider cosmic empire of their own....
This just backs up my point that it doesn't really deserve to be called a Naruto fanfic rather than an original story about meddling gods.

[Lord Raziere]

This just backs up my point that it doesn't really deserve to be called a Naruto fanfic rather than an original story about meddling gods.

well I guess you could say that, we just need a more original world, perhaps actually make the meddling gods the protagonists and make the whole thing about how cosmic politics really sucks when you think about it, for everyone, even the gods that meddle.

[Lethologica]

Being called 'fanfic' is not generally a badge of honor; 'deserving' the title is therefore an odd way to put it. If fanfic writers are basically writing original stories inspired by Naruto, I don't have a problem with that. Why write a fanfic if you're not going to change things? As far as I'm concerned, everything beyond that is a matter of degrees.

Fanfic is writing with training wheels and (usually) no editor. It's no surprise that a lot of fanfic writers are inexperienced/bad.

[An Enemy Spy]

If Sturgeon's Law states that about 80% of fiction is bad, then if we're going to apply it to fanfiction, I think that number reaches maybe as high as 99%. In most published works, even the lousiest authors at least typically understand story structure and basic grammar and spelling. Fanfiction can be written by anyone, and let's face it, the amount of people on FF.net that can write even marginally well are overwhelmed by people who write garbage. Sure, maybe here's a pony under that pile of crap, but your going to have to dig through crap to find it.
I occasionally go on FF.net when I'm bored and often I find myself reading after finding a promising summary or just out of a sense of morbid curiosity, and sometimes I find a gem, like a novelization of The Room somebody wrote. It was brilliant and hilarious, and oh so rare. The vast majority of fanfiction falls in a span between boring and completely unreadable.

[DJ Yung Crunk]

Well, you're on a message board that formed around a fantasy comic, so that preference seems a little strange.

There's no love lost between me and the comic, I'm here because a friend of mine is here.

[An Enemy Spy]

There's no love lost between me and the comic, I'm here because a friend of mine is here.

Well you're on a forum devoted almost entirely to fantasy and sci-fi, so other than trying to show how much better you are than all of us nerdy folks, I'm not completely sure why you're even in this discussion.
I mean, I hope that's not why you're here, because that's just sad.

[DJ Yung Crunk]

I mean, I hope that's not why you're here, because that's just sad.

Trust fam, there are a lot of reasons I'm sad and that would be the least of them.

[Lethologica]

EDIT: Scratch that, I don't feel like debating someone else's literary preferences, and it'd be near impossible to have this discussion without it becoming a debate.

[DJ Yung Crunk]

In my defense I never said "fantasy/sci-fi is degenerate literature for ultraplebs" or anything like that. I believe the quote was...


Part of it is that I really really don't enjoy the kinds of things fanfiction writers enjoy. I don't like this sci-fi/fantasy stuff, with a few exceptions

Pretty unambiguously talking about my own preferences, there. For all you know I could be a total idiot who doesn't know anything about anything.

[Traab]

If Sturgeon's Law states that about 80% of fiction is bad, then if we're going to apply it to fanfiction, I think that number reaches maybe as high as 99%. In most published works, even the lousiest authors at least typically understand story structure and basic grammar and spelling. Fanfiction can be written by anyone, and let's face it, the amount of people on FF.net that can write even marginally well are overwhelmed by people who write garbage. Sure, maybe here's a pony under that pile of crap, but your going to have to dig through crap to find it.
I occasionally go on FF.net when I'm bored and often I find myself reading after finding a promising summary or just out of a sense of morbid curiosity, and sometimes I find a gem, like a novelization of The Room somebody wrote. It was brilliant and hilarious, and oh so rare. The vast majority of fanfiction falls in a span between boring and completely unreadable.

Sturgeon's Law states that 90% of everything is crap. Not just fiction. And one of the mitigating factors for fanfic is, at least it starts off in a popular setting. Thats why there is fanfic about it in the first place. But yeah, 90% is crap, and interestingly enough, the components that make up part of that 90% of crap varies based on preference. Im sure there are some really well written slash/mpreg fics out there with an enthralling storyline and characterization that makes a scary amount of sense. Its still crap to me that I wont ever even look at.

