My Wattpad Rants

The Number One No-no

Okay, so lemme just say this; Fan-fiction. 

What'd you think of? Cool books that have extra characters interacting with real ones? Or ones that don't follow the plot at all?

If you write fan-fiction, you have to know the basis of the original story's plot. Seriously. You can't just change everything to where it feels more like an original story than a fan-fic. As a writer of a few )too many) fan-fictions myself, let me say this: it's okay if your original characters-or as most people call them, OC's-aren't woven into the original franchise's plot. However in some books, like Harry Potter, that's kind of a must. On TV shows like Criminal Minds, not so much. It really depends on how open-ended the franchise is. 

However, there's a little side note that goes with this. You can make your own plot, but you cannot make the already-existing characters you own characters. If you change them so drastically that they don't even come close to canon, you've done something wrong. Unless it's a crack-fic. Crack-fics are excused and politely asked to stay far away from me because like what the fuck is going on with those.

Perfect Example: My Immortal. 

(Now before I get started with this, let me just add a quick disclaimer. I understand that it's widely accepted that this was written as a joke, and therefore could be counted as a crack-fic or a parody. But as the author herself has not specifically stated this, we're going to look at it like it was written seriously.) 

This is probably the most famous Harry Potter fan-fiction ever. Why? Because it's notoriously badly written. The grammar's awful, the spelling's worse, and she made everybody goth. 

Goth. 

Or no, wait, excuse my mistake. They weren't goth. They were, as the author puts it, 'goffic." The characters were either die-hard emos or straight up vampires, they had Good Charlotte concerts in Hogsmead, and Dumbledore cursed out students because he had a headache. Yikes. If he just screamed "fuck" because of a migraine, imagine how sixth year must've gone with that hand thing. 

(Erm, spoiler alert.) 

Keep in mind the is a Harry Potter fan-fiction. With muggle bands playing in the largest all wizard settlement in Britain. Which honestly the inclusion of Good Charlotte pissed me off more than anything, it was insult to my name and to the band's music. Good Charlotte is the bomb. But yeah, the entire fan-fiction was just a non-canon mess. Has anyone notified JKR about it's existence? If not, don't.

No but seriously, if you're going to write fan-fiction, be familiar with everything before you begin to write. Don't be an Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. 

Yes. That is her name.

Question: Have you ever read My Immortal? If so, was it parody or no? If not, I highly recommend watching a dramatic reading of it on YouTube, I might link to one in the comments. As always vote if you liked this chapter and thanks for reading!!