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A Guide to Writing a Good Fan-Fiction
Written by Cataclyptic
Edited by Cataclyptic
Original Concept by Cataclyptic
Banana
Published by Cataclyptic
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0: Introduction
Well, I figured I might as well make this for a couple of awesome reasons. 1) because I did a poll and a grand total of 12 people said I should. 2) I’m bored. 3) Hopefully this will make all the n00bish writers better so that the next time I try to find a good OC she isn’t Mary Sue.
And yes, I purposely used “She” back there. This is because most people tend to make OC’s that are the same sex as themselves and THERE ARE NO GUYS WHO ACTUALLY WRITE FANFICTION. SERIOUSLY. WTF IS UP WITH THAT I DON’T EVEN WE’RE ENDANGERED AND NEED TO INCREASE OUR NUMBERS SO LET’S MAKE YAOI TO EACHOTHER TO PROCREATE AND-
*Is shot in the face by Hinata*
Okay I’m back to normal. Anyway, male characters are rare is what I’m saying. Moreover, let’s get this guide started. But first, a few terms I will use!
OC: “Original Character”, can be used to denote a completely original character or a character created for a fandom, and thus is a “fan-OC”. We’ll probably discuss the latter more often, so I’ll just use OC because lazy.
OOC: “Out Of Character”, refers to when a character is clearly not behaving like they normally would.
Stereotypes (Literary def.): A system of beliefs that recur often in literary works to the point of overuse and/or boringness. EG: “All protagonists are young males”.
Canon: Things that actually happened in the series. EG: “Snape kills Dumbledor”
Mary Sue: Oh boy… I’ll get to this one later.
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I: Beginnings
Okay, so you really like a certain fandom, and wish to express it in front of millions of anonymous people. Alternatively, you simply have a good story to tell in that specific universe and want people to gaze upon it’s epic.
Or like me, you look at the series and say “THIS SUCKS! I CAN DO BETTER!” and then proceed to spend four lonely years writing 53 chapters of plot-less nonsense.
…so lonely…
So before we get into the monstrous work that is an OC, we first need to decide the setting. Now, by setting, I don’t just mean “This happens in the world of Naruto”. Setting in this case is a bit more detailed: It dictates when and where this occurs in the world of Naruto.
Using that as an example, I’ll give some possible settings for a Naruto fan fiction:
- Occurs at the same time as the events of Naruto
- Occurs in a completely different land at the same time as events from Naruto
- Occurs before/after the events of Naruto
- Occurs in the same universe as Naruto, all physics apply, but the events from Naruto do not exist.
- Occurs in an alternate original setting using the characters of Naruto (EG: high school)
So you see, this is very important, and there may even be some I haven‘t thought of. Personally I prefer to use the fourth option to give me more freedom in writing, as well as the originality factor, but in terms of popularity number one is the most well used. Number three would probably be the second most popular, since I’ve seen a zillion “Naruto’s kids grow up” stories, or “X’s kids grow up” stories.
When keeping in mind your setting, try to be as realistic as possible about the consequences of using it. For instance, for the first setting which occurs at the same time, all you have to do is read the manga and watch the anime, and you’ll know what to incorporate in your own story.
However if you are doing something after Naruto is done, then you’ll have to think more critically. For instance: if this occurs 100 years after Uzumaki’s death, the level of technology should have risen a lot. Perhaps his new rules influenced the generations; maybe there are new customs etc. etc.
If there are new things in your setting, they should be well defined and consistent. If jutsu was changed to make the spoken words the ritual needed, then okay. But if you suddenly show a character out of nowhere who only needs to think in order to cast a jutsu, then there better be a pretty good explanation for it, else your viewers lose interest.
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IIa: Manipulating characters
This is the section for you if you do NOT want to include an OC in your story, or if the focus of the story is hardly on the OC and instead the canonical characters.
The first rule is the most important: DO NOT BE OOC.
Exception: parody/humor stories.
BUT SERIOUSLY DON’T DO IT. Basically, OOC is the act of making a character act completely out of character. Minor adjustments are fine and sometimes help the story, but acting too far out of character makes for an incredibly stupid story. For instance, with the tough as nails Ulquiorra from Bleach:
(Good characterization) Ulquiorra: “Ichigo, I have returned. To rid this world of the disease known as heart, I will be forced to kill you.”
(Minor altered characterization) Ulquiorra: “I’m back Ichigo… and I am here to utterly smash you! You dared kill master Aizen, and so your fate shall be the same!”
(Bad characterization) Ulquiorra: “Orihime I am changed man and I love you and you are pregnant with my child and do you love me!? PLEASE PLEASE SAY YOU LOVE ME BACK! I NEED TO BE WITH YOU FOREVER! Also Ichigo is a sh*thead I hate him.”
*Suddenly a thousand angry comments from the OrihimeXUlquiorra fan base flooded Cataclyptic’s inbox. He tries to defend, but only makes the situation worse with his poor grammar and general trollish behavior. Not understanding the concept of sarcasm, the angry fan-girls kill Cataclyptic with Flame-Throwers™…*
…
*However he comes back to life as a vengeful spirit. *
Back to helping you out, bad characterization absolutely ruins the entire story. People don’t often come to see one of their favorite characters acting like a total jerk, they want to see old characters in new situations, and how it affects them like that.
Now story development doesn’t count: we aren’t there yet. If over the course of sixteen chapters, Sasuke truly becomes a likeable character again, then that’s fine as long as you show the transition states. But doing it from chapter one will make no sense.
For instance, I once complained on a group about the amount of stories with OC’s that were either in love with Sasuke or had already married the dude. In none of them did I find a story even plausibly depicting Sasuke as he appeared in the manga. And this was after he just killed Karin mind you (I still don’t get how she’s alive…)… so yeah I argued that you shouldn’t be in love with a straight up murderer from the start of your story.
And then a bunch of angry fan girls complained about it. I received almost 197 comments within two days. It was hilarious. I’d put a link, but the group has been killed.
And now I’ll address the central issue with most of these characterizations: the romance fic. I know, I know, EVERYBODY, even the dog, has to be paired up with somebody and find their soul mate. I get it.
But again, people tend to not do this correctly. Common examples include the “love at first sight” cliché, where despite knowing ANYTHING about the opposite person, they fall in love IMMEDIATELY. There’s never “Let’s test this out” or bumps in the road, its always happy endings with no conflict whatsoever, and no sense too. And frequently, characters who would have no idea what an emotion is suddenly find themselves head over heels in love with the new Mary Sue that just walked in.
Don’t do any of that. You need believability for this type of genre- so if two characters get together, make sure it makes sense on an emotional and characteristic level. IchigoXOrihime makes sense; they are both the same age, show some hints of liking each other, and one is even stated to already be in love.
IchigoXthe-first-hollow-who-appeared-in-the-series does NOT make sense. On a number of different levels. I’m sure you can figure those out on your own.
Lastly for this point, as a writer, you can take the option to make a nonsense ship work. For instance… OrihimeXUlquiorra. Just by the base manga and anime, the pairing itself makes no sense at all. But! If you take the time to develop the characters, put them in situations that force their feelings out… then you might be on to something. But in order for this to work, you must make them have personalities like their manga counterparts.
Also for your own sake, don’t automatically hate bash a character just because you don’t like her. Common example: Sakura from Naruto. Yes she’s hardly the epitome of feminism… or any female for that matter… but still, that hardly gives you the right to completely rewrite her character into the biggest d**che in existence and compare her to the holocaust. And I say don’t do this for your own sake because there will inevitably be someone who happens to LIKE the character your bashing.
And if he/she happens to come across your fanfic… well… troll wars ensue and they are very tiring honestly.
IIb: Plotlines and that Jazz
Okay so we have characterization down, what’s next? Why, plot of course! A plot less story is incredibly boring. Hence why my own story has no views. Here is an example of a plotless story:
Ash and Misty fell in love with each other and kissed the end.
If you even THINK that’s anywhere near being a literacy masterpiece, then you are obviously either blind or dyslexic. Plot makes stories exciting, and can make or break a good story, even with good characterization.
Let’s go back to Naruto as an example, because the fan-girls are all over that sh*t. Seriously, type in naruto OC and you won’t believe how many results come up compared to Bleach or even One Piece, which no one seems to like.
So let’s say we have a NarutoXSakura story-
*Suddenly a thousand angry comments from the NarutoXHinata fan base flooded Cataclyptic’s inbox. He tries to defend, but only makes the situation worse with his poor grammar and general trollish behavior. Not understanding the concept of sarcasm, the angry fan-girls kill Cataclyptic with Flame-Throwers™…*
*However, once again, he comes back to life as a vengeful spirit.*
SO LET’S SAY WE HAVE A NARUTO X SAKURA STORY.Deal the f*** with it… We all know the end result: Naruto gets the girl and everybody’s happy. But how can we make this appealing to out viewers? Well, as they say, attraction is like magnetism, so one of the more common plots for any romance story is to force the two characters to live near/close to each other and get them to interact.
But this must make sense in terms of the setting. So let’s just say this occurs at the same time as the events of Naruto, somewhere in between the Pein arc and… whatever the arc after that was. Here’s an example of the traditional, good forced living space plot:
Naruto and Sakura stared. In going to the land of samurai, they had stopped for a simple night stay at the local hotel. But it was just their luck that there was of course, one room left for rent. The two begrudgingly agreed to share a room after their usual bantering, but nothing prepared them for what they saw:
A single bed. Never mind the fact that the floor was filthy and the blizzard outside kept things nice and cold, there was one bed to share between the two teenagers.
Naruto gulped, hesitantly looking at Sakura. The pink haired kunoichi locked eyes with him nervously, trying to find the right words for this situation.
So see, plots like that are incredibly common. Actually, it’s hard to write a good romance story if the characters never interact with each other. On the other hand: here is an example of a horribly written plot setting.
A magic hand claiming itself to be the author picked up both Naruto and Sakura and transported them to the moon, where they found aliens who made special chocolate bars that revealed the eaters true feelings for anyone conveniently close by.
Not only is it not subtle, it hardly matches the setting of Naruto, and looks like it was made up on the fly (more on that later). The bottom line is this: the plot has to be as believable as the characters are. So if you want Itachi to come back to life, you’d better make damn sure there’s a good reason for it, not just “I got better”.
But let’s say (and I know this is a stretch) you don’t want to write specifically romance. What about the other genres? How do I write them well? Well, except for romance, which makes up the majority of all fan fiction… action/adventure stories are pretty common. So how does one do one of those?
Well in this case we have the standard good guy VS bad guy plot, combined with a little adventure and maybe some romance at the end. For these types of things, it is best to use story arcs and find a cadre of villains who pose an immediate threat. EG for a summary:
Naruto no longer has the Kyuubi inside him. On the verge of death, this man must seek out the very embodiment of hatred itself, defeat all of the Akatsuki, and somehow re-seal the fox if he is to live another day.
See? You have a clear problem that presents itself, a couple bad guys, an epic quest, and a hero with all odds against him. You now have unlimited possibilities at your disposal: How does Naruto stay alive? Where are Sakura and Sasuke in all this? How does he plan to get the beast back? How can he take on the Akatsuki when he’s injured beyond repair?
And boom. Viewers.
In the action genre, it’s important to have plot twists at certain intervals, and to always do the thing your viewers least expect. For the above example, let’s say a plot twist for this movie would be…Sakura was the one who did it to him. And she did it in order to SAVE Naruto.
And now you have even more viewers. You’re welcome.
And the final genre I will discuss is the parody genre, the third most common. Often called crackfics, for these are the stories that are created when one does crack and types on a computer. Crackfics intentionally are hardly supposed to make sense. In this situation, OOC is not only permitted, it is expected.
The purpose of these fics is to make a story so laughably stupid your viewers are gasping for air from laughing too much. Therefore, the setting and characters should make LITTLE sense, but just enough sense to not lose your viewers. Pop culture references can be used sparingly, and it’s often good to make fun of whatever thing your writing about.
Breaking the fourth wall is always a good way to do a crackfic, but don’t use it too much. Something that never gets tiring is when you mock the more questionable concepts of the actual series, or even go so far as to make fun of the specific genre.