[Rogar Demonblud]

I don't think this is a useful response. There is no on-topic discussion that can follow from this.

I actually was writing a ridiculously long screed, spiced with what references I could remember. But then I realized I couldn't put my fellow Playgrounders through that. I'm a Bugbear, not a Troll.:smallwink:

My main issue with Fan Fiction is the same problem I have with Fiction, Movies, TV, etc. It's all so damn repetitive because there's far more imitation than innovation.

[John Cribati]

One of my favorite Naruto fanfics is "Team 8" - it's based on the concept of how Naruto might have developed if he'd been on Kurenai's team with Shino & Hinata (with Kiba on Team 7 in his place). For the most part, the story does a good job of showing how Naruto might develop differently with a more nurturing influence, and how being with Shino & Hinata would change his development (he ends up with Turtle summons instead of Toad, for example, because the toads would eat Shino's bugs). However there is one moment of pure, unadulterated, unfeterred, and essentially inexplicable fanboism -

Naruto and Sasuke face each other during the duels immediately after the Forest of Death - and Naruto knocks Sasuke out with one punch

- without much explanation for why. I will give them credit for dealing with the consequences of that, but still - it was distractingly blatant.
1: Naruto had been training with Rock Lee on a daily bases, and was shown to be similar in speed and strength. And this Rock Lee was actually a faster, stronger Rock Lee than in canon because he himself harder due to having a dedicated sparring partner. Remember that the actual Rock Lee was faster than Sasuke's Sharingan at that time in canon, without even taking his weights off.
2: Naruto had just watched Hinata get beaten far worse than she actually did I'm canon, and Sasuke made fun of her for being weak, so he was righteously pissed off, and it was implied that he had a little bit to a lot of Kyuubi power.
3: Naruto had taken his weights off before even entering the ring, so he had speed on his side.


>Finally, I'll also second the complaint about the Author's Favorite Phrase(tm). One of other problems in "Team 8" - which again, is otherwise one of my favorites - is that the author can't seem to go a whole chapter without using the phrase "killing intent". It might be a language thing but the author uses it way to often and when lesser terms (like "got angry") would be more appropriate.

I will note that this gets overused a lot, but what bugs me even more is when he's in a situation where two or more characters of the same gender are interacting. He doesn't want to repeat names, and pronouns would confuse who's talking, so he'll go with "the _____." Which is fine, until yiu have the bug-user and the dog-user glaring at each other while the Uchiha glares at the junchuuriki. Newsflash: that gets just as annoying and looks far less professional than just repeating the name.

Another thing is taking away Naruto's orange because it's not stealthy. Because the f■♧□ing "assassination technique" can be a big glowy blade make a sound like a thousand birds, and people can leap around in green spandex jumpsuits, but wearing orange will get you killed. And it's not like there's a magical spell or something that can change people's appearances.

[Aotrs Commander]

Another thing is taking away Naruto's orange because it's not stealthy.


And ignoring everyone else, wearing nonstealthy colours for a temperatare environment. Like pure white. Like the Hyuuga. Or having uncovered pale hair, like Kakashi. Or shiny metal headbands (everyone)... Or the "please target my face" ANBU, who go out of their way to ensure that the most vulnerable part of the body is neatly highlighted for maximum contrast with their black outfit.

I distinctly dislike that. If you're going to rag on Naruto the series for being Bad At Steatlh Colours, fine but at least have the decency to call them ALL out on it and not start with Naruto himself, since, y'know, at night (when ninjas are supposed to be sneaking around) orange is darn sight less visible than white!

[Traab]

I like when they work with the orange. For example, tiger stripes. Because that works as camo for actual tigers, so it makes sense here. Or even just downgrade the orange to a darker rust color. As for ANBU, hey, tricking people into aiming for the face is a great idea. Why? Because the mask is only visible when they are looking right at you, meaning they can see the attack coming, and ninja are really really fast, and the head is a very small target that is easy to quickly move out of the way. Also, seeing a white animal mask just appear out of the darkness is creepy as heck.

