Absolute Fanfiction Writing Advice

Prose stuff

[I have no idea how to rephrase this or to add stuff, so I'll just copy Ezn's guide for most of this.]

Being laconic [being so concise you appear as rude or mysterious]

Or how I call it as you can see in the dialogue chapter, bland writing.

Beauty is simplicity.

Omitting needless words doesn't mean saying less, it means speaking more clearly.

"began to verb" — This is something that I see a lot of in amateur writing, and it really irritates me. Wounds begin to bleed, opponents begin to fight, and barrels start rolling down hills. It's stilted and usually meaningless – why not just say that the wound bled, or the opponents fought, or the barrel rolled down the hill? Saying "started to" or "began" doesn't add any depth to your description of the event, so you may as well leave it out. There are, however, some cases where this is appropriate.

"seemed to be rather" — Spineless language use. This is your story – you're telling us that something happened; you're MAKING this HAPPEN, bro. Don't be so wish-washy about it – say that something was something else, not that it was "rather something else". Dispense with "seemed to", "appeared to", "managed to", and all other wobbly constructs if they add nothing to your sentences. Use metaphors instead of similes.

"the fact that" — This phrase is the common man's "like". It adds nothing, and should you find yourself using it, get to reordering your sentence. It's not the only perpetrator either – consider the meaning of every word you use, and strike meaningless words from your sentences.

There are many, many more meaningless phrases and writing ticks than just these, but I hope they gave you some idea of what to look out for. Think carefully about the meaning of the words you're using and avoid words that don't have any meaning.

Keep it simple, don't use vague language and especially to my brain, stop the constant "started to verb".

Florid/Purple Prose:

Keep it simple, ya'll. Not only can a text become pretentious pretty fast, it just becomes hard to read at one point. Just convey clearly what you want to convey to the reader.

Show and Tell:

You may have heard that one a lot and probably still understand it. At least that's how I feel, so here is my try to explain it after reading Ezn's test three times. I could copy their text, but I kinda don't want to.

First of all, there are some things which are better told than shown. Examples being travels between towns in which nothing happens.

Now, telling is easy. "Rowan was writing his thesis. He was struggling."

Showing is harder. You need to think how a character would act out what is told.
"Rowan was starring at the empty paper. He needed to write his thesis. He knew the topic, he just didn't know how to word it. Should he keep it simple? Should he use as many field terms as he can? Where should he start?

"He wrote out an introduction, but scratched it. He wrote a new one, he scratched it again."

Showing results in more engaging text. And, if you care about it, a hogher word count.

Again, telling has it's place too. Maybe in conjunction with the showing.

"Rowan needed to write his thesis. He had no idea how to word it. He wrote out an introduction, but scratched it. He wrote a new one, he scratched it again. He was struggling to write."