Example of a crackfic sample:
Naruto woke up one day and found he had a tentacle in his stomach, wriggling like a red jelly bean. “Not again…” said the hyperactive ninja. He quickly downs some slim fast and the tentacle shrieked in pain, then exploded into a million pieces. Yawning, he went over the see Sakura and Sasuke.
Sakura was fawning over Sasuke, while the latter simply leaned against a tree and acted like he was the sh*t. Which he WUZ.
“Hey Sakura.” said Naruto.
“SASUKESASUKESASUKESAUKSESUAKLSOLSAKJDSLDFKNLKJNV” the fan girl rambled.
“And how are you today Sasuke?”
“I am sheer and utter perfection.” said Sasuke in the most brooding voice imaginable, “Now please, I have to write to all my fan girls and tell them I will have sex with… all of them.
Every.
Single.
One.”
Kakashi poofed in, reading the latest volume of the Icha Icha series: Icha Icha Blatant Pr0nography. It had pictures of Thomas the tank engine in it. It was Jiraiya’s best work yet.
“Hello everyone! Are you ready for yor mission? Tsunade is going to do a major breast enlargement procedure, so our team will be the Hokage until she gets back.”
“I GET TO BE THE HOKAGE!? screamed Naruto, a grin so wide that blood and snot and tears ran down his face. It hurt like hell, but who cared, he got to be the Hokage! As he infected Sakura with his bodily fluids, Sasuke declared that he was too busy: For first he needed to have sex with a billion OC’s created for the sole purpose of falling in love with him.
“How are you more popular than me?” Kakashi sobbed. And so, Team 7 minus Sasuke, who was too busy having a massive orgy, went to the Hokage’s office and began running the show. For all of five minutes before their rule burned down the village.
And that is how you write parody. The key thing is that we all KNOW how these characters are supposed to act, and when they don’t, then it makes for a funny story as long as it‘s clear you‘re doing it on purpose. Description is also relevant in this genre, make the descriptions of what’s going on as ridiculous as possible.
I’d love to do more genres such as horror and angst, but unfortunately I am no expert in those areas so… onto part three!
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IIIa: OC’s
This is the section for you all who want to make a fan-OC/OC and want the focus to be around them.
This is the most dreaded part of the entire guide. How to make a good OC. It is dreaded because I will inevitably get killed by all the people shouting that their OC is good and shoving it into my face, even when I point out several logical flaws.
Well, I already died twice today so what more could they do?
The first order of business when writing a good OC is to, of course, create one. No really that’s it- just put down anything for step one, but keep in mind setting for appropriateness.
Here, let me show you the atypical Naruto OC that I just made up just now:
Name: Kylee Mayflower Shin-water moon
Sex: Female
Age: 14
Rank: Jonin
Team: Team 7 (fourth member)
Looks: Tall and incredibly mature for her age. Looks like Hinata except with long purple hair.
Love interest: Sasuke (boyfriend)
Hates: Sakura (Because she always tried to win over Sasuke and is therefore the Holocaust Mk.II)
Missions: 50 S rank (she only does the hard ones)
Element: Light
Stats (/5 stars):
Taijutsu- ***
Ninjutsu- *****
Genjutsu- *****
Weapons- ****
Intelligence- *****
Chakra- ****** (because of tailed beast inside her)
Backstory:
- Kylee was born into a special clan that has the light type chakra but it was wiped out by Itachi too. Kylee was orphaned and grew up with Sasuke and Naruto, and eventually fell in love with Sasuke and now they are boyfriend and girlfriend. She is very strong for her age and once almost beat Tsunade on her own, which is why she only appears when her powers are needed. She has the 7 ½ tailed beast inside of her, a light guardian angel that she can call upon for more power. She wants to marry Sasuke, but first she must beat the Akatsuki.
And now here is the main problem with most OC’s: The creators stop at step 1. And then they make a story without ANY editing to their random idea. Let me show you why this is a bad idea 99% of the time:
- My character hardly has a Japanese name, and it’s also blatantly based on my own
- The ‘Incredibly mature’ description is a giant red flag for Mary Sue
- ESPECIALLY when in addition to that, her skills are off the charts
- And in love with sasuke without any prior explanation
- And of course, my character breaks the 3 man cell rule
- With a nonexistent element no less
- And hey, a dead clan
- Plus a tailed beast
So yeah my character could be classified as a Sue. What is a Sue you ask? Well, a Mary Sue is in general, an OC who is perfect in many ways, is annoying to no end and causes other characters to act OOC around her, not to mention the rules of the universe. Lots of real life people hate them for these reasons.
I’m just going to say this now: There is no clear definition for what exactly a Sue is. This is because a character can have many Sue-like qualities mentioned by other works YET still be well written thanks to some more quirks- and yes I’ve seen it done. Thus, Sue-ness is mostly dependent on writing skill, which is a VERY hard to easily pinpoint since there are several million different writing styles.
As for my definition, which I suppose I have to put out, I rate a particular OC based upon certain qualities that most Sue’s possess, then judge the writing style/ how the character is portrayed. In general, the more of the below qualities you have, the more you’ll have to be a good writer in order to save said character from Suedom-
- OC is in love with a canon character
- OC has an intricate name
- OC has many implausible or high skills
- OC has no real weaknesses
- OC causes other characters to act OOC
- OC has the ability to solve problems at hand easily
- OC is far too “special” (EG: Light chakra, tailed beast etc.)
- OC is liked by everyone except character whom the author hates
- OC is hated by everyone except a love interest
- OC is always ‘right’
- OC was born alone/family was murdered/parents were cruel etc.
By my own definition, my character I have just made up is a Sue. However it is very common for people to create Sue’s, for the sole reason they don’t know that they’re doing it. All the newbie’s want is for their character to be awesome, but they kind of miss the point.
I mean really, how many of you can say you’ve NEVER made a Sue in your life? And I bet it was when you were younger too. I’m no exception.
What I’m saying is, if you find a Sue, don’t automatically turn on troll mode and bash them to no end- 75% of the time it’s just a new writer not knowing what they’ve done. Instead, gently coax them into changing a few aspects of their character, give them a few pointers and the like. All this Mary Sue hate going around is unneeded for the most part…
Oh wait! I forgot that it’s much easier to hate something than it is to help the person. I’m sorry, my bad! I wouldn’t want to infringe upon you’re laziness ‘rights’!
Back to my OC: let’s go to step two and change things around a bit. For step two, we will consider all the aspects of setting for the character. For one thing I need a Japanese name because of all the xenophobia that there is in Naruto. Secondly, a fourth member for a three cell team is stupid, so I’ll need to change that now or find a good explanation. Finally, at this stage in the Naruto plot most characters are 12 or 13 so let’s change that as well. Here is the revised draft:
Name: Sayura Makina Nagase
Sex: Female
Age: 13
Rank: Jonin
Team: Team 7 (fourth member* )
Looks: Tall and incredibly mature for her age. Looks like Hinata except with long purple hair.
Love interest: Sasuke (boyfriend)
Hates: Sakura (Because she always tried to win over Sasuke and is therefore the Holocaust Mk.II)
Missions: 50 S rank (she only does the hard ones)
Element: Light
Stats (/5 stars):
Taijutsu- ***
Ninjutsu- *****
Genjutsu- *****
Weapons- ****
Intelligence- *****
Chakra- ****** (because of tailed beast inside her)
Backstory:
- Sayura was born into a special clan that has the light type chakra but it was wiped out by Itachi too. Sayura was orphaned and grew up with Sasuke and Naruto, and eventually fell in love with Sasuke and now they are boyfriend and girlfriend. She is very strong for her age and once almost beat Tsunade on her own, which is why she only appears when her powers are needed. She has the 7 ½ tailed beast inside of her, a light guardian angel that she can call upon for more power. She wants to marry Sasuke, but first she must beat the Akatsuki.
* she is the fourth member because there was literally no one else she could pair with and she couldn’t possibly go solo.
And now here is the second mistake that people make if they choose not to make the first- they stop at step two and write their story. Yays for repeating jokes.
Step three now: Realism. This is the hardest and most difficult part of the entire guide. You have to make your character both look and feel REAL to the reader. What do I mean by this? Make them relatable, make them have flaws like a real person, strengths and weakness, emotions and turmoil’s, triumphs and glories.
Now here’s what some people do: They take a character like mine and then quickly add a “Weaknesses” box, and then add “Clumsy and cares too much” and think it’s good because now they’re character has a defining flaw and thus is a good OC.
No.
First reason why this is bad- because nobody in the real world has ONE mere flaw/quirk, and also having one minor weakness does not make up for the severely high skills your character has (unless, again, there is a really good explanation. See why Sue’s are hard to define?). Secondly, and this is the one most frequently used… analyze your story and tell me how often their weakness actually hinders them.
What’s that? It never does?
So on to step three, making it realistic. This of course varies from series to series and setting to setting, not to mention it takes actual thinking in order to do, hence why it’s so hard.
For this particular example, let’s start by making her relatively weak since she’s only 13 and this occurs pre-time skip. And let’s remove the tailed beast because that has literally been used to death in these fics. I’ll keep the light type thing though, since it can provide an interesting back-story and interesting powers.
For likes and hates, let’s make her story more interesting- She likes Sasuke, but of coursewe all know he’s flaming so he’s not interested in girls, so he tends to ignore her advancements. Now Sakura is a clear love rival at this point, so let’s make them dislike each other, but not to the point of obscene hatred.
And finally, the looks. We need a lot more than just “looks like hinata with long purple hair”. Let’s say she’s just a developing teenager, so she hasn’t much curves and is almost flat, not to mention a little on the short side for her age. She should wear some atypical attire, that is a blue colored obi with a black skirt and shirt combo. Her legs are exposed for the most part save for a couple placed where she has attached some bandages. She wears sandals, has long purple hair, light yellow eyes and has her clan symbol embedded on the back of her shirt. Also, she does not wear a headband since her village was destroyed.
Revised edition mk.II:
Name: Sayura Makina Nagase
Sex: Female
Age: 13
Rank: Genin
Team: Team 7 (fourth member* )
Looks: Long purple hair, light yellow eyes. Wears a black skirt and shirt combined with a blue obi and her clan symbol on her back. Carries some kunai with her.
Likes: Sasuke (crush)
Dislikes: Sakura (love rivals)
Missions: 2 E rank, 4 D rank, 1 C rank
Element: Light
Stats (/5 stars):
Taijutsu- *
Ninjutsu- **
Genjutsu- ***
Weapons- **
Intelligence- **
Chakra- **
Backstory:
- Sayura was born into a special clan that has the light type chakra but it was wiped out by Itachi too. Sayura was orphaned in Konoha and grew up with Sasuke and Naruto, and eventually fell in love with Sasuke and now they are boyfriend and girlfriend. She wants to marry Sasuke, but first she must figure out how to beat her love rival Sakura.
* she is the fourth member because there was literally no one else she could pair with and she couldn’t possibly go solo.
And finally, step four, which is revising the background and making it even more realistic. This is the fine tuning part of the process, making final tweaks and the like before your character is presented.
Final edition:
Name: Sayura Makina Nagase
Sex: Female
Age: 13
Rank: Genin
Team: Team 7 (fourth member* )
Looks: Long purple hair, light yellow eyes. Wears a black skirt and shirt combined with a blue obi and her clan symbol on her back. Carries some kunai with her. Does not wear a headband because she doesn’t think she’s a part of Konoha.
Likes: Sasuke (crush), Naruto as a brother, Kakashi as a father figure
Dislikes: Sakura (love rivals), perverts, ramen
Missions: 6 E rank, 10 D rank, 2 C rank
Element: Light
Stats (/5 stars):
Taijutsu- *
Ninjutsu- **
Genjutsu- ***
Weapons- **
Intelligence- **
Chakra- **
Backstory:
- Sayura was born into a special clan that has the light type chakra. Things were good with her parents until a mysterious black haired man wiped out her clan. Luckily she stayed hidden and was found by some Konoha ANBU agents investigating the matter. Thus, she was adopted into the local orphanage where she met Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto. She became friends with all three, but started to drift away from Sakura when she found out they were in love with the same guy.
Being the odd woman out when graduation hit, they decided it best to place her in squad seven as an exception- at least until they can find two more members and a suitable jonin to form a team.
