What defines a good Fan-story?

[speedhog58]

The Sonic franchise has inspired a great deal of fans to partake in the literary practice of the fanbase; which is basically a really bloated, overcomplicated and completely unnecessary way of saying  -They write Fanfiction- 

 

Now, many (and I mean MANY) results of this hobby have ranged from frown-inducing to downright DISTURBING (which in all honesty; should make you question why you read that far into it) and over the years; has provided a plentiful amount of ammunition for those who consistently mock the brand and fanbase...*COUGH*~ign...

 

But it's not difficult to come across Fanfics that are not only good, but draw you in just as much-if not-MORE than the stories of some of the recent games themselves! Not that that's much of a miracle, but it still begs the question...

 

-WHAT MAKES A SONIC FANFICTION "GOOD"?-

 

I know that there are a few unanimous reasons such as grammar, punctuation and other no-brainers, but I want to hear what appeals to you individually.

What key aspects make you want to carry on reading into a Fanfiction rather than closing the page all together?

 

Is it the way characters are handled?

The overall concept?

The acknowledgement or creation of background lore?

 

I'm very interested to hear people's opinions on this matter.

 

 

 

[Speeps]

Managing the characters and knowing how they act is really important in any fanfiction. I've seen way too much fanfiction out there that just paints 2D personalities onto Sonic and friends because that's all the author knows about them. Sonic isn't just WAY PAST COOL BRO, Tails isn't just that smart kid, Knuckles isn't just Way to go, Knucklehead and Amy isn't just SONIC X3!!!. If you're going to write Fanfiction you should at least learn what makes each everyone who they are and do your research into their behaviour. While light-hearted things like Sonic Heroes can afford to do this sometimes, don't go overboard with it because it may up bringing down the quality of the story as a whole. I feel that's why a lot of people don't like how Sonic and Tails act in Lost World.

There's also the matter of what people are actually writing as Fanfiction. You'll notice if you go to Fanfiction.net's Sonic section these days that you're seeing things like "Shadow is a Ninja who has his life stripped away by the rival Sonic Clan. Can he get revenge?". Yes, more often than not these stories are shoddily written but the main point I want to make here is that if you remove the names from a lot of these pieces of fanfiction there's pretty much no resemblance to the source material at all. Stories like this that are just slapping Sonic's name on the cover are a lot of the time no different to thinking "What if me and my friends were Sonic characters?". As horrible as the stories themselves tend to turn out, they're much more better off being presented as original works than Fanfiction. This stuff really pollutes the contents of a lot of Fanfiction websites I've seen and it's turning me away.

This is more personal taste for me but another thing I want to mention is the shipping. Oh god, the shipping. A good chunk of the stories on Fanfiction.net involve either Sonamy or Shadamy and it's really bad. I get that there's shipping in a lot of fandoms, but personally I consider both Sonamy and Shadamy to be almost as bad as the South Park pairings (Outside Boom anyway) and don't like reading them at all, so it's very annoying when these things flood the pages. (Seriously, look at how much the fic counter on Fanfiction.net drops when you do a search that excludes fics involving Amy or Romance.) I get that these pairings are the most popular, but tying into the points I made earlier they're pretty much almost never written any good from what I've seen, everyone is completely out of character for a lot of the story and most of the time it's not even set in Sonic's world, it's set in a High School or something. If you're going to include a ship, make sure it's a believable one, but if it's not believable you could still get away with it if you can write well enough,

Oh yeah, there's also the OCs. I can get that some people create characters in order to build their story's world more like Ian's doing in the comics for instance, but it's annoying when reading about a mary-sue character who takes on the chris thorndyke role for their favourite character. I know that this is just pretty much wish fulfillment to the author, but personally I just don't see anything about a self-insert fic that sells to me as a member of the audience. I don't have a clue who the author is nor do I hold the same attachment to them as I do the main characters of the series, so why bother reading it? There's also originality when it comes to designing the characters. If you're writing an OC, don't just opt for Cinos the Hedgehog. Ideally, take a page from the comics and find something that hasn't been used for a character already, such as a Lion or something.

I would absolutely kill for a solidly written Sonic Fanfiction. I'd love to read a fan-made Sonic story that writes the characters well enough and has a strong plot to go with but the truth is I just haven't come across that many and it's really saddening to see. Fanfiction gets a bad name for all the trash you see lying on the ground but it's just as possible to make Fanfiction into a truly amazing experience for everyone. I really just want to be able to read a Sonic Fanfic that isn't something you'd expect out of Ken Penders.