But yeah, stealth in general isnt much of a thing taken seriously in naruto. Narutoverse ninja are basically xmen throwing around flashy blasts of power at each other, not even trying to be stealthy unless they are outmatched and cant win the "who has the biggest set of fireballs?" contest. There are exceptions, but when the main character of the ninja series starts every fight with, "MAKE A BILLION SCREAMING COPIES OF ME NO JUTSU!" Then charges face first at the enemy with his arm cocked back 20 yards away screaming like he just unlocked a new rank of sayain level, stealth isnt important.

[John Cribati]

I've learned to mentally replace "ninja" and "shinobi" with "kung-fu wizard mercenary." Makes it less annoying when nonsense happens.

[Rater202]

I prefer the head canon that ninja some ninja where bright, unsneaky colors on purpose to make stealth harder, thus ensuring that they have to practice more.

It's even supported in canon-in the first chapter/episode, it's implied that after a prank, Iruka is the only one who can find Naruto and only becuase he knows him to well.

[Rodin]

Or shiny metal headbands (everyone)...

The headbands always make me laugh. They're supposed to be a form of armor...except most people don't actually wear them on their heads, like they're supposed to. In fact, their purpose gets so forgotten that when Kabuto actually uses his to deflect an attack, Shizune is shocked and it's treated like a really clever and novel thing to do.

[Rater202]

Perhaps they were used as armor in the past, but now it's kinda pointless what with all of the fire balls, lightening, and water dragons people throw around? Or the fact that it only protects part of the body that's relatively small?

So now it's just kept as a tradition/easy way to tell Ninja apart by village?

[Traab]

I prefer the head canon that ninja some ninja where bright, unsneaky colors on purpose to make stealth harder, thus ensuring that they have to practice more.

It's even supported in canon-in the first chapter/episode, it's implied that after a prank, Iruka is the only one who can find Naruto and only becuase he knows him to well.

Thats actually fanon too. I cant count how many strong naruto stories where he flat out says it, "Sakura/Sasuke/Kakashi/whoever I am reaming a new one Did it ever occur to you there is a reason why I wear orange? Its because I can get away with it. I have been able to evade anbu after putting graffiti on the hokage monument while wearing this crap. If I wore stealthy clothes it would be too easy!"


Oh, and there is one thing that bugs me, not because its lazy, but for the opportunity lost. Neji is probably the one character changed the least often. He is virtually always a heartless bag of ass towards hinata in the early story. Naruto is constantly kicking his butt at the exams or wherever and frequently is going out of his way to drive neji nuts. And yet I have never read a fic where naruto, even a mean/evil naruto has ground nejis slave status into his face or used it to point out the hypocrisy of his stance that fate controls everything. Not even being mean he could say something like,

"Neji, your belief that fate controls everything is wrong, and even YOU know it! If everything was decided by fate and destiny, then the mere fact that you were born into the branch clan means you were destined to be a loyal slave to the main branch. And yet look at you! Every day you defy your fate. You train hard to prove that you are the strongest, you assaulted your own cousin, the person it is your FATE to serve. Face it neji, you only believe in fate when it backs you up. Its fine for YOU to defy fate but it enrages you when anyone else dares to. You are a hypocrite!"

[Lethologica]

(a) It doesn't make sense to criticize fanfiction in general for not addressing your particular bugaboo with canon.
(b) "Neji is fated to be stronger than Hinata" is perfectly compatible with "Neji is fated to be a servant of the main branch."
(c) Neji believes that his seal is the consequence of fate, so it can hardly be said that he only believes in fate when it suits him.

[Rodin]

Isn't all of that exactly what Naruto calls Neji out on during their fight in the Chunin exams?

If the story is pre-Chunin exam, Neji will be an ass towards Hinata because he canonically was. It was only Naruto pointing out what a hypocritical jerkass he was and then demonstrating how wrong he was that convinced Neji to change.

[Rater202]

That's actually thing that a lot of people get wrong.