Her light type chakra lets her have great ability with genjutsu- she all but immune to most, and can fire back terrifying and deceptive illusions back at her opponent. In addition she likes to use weapons, anything that can be thrown really. She prefers fighting at a distance instead of close combat.
And boom, we’re done! Sayura is now a much, much, much better OC than before. That took a lot of work right? WELL TOUGH FREAKING NOODLES. YOR THE ONE WHO WANTED THE CHARACTER 2 B G00D.
On a side note, for ANY OC, please, please, please, please, DEAR GAWD, do NOT make one of her fears be "Afraid of losing her friends/family/lover.". First of all, it's been done to death. Literally. Done. To. Death. And secondly, duh. Unless you happen to be a psychopath, of course you'd be afraid of losing your friends and family. SO DON'T DO IT ANYMORE.
Back to my example, it naturally functions as an example so it should be taken as such. If I were really creating a character for a Naruto fic I’d try to be even more original because I‘m me. Such as for instance, NOT making my female lead in love with a canon character. Especially Sasuke. I know it’s difficult, but you can do OC X OC and end up-
*Suddenly a thousand angry comments from the SasukeXSayura fan base (created in the last five seconds) flooded Cataclyptic’s inbox. He tries to defend, but only makes the situation worse with his poor grammar and general trollish behavior. Not understanding the concept of sarcasm, the angry fan-girls kill Cataclyptic with Flame-Throwers™…*
*However, he comes back to life as a vengeful potato.*
It is very hard to write without appendages or eyes. But as you might expect, we’re not done yet so screw my new disability. The plotline still needs to be addressed…
IIIb: The Plot
The plots for stories that focus on OC’s are similar to those that do not. However, that is only most of the time- sometimes it can go a completely different direction.
So first thing’s first: your OC obviously isn’t the only person on planet earth. Or whatever planet you have. Henceforth leading to the first instigator of plot: interaction with the cast. And yes, this is where a lot of wish fulfillment by crazy fan girls comes in, because in a technical sense you ARE your OC (eh, check one of my lectures…), therefore you have the opportunity to make out with Yukio Okumura in a sense.
A strange sense, but nonetheless a sense indeed.
Addressing how your characters react with the canon characters can create all sorts of lovely tension/ situations. There’s also the fact that merely by existing, your OC can influence the plot around them. How? Well let’s say your One Piece OC is a character who was somehow able to eat 2 devil fruits and yet not blow up. By this fact alone, the World Government plans to capture him/her and conduct fun lab experiments to figure out why. And thus your OC is always on the run from the WG’s schemes.
When you as the author want to introduce a new scenario, for the obvious reason of making plot happen, be sure to do this as naturally as possible. You want your audience to believe that whatever extraneous circumstances is actually possible within the reality.
For a Pokemon plot for instance, it would be natural for say, Giovanni, to try and get serious for once and catch the legendaries for his own benefit. Maybe he copied the master ball design or something, but the point is, this is reasonable.
Now you if you have something like Giovanni wants to rule pizza hut by causing nuclear fallout with Arceus… you better hope you’re writing parody.
This can also fail if the plot feels forced, that is, if you need your OC’s to be in certain situations but cannot think of any logical reason why they should.
For instance, let’s say your Naruto OC has to go to the moon, because according to the plotline the Akatsuki are there and their trying to revive the ten tailed beast. That was not comedic writing. There really is a ten tailed beast. Good job Kishimoto, you have done what low levels writers have done a thousand times.
Ranting aside, your own OC’s don’t know about the plan, and thus they somehow need to discover it. Here is an example of a forced plot:
Sayura looked up at the moon one day. It occurred to her just then that the rumors about the 10 tailed beast actually being the moon might be true. And since the Akatsuki desired world domination, why not go to the moon and revive said monstrosity? These facts were too much of a coincidence, so with a trembling lip, she announced that her party needed to go to the moon. Else as the world as they know it disappear.
This was clearly forced because it relies on Sayura magically being a history buff, in which there are no books written about the 10 tails. It also relied on the fact that Sayura’s brief thought is correct, which is not very sane. For instance, if I wrote in another character who blatantly asks the obvious “But how do you know?” then I have nothing.
Don’t do forced plot, because it makes the story seem unrealistic. Sometimes however, it can be used for comedic effect, so long as it occurs only at certain instances and is kept to a minimum. For instance, based upon my own story.
Sayura received a note from Itachi, who disappeared while laughing like a maniac. Trembling, she opened the note “Dear Sayura,” the note read “you should have joined us when you had the chance… for soon, very soon, we the Akatsuki shall be the sole rulers of this world.”
“Rulers…” Sayura narrowed her eyes “Rulers and long things that measure something… people usually use rulers for straight lines… the shortest distance between two points is a straight line… therefore people try to go far distances in this manner… far distances… the moon! Of course! They’re on the moon!”
Naruto: “HOW THE FRIC DID YOU ARRIVE AT THAT CONCLUSION!?”
“No time Naruto!” Sayura crumpled the note, “We have to stop whatever it is the Akatsuki is planning! To the moon!!”
And that is how forced plot can be used for comedic effect. Finally, for an OC story, you get to have one of my favorite plotlines of all: the total original plotline. This is point number four in the first section.
This is, by rule of thumb, the most ‘free’. Going by Naruto again, this means that all the elements of the world of Naruto are present, but on the other hand none of the events from Naruto actually happen. This means no canon characters- every character in this series is by definition, an OC.
This type of story is the most fun to write in my opinion, because you can choose basically anything you want to happen so long as its reasonable within the back-story of your settings. Plus, you get the added benefit of practicing doing a completely ORIGINAL story, since this and that are so alike. However, the giant downfall of this is that since every character is an original character, it means your shiny new OC can’t make out with Sasuke.
That, and they take a lot more effort and planning to write. But mostly for the first reason from what I can tell.
This is all for OC plotlines, but again the non-OC plotlines are similar in nature. This brings us to the writing section of the guide!
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IV: The Writing
Now we will get to actual writing. First off in this lesson is basic English grammar- however convoluted it may be. In addition to that, you need to learn how to spell correctly, a feat made easier thanks to spell-check. So, and I cannot emphasize this enough, use spell-check.
Now, this appears to be some sort of new fad or something, where people start writing their stories in text speak. It looks a little something like this
& then naruto went 2 b a mster ninj then he loled t smthng
And it’s incredibly annoying so if you don’t stop it I will come up with a good threat. So, this seems basic but it needs to be said anyway: do not use text speak. Unless, of course, you are making fun of it (as I tend to do sometimes…).
Punctuation is important! By this I mean (.)(?)(!)(…) and all those other endmarks. Don’t forget to always put at least one at the end of a sentence, to as its purpose, mark its end. For comma’s, AKA ( , ) you use them to separate two sentence fragments together. This usually occurs when there are two or more ideas in a sentence that still need to be joined together. EG:
Idea 1: “I sat on my butt.”
Idea 2: “I watched TV all day and did absolutely nothing productive.”
These are two different ideas, but since I want to join then together I will add a comma and add a whatthefricisitcalled to join then. Basically, these words (Then, And, But, So, etc) can help if the two sentences need one. For both examples,
No conjunction: “I sat on my butt, watching TV all day doing absolutely nothing productive.”
With: “I sat on my butt, then watched TV all day and did absolutely nothing productive.”
And also you can do it to join two ideas that are the same and one different idea. Example, with the different idea marked in bold
“Cataclyptic, who is a lazy a**hole, sat on his butt and watched TV all day.”
Yays! Another note for ending punctuation, in order to be taken seriously you should never have more than two ending notes. By this I mean things like:
“And then it exploded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
It should be:
“And then it exploded!!”
Again, the one exception is the rule of funny, where you WANT to NOT have good grammar, for hilarity. Although that does not mean you do it all the time- just at key moments. And finally, I myself occasionally use three !!! Or !?! Marks at the end, but only in extreme situations. You can do it too if you want, but don’t go past three.
Your story should NOT be all speech. Really. You have to make paragraphs so that we aren’t overwhelmed with all the talking. Paragraphs, like the wall of text I’m typing right now, should be around 3-5 sentences. That’s not to say you could do more or less, but then it becomes situational and I don’t want to get into all that blur. If your paragraph is too long, around 10 sentences or larger, then you should consider breaking it up into smaller paragraphs.
You do this by pressing the enter key twice and leave a space between the two paragraphs. The second one should contain a new thought or idea, which is usually related to the previous paragraph you typed. This helps your audience read more smoothly. And as we all know, you want your audience to read smoothly.
However dialogue is also important! With dialogue you can really see what the character is doing at that moment. And finally, as opposed to paragraphs who stand to give raw information in some way, dialogue conveys punch lines and emphasized speech.
For instance:
Cataclyptic gazed at the television, mouth agape. In a screaming voice he yelled not for Snape to kill Dumbledor. Alas, the great wizard was dead.
Compared to:
“No! Don’t kill Dumbeldor!!” Cataclyptic screamed.
Different, huh? Unfortunately I cannot teach you when to use paragraphs and when to use dialogue; that is something that must be learned with time. In addition it also depends upon your own writing style so… yeah I can’t much help you in that regard.
And finally, the thing that everyone messes up on, perspectives. By this I mean either third person or first person perspectives. Sometimes second, but that is incredibly rare.
3rd person perspective
Also known as “Omniscient perspective” it is exactly what its nickname implies; 3rd person is where we are aware of every character at once. Everything here is in PAST tense, and all characters are referred to as “he, she, it, they etc.” This one is the most commonly used, mainly for its great flexibility in addition to the amount of information it can convey.
1st person perspective
Also known as “Character perspective”. This one is written directly from a character’s point of view. Everything the character sees or hears is written. In this case, you must always use “I” when referring to your character, but the rest are “he, she, it etc.”. PAST tense is also applicable here, though sometimes present can work. Less commonly used, but still effective. As opposed to flexibility this one allows for great intimacy with the particular character, thus writing here should use words that the character herself uses, and not your own.
Examples:
3rd: The man walked into a gloomy bar. Silently he drifted to the counter, asking for a glass of whatever.
1st: I walked into a drab looking bar. Careful not to make any sudden movements, I asked the bartender for whatever the last bloke had.
And then there’s secondary, which involves referring to the reader as “You.”. In most fanfic this is hardly a good thing to do, but who knows, maybe it can be pulled off? Either way it’s incredibly rare and I myself have yet to see one.
This guide is actually written in secondary perspective, because I am well aware of you reading it. It’s quite creepy. But I digress- this is a guide and not an actual story, so it hardly counts.
Onto more grammar, this time it’s apostrophes, AKA ( ‘ ). These are used for words like “It’s, there’s, ain’t etc.”, as well as to indicate possessiveness. For this I have an easy trick for you: if you have a word with an apostrophe in it, simply take it apart and see if the sentence still works. For instance, “It’s” is just a combination of “It is”. Therefore:
“It’s a dog!” à “It is a dog!” = : )
“The dog wagged it’s tail.” à “The dog wagged it is tail.” = : (
It is also used to indicate possessiveness, the idea that somebody owns something. EG: Cataclyptic’s dog indicates that I own the dogat Injustice. Also, it can be used to denote “XX is”, with XX as the name. EG: Cataclyptic’s snowboarding. And as a final rule, if the character’s name ends in an “s”, the simply add the apostrophe at the end without an extra s. EG: Arceus’ white fur.
The final thing I will discuss is negatives. This can be quite confusing for some, since I have recently learned that a lot of languages can use negatives and still be fine. So for you all, here’s how it works in the English language: Whenever you have more than one negative word denoting something, you have to treat the first negative as if it’s opposing the second. EG:
“This ain’t no time for that!” = “This is time for that.”
“Ain’t nobody don’t knows it” = “Nobody knows it”
“There ain’t no way it ain’t not never sometimes nobody no more!” = ???
There’s an easy trick for this too: Think of all the negative words as being the number
(-1). To find the end result, just multiply -1 by itself for however many negative words you use, if the result is one, it’s a positive sentence. If it’s a negative one, then it’s a negative.
EG using the examples above: -1*-1= 1, positive sentence.
-1*-1*-1= -1, negative sentence.
…I’m not doing that last one. Screw you.