[Jhreamer]

I like where this is going. I love these conversations.

I think any good story is one that knows what it is and is true to that. If you want to make a Sonic story in the style of a 30s noir, that choice alone does not determine the quality of the work, though many fans would likely gripe. If that 30s noir style is done thoughtfully and masterfully, blending the world of Sonic with all the best aspects of that tone, then it's probably a good story. It tends to come down to the preciseness and flexibility of the author; how willing they are to reach WAY deep into every bit of subtext between the words they're putting down, analyze it from many angles, and question it. This chips away at their goals as if they were building a statue. When an artist has aligned their craft with their soul and devoted 100% of their intellectual focus into it at any time, it shows. Even DBZ, which was basically done entirely on whim, is hailed as a beloved story. It's not just the story at face value that counts -- what unique things are being offered? How does it challenge the audience's conceptions? How many hot chicks are in it?

From there, it comes down to the audience's preferences in writing style, theme, event portrayal, dialogue, and depiction of characters. Any piece that is considered an absolute, unassailable masterpiece by one person might be berated as the worst scum on Earth by another. All it would take is one guy or girl who simply detests 30s noir films. I hope that society learns to open their minds and at least consider these things at an analytical level. Endeavor to understand the decisions behind the story and what every collection of words means in the big picture. Art contains the artist's soul, in however large a degree. Nothing is pointless. 

I bet I'm missing a tons of my own thoughts that I'll add in many future comments. Basically, follow your heart, and INVEST yourself in your world, QUESTION EVERYTHING YOU DO, and there's a good chance that what comes out will make sense.

Another thing. One of the best things to do as an artist, I believe; ESPECIALLY a writer, is to conference with anyone you can find and have them question your work. You will be presented with so many things you never thought about. Opportunities you missed. Points of view you were blind to. Most importantly -- an opening of your mind. You will learn. Your understanding of the world will broaden. Your storytelling will improve.

I credit @Singapore Sling with half of the new developments in my world in the last month. We've talked a lot, our styles are VASTLY different, and I've improved immensely as a result. Not just as a writer and artist, but in my social intelligence.

[shdowhunt60]

I think there's a lot of technicalities to what makes a good fanfiction, but I think that a lot of it boils down to personal preference. The first thing I like to look at at first is the concept. Do I think this story is a potentially good idea? If the story is yaoi, or somesuch, then I'm just going to automatically ignore it outright. I have to admit, part of the reason why stories like Ghosts of the Future just don't sit with me is because of this. I don't like arbitrarily killing off characters and contriving scenarios, just to get a group of complete unrelated characters together. It's wish-fulfilly in the worst possible way, I can't stand the concept of the "Hedgehog Trio" because it requires killing off or flat out ignoring the existence of character I care about.

Then I start looking at the presentation. A lot of this is more of a feel thing, but I like to look at the basics. Are chapters too short or too long? Is most of everything spelled correctly, and is the grammar generally clean? Is the author even putting effort into this in the first place, or are they just slapping everything together in the better part of the night and throwing the end result online? I can tell you right now, that if %50 of what gets posted online turns me away because I don't like the idea behind it, then another %45 turns me away because the writer only has 500 words per chapter. And yeah, I don't do script format for those same reasons. Put some effort into your story; show me you care.

Lastly, show me you really understand whatever it is you're writing by giving me some character. This is the big one in the end. I like characters in my stories. I want the stories to be about them. I want to get to know them. I want to see them learn. I want them to grow. I want to see them interact and have relationships (NOT shipping please). It's best to do this with established characters, because they're the reason why I even read fanfiction in the first place.

If you want a good template for what I consider good story writing, I invite you to look at my favorites. I like to think that I'm fairly versatile given that I have pretty high standards. I'm sure that there's something there that's worth reading to someone. Well, unless you're more interested in having characters buggering, then you're out of luck.

[Zaysho]

This looks like it got put in the wrong section (Market Place) somehow, so I'm moving this over to the Green Hill forum. Don't mind me!

[StaticMania]

What defines a "good" fan story is the same thing that defines a "good" story of a series not written by the original writers.

 

Keeping characters In character, making sure to stay true to the series tone of story telling, and if there's any visuals involved, you stick close to the original style and/or design choices.

 

There's freedom to stray of course, I mean you don't have to do any of the above at all to make a "good" story besides Staying in Character. Then again, you don't even have to do that, I guess. Though to not let things go wild...ridiculous, placing restrictions on yourself is actually a good thing.

