How to Write Fanfiction

Reader's Engagement

How to grab readers' attention
by SebastardMorgenstern

You have a fandom with which you are obsessed, you have a great idea, and you have a burning desire to share your story with your fellow nerds... but what you don't have are the reads, votes, and traffic that you had always dreamed of.  If this is you and you are ready to do what needs to be done to improve, you're in the right place.

Before you begin:

Great fanfiction is great for many reasons, but I'm going to focus on the ones that have worked best for me.  As a general disclaimer, my specialty is universe extension, so you won't find much for A.U., alternate perspective, or gender-bending storylines here.  I am a purist at heart who strives to create a canonical experience for my readers, and as such, I adhere closely to the established lore of my fandom.

While conceptualizing your plot and characters, you should handle the planning phase as you would a high school essay (ugh, I know, but it's actually fun with fanfiction).  If you don't already have an idea for your plot and want to extend the universe, comb through the source material of your fandom and search for unresolved arcs, characters that felt under-developed, or project future events based on where the books left off.  Once you find the story you want to tell (your 'thesis'), keep re-reading and zeroing in on quotes, facts, and lore that support your vision.  Take notes on which existing characters will help your plot, and begin deciding on which types of characters you will need to fill the gaps.  Every bit of "real" (from the source material) supporting evidence that you can tie to your fanfiction will only enhance its strength and realism.

This planning phase is critical to the immersion experience that you will create for your readers.  When you already know which punches you're going to throw in chapter 15, you can begin threading in the hints and foreshadowing in chapter 3.  Your readers will appreciate having the rug pulled out from under them so much more when they realize they should have seen it coming.  When they see how much forethought you have put into your plot, they will be much more inclined to not only continuing reading and voting, but to tell their friends and followers about this awesome story that is blowing their mind.

Getting started:

You'll need to decide on which level of difficulty you want to play as an author.  If you are writing for fun, you can just use your own voice to tell your amazing, intricate story filled with twists and turns.

If you want to try hard-mode, keep re-reading your source material and begin absorbing the author's voice.  Analyze their rhythms, their sentence structure, the type of descriptions they use, and, most importantly, learn how to "speak" as their characters.  One of the biggest flaws I find in fanfiction is when two or three characters of varying ages and differing genders are having a discussion, and they all sound like a 15-year-old female.  Study the level of language characters use (Are they more educated?  Are they foreign?  Do they have catch-phrases that you can borrow?), and stay conscious of how they would interact with others.  I have received genuine PMs asking if I was the author writing under a pseudonym because I pay attention to detail and work to create that type of realistic replication of tone and voice.  It pays off in the end.

First impressions:

This is huge - no, HUGE.  In the broader world, there's a great concept called "The 60-second Sell".  The understanding is that if you can't catch a buyer's interest in the first 60 seconds of your pitch, you're going to lose them.  I personally believe that it's much harsher for fanfiction authors because there's a wealth of available product out there, but the readers can be exceedingly discerning with their time.  Let's cut it down to a 10-second sell: your description.