And now we go to the final section, story elements, as well as tips and tricks for writing.
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V: Story Elements
Finally, story elements. Story elements are basic things that one puts into a story in order to make it function. This section will be in list format, excepting some additional comments. Review them and discover how to make an awesome story!
3 Act Plot
- The basic 3 act plot is the basic premise of every single plot ever made. As its name implies, there are three parts to it- the beginning and introduction, the middle and conflict, and the end and the conclusion/consequences.
The basic idea is that in the first act, characters are established, their personalities and motivations etc. In the middle, a conflict arises, some sort of problem that is intended to have negative consequence, and as such the protagonists must try to solve it somehow. And the end explores the consequences of their actions, regardless of whether the conflict was solved or not.
Please know that the 3 act story is the most basic example of a story, and as such it should be treated as a skeleton. Many including myself tweak it to suit our own interests, but in the end the basis remains the same.
Protagonist
- The protagonist is your main character(s). The protagonist is essentially the ‘doer’, he or she wants to accomplish something of merit in the story. What they want to accomplish ranges from anything to saving the world or just getting a glass of water. However, it is also acceptable if the protagonist wants to prevent an action from occurring, and strives for that instead.
Antagonist
- The antagonist is, quite simply, a force/person who tries to foil the protagonist and make them fail at what they are trying to do. This of course creates conflict in your story, as the protagonist and antagonist compete. Once again, their methods can range from anything to starting nuclear Armageddon or stealing the glass of water. In addition, while the protagonist is almost always a person, the antagonist can appear in many different forms as per the three ‘battles’ listed below
“Man VS Man” The most used, essentially one man versus another man (man in this case meaning whatever living thing you have). In this case, the antagonist is also a man.
“Man VS Nature” This is when a man must survive in an environment. In this case the antagonist is natural forces, and there is usually an emphasis on the completely neutral aspect of it, that unfortunately has negative consequence upon the man.
“Man Versus Self” This is a tricky one- in this case the antagonist is ALSO the protagonist. This works by the main character trying to do something, but their own actions prevent them from accomplishing their objective.
Additionally, it is important to note that antagonists are NOT always villains. Villains by nature are things that are inherently evil/wrong in the perspective of the universe you're in. An antagonist is something that simply opposes the protagonist. For instance, in a racing setting with fast cars and their drivers, if the protagonist wants to win the title then every other racer is an antagonist because they ALSO want to win the title, and naturally there can only be one #1. This does not make the drivers inherently evil for wanting to win the title- they simply have goals that conflict with the protagonist!
It is important that you can distinguish the difference between villains and antagonists, because when you do they you can open up a myriad of new possibilities.
Deurogotist
- Secondary characters, main but not THE main character. Think of them as the co-stars, they are used to help foil the protagonist in being different from them and making their character appear more pronounced, and vice versa.
Literary Stereotypes/Tropes
- These are things that occur frequently in literary works to the point of being overused. While the term has negative connotation, in actuality they can be either good or bad. When they are good, they are referred to as tropes, and when bad they are stereotypes, because even though they are the exact same thing humans like to make up words anyway.
Note that some tropes can become overused to a point in which the novelty is no longer a good thing and is frowned upon. The most famous example of this is the “damnsel in distress” motif, once viewed as a romantic and good thing now shamedthanks to those damned feminists because of overuse.
Some of the common stereotypes/tropes I have observed include:
- The protagonist being a young male
- A bad guy with a clear motive and hardened past
- Many characters having a “The Past”
- Two people falling in love after spending some time with each other
- A rival character who tries to foil the protagonist but often has noble goals
- Foreshadowing a great event to occur
- A wizened mentor like figure
And I’ll stop right there. Don’t be afraid to use tropes, because again, some are good things. Besides, in the end we’re all human so naturally we’ll have similar thoughts to each other.
Motifs
- Motifs are central messages occurring in throughout a story or collection of stories. These motifs are often positive messages, sometimes negative messages, or even just questions. Some common motifs include:
- The value of friendship/love
- Being true to yourself
- Reality does not care about you
- What is good and what is evil?
- Can conflict ever cease?
- People are not what they seem
Pretty much every good story in existence has one or more motifs, so I suggest you find one and subtlety put it in. That’s another thing- never outright state the motif, because it rarely works. Instead, imply it.
Foreshadowing
- Foreshadowing is a literary element that lets you put hints of future events in the present of your story. These can either be subtle or stated outright, but always try to make them mysterious or vague. The “Future Predictor” in a story is usually the one who delivers the most dramatic foreshadowing, usually by saying a great disaster will happen later.
However you can also use more subtle methods, known as the “Checkov’s Gun” technique. This is where you introduce a minor element, and then later it is revealed to be incredibly important.
Story Arcs/Breather Arcs
- Usually stories, especially long ones, are divided into more or less clear parts known as story arcs. During a story arc the 3 part act occurs and when it is resolved, another story arc begins related to the last one. This is blatent in my own stories, where quite literally my story arcs are names Arc1 -“Title” and so on.
The end of a story arc is marked by some sort of significant event, that may or may not be related to the upcoming arc. Usually there is heavy buildup preceding the event, that way when the event occurs the tension is released for the most part, and lets you start from act one in the next.
A breather arc is a bit different- it is similar to a story arc but it is much shorter. In addition, while the story arc attempt to advance the plot and create drama, the breather arc serves as a “breather” for the audience, letting them absorb something with much less drama and give them a break from the action. These usually involve one episoders with an emphasis on humor and very little dramatic tension. They usually occur directly before or after important plot points/rising action.
Cliffhangers
- I’m sure everyone knows what these are but I’ll state the definition anyway: cliffhangers are intentional writing elements that leave an ending to a story open ended until the next segment. EG: “Will he fall off the cliff or won’t he?”. Cliffhangers have annoyed viewers for years on end and probably always will.
However, cliffhangers are a necessary evil. Why? Because the primary objective of a cliffhanger is to make you want to find out what happens next! By doing this, people get addicted to your series and you get views. However you have to write in good cliffhangers, else they’ll see your series as BS. The key for writing good cliffhangers to be as mysterious as possible, or set up a surprise situation at the end.
Good cliffhanger: It was over. All that fighting, all that war, all of it was gone. Peace would reign once again. That’s what I thought until I heard a gunshot, and my best friend collapsed to the dirt.
In horror, I saw liters of blood spilling out of him.
And end on that! Now you’re viewers want to know what happens next!
Bad cliffhanger: and ten the man sad “NOOOO!!!” but we couldn’t see what he as yeling at because it was drak.
NO USE GOOD GRAMMAR AND SPELING.
Summary
- Frequently on fan fiction sites before you even get into the story you have to write a short summary of what its about. Frequently, I see this: “I’m sorry story is better than the summary please read.” or some other varition of the like.
DON’T
DO.
THAT.
Saying that your summary sucks is clear indication that you are a bad author and no one will take you seriously. Ergo, if you can’t even write a good short paragraph, why would we expect you to write a longer story well? So just put in a summary.
A good summary tells you, in fan fiction world, who is in the story, some sort of objective they want to do, and vagueness hinting at a greater plot.
But for the love of God, Allah, the Buddha, Chuck Norris and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, don’t do this kind of vagueness:
“A story about Naruto and Sakura! They are stranded at an inn will romance blossom or not!?”
That isn’t vague. With a summary like that, of course they’re going to get together. Congratulations you have spoiled the entire story. In fact, asking a question in the summary is almost never a good thing-
*Suddenly a thousand angry comments from the NarutoXKiba and Akamaru fan base flooded Cataclyptic’s inbox. He tries to defend, but only makes the situation worse with his poor grammar and general trollish behavior. Not understanding the concept of sarcasm, the angry fan-girls kill Potatoclyptic with Flame-Throwers™…*
*However, YET AGAIN, he comes back to life, this time as a normal (?) human being.*
Asking questions in a summary is never a good thing, because the answer to the question is always a unanimous “yes, now we know the whole story before reading it”. I have RARELY seen a summary with a good question in it. Unless of course, you’re trying to be funny.
The Love Interest
- OH DEAR GOD NO DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS ONE.
*Cataclyptic’s editors push him to write*
*Sigh* I’m sure you all know what a love interest is so I’ll skip the definition. Well, let’s face the blunt truth here: in fan fiction the love interest ALWAYS WITHOUT EXCEPTION ends up with… Itachi or whoever…
However as you may have gathered, romance is hard to write. Well. It’s hard to write well, hence why 99% of fan fictions out there are-
*Angry fan girl’s stare at Cataclyptic*
…good works that can be improved upon. Luckily for you I’ve read so much bad romance fics on accident that I can tell you all of what to do and what not to do. For one thing, make the chemistry between the two feel real and not forced. This is more of a “show don’t tell” thing, so it takes some getting used to.
Also, if for some reason the two aren’t getting together but should, give us good reasons why. Now don’t be mistaken, the whole “I don’t want to ruin our friendship thing” is great. But if you constantly put your characters in romantic situations for fifty chapters, then people will question why they aren’t together. In the end, if you can’t explain why they aren’t together other than because you don’t want them to for drama.
And to those of you who read my story, NO THIS DOES NOT GIVE YOU AN EXCUSE TO ASK WHY GARDEVOIR AND DARKRAI AREN’T TOGETHER. WHY?
Because It was originally supposed to be GalladeXGardevoir, but then I lost control of my story so now the characters doing whatever they want and I can’t stop them.
SO I DON’T FREAKING KNOW EITHER.
*Ahem* moving on to when the characters actually DO get together. Now, there’s a legitimate reason everyone gets together at the end of the story- because real romance is INCREDIBLY hard to write.
It works like this: anticipation of a couple is something most everyone can get behind on. This is because you expect something great. However, once the characters actually DO get together, it goes from expecting greatness to experiencing it. And in the end, YOU as the audience cannot experience the love two specific fictional characters feel for each other. Or rather, it’s incredibly hard to feel a part of it considering most people aren’t into three ways.
Genres
- Genres are of course the type of… well… genre that your story is about. There are many, from action and romance to parody and horror. Yes, even creepy pasta, as strange as it is.
The important thing here is the new trend going around most modern writers: subverting your own genre for comedic effect. The idea is that when you write a genre, there are obvious tropes that follow. In action series, people have to fight each other/robots. In romance, the guy gets the girl. In horror, everyone dies. NO EXCPETIONS.
Audiences nowadays are getting more genre savvy than before. Thus, the writers nowadays congratulate them on their intelligence by purposely slipping subversions for them. EG: A couple is supposed to get together. We all know there’s going to be some problems between them. Therefore, the modern writer adds this line.
Best friend: “Dude you should ask her out.”
Protagonist: “I can’t… every romance guide I’ve read says I have to remain aloof of her until the very last second. So I need to wait for that.”
Viola. Or, by breaking the fourth wall and pointing it out.
Best Friend: “Dude, you should ask her out!”
Protagonist: “But that sort of thing only happens in the third act?”
Classic genre subversion! Pay attention to your own genre because it can help you decide what to write if you ever get writer’s block.
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VI: Closing Thoughts
In the end this guide is meant to be a guide- don’t follow everything 100% through because that is where your own style comes in. And yes, style takes time but you’ll find it eventually.
And while I was killed almost four times today for insulting bad writers, it helped me realize the most important lesson of all: to keep trying. As long as you have the will to write and the will to improve, your bad writing will someday become good.
So write and write and write some more, because that’s the way to go! Keep trying and you’ll succeed!
Written by Cataclyptic
Edited by Cataclyptic
Original Concept by Cataclyptic
Banana
Published by Cataclyptic
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0: Introduction
Well, I figured I might as well make this for a couple of awesome reasons. 1) because I did a poll and a grand total of 12 people said I should. 2) I’m bored. 3) Hopefully this will make all the n00bish writers better so that the next time I try to find a good OC she isn’t Mary Sue.
And yes, I purposely used “She” back there. This is because most people tend to make OC’s that are the same sex as themselves and THERE ARE NO GUYS WHO ACTUALLY WRITE FANFICTION. SERIOUSLY. WTF IS UP WITH THAT I DON’T EVEN WE’RE ENDANGERED AND NEED TO INCREASE OUR NUMBERS SO LET’S MAKE YAOI TO EACHOTHER TO PROCREATE AND-
*Is shot in the face by Hinata*
Okay I’m back to normal. Anyway, male characters are rare is what I’m saying. Moreover, let’s get this guide started. But first, a few terms I will use!