[MetalSkulkBane]

The simplest answer: Just make it good. There is no single recipe for good fanfic and what many people can do badly, some can do greatly.
 But to give some advises that 90% times are true.

1 If I'm reading a Sonic fan fic, it's because I want to read about Sonic (or his friends), not your OC.

2 But iit doesn't mean that you can't put anything new (in fact you probably should do it. Sonic games wouldn't move forward if we stick to the same characters for ever). But first you must earn my interest. Write few fics (or at least chapters), with only canon characters, then add your own lore.

3 Fanfics have only one advantage over cannon material: There are no boundaries what can happen. Characters can have arcs, status quo can change, people can die. Use it wisely.

4 One of my favorite Sonic fan fic writers if Frozen Nitrogen https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1592337/Frozen-Nitrogen. He basically writes events from the games, but with added depth to them. This is pretty good way to write fanfics. (I would recommend checking "Prisoner" first. It's one of better and shorter of his works.)

5 Orthography! I won't even bother if text is hard to read, with bunch of typos or without breaking text into paragraphs.

6 I would suggest starting small. A stand alone short story first, something accomplish-able and readable in reasonable time. Starting with Tolkien-size epic is good way to not finish your first work and get discouraged quickly.

7 Finally, it's important to have a good descriptions. I'm a noob writer myself (foreign to make matters worse) and I really struggle with making my description come to live. "Metal shoot laser from his chest, but Sonic easily avoided it" gives message across, but isn't really engaging. You must add sound it makes, the smell, feeling of heat. The more senses the better.

[Haalyle]

1. Staying close to the source material. Characters, setting even the plot. I tend to right mine within the Sonic universe, not too sure where (kind of make a mix of Main and Boom settings sometimes.) And keeping the characters in-character is really, really important to me. If I feel like a character is not acting like themselves, I tend to lose interest pretty fast and back out of the story.

2. This is pretty much for everything though, good grammar, good spelling and at least 1,000 words a chapter. My recent goal last year was to make each of my chapters around 1,500 words, which I'm now aiming for 2,000 (which I am managing to achieve.) I don't really like stories that only have like a 100 words a chapter. But this is pretty general... I just happen to see it a lot in Sonic fan-fictions.

Now a few things I don't like to read in Sonic stories.

OCs/FCs, out-of-characters (obviously) and a heap of other things I won't right here for sake of sanity.

To me, I let the characters write the story. Now, I don't really know if they're bad or good (I do, however, get pretty good responses from them, so I take it they're pretty good), but most of the stories I've read and authors I've talked to often say how characters tend to control the story.

[Singapore Sling]

Let's face the facts. Anyone who tells you there are things that should not be done in a fanfic because it's tacky or bad to do is full of complete shit. If writing self inserts was forbidden, we wouldn't have The Divine Comedy; you could make the argument that we'd never have Larry David's version of Jerry Seinfeld. . If you weren't allowed to create your own characters in adaptations of properties, Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti would never have gotten to create Kaldur'ahm, or Bruce Timm and Paul Dini would never have gotten to create Harley Quinn, incredibly popular characters in their respective mythologies who're now "canon" (and please, take count of the number of people who hate fanfic OCs but love Harley Quinn and don't catch the irony. I'll wait forever, because you'll never be able to count them all). Shipping is bad, huh? Because without that concept, we'd never have Bryan Fuller's Hannibal, which bases its entire narrative arc around the homoeroticism he perceives in Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, an interpretation that got us perhaps the single greatest horror series since The Twilight Zone. If you look at all the fanfic cliches you're "not supposed to do", you'd find a lot of poor works that use those cliches...but you'd also find a cornucopia of great, tenured, and influential pieces of literature, television, film, and sequential storytelling that use these EXACT SAME THINGS.

So if you see someone trying to warn you against the dangers of fanfic and you see them use terminology like "OOC", "canon", "headcanon", "shipping", "self insert", or whatever number of fandom-era howdy do, disregard that person's opinion immediately. They have no value to you. They're condescending you by assuming what you want to do will automatically be as bad as the fanfic they don't like. But you're better than that. You're you. Want to write yourself as Sanic's bestest pal ever and use the Sonic universe to explore some of your personal neuroses as bluntforce trauma as possible? There're a number of great writers you can draw and learn from in any era of history. Want to do an epic romance between Vector the Crocodile and Omochao? Plenty of adaptations will teach you exactly what you need to get an idea of what elements are the right ones to adapt, tweak, focus on, etc. Whatever story you want to tell is your story to tell; you are not wrong.

