How do you write a fanfiction story?

[earth_girl]

I think that i would love writing a fanfiction story, but I'm not qite sure where to begin, what cahracters to include, or even how to write one. Could a kind soul please help me start by totally explaining what you have to do and include to write one?
thanx

[waltersgirl]

well frell. you don't ask easy questions do you? :spin:

i'll start and see if that helps and hopefully someone will chime in with more...i always find it interesting to see how other writers view the process.

for me, it starts with an idea, even a snippet of an idea. it could be a scene, an image, a question even. red just reminded me of East of Hezmana's beginnings. it was a question. "What if Stark got food poisoning?". or, for Marshmellows in Jello it was a cleaning spree that i had, which then became a what if for John. we took the questions and then examined the results. who would the "what if" touch, how would it affect them?

the characters tell us where to go and how to get there. not in order, not even in complete thoughts most times.

try this. what character do you most relate to, or "hear" the voice of in your head? now take that character and look at him/her/it closely. what draws you? a personality trait? a behavior? a scene? an event? is there a moment in that character's story that you'd like to see played out more fully? do you imagine the "rest" of a conversation, where only a minute or two are seen on the screen? that's where the ideas start. sometimes they come fully fleshed out and sometimes they pick their way carefully.

just start thinking and then start writing and let it take you where it does. don't censor it, don't edit it, just let it go. we'll be around if you get stuck. ;)

[CB2001]

Well, writing a fan fiction story is not just about characters, setting, and a bunch of action sequences. It's always about an idea.

When I did "Farscape: Dreamer"'s fic fic, "A Wrench in the Clockwork", I had the idea of what would happen if a fan of the show accidentally changed the outcome of the series. Of course, seeing that I have written various stories about the blurring of fiction and reality, I decided to take it up a notch by having fiction and reality closely related (by affecting the outcome in the fictional realm, Jacob {the lead character in the series} changes some events in the real world, including reactions from people who watch it). When I had the idea, I worked on the whole thing from there, including what kind of personalities did I want for the characters (the newer ones), how could I portray the characters already established, etc. And what came out was a rather good fic, all from just one idea.

Always stick true to your idea for the story. If you feel the idea is good and solid, than your fic (through a lot of work) will eventually become a good and solid story.

That's just my opinion, of course.

[Red]

Well not sure if you want my opinion, I seem to be a little more, um, fluid with my writing (and long winded). For me, it's not ever one thing or another. Usually there's something nagging at me, either a "what if" or an aspect of a specific character I want to explore, or even a dream I had. The best I can do is give you examples of where I started with my fics (whether you've read them or not is entirely irrelevant and in fact, I request that you please not read any of my earlier works. thanks. :lol)

The first fic novel I wrote came about after I'd read these very, very bizarre documents put out by a wingnut UFO fringe group. I still have the documents, they are trippy beyond words, it was a case of their "truth" being a little more out there than any fiction I could come up with. I set out to try to write a world where that "truth" was real, but maybe not necessarily the way these people think. Conspiracies are damn fun things to play with, IMO. And actually, thinking about it now, a key turning point/plot point came from a dream I had while writing the story. I was actually a little more than a third of the way through the story when it hit.

As waltersgirl said, East of Hezmana came out of a "what if". What if Stark got food poisoning? We sat down and decided what characters we wanted to work with, what part of the Farscape timeline we wanted to work in, and it was simply going to be easiest for us to set it during the Talyn episodes. The funny thing with that story is that it truly didn't reveal itself to us until we were halfway through act 4. We though it was one thing all along, but we were being quite unconsciously led by the story. When we realized what the core of the story was, we looked back at what had been written and were pretty surprised to see the core through the whole thing. The story knew what it wanted to be, it was just waiting for us to give it a reason.

To me stories are very much living things. They go their own way, you can guide them, make suggestions, but they're still going to end up where they want to end up and as a writer often times I'm just along for the ride.

