A guide for the Fallout fandom on how to keep your fanfics lore-friendly and consistent with the games. Also includes general writing advice specifically targeted at this fandom.
Basically how to make your fanfiction even better - and more realistic...
This time, I want to begin with a comment I received under my Fallout 4 novelization.
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This thing really touched me, to be honest. The air can be radioactive too... I don't know why, but it seems like such a small thing. But when you think about it, when you really think about it, there's whole worlds hidden in that sentence. The air can be radioactive too. How does the world look? I don't know, the only piece of information I have is that the air is radioactive, but now that I have this information, my imagination is starting to wander. If even the air is irradiated, how bad is everything else? The world must be in a terrible state. Already, in my mind's eye, I see overgrown streets and half-collapsed cities... This simple sentence caused me to have an outlook on the world in the story.
And that's the lesson for today. If you want to really capture the setting, you'll do it in those smallest of details. Not through epic descriptions, but small remarks like the fact that the air was radioactive.
Small things. Unimportant things. Things you don't really take notice of. Things that will touch you when you notice them.
"Baseball was a true national pastime. Someone needs to revive this sport," Paladin Danse says. Something's missing. Baseball doesn't exist anymore. Small thing, but it speaks volumes. "I'd tell you a joke about pizza, but it's too cheesy. Huh. I don't get it," Ellie notices. She doesn't even know what pizza is. You don't have to say it aloud, just state bluntly enough for the reader to get. If you don't say it outwardly, it'll speak louder.
The devil is in the details. My English teacher would say "clichés, avoid them like the plague." But this one, I think, is the gist of capturing a good setting. The devil is in the details.
No, don't say "there were no green trees anymore - all of them were almost leafless and dying. The air felt heavy and sick and the sky was grey." That's important, sure, but it'll speak more if you say that "a ray of sunshine made its way through the heavy cloud cover, the only source of color in the greyness of the Wasteland." In this way, the description is dynamic and you mention the greyness of the Wasteland - through contrast, even! Contrast is great. Contrasts always make a finer point than just regular descriptions.
I'm aware you don't know this, but it's literally 2 AM here, so forgive me if I can't think of any good way to finish this chapter off. Let's just pretend I very nicely wrapped it all up and said goodbye.