That doesn't mean your work will be flawless or you shouldn't take criticism into consideration, but take criticism in the context required. If your story doesn't really sweat the details of the wider world, criticism from an acne-laden turbonerd obsessed with the consistency and origin of the Chaos Emeralds will mean nothing to you. If you want to turn planet Mobius into the next Middle Earth and create an elaborate mythology, the tastes of an abstract minded, thematically oriented hipster like me will mean dogshit to your craft. Learn to figure out which criticism will actually help you accomplish your goal and figure out which criticism just comes from someone whose tastes are incompatible with your style, which you really can't and shouldn't try to fix.

But there're going to be a million different answers to what makes a good fanstory and the two hard facts about these answers are

1. They will all be really fucking stupid.

2. They won't really be wrong, either, because taste is subjective, no matter how objective they pretend it is.

The best way to make a good fanstory is to make it YOUR fanstory. Even if you're not the best, I've known people who've had nuanced, personal, and touching reasons for loving Twilight. Doesn't affecting someone or speaking to them personally matter just a little more than being some flawless craftsman who remembered irrelevant facts about keeping Shadow the Hedgehog's bathroom habits consistent? Just because you aren't the greatest doesn't mean you won't be someone's favorite and who knows, they might even get to see you grow and figure yourself out, enhancing the experience for them even more.

A good fan-story is YOUR fan-story. Even if I don't like it.

[Green Eyes]

Same with anything from the original creator, or any fiction really.

I find a lot of fictional text hard to follow. Description is definitely important, it helps give context to the environment and whats going on, but I rarely find that with fiction anyway. I actually more often enjoy younger childrens books because they're easier for me to understand, pictures help too.

Also apparently adults are supposed to be edgelords.

Characterisation is really important to me, if they aren't a believable observation of the character then no-dice. What I mean by that is I think I'm somewhat flexible with what's "in-character",since characterisation in Sonic games is somewhat inconsistent anyway, but most fan portrayals destroy my sense of disbelief nonetheless.

I've highly enjoyed quite a few "oneshots",partly because I think they share some things in common with the aforementioned childrens books; they often describe a single concept,a single emotion, a short duration in time,sometimes even a single character, and do so with great care, unhurried to get to the next scene but simultaneously not piling on overly-explanative clutter.

I think also partly because they're easier to write, I mean I can imagine a single scenario but can't write a full-blown story, exactly

The only long fanfiction I've really gotten into is DC111's Survivors Resolve, even then I've kind of found myself asking "wait where is this taking place" "where am I again?" quite a lot. Quite a lot of context got lost, either I didn't follow the train of thought properly or it wasn't made clear.

 

 

 

[Singapore Sling]

18 hours ago, Green Eyes said:

Also apparently adults are supposed to be edgelords.

What do you mean by this, exactly?

[Green Eyes]

It's a tongue-in cheek observation that fiction aimed at adults has an annoying tendency to be "edgy", ie, characterised by violence, sex or has a certain "grittiness" to it that I find unrelatable.

[Jhreamer]

3 hours ago, Green Eyes said:

It's a tongue-in cheek observation that fiction aimed at adults has an annoying tendency to be "edgy", ie, characterised by violence, sex or has a certain "grittiness" to it that I find unrelatable.

Life has all of those things in extremely great quantity. To leave them out of a story would significantly miss the mark in representing life, if that's the intent of the story. Barring worldbuilding or theme-based exceptions, I would find a serious story aimed at adults that didn't contain those elements to be unrelatable. They're natural parts of our world.

I feel that you actually have a distaste for the manner in which these traits are written. Many are done perhaps too dramatically, or with too much emphasis on those specific areas. Or simply with an incompetence in understanding the psyche and creating a satisfying narrative. There are SO MANY bad stories that have completely turned people off to ever wanting to look at similar fiction again. But if you're patient enough, you may run into a few that change your life because they're so relatable.

[ShadowSJG]

Personally for me, its keeping the characters in character. Make them act how they would act in the canon series. 

[Mania Pipe]

I guess for me, I would be looking up info on the characters and their personality and try to see if there's anything that can be developed or add upon without taking away from the core aspect of the character and keeping them consistent while maintaining a strong plot, narrative or story to work off with. Also, keeping consistent with the tone is also a big plus for me when I'm writing, like trying to manage a light-hearted adventure with action and a sense of fun that handles serious themes or dramatic moments when a situation calls for it, along with the tongue-and-cheek humor that the series is known for. Or at least that's how I would think if I were writing a Sonic fanfiction story.