Marshmallows in Jell-O started out as one thing when we were breaking that story and ended up as something completely different. It went sideways for a lot of reasons. Trying to shoehorn it into a very tight spot in existing Farscape canon was not very easy given the size of MIJ. Trying to move the entire Farscape story along at that point when it had already been moved along, also not easy. For me MIJ part 1 was about getting Crichton to Act 3 Scene 3, not simply for the "what" that happened there, but because it gave him something he was missing after Fractures. And MIJ part 2 was all about Crais. There was part of the character of Crais I wanted to expand upon and that was a point in the timeline I thought that would work very well. Also many things blow up in part 2 which is always cool.

UFO came from thinking to myself about John Crichton and who he became at the end of season 3 and where he could go. Or couldn't go. And I've taken it as an opportunity for me to experiment with a particular way of writing. The things that happen in UFO come from the base of the story (John gets home (started before the end of season 3 even, thank you very much)) and then get added on as "what if" or "how would that work" or "what would he/she/it do".

The untitled fic I'm currently running every tuesday on my blog, actually came from another original character of mine. He was a great deal of fun to write and I wanted to try writing Crichton in the same style. So when is Crichton at his most fun? Aside from when he's being a whacked out wingnut? Well, in my opinion, it's when he and D'Argo get into some sort of trouble or other. So that one started with just a short piece in a dark room, with John and D'Argo trying to quietly hide. That, of course, doesn't really work out for them and they end up rather screwed. The rest of the story came from a dream I had some time ago. It was a pretty disturbing dream, but I always thought it would be cool to write a story from it and it just seemed like a great place to drop John and D'Argo.

My TV series *cough* (yeah, well, everybody needs a hobby), came from a what if, but has expanded to be, for me, more about the friendship between the two main characters and how they deal with the strangeness that is their new reality.

I could go on but I think I'll spare you that. As for the process, I'm sure it's different for everybody. I don't write outlines - I write treatments. That is, I write big, long rambling pages of notes that are line upon line of brainstormed ideas based off the main idea of the story. Half of the ideas don't get used, but it gives me things to work with and helps me form my direction.

Err, well, I'll stop now, really I will. If you read this far, groovy. Good luck with your fic writing. :D

[waltersgirl]

yeah, pretty much what red said. :aok:

[CB2001]

I'm not saying that the idea alone is the sole step. I'm saying like all things, there's always a start. The idea is the roots of the tree to the story you want to write. Normally for me, the idea is often the most important, next to writing it of course.

[earth_girl]

thanx, I started to try to decide what I want to do. I like the idea of what if. I'm really gald that I could get some help here if I needed it, exspecially when I get stuck, which I'm sure I will do. I knew some of the stuff that was said, but I didn't have any idea on how to start, which of course is the hard part. I've written some stories before, they kinda sucked, but once I had an idea, I coiuld write off of it forever almost.

[waltersgirl]

the key is the writing itself. you just need to write. style, finesse, grace, structure, comes with practice and lots of it. just write, even if it's the worst sentence ever written, simply to get the ideas down on paper, then fool with it. even if you only have an inkling of an idea, start growing it and see what happens.

[buggabboo]

it's excellent advice even if it is harder to do than you'd imagine.

[whitewolfwarrior2]

I've written some stories! I never posted them though! I figured since they had like nothing tjo do with farscape I'd wait a long while until I had what iu thought was enough and then ask what you thought! Well.......Good luck Earth_Girl! You post it I'll read it!! I find that if you find something that interests you, weather it be an idea, a character or whatever! Just take it and run! By the time you stop you've got a short story or part of a fic etc. Good Luck! Love to read it!

[PKprowlerPilot]

The best advice is just to get out there and write! I remember when I started writing fanfics, two pieces of advice I got was just to write and think about getting a beta reader.

In case you don't know what a better reader is, here's a simple explanation. Beta readers are like your editors and can help you out when your unsure, such as writer's block, it's not flowing correctly, etc. Those are a great help, trust me I know ;)

Anyhow, just write! Best of luck to you.

[aeryns_newbe]

Me? I don't chose to write it, just an idea pops into my head and I write it down and post it on Kansas. So I'm no help at all.