Happy Nerds

          In many fanfictions, we see the first half of a piece be well-thought-out. You can see the care and time an author put into one story and one plot point. However, you can also see the difference between a well-thought-out first half, and a poorly executed second half. It always looks like the author had a clear vision of the first half of the story, but once they got there they didn’t know where to go. As such, the fanfic putters out in the second half and falls to the wayside. Even if you have to follow the traditional 3-arc storyboard, do it. Everyone hates on outlines when they’re literally the most helpful thing in the world. Even if you change the inside or fix the details, having an outline lets you keep your whole life together. Attached to this chapter is one of my own 3-act outlines. It is for a story that has not been written, and an idea that I had that I didn’t want to forget. Because of this outline, I have more to reference than a few half-baked scenes. I can leave this story alone for the next 2 weeks or the next 2 years, and still, come back and figure out exactly where I was and where I wanted to go.

There are many modern examples of writers who thought about their endings first, and writers who didn’t. The difference is dramatic, and when you write the ending themes and motifs can easily reveal themselves. For example, you can’t foreshadow if you don’t know where you’re going. If your ending is done, you can start dropping hints in a way that makes sense and contributes to a plot and leads your readers down a rabbit hole to a grand conclusion. Game of Thrones is a great example of a TV show that did not write their ending first. As such, their grand twists and turns and revelations felt rushed and cheap because we never got to see the descent into madness that was meant to portray the turn of the tides. Had they written their ending earlier, they could have started that arc when Khal Drogo died and called his death the straw that broke the camel’s back. On the flipside, Percy Jackson and the Olympians had the final book ready by the end of the first. Rick Riordan was able to add all these twists and turns and tribulations in Percy’s story that led to Luke being the child of the prophecy. That led to Hestia being the last olympian. That led to Rachel Dare being the new oracle. By being sure of the final destination the road to get there was much more meaningful. It had a greater purpose.

          Now. This is not to say that your ending can’t change. The first ending you write for a story absolutely can change, and it doesn’t have to be the only ending you stick with. The goal of writing it down as quickly as possible is just to make the process of creating the story better for you as a writer. For some stories, the ending is easier than others. If you are writing a romance story the traditional ending is the OC marrying the love interest, settling down, and having 2.5 kids because that’s the goal for most romance stories- a quiet end with contentment and joy. However, if you’re writing romance as the subplot (as you should be) then you need a better ending than that. If you have a romance subplot but the actual main plot of the story is about a group of thieves, maybe the story ends in Las Vegas with a big bank heist. By writing down that heist