Neji still believed in fate after he got his ass kicked, just that being born worthless didn't mean you were fated to be worthless forever. The only tangentially related event, learning how his father really died, was changed him to believe that fate could be shaped by human hands.

Yet ever fanfic has him abandon his belief in fate completely after he gets his ass kicked.

A lot of them also make him a bigger jackass than he was in canon.

[the_david]

{scrubbed}

[Traab]

That's actually thing that a lot of people get wrong.

Neji still believed in fate after he got his ass kicked, just that being born worthless didn't mean you were fated to be worthless forever. The only tangentially related event, learning how his father really died, was changed him to believe that fate could be shaped by human hands.

Yet ever fanfic has him abandon his belief in fate completely after he gets his ass kicked.

A lot of them also make him a bigger jackass than he was in canon.

Oh god yeah, I have read fanfic where neji poisons hinata during the forest of death so she cant use her bloodline then proceeds to fight her in the prelims, and numerous stories where he has a near psychopathic hatred for hinata, im talking about barely able to hear her name without snarling. Of course, I also read a story where naruto brutalized the ever loving heck out of neji in his fight, including scalping him, literally scalping him. After breaking him in a horribly brutal fashion, he grabs neji by the hair, heaves back, tearing the entire thing off then hurls it at hiashi in the stands and tells him that hinata is under his clans protection (he has a clan in this one)

But too be fair, once again, its not much of a fanfic if everyone acts like they do in canon. The only way that works is if you add in some massive outside change to force the story in a different direction like a crossover where we learn the one piece universe is set in the same world as the elemental nations for example. Then it doesnt matter that everyone acts and reacts like they do in canon because different events are happening for them to react to instead.

And of course there is bias involved. Its why ron turns into an idiot who acts like a black hole around food and is insanely jealous of literally everything harry has. Or why sasuke is a booger eating moron who constantly ignores reality while convinced he is an unbeatable machine of elite uchiha awesomeness and sakura only takes a break from hyper sonically praising her object of worships name to try and beat up naruto in a hilariously inept fashion. Its one thing when done as a crack fic for laughs, but a disturbing number of people try to write a real story with characters like that.

[BWR]

{scrubbed}

Sure. In some cases the fanfics are better than the original. E.g. certain Harry Potter fanfics. Crossovers are generally the best thing to read, imo.

[Rodin]

But too be fair, once again, its not much of a fanfic if everyone acts like they do in canon. The only way that works is if you add in some massive outside change to force the story in a different direction like a crossover where we learn the one piece universe is set in the same world as the elemental nations for example. Then it doesnt matter that everyone acts and reacts like they do in canon because different events are happening for them to react to instead.

I would say that gets back into why I don't read fanfic. If I were to read fanfic, I would want people to act as close to canon as possible, because those are the characters I came here to read about rather than some alternate version. It would be covering events that weren't shown in canon. For Naruto, that's mostly stuff that happens during the timeskip, but can also cover the vast stretches of time where characters are offscreen. We see Hinata for, what, 5 minutes in one episode right at the beginning of Shippuden before she vanishes and isn't seen again until the Pain arc? What happened during that time?

One thing I am definitely willing to forgive is time impossibilities. If there simply isn't a time when bother characters are in proximity to each other during canon at the time you want to set it, go ahead and set it there anyway. As long as it doesn't stretch credulity too much (like setting it after one of the characters is supposed to be dead), it wouldn't really bother me.

Just keep the characters the way they're supposed to be. And yes, you can still do character development that way. Of the few fanfics I have read, one of the better ones was a Babylon 5 fic showing Sheridan and Delenn's relationship when they were starting to date. A fanfic can spend a lot more time on that then the show did, which was mostly dealing with the small detail of the interstellar war that was going on at the time.

[Lethologica]

That's fair. It's just a fairly narrow slice of the possibilities available to fanfic.

[Rodin]

That's fair. It's just a fairly narrow slice of the possibilities available to fanfic.

