Reader's Guide to Writing Fanfiction

lyrics

allllllright folks

How many times have you read a story where the character sings and the lyrics take up tHE WHOLE FRICKING CHAPTER?

well, I wouldn't know how many you've read, but i have read too many for my sore eyes to comprehend.

do you know

The pain
The torture
The utter disappointment
when you are given another chapter but all the words are lyrics?

1: It's cliché (although sometimes fitting to add songs don't take me wrong)

2: it's boring (like at least smooth it out or take out the spaces between verses puh-lease!!)

3: and let's not forget, embarrassing

now I don't know about you, but I get hit with second-hand embarrassment a lot when reading Fanfiction or watching movies

singing is an intimate experience that can get so awkward in so many ways and unfortunately, many, manyyyyyy writers do not know how to avoid that when it comes to singing.

On the bright side, it's 2017 and people have improved :))

so, a simple reminder:

If your character is singing, listening, or dancing to a song in the story- please condense the lyrics to fit in a couple lines for example:

I danced to my favorite song that came on the radio! "Shake it off! Shake it off! Haters gonna hate but I'm just gonna shake..."

OR

Leave an authors note explaining what song it is, a link to it, or just not write the lyrics at all

u get my point

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Further explanation cause I'm a butt;
(Somehow I managed to write this whole chapter and forgot to mention that yes, lyrics can be really cool and tolerable to read if they are meaningful to the story.

If it is just a character in the story singing and having fun (in which the lyrics do not have any impact at all to the storyline) lyrics can be best not mentioned)

Also when would have I ever thought that I would write over 300 words dedicated to not writing lyrics wtf