Excerpts from mail.fanfic: 25-Feb-96 [FanFic] What Makes A Good .. by
Jon K. Hayashi@interpac. 

I've never started a thread before, so here's one that's puzzled me since
I started writing (adapted for fanfics):

What qualities make a good fanfic?  What qualities make a bad fanfic?
Is there any sort of quantifiable that beginning writers can use or is
it simply "I liked that one."?  How much of it is mechanics vs. type of
story vs. genre?

mechanics = continuity, writing style, etc.
type of story = crossover, continuation, lemon, etc.
genre = Ranma, AMG, BGC, etc.

Its kind-of spammy because its not a fanfic or comments related to a
specific fanfic, but neither is it totally without relation to the
mailing list.

There are a lot of helps out there for beginning writers, if you're looking
for that sort of thing.  I myself picked up the 25th anniversary Writer's
Digest compilation, and paged through that before I started my first
serious fanfic.

The first thing you need to worry about is, why are you writing the story?
What are you trying to tell the readers?  If you don't have something
specific in mind, you're going to get nowhere even if you can write great
prose.  Using BGC as an example, say you came up with this great idea for
explaining a little more of the Knight Sabers' past/future.  You have all
of these ideas for how they became what we saw in Crisis/what happened to
them years later.  But what will you *do* with it?  Ideas don't make the
story.  You need a direction to go with it, and events to interweave with
it.  So before you start writing, start thinking about that.  Some of the
worst stories I've read were also the most well-written, but they totally
died because they had little or no plot.

The second thing you should start worrying about are the characters.  This
may seem stupid or redundant, but get to know the characters you'll be
writing for.  Why do they act the way they do in the anime?  Why did Priss
let Anri stab her, for instance?  What makes those characters really tick?
Your answers may be different from someone else's, but that doesn't matter.
As long as you have answers for *your* story, you can do those characters
justice.  You'll have to consider even more carefully any important
characters that you make up yourself, or if you write something totally
original and maybe just anime related.

Now, weave those characters, your plot, and your ideas and background
together to form a whole.  Don't push the characters around, making them
advance the plot, let them move about under their own impetus.  If you
have a good enough idea of how your characters' personalities relate to
the plotline, your story should almost write itself.

The superficialities are important, too.  Things like writing style, mood
of the story, etc.  Things that might vary widely from person to person,
and even from story to story written by the same person.  You might choose
to write one story with several lead characters, and narrate it in third
person, omniscient.  In other words, the reader will be able to see what's
going on from several/almost all of the angles.  But you might choose to
write another with one or two main characters, and use first person to
narrate the story from one or another character's point of view.  You'll
have a lot of choices here, and this will depend on what you're writing.

Things like mood will depend a lot upon the genre.  There are a few scifi
comedies out there in anime, but there are many more serious ones.  In
contrast, there are many more romantic comedies than serious romance
stories in anime.  You might choose to change the mood from what's in the
anime, but be sure to let the reader know that in advance, so he or she
doesn't end up confused or maybe even have hurt feelings over seeing his
favorite character "mistreated" in a drama/tragedy, fanfic of a comedy
anime, or vice versa.

Me personally, I have different tastes.  I tend more towards serious
stories than I do comedies, and more towards the science fiction end of
the spectrum than everyday life or magical/fantasy settings.  It irks me
no end to see an author weasel around writing himself into a corner with
some quirk of magic or fate.  Leaves one feeling cheated, in a way.  Scifi
stories are less prone to this, especially the serious ones, but it is by
no means nonexistent in them.  Yes, I'm talking about serious stories, for
the most part.  Ever read a mystery story, only to find that, on the last
page, you weren't given the clue you would have needed to have at least a
chance of solving it on your own, and maybe it was so obscure as to be
totally ludicrous?  This is what I'm talking about.

Continuity, I'm always happy to see.  I don't want the story to be filled
with continuity references, because that tends to detract from the story,
but blatantly contradicting the fact that, say, Nene drives a scooter most
of the time by saying in a fanfic that she'd "left her car in the garage"
or something, might annoy some people.

The bottom line, in my own eyes, is that writing and telling a good story,
first of all, by weaving together the plot, characters, and setting as I
outlined above, comes foremost for me.  Everything else is icing on the
cake, but by no means should you ignore it.

Damon Casale, scyth@andrew.cmu.edu

				* Love *
                 Between two people, there is nothing that
                      can draw them closer together