Yeah, like I said previously it's not that I have anything against fanfic as a concept. It's just that my requirements are so specific (and makes ineligible a lot of the "good" stuff) that it isn't worth my time to go hunting through the combination of drek and "decent, but annoying for personal reasons" to find that rare piece that I would enjoy. Much better time:enjoyment ratio by reading original literature.

[Traab]

I wouldnt mind reading that type of fanfic myself. I have a large appetite for a wide variety of stories. Main reason I dont read more of them myself is I have gotten so bored of basic naruto fics over the years that now I only read crossover stories. But if I could find decent ones like that I would totally binge read them all.

[The Glyphstone]

The few fanfics I've read and enjoyed were of the 'want of a nail' type - not huge gigantic sweeping changes like mashing two universes together, or completely altering personalities, but making some small but significant change and exploring the ramifications of that change, butterfly-effect style.

[Lord Raziere]

The few fanfics I've read and enjoyed were of the 'want of a nail' type - not huge gigantic sweeping changes like mashing two universes together, or completely altering personalities, but making some small but significant change and exploring the ramifications of that change, butterfly-effect style.

yeah, there is this really great youtube series about what would happen if the God Emperor of Mankind got a text-to-speech device.

thats the entire premise: the God-Emperor gets to talk again. he is still a corpse on the throne, he just talks now and it ends up causing change after change that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

the series is named: If The Emperor Had A Text To Speech Device

[Aotrs Commander]

Does... that make Stephen Hawking the God-Emperor of Mankind?

Because that would be fracking awesome enough to almost make me take back every bad thing I've ever said about 40k...!

[Rater202]

Does... that make Stephen Hawking the God-Emperor of Mankind?

Because that would be fracking awesome enough to almost make me take back every bad thing I've ever said about 40k...!

Write the fic, Bleakbane.

I know you have it in you.

[5a Violista]

I would direct you to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong. It's high quality writing, regardless of opinions on the subject matter or the story proper.
I randomly came across this story, and I really really enjoyed it because of the 3D characters who were interesting.

Because of that, I looked up some other Harry Potter fanfiction, foolishly expecting it to be the same quality.
These are the laziness that annoyed me (and why it annoyed me):
1. The main character was ultra-powerful and better than everybody else and everybody knew it. (I like characters with external struggles, usually.)
2. Similarly, the main character had absolutely no character flaws and never made a mistake. (I like characters with internal struggles, always.)
3. Side-characters acted significantly different for no discernible reason. (If want a different character, use a different character; if a significant character is different, it should be in the premise or even maybe the summary of the fanfic.)
4. Improper grammar, etc, such that it's obvious nobody proofread it. (When I have to reread a sentence three times and still can't understand what you're talking about, there is no motivation for me to continue reading.)
5. A lack of confidence in one's own writing abilities. (When every couple paragraphs ends with "I'm not a good enough writer to explain things" the reader starts to believe it.)
6. Canon is assumed different without any indication or stated premise. (To give examples, there were so many stories I read were Sirius Black was still alive and how he lived or what was different from canon was never even mentioned. Not even the fact that he was supposed to be dead was bothered with.)
7. Sex as the purpose of the writing. (I don't want to read wet dreams, sorry. Just not interesting.)
8. The main character is morally bankrupt yet the story still treats him/her as the hero. (I love stories that explore the morality of actions and what makes one a hero or a villain. Likewise, stories where the hero brutally tortures and kills everybody and swears he'll murder everyone in the villains' families but somehow is still treated as the innocent, pure, and righteous hero are my least favorite kind of story. I probably liked The Methods of Rationality because even though Potter was cruel, the story never treated that cruelty as the right thing to do.)

I then gave up on literature-based fanfiction.

[Lord Raziere]

Does... that make Stephen Hawking the God-Emperor of Mankind?

Because that would be fracking awesome enough to almost make me take back every bad thing I've ever said about 40k...!

dude, its already there, just look it up and see for yourself, its accurate to everything about the Emperor...though to be fair its also a comedy series, so some things are less serious than others, for example poking fun at Matt Ward and his Ultrasmurfs and other WH40k fandom things.