OC: “Original Character”, can be used to denote a completely original character or a character created for a fandom, and thus is a “fan-OC”. We’ll probably discuss the latter more often, so I’ll just use OC because lazy.
OOC: “Out Of Character”, refers to when a character is clearly not behaving like they normally would.
Stereotypes (Literary def.): A system of beliefs that recur often in literary works to the point of overuse and/or boringness. EG: “All protagonists are young males”.
Canon: Things that actually happened in the series. EG: “Snape kills Dumbledor”
Mary Sue: Oh boy… I’ll get to this one later.
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I: Beginnings
Okay, so you really like a certain fandom, and wish to express it in front of millions of anonymous people. Alternatively, you simply have a good story to tell in that specific universe and want people to gaze upon it’s epic.
Or like me, you look at the series and say “THIS SUCKS! I CAN DO BETTER!” and then proceed to spend four lonely years writing 53 chapters of plot-less nonsense.
…so lonely…
So before we get into the monstrous work that is an OC, we first need to decide the setting. Now, by setting, I don’t just mean “This happens in the world of Naruto”. Setting in this case is a bit more detailed: It dictates when and where this occurs in the world of Naruto.
Using that as an example, I’ll give some possible settings for a Naruto fan fiction:
- Occurs at the same time as the events of Naruto
- Occurs in a completely different land at the same time as events from Naruto
- Occurs before/after the events of Naruto
- Occurs in the same universe as Naruto, all physics apply, but the events from Naruto do not exist.
- Occurs in an alternate original setting using the characters of Naruto (EG: high school)
So you see, this is very important, and there may even be some I haven‘t thought of. Personally I prefer to use the fourth option to give me more freedom in writing, as well as the originality factor, but in terms of popularity number one is the most well used. Number three would probably be the second most popular, since I’ve seen a zillion “Naruto’s kids grow up” stories, or “X’s kids grow up” stories.
When keeping in mind your setting, try to be as realistic as possible about the consequences of using it. For instance, for the first setting which occurs at the same time, all you have to do is read the manga and watch the anime, and you’ll know what to incorporate in your own story.
However if you are doing something after Naruto is done, then you’ll have to think more critically. For instance: if this occurs 100 years after Uzumaki’s death, the level of technology should have risen a lot. Perhaps his new rules influenced the generations; maybe there are new customs etc. etc.
If there are new things in your setting, they should be well defined and consistent. If jutsu was changed to make the spoken words the ritual needed, then okay. But if you suddenly show a character out of nowhere who only needs to think in order to cast a jutsu, then there better be a pretty good explanation for it, else your viewers lose interest.
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IIa: Manipulating characters
This is the section for you if you do NOT want to include an OC in your story, or if the focus of the story is hardly on the OC and instead the canonical characters.
The first rule is the most important: DO NOT BE OOC.
Exception: parody/humor stories.
BUT SERIOUSLY DON’T DO IT. Basically, OOC is the act of making a character act completely out of character. Minor adjustments are fine and sometimes help the story, but acting too far out of character makes for an incredibly stupid story. For instance, with the tough as nails Ulquiorra from Bleach:
(Good characterization) Ulquiorra: “Ichigo, I have returned. To rid this world of the disease known as heart, I will be forced to kill you.”
(Minor altered characterization) Ulquiorra: “I’m back Ichigo… and I am here to utterly smash you! You dared kill master Aizen, and so your fate shall be the same!”
(Bad characterization) Ulquiorra: “Orihime I am changed man and I love you and you are pregnant with my child and do you love me!? PLEASE PLEASE SAY YOU LOVE ME BACK! I NEED TO BE WITH YOU FOREVER! Also Ichigo is a sh*thead I hate him.”
*Suddenly a thousand angry comments from the OrihimeXUlquiorra fan base flooded Cataclyptic’s inbox. He tries to defend, but only makes the situation worse with his poor grammar and general trollish behavior. Not understanding the concept of sarcasm, the angry fan-girls kill Cataclyptic with Flame-Throwers™…*
…
*However he comes back to life as a vengeful spirit. *
Back to helping you out, bad characterization absolutely ruins the entire story. People don’t often come to see one of their favorite characters acting like a total jerk, they want to see old characters in new situations, and how it affects them like that.
Now story development doesn’t count: we aren’t there yet. If over the course of sixteen chapters, Sasuke truly becomes a likeable character again, then that’s fine as long as you show the transition states. But doing it from chapter one will make no sense.
For instance, I once complained on a group about the amount of stories with OC’s that were either in love with Sasuke or had already married the dude. In none of them did I find a story even plausibly depicting Sasuke as he appeared in the manga. And this was after he just killed Karin mind you (I still don’t get how she’s alive…)… so yeah I argued that you shouldn’t be in love with a straight up murderer from the start of your story.
And then a bunch of angry fan girls complained about it. I received almost 197 comments within two days. It was hilarious. I’d put a link, but the group has been killed.
And now I’ll address the central issue with most of these characterizations: the romance fic. I know, I know, EVERYBODY, even the dog, has to be paired up with somebody and find their soul mate. I get it.
But again, people tend to not do this correctly. Common examples include the “love at first sight” cliché, where despite knowing ANYTHING about the opposite person, they fall in love IMMEDIATELY. There’s never “Let’s test this out” or bumps in the road, its always happy endings with no conflict whatsoever, and no sense too. And frequently, characters who would have no idea what an emotion is suddenly find themselves head over heels in love with the new Mary Sue that just walked in.
Don’t do any of that. You need believability for this type of genre- so if two characters get together, make sure it makes sense on an emotional and characteristic level. IchigoXOrihime makes sense; they are both the same age, show some hints of liking each other, and one is even stated to already be in love.
IchigoXthe-first-hollow-who-appeared-in-the-series does NOT make sense. On a number of different levels. I’m sure you can figure those out on your own.
Lastly for this point, as a writer, you can take the option to make a nonsense ship work. For instance… OrihimeXUlquiorra. Just by the base manga and anime, the pairing itself makes no sense at all. But! If you take the time to develop the characters, put them in situations that force their feelings out… then you might be on to something. But in order for this to work, you must make them have personalities like their manga counterparts.
Also for your own sake, don’t automatically hate bash a character just because you don’t like her. Common example: Sakura from Naruto. Yes she’s hardly the epitome of feminism… or any female for that matter… but still, that hardly gives you the right to completely rewrite her character into the biggest d**che in existence and compare her to the holocaust. And I say don’t do this for your own sake because there will inevitably be someone who happens to LIKE the character your bashing.
And if he/she happens to come across your fanfic… well… troll wars ensue and they are very tiring honestly.
IIb: Plotlines and that Jazz
Okay so we have characterization down, what’s next? Why, plot of course! A plot less story is incredibly boring. Hence why my own story has no views. Here is an example of a plotless story:
Ash and Misty fell in love with each other and kissed the end.
If you even THINK that’s anywhere near being a literacy masterpiece, then you are obviously either blind or dyslexic. Plot makes stories exciting, and can make or break a good story, even with good characterization.
Let’s go back to Naruto as an example, because the fan-girls are all over that sh*t. Seriously, type in naruto OC and you won’t believe how many results come up compared to Bleach or even One Piece, which no one seems to like.
So let’s say we have a NarutoXSakura story-
*Suddenly a thousand angry comments from the NarutoXHinata fan base flooded Cataclyptic’s inbox. He tries to defend, but only makes the situation worse with his poor grammar and general trollish behavior. Not understanding the concept of sarcasm, the angry fan-girls kill Cataclyptic with Flame-Throwers™…*
*However, once again, he comes back to life as a vengeful spirit.*
SO LET’S SAY WE HAVE A NARUTO X SAKURA STORY.Deal the f*** with it… We all know the end result: Naruto gets the girl and everybody’s happy. But how can we make this appealing to out viewers? Well, as they say, attraction is like magnetism, so one of the more common plots for any romance story is to force the two characters to live near/close to each other and get them to interact.
But this must make sense in terms of the setting. So let’s just say this occurs at the same time as the events of Naruto, somewhere in between the Pein arc and… whatever the arc after that was. Here’s an example of the traditional, good forced living space plot:
Naruto and Sakura stared. In going to the land of samurai, they had stopped for a simple night stay at the local hotel. But it was just their luck that there was of course, one room left for rent. The two begrudgingly agreed to share a room after their usual bantering, but nothing prepared them for what they saw:
A single bed. Never mind the fact that the floor was filthy and the blizzard outside kept things nice and cold, there was one bed to share between the two teenagers.
Naruto gulped, hesitantly looking at Sakura. The pink haired kunoichi locked eyes with him nervously, trying to find the right words for this situation.
So see, plots like that are incredibly common. Actually, it’s hard to write a good romance story if the characters never interact with each other. On the other hand: here is an example of a horribly written plot setting.
A magic hand claiming itself to be the author picked up both Naruto and Sakura and transported them to the moon, where they found aliens who made special chocolate bars that revealed the eaters true feelings for anyone conveniently close by.
Not only is it not subtle, it hardly matches the setting of Naruto, and looks like it was made up on the fly (more on that later). The bottom line is this: the plot has to be as believable as the characters are. So if you want Itachi to come back to life, you’d better make damn sure there’s a good reason for it, not just “I got better”.
But let’s say (and I know this is a stretch) you don’t want to write specifically romance. What about the other genres? How do I write them well? Well, except for romance, which makes up the majority of all fan fiction… action/adventure stories are pretty common. So how does one do one of those?
Well in this case we have the standard good guy VS bad guy plot, combined with a little adventure and maybe some romance at the end. For these types of things, it is best to use story arcs and find a cadre of villains who pose an immediate threat. EG for a summary:
Naruto no longer has the Kyuubi inside him. On the verge of death, this man must seek out the very embodiment of hatred itself, defeat all of the Akatsuki, and somehow re-seal the fox if he is to live another day.
See? You have a clear problem that presents itself, a couple bad guys, an epic quest, and a hero with all odds against him. You now have unlimited possibilities at your disposal: How does Naruto stay alive? Where are Sakura and Sasuke in all this? How does he plan to get the beast back? How can he take on the Akatsuki when he’s injured beyond repair?
And boom. Viewers.
In the action genre, it’s important to have plot twists at certain intervals, and to always do the thing your viewers least expect. For the above example, let’s say a plot twist for this movie would be…Sakura was the one who did it to him. And she did it in order to SAVE Naruto.
And now you have even more viewers. You’re welcome.
And the final genre I will discuss is the parody genre, the third most common. Often called crackfics, for these are the stories that are created when one does crack and types on a computer. Crackfics intentionally are hardly supposed to make sense. In this situation, OOC is not only permitted, it is expected.
The purpose of these fics is to make a story so laughably stupid your viewers are gasping for air from laughing too much. Therefore, the setting and characters should make LITTLE sense, but just enough sense to not lose your viewers. Pop culture references can be used sparingly, and it’s often good to make fun of whatever thing your writing about.
Breaking the fourth wall is always a good way to do a crackfic, but don’t use it too much. Something that never gets tiring is when you mock the more questionable concepts of the actual series, or even go so far as to make fun of the specific genre.
Example of a crackfic sample:
Naruto woke up one day and found he had a tentacle in his stomach, wriggling like a red jelly bean. “Not again…” said the hyperactive ninja. He quickly downs some slim fast and the tentacle shrieked in pain, then exploded into a million pieces. Yawning, he went over the see Sakura and Sasuke.
Sakura was fawning over Sasuke, while the latter simply leaned against a tree and acted like he was the sh*t. Which he WUZ.
“Hey Sakura.” said Naruto.
“SASUKESASUKESASUKESAUKSESUAKLSOLSAKJDSLDFKNLKJNV” the fan girl rambled.
“And how are you today Sasuke?”
“I am sheer and utter perfection.” said Sasuke in the most brooding voice imaginable, “Now please, I have to write to all my fan girls and tell them I will have sex with… all of them.
Every.
Single.
One.”
Kakashi poofed in, reading the latest volume of the Icha Icha series: Icha Icha Blatant Pr0nography. It had pictures of Thomas the tank engine in it. It was Jiraiya’s best work yet.
“Hello everyone! Are you ready for yor mission? Tsunade is going to do a major breast enlargement procedure, so our team will be the Hokage until she gets back.”
“I GET TO BE THE HOKAGE!? screamed Naruto, a grin so wide that blood and snot and tears ran down his face. It hurt like hell, but who cared, he got to be the Hokage! As he infected Sakura with his bodily fluids, Sasuke declared that he was too busy: For first he needed to have sex with a billion OC’s created for the sole purpose of falling in love with him.
“How are you more popular than me?” Kakashi sobbed. And so, Team 7 minus Sasuke, who was too busy having a massive orgy, went to the Hokage’s office and began running the show. For all of five minutes before their rule burned down the village.
And that is how you write parody. The key thing is that we all KNOW how these characters are supposed to act, and when they don’t, then it makes for a funny story as long as it‘s clear you‘re doing it on purpose. Description is also relevant in this genre, make the descriptions of what’s going on as ridiculous as possible.
I’d love to do more genres such as horror and angst, but unfortunately I am no expert in those areas so… onto part three!
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IIIa: OC’s
This is the section for you all who want to make a fan-OC/OC and want the focus to be around them.
This is the most dreaded part of the entire guide. How to make a good OC. It is dreaded because I will inevitably get killed by all the people shouting that their OC is good and shoving it into my face, even when I point out several logical flaws.
Well, I already died twice today so what more could they do?
The first order of business when writing a good OC is to, of course, create one. No really that’s it- just put down anything for step one, but keep in mind setting for appropriateness.
Here, let me show you the atypical Naruto OC that I just made up just now:
Name: Kylee Mayflower Shin-water moon
Sex: Female
Age: 14
Rank: Jonin
Team: Team 7 (fourth member)
Looks: Tall and incredibly mature for her age. Looks like Hinata except with long purple hair.
Love interest: Sasuke (boyfriend)
Hates: Sakura (Because she always tried to win over Sasuke and is therefore the Holocaust Mk.II)
Missions: 50 S rank (she only does the hard ones)
Element: Light
Stats (/5 stars):
Taijutsu- ***
Ninjutsu- *****
Genjutsu- *****
Weapons- ****
Intelligence- *****
Chakra- ****** (because of tailed beast inside her)
Backstory:
- Kylee was born into a special clan that has the light type chakra but it was wiped out by Itachi too. Kylee was orphaned and grew up with Sasuke and Naruto, and eventually fell in love with Sasuke and now they are boyfriend and girlfriend. She is very strong for her age and once almost beat Tsunade on her own, which is why she only appears when her powers are needed. She has the 7 ½ tailed beast inside of her, a light guardian angel that she can call upon for more power. She wants to marry Sasuke, but first she must beat the Akatsuki.
And now here is the main problem with most OC’s: The creators stop at step 1. And then they make a story without ANY editing to their random idea. Let me show you why this is a bad idea 99% of the time:
- My character hardly has a Japanese name, and it’s also blatantly based on my own
- The ‘Incredibly mature’ description is a giant red flag for Mary Sue
- ESPECIALLY when in addition to that, her skills are off the charts
- And in love with sasuke without any prior explanation
- And of course, my character breaks the 3 man cell rule
- With a nonexistent element no less
- And hey, a dead clan
- Plus a tailed beast
So yeah my character could be classified as a Sue. What is a Sue you ask? Well, a Mary Sue is in general, an OC who is perfect in many ways, is annoying to no end and causes other characters to act OOC around her, not to mention the rules of the universe. Lots of real life people hate them for these reasons.
I’m just going to say this now: There is no clear definition for what exactly a Sue is. This is because a character can have many Sue-like qualities mentioned by other works YET still be well written thanks to some more quirks- and yes I’ve seen it done. Thus, Sue-ness is mostly dependent on writing skill, which is a VERY hard to easily pinpoint since there are several million different writing styles.
As for my definition, which I suppose I have to put out, I rate a particular OC based upon certain qualities that most Sue’s possess, then judge the writing style/ how the character is portrayed. In general, the more of the below qualities you have, the more you’ll have to be a good writer in order to save said character from Suedom-
- OC is in love with a canon character
- OC has an intricate name
- OC has many implausible or high skills
- OC has no real weaknesses
- OC causes other characters to act OOC
- OC has the ability to solve problems at hand easily
- OC is far too “special” (EG: Light chakra, tailed beast etc.)
- OC is liked by everyone except character whom the author hates
- OC is hated by everyone except a love interest
- OC is always ‘right’
- OC was born alone/family was murdered/parents were cruel etc.
By my own definition, my character I have just made up is a Sue. However it is very common for people to create Sue’s, for the sole reason they don’t know that they’re doing it. All the newbie’s want is for their character to be awesome, but they kind of miss the point.
I mean really, how many of you can say you’ve NEVER made a Sue in your life? And I bet it was when you were younger too. I’m no exception.
What I’m saying is, if you find a Sue, don’t automatically turn on troll mode and bash them to no end- 75% of the time it’s just a new writer not knowing what they’ve done. Instead, gently coax them into changing a few aspects of their character, give them a few pointers and the like. All this Mary Sue hate going around is unneeded for the most part…
Oh wait! I forgot that it’s much easier to hate something than it is to help the person. I’m sorry, my bad! I wouldn’t want to infringe upon you’re laziness ‘rights’!
Back to my OC: let’s go to step two and change things around a bit. For step two, we will consider all the aspects of setting for the character. For one thing I need a Japanese name because of all the xenophobia that there is in Naruto. Secondly, a fourth member for a three cell team is stupid, so I’ll need to change that now or find a good explanation. Finally, at this stage in the Naruto plot most characters are 12 or 13 so let’s change that as well. Here is the revised draft:
Name: Sayura Makina Nagase
Sex: Female
Age: 13
Rank: Jonin
Team: Team 7 (fourth member* )
Looks: Tall and incredibly mature for her age. Looks like Hinata except with long purple hair.
Love interest: Sasuke (boyfriend)
Hates: Sakura (Because she always tried to win over Sasuke and is therefore the Holocaust Mk.II)
Missions: 50 S rank (she only does the hard ones)
Element: Light
Stats (/5 stars):
Taijutsu- ***
Ninjutsu- *****
Genjutsu- *****
Weapons- ****
Intelligence- *****
Chakra- ****** (because of tailed beast inside her)
Backstory:
- Sayura was born into a special clan that has the light type chakra but it was wiped out by Itachi too. Sayura was orphaned and grew up with Sasuke and Naruto, and eventually fell in love with Sasuke and now they are boyfriend and girlfriend. She is very strong for her age and once almost beat Tsunade on her own, which is why she only appears when her powers are needed. She has the 7 ½ tailed beast inside of her, a light guardian angel that she can call upon for more power. She wants to marry Sasuke, but first she must beat the Akatsuki.
* she is the fourth member because there was literally no one else she could pair with and she couldn’t possibly go solo.
And now here is the second mistake that people make if they choose not to make the first- they stop at step two and write their story. Yays for repeating jokes.
Step three now: Realism. This is the hardest and most difficult part of the entire guide. You have to make your character both look and feel REAL to the reader. What do I mean by this? Make them relatable, make them have flaws like a real person, strengths and weakness, emotions and turmoil’s, triumphs and glories.
Now here’s what some people do: They take a character like mine and then quickly add a “Weaknesses” box, and then add “Clumsy and cares too much” and think it’s good because now they’re character has a defining flaw and thus is a good OC.
No.
First reason why this is bad- because nobody in the real world has ONE mere flaw/quirk, and also having one minor weakness does not make up for the severely high skills your character has (unless, again, there is a really good explanation. See why Sue’s are hard to define?). Secondly, and this is the one most frequently used… analyze your story and tell me how often their weakness actually hinders them.
What’s that? It never does?
So on to step three, making it realistic. This of course varies from series to series and setting to setting, not to mention it takes actual thinking in order to do, hence why it’s so hard.
For this particular example, let’s start by making her relatively weak since she’s only 13 and this occurs pre-time skip. And let’s remove the tailed beast because that has literally been used to death in these fics. I’ll keep the light type thing though, since it can provide an interesting back-story and interesting powers.
For likes and hates, let’s make her story more interesting- She likes Sasuke, but of course
And finally, the looks. We need a lot more than just “looks like hinata with long purple hair”. Let’s say she’s just a developing teenager, so she hasn’t much curves and is almost flat, not to mention a little on the short side for her age. She should wear some atypical attire, that is a blue colored obi with a black skirt and shirt combo. Her legs are exposed for the most part save for a couple placed where she has attached some bandages. She wears sandals, has long purple hair, light yellow eyes and has her clan symbol embedded on the back of her shirt. Also, she does not wear a headband since her village was destroyed.
Revised edition mk.II:
Name: Sayura Makina Nagase
Sex: Female
Age: 13
Rank: Genin
Team: Team 7 (fourth member* )
Looks: Long purple hair, light yellow eyes. Wears a black skirt and shirt combined with a blue obi and her clan symbol on her back. Carries some kunai with her.
Likes: Sasuke (crush)
Dislikes: Sakura (love rivals)
Missions: 2 E rank, 4 D rank, 1 C rank
Element: Light
Stats (/5 stars):
Taijutsu- *
Ninjutsu- **
Genjutsu- ***
Weapons- **
Intelligence- **
Chakra- **
Backstory:
- Sayura was born into a special clan that has the light type chakra but it was wiped out by Itachi too. Sayura was orphaned in Konoha and grew up with Sasuke and Naruto, and eventually fell in love with Sasuke and now they are boyfriend and girlfriend. She wants to marry Sasuke, but first she must figure out how to beat her love rival Sakura.
* she is the fourth member because there was literally no one else she could pair with and she couldn’t possibly go solo.
And finally, step four, which is revising the background and making it even more realistic. This is the fine tuning part of the process, making final tweaks and the like before your character is presented.
Final edition:
Name: Sayura Makina Nagase
Sex: Female
Age: 13
Rank: Genin
Team: Team 7 (fourth member* )
Looks: Long purple hair, light yellow eyes. Wears a black skirt and shirt combined with a blue obi and her clan symbol on her back. Carries some kunai with her. Does not wear a headband because she doesn’t think she’s a part of Konoha.
Likes: Sasuke (crush), Naruto as a brother, Kakashi as a father figure
Dislikes: Sakura (love rivals), perverts, ramen
Missions: 6 E rank, 10 D rank, 2 C rank
Element: Light
Stats (/5 stars):
Taijutsu- *
Ninjutsu- **
Genjutsu- ***
Weapons- **
Intelligence- **
Chakra- **
Backstory:
- Sayura was born into a special clan that has the light type chakra. Things were good with her parents until a mysterious black haired man wiped out her clan. Luckily she stayed hidden and was found by some Konoha ANBU agents investigating the matter. Thus, she was adopted into the local orphanage where she met Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto. She became friends with all three, but started to drift away from Sakura when she found out they were in love with the same guy.
Being the odd woman out when graduation hit, they decided it best to place her in squad seven as an exception- at least until they can find two more members and a suitable jonin to form a team.
Her light type chakra lets her have great ability with genjutsu- she all but immune to most, and can fire back terrifying and deceptive illusions back at her opponent. In addition she likes to use weapons, anything that can be thrown really. She prefers fighting at a distance instead of close combat.
And boom, we’re done! Sayura is now a much, much, much better OC than before. That took a lot of work right? WELL TOUGH FREAKING NOODLES. YOR THE ONE WHO WANTED THE CHARACTER 2 B G00D.
On a side note, for ANY OC, please, please, please, please, DEAR GAWD, do NOT make one of her fears be "Afraid of losing her friends/family/lover.". First of all, it's been done to death. Literally. Done. To. Death. And secondly, duh. Unless you happen to be a psychopath, of course you'd be afraid of losing your friends and family. SO DON'T DO IT ANYMORE.
Back to my example, it naturally functions as an example so it should be taken as such. If I were really creating a character for a Naruto fic I’d try to be even more original because I‘m me. Such as for instance, NOT making my female lead in love with a canon character. Especially Sasuke. I know it’s difficult, but you can do OC X OC and end up-
*Suddenly a thousand angry comments from the SasukeXSayura fan base (created in the last five seconds) flooded Cataclyptic’s inbox. He tries to defend, but only makes the situation worse with his poor grammar and general trollish behavior. Not understanding the concept of sarcasm, the angry fan-girls kill Cataclyptic with Flame-Throwers™…*
*However, he comes back to life as a vengeful potato.*
It is very hard to write without appendages or eyes. But as you might expect, we’re not done yet so screw my new disability. The plotline still needs to be addressed…
IIIb: The Plot
The plots for stories that focus on OC’s are similar to those that do not. However, that is only most of the time- sometimes it can go a completely different direction.
So first thing’s first: your OC obviously isn’t the only person on planet earth. Or whatever planet you have. Henceforth leading to the first instigator of plot: interaction with the cast. And yes, this is where a lot of wish fulfillment by crazy fan girls comes in, because in a technical sense you ARE your OC (eh, check one of my lectures…), therefore you have the opportunity to make out with Yukio Okumura in a sense.
A strange sense, but nonetheless a sense indeed.
Addressing how your characters react with the canon characters can create all sorts of lovely tension/ situations. There’s also the fact that merely by existing, your OC can influence the plot around them. How? Well let’s say your One Piece OC is a character who was somehow able to eat 2 devil fruits and yet not blow up. By this fact alone, the World Government plans to capture him/her and conduct fun lab experiments to figure out why. And thus your OC is always on the run from the WG’s schemes.
When you as the author want to introduce a new scenario, for the obvious reason of making plot happen, be sure to do this as naturally as possible. You want your audience to believe that whatever extraneous circumstances is actually possible within the reality.
For a Pokemon plot for instance, it would be natural for say, Giovanni, to try and get serious for once and catch the legendaries for his own benefit. Maybe he copied the master ball design or something, but the point is, this is reasonable.
Now you if you have something like Giovanni wants to rule pizza hut by causing nuclear fallout with Arceus… you better hope you’re writing parody.
This can also fail if the plot feels forced, that is, if you need your OC’s to be in certain situations but cannot think of any logical reason why they should.
For instance, let’s say your Naruto OC has to go to the moon, because according to the plotline the Akatsuki are there and their trying to revive the ten tailed beast. That was not comedic writing. There really is a ten tailed beast. Good job Kishimoto, you have done what low levels writers have done a thousand times.
Ranting aside, your own OC’s don’t know about the plan, and thus they somehow need to discover it. Here is an example of a forced plot:
Sayura looked up at the moon one day. It occurred to her just then that the rumors about the 10 tailed beast actually being the moon might be true. And since the Akatsuki desired world domination, why not go to the moon and revive said monstrosity? These facts were too much of a coincidence, so with a trembling lip, she announced that her party needed to go to the moon. Else as the world as they know it disappear.
This was clearly forced because it relies on Sayura magically being a history buff, in which there are no books written about the 10 tails. It also relied on the fact that Sayura’s brief thought is correct, which is not very sane. For instance, if I wrote in another character who blatantly asks the obvious “But how do you know?” then I have nothing.
Don’t do forced plot, because it makes the story seem unrealistic. Sometimes however, it can be used for comedic effect, so long as it occurs only at certain instances and is kept to a minimum. For instance, based upon my own story.
Sayura received a note from Itachi, who disappeared while laughing like a maniac. Trembling, she opened the note “Dear Sayura,” the note read “you should have joined us when you had the chance… for soon, very soon, we the Akatsuki shall be the sole rulers of this world.”
“Rulers…” Sayura narrowed her eyes “Rulers and long things that measure something… people usually use rulers for straight lines… the shortest distance between two points is a straight line… therefore people try to go far distances in this manner… far distances… the moon! Of course! They’re on the moon!”
Naruto: “HOW THE FRIC DID YOU ARRIVE AT THAT CONCLUSION!?”
“No time Naruto!” Sayura crumpled the note, “We have to stop whatever it is the Akatsuki is planning! To the moon!!”
And that is how forced plot can be used for comedic effect. Finally, for an OC story, you get to have one of my favorite plotlines of all: the total original plotline. This is point number four in the first section.
This is, by rule of thumb, the most ‘free’. Going by Naruto again, this means that all the elements of the world of Naruto are present, but on the other hand none of the events from Naruto actually happen. This means no canon characters- every character in this series is by definition, an OC.
This type of story is the most fun to write in my opinion, because you can choose basically anything you want to happen so long as its reasonable within the back-story of your settings. Plus, you get the added benefit of practicing doing a completely ORIGINAL story, since this and that are so alike. However, the giant downfall of this is that since every character is an original character, it means your shiny new OC can’t make out with Sasuke.
That, and they take a lot more effort and planning to write. But mostly for the first reason from what I can tell.
This is all for OC plotlines, but again the non-OC plotlines are similar in nature. This brings us to the writing section of the guide!
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IV: The Writing
Now we will get to actual writing. First off in this lesson is basic English grammar- however convoluted it may be. In addition to that, you need to learn how to spell correctly, a feat made easier thanks to spell-check. So, and I cannot emphasize this enough, use spell-check.
Now, this appears to be some sort of new fad or something, where people start writing their stories in text speak. It looks a little something like this
& then naruto went 2 b a mster ninj then he loled t smthng
And it’s incredibly annoying so if you don’t stop it I will come up with a good threat. So, this seems basic but it needs to be said anyway: do not use text speak. Unless, of course, you are making fun of it (as I tend to do sometimes…).
Punctuation is important! By this I mean (.)(?)(!)(…) and all those other endmarks. Don’t forget to always put at least one at the end of a sentence, to as its purpose, mark its end. For comma’s, AKA ( , ) you use them to separate two sentence fragments together. This usually occurs when there are two or more ideas in a sentence that still need to be joined together. EG:
Idea 1: “I sat on my butt.”
Idea 2: “I watched TV all day and did absolutely nothing productive.”
These are two different ideas, but since I want to join then together I will add a comma and add a whatthefricisitcalled to join then. Basically, these words (Then, And, But, So, etc) can help if the two sentences need one. For both examples,
No conjunction: “I sat on my butt, watching TV all day doing absolutely nothing productive.”
With: “I sat on my butt, then watched TV all day and did absolutely nothing productive.”
And also you can do it to join two ideas that are the same and one different idea. Example, with the different idea marked in bold
“Cataclyptic, who is a lazy a**hole, sat on his butt and watched TV all day.”
Yays! Another note for ending punctuation, in order to be taken seriously you should never have more than two ending notes. By this I mean things like:
“And then it exploded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
It should be:
“And then it exploded!!”
Again, the one exception is the rule of funny, where you WANT to NOT have good grammar, for hilarity. Although that does not mean you do it all the time- just at key moments. And finally, I myself occasionally use three !!! Or !?! Marks at the end, but only in extreme situations. You can do it too if you want, but don’t go past three.
Your story should NOT be all speech. Really. You have to make paragraphs so that we aren’t overwhelmed with all the talking. Paragraphs, like the wall of text I’m typing right now, should be around 3-5 sentences. That’s not to say you could do more or less, but then it becomes situational and I don’t want to get into all that blur. If your paragraph is too long, around 10 sentences or larger, then you should consider breaking it up into smaller paragraphs.
You do this by pressing the enter key twice and leave a space between the two paragraphs. The second one should contain a new thought or idea, which is usually related to the previous paragraph you typed. This helps your audience read more smoothly. And as we all know, you want your audience to read smoothly.
However dialogue is also important! With dialogue you can really see what the character is doing at that moment. And finally, as opposed to paragraphs who stand to give raw information in some way, dialogue conveys punch lines and emphasized speech.
For instance:
Cataclyptic gazed at the television, mouth agape. In a screaming voice he yelled not for Snape to kill Dumbledor. Alas, the great wizard was dead.
Compared to:
“No! Don’t kill Dumbeldor!!” Cataclyptic screamed.
Different, huh? Unfortunately I cannot teach you when to use paragraphs and when to use dialogue; that is something that must be learned with time. In addition it also depends upon your own writing style so… yeah I can’t much help you in that regard.
And finally, the thing that everyone messes up on, perspectives. By this I mean either third person or first person perspectives. Sometimes second, but that is incredibly rare.
3rd person perspective
Also known as “Omniscient perspective” it is exactly what its nickname implies; 3rd person is where we are aware of every character at once. Everything here is in PAST tense, and all characters are referred to as “he, she, it, they etc.” This one is the most commonly used, mainly for its great flexibility in addition to the amount of information it can convey.
1st person perspective
Also known as “Character perspective”. This one is written directly from a character’s point of view. Everything the character sees or hears is written. In this case, you must always use “I” when referring to your character, but the rest are “he, she, it etc.”. PAST tense is also applicable here, though sometimes present can work. Less commonly used, but still effective. As opposed to flexibility this one allows for great intimacy with the particular character, thus writing here should use words that the character herself uses, and not your own.
Examples:
3rd: The man walked into a gloomy bar. Silently he drifted to the counter, asking for a glass of whatever.
1st: I walked into a drab looking bar. Careful not to make any sudden movements, I asked the bartender for whatever the last bloke had.
And then there’s secondary, which involves referring to the reader as “You.”. In most fanfic this is hardly a good thing to do, but who knows, maybe it can be pulled off? Either way it’s incredibly rare and I myself have yet to see one.
This guide is actually written in secondary perspective, because I am well aware of you reading it. It’s quite creepy. But I digress- this is a guide and not an actual story, so it hardly counts.
Onto more grammar, this time it’s apostrophes, AKA ( ‘ ). These are used for words like “It’s, there’s, ain’t etc.”, as well as to indicate possessiveness. For this I have an easy trick for you: if you have a word with an apostrophe in it, simply take it apart and see if the sentence still works. For instance, “It’s” is just a combination of “It is”. Therefore:
“It’s a dog!” à “It is a dog!” = : )
“The dog wagged it’s tail.” à “The dog wagged it is tail.” = : (
It is also used to indicate possessiveness, the idea that somebody owns something. EG: Cataclyptic’s dog indicates that I own the dog
The final thing I will discuss is negatives. This can be quite confusing for some, since I have recently learned that a lot of languages can use negatives and still be fine. So for you all, here’s how it works in the English language: Whenever you have more than one negative word denoting something, you have to treat the first negative as if it’s opposing the second. EG:
“This ain’t no time for that!” = “This is time for that.”
“Ain’t nobody don’t knows it” = “Nobody knows it”
“There ain’t no way it ain’t not never sometimes nobody no more!” = ???
There’s an easy trick for this too: Think of all the negative words as being the number
(-1). To find the end result, just multiply -1 by itself for however many negative words you use, if the result is one, it’s a positive sentence. If it’s a negative one, then it’s a negative.
EG using the examples above: -1*-1= 1, positive sentence.
-1*-1*-1= -1, negative sentence.
…I’m not doing that last one. Screw you.
And now we go to the final section, story elements, as well as tips and tricks for writing.
=====================================================
V: Story Elements
Finally, story elements. Story elements are basic things that one puts into a story in order to make it function. This section will be in list format, excepting some additional comments. Review them and discover how to make an awesome story!
3 Act Plot
- The basic 3 act plot is the basic premise of every single plot ever made. As its name implies, there are three parts to it- the beginning and introduction, the middle and conflict, and the end and the conclusion/consequences.
The basic idea is that in the first act, characters are established, their personalities and motivations etc. In the middle, a conflict arises, some sort of problem that is intended to have negative consequence, and as such the protagonists must try to solve it somehow. And the end explores the consequences of their actions, regardless of whether the conflict was solved or not.
Please know that the 3 act story is the most basic example of a story, and as such it should be treated as a skeleton. Many including myself tweak it to suit our own interests, but in the end the basis remains the same.
Protagonist
- The protagonist is your main character(s). The protagonist is essentially the ‘doer’, he or she wants to accomplish something of merit in the story. What they want to accomplish ranges from anything to saving the world or just getting a glass of water. However, it is also acceptable if the protagonist wants to prevent an action from occurring, and strives for that instead.
Antagonist
- The antagonist is, quite simply, a force/person who tries to foil the protagonist and make them fail at what they are trying to do. This of course creates conflict in your story, as the protagonist and antagonist compete. Once again, their methods can range from anything to starting nuclear Armageddon or stealing the glass of water. In addition, while the protagonist is almost always a person, the antagonist can appear in many different forms as per the three ‘battles’ listed below
“Man VS Man” The most used, essentially one man versus another man (man in this case meaning whatever living thing you have). In this case, the antagonist is also a man.
“Man VS Nature” This is when a man must survive in an environment. In this case the antagonist is natural forces, and there is usually an emphasis on the completely neutral aspect of it, that unfortunately has negative consequence upon the man.
“Man Versus Self” This is a tricky one- in this case the antagonist is ALSO the protagonist. This works by the main character trying to do something, but their own actions prevent them from accomplishing their objective.
Additionally, it is important to note that antagonists are NOT always villains. Villains by nature are things that are inherently evil/wrong in the perspective of the universe you're in. An antagonist is something that simply opposes the protagonist. For instance, in a racing setting with fast cars and their drivers, if the protagonist wants to win the title then every other racer is an antagonist because they ALSO want to win the title, and naturally there can only be one #1. This does not make the drivers inherently evil for wanting to win the title- they simply have goals that conflict with the protagonist!
It is important that you can distinguish the difference between villains and antagonists, because when you do they you can open up a myriad of new possibilities.
Deurogotist
- Secondary characters, main but not THE main character. Think of them as the co-stars, they are used to help foil the protagonist in being different from them and making their character appear more pronounced, and vice versa.
Literary Stereotypes/Tropes
- These are things that occur frequently in literary works to the point of being overused. While the term has negative connotation, in actuality they can be either good or bad. When they are good, they are referred to as tropes, and when bad they are stereotypes, because even though they are the exact same thing humans like to make up words anyway.
Note that some tropes can become overused to a point in which the novelty is no longer a good thing and is frowned upon. The most famous example of this is the “damnsel in distress” motif, once viewed as a romantic and good thing now shamed
Some of the common stereotypes/tropes I have observed include:
- The protagonist being a young male
- A bad guy with a clear motive and hardened past
- Many characters having a “The Past”
- Two people falling in love after spending some time with each other
- A rival character who tries to foil the protagonist but often has noble goals
- Foreshadowing a great event to occur
- A wizened mentor like figure
And I’ll stop right there. Don’t be afraid to use tropes, because again, some are good things. Besides, in the end we’re all human so naturally we’ll have similar thoughts to each other.
Motifs
- Motifs are central messages occurring in throughout a story or collection of stories. These motifs are often positive messages, sometimes negative messages, or even just questions. Some common motifs include:
- The value of friendship/love
- Being true to yourself
- Reality does not care about you
- What is good and what is evil?
- Can conflict ever cease?
- People are not what they seem
Pretty much every good story in existence has one or more motifs, so I suggest you find one and subtlety put it in. That’s another thing- never outright state the motif, because it rarely works. Instead, imply it.
Foreshadowing
- Foreshadowing is a literary element that lets you put hints of future events in the present of your story. These can either be subtle or stated outright, but always try to make them mysterious or vague. The “Future Predictor” in a story is usually the one who delivers the most dramatic foreshadowing, usually by saying a great disaster will happen later.
However you can also use more subtle methods, known as the “Checkov’s Gun” technique. This is where you introduce a minor element, and then later it is revealed to be incredibly important.
Story Arcs/Breather Arcs
- Usually stories, especially long ones, are divided into more or less clear parts known as story arcs. During a story arc the 3 part act occurs and when it is resolved, another story arc begins related to the last one. This is blatent in my own stories, where quite literally my story arcs are names Arc1 -“Title” and so on.
The end of a story arc is marked by some sort of significant event, that may or may not be related to the upcoming arc. Usually there is heavy buildup preceding the event, that way when the event occurs the tension is released for the most part, and lets you start from act one in the next.
A breather arc is a bit different- it is similar to a story arc but it is much shorter. In addition, while the story arc attempt to advance the plot and create drama, the breather arc serves as a “breather” for the audience, letting them absorb something with much less drama and give them a break from the action. These usually involve one episoders with an emphasis on humor and very little dramatic tension. They usually occur directly before or after important plot points/rising action.
Cliffhangers
- I’m sure everyone knows what these are but I’ll state the definition anyway: cliffhangers are intentional writing elements that leave an ending to a story open ended until the next segment. EG: “Will he fall off the cliff or won’t he?”. Cliffhangers have annoyed viewers for years on end and probably always will.
However, cliffhangers are a necessary evil. Why? Because the primary objective of a cliffhanger is to make you want to find out what happens next! By doing this, people get addicted to your series and you get views. However you have to write in good cliffhangers, else they’ll see your series as BS. The key for writing good cliffhangers to be as mysterious as possible, or set up a surprise situation at the end.
Good cliffhanger: It was over. All that fighting, all that war, all of it was gone. Peace would reign once again. That’s what I thought until I heard a gunshot, and my best friend collapsed to the dirt.
In horror, I saw liters of blood spilling out of him.
And end on that! Now you’re viewers want to know what happens next!
Bad cliffhanger: and ten the man sad “NOOOO!!!” but we couldn’t see what he as yeling at because it was drak.
NO USE GOOD GRAMMAR AND SPELING.
Summary
- Frequently on fan fiction sites before you even get into the story you have to write a short summary of what its about. Frequently, I see this: “I’m sorry story is better than the summary please read.” or some other varition of the like.
DON’T
DO.
THAT.
Saying that your summary sucks is clear indication that you are a bad author and no one will take you seriously. Ergo, if you can’t even write a good short paragraph, why would we expect you to write a longer story well? So just put in a summary.
A good summary tells you, in fan fiction world, who is in the story, some sort of objective they want to do, and vagueness hinting at a greater plot.
But for the love of God, Allah, the Buddha, Chuck Norris and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, don’t do this kind of vagueness:
“A story about Naruto and Sakura! They are stranded at an inn will romance blossom or not!?”
That isn’t vague. With a summary like that, of course they’re going to get together. Congratulations you have spoiled the entire story. In fact, asking a question in the summary is almost never a good thing-
*Suddenly a thousand angry comments from the NarutoXKiba and Akamaru fan base flooded Cataclyptic’s inbox. He tries to defend, but only makes the situation worse with his poor grammar and general trollish behavior. Not understanding the concept of sarcasm, the angry fan-girls kill Potatoclyptic with Flame-Throwers™…*
*However, YET AGAIN, he comes back to life, this time as a normal (?) human being.*
Asking questions in a summary is never a good thing, because the answer to the question is always a unanimous “yes, now we know the whole story before reading it”. I have RARELY seen a summary with a good question in it. Unless of course, you’re trying to be funny.
The Love Interest
- OH DEAR GOD NO DON’T MAKE ME DO THIS ONE.
*Cataclyptic’s editors push him to write*
*Sigh* I’m sure you all know what a love interest is so I’ll skip the definition. Well, let’s face the blunt truth here: in fan fiction the love interest ALWAYS WITHOUT EXCEPTION ends up with… Itachi or whoever…
However as you may have gathered, romance is hard to write. Well. It’s hard to write well, hence why 99% of fan fictions out there are-
*Angry fan girl’s stare at Cataclyptic*
…good works that can be improved upon. Luckily for you I’ve read so much bad romance fics on accident that I can tell you all of what to do and what not to do. For one thing, make the chemistry between the two feel real and not forced. This is more of a “show don’t tell” thing, so it takes some getting used to.
Also, if for some reason the two aren’t getting together but should, give us good reasons why. Now don’t be mistaken, the whole “I don’t want to ruin our friendship thing” is great. But if you constantly put your characters in romantic situations for fifty chapters, then people will question why they aren’t together. In the end, if you can’t explain why they aren’t together other than because you don’t want them to for drama.
And to those of you who read my story, NO THIS DOES NOT GIVE YOU AN EXCUSE TO ASK WHY GARDEVOIR AND DARKRAI AREN’T TOGETHER. WHY?
Because It was originally supposed to be GalladeXGardevoir, but then I lost control of my story so now the characters doing whatever they want and I can’t stop them.
SO I DON’T FREAKING KNOW EITHER.
*Ahem* moving on to when the characters actually DO get together. Now, there’s a legitimate reason everyone gets together at the end of the story- because real romance is INCREDIBLY hard to write.
It works like this: anticipation of a couple is something most everyone can get behind on. This is because you expect something great. However, once the characters actually DO get together, it goes from expecting greatness to experiencing it. And in the end, YOU as the audience cannot experience the love two specific fictional characters feel for each other. Or rather, it’s incredibly hard to feel a part of it considering most people aren’t into three ways.
Genres
- Genres are of course the type of… well… genre that your story is about. There are many, from action and romance to parody and horror. Yes, even creepy pasta, as strange as it is.
The important thing here is the new trend going around most modern writers: subverting your own genre for comedic effect. The idea is that when you write a genre, there are obvious tropes that follow. In action series, people have to fight each other/robots. In romance, the guy gets the girl. In horror, everyone dies. NO EXCPETIONS.
Audiences nowadays are getting more genre savvy than before. Thus, the writers nowadays congratulate them on their intelligence by purposely slipping subversions for them. EG: A couple is supposed to get together. We all know there’s going to be some problems between them. Therefore, the modern writer adds this line.
Best friend: “Dude you should ask her out.”
Protagonist: “I can’t… every romance guide I’ve read says I have to remain aloof of her until the very last second. So I need to wait for that.”
Viola. Or, by breaking the fourth wall and pointing it out.
Best Friend: “Dude, you should ask her out!”
Protagonist: “But that sort of thing only happens in the third act?”
Classic genre subversion! Pay attention to your own genre because it can help you decide what to write if you ever get writer’s block.
=====================================================
VI: Closing Thoughts
In the end this guide is meant to be a guide- don’t follow everything 100% through because that is where your own style comes in. And yes, style takes time but you’ll find it eventually.
And while I was killed almost four times today for insulting bad writers, it helped me realize the most important lesson of all: to keep trying. As long as you have the will to write and the will to improve, your bad writing will someday become good.
So write and write and write some more, because that’s the way to go! Keep trying and you’ll succeed!
Literature
Mary-Sues: Part 2
Mary-Sues Part 2: How Not to Write Like Your Character is a Sue
After reading Part 1 many, many times, I decided that another part would be helpful in that extra step. In Part 1, I described what a Mary-Sue/Marty-Sue etc. are, what they are not, and how to develop a proper character, in addition some of the reasons why some Suethors would create them (more or less on accident). This second part will go into more detail and give you tips on what not to write in your story that will tip your readers off that your characters might be underdeveloped, even if the character will be developed.
MS don’t have specific physical, behavior, clich
Literature
List of Superpowers Part 1
1,000,000 Wings
100 Percent Muscle Usage
2D Mimicry
2nd Heart
360 Degree Vision
4 Wings
4th Wall Awareness
5th Dimensional Imp Physiology
5th Dimensional Lordship
5th Dimensional Physiology
Abacomancy
Ability Acceleration
Ability Augmentation
Ability Cancellation
Ability Cloaking
Ability Creation
Ability Granting
Ability Immunity
Ability Intuition
Ability Learning
Ability Linking
Ability Manifestation
Ability Manipulation
Ability Negation
Ability Reflection
Ability Resistance
Ability Sealing
Ability Sponge
Ability Suppression
Ability Swap
Ability Teaching
Abnormal Embodiment
Aboriginal Deity Physiology
Above A
Literature
Mary-Sue: Part 9
The Eye of the Tiger
In all of my previous guides, I had assumed that most, if not all characters, were human, or mostly human, instead of thinking of the possibility of main characters, or even minor characters, being animals. Well, it doesn’t really matter, because, for the most part, the rules for creating human characters, including names and powers, writing presentation, and even romance would also apply to animals. There would just be a slight variation from humans, and this slight variation can make a world of difference in your writing.
A more common complaint I’ve seen about writers who write about animals at all, is
Suggested Collections
Enjoy!
9/18/14 Edit: Some typo's removed, additional section on antagonists.
9/18/14 Edit: Some typo's removed, additional section on antagonists.
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Whatever you do, do NOT write a fanfic with bad writing, like the infamous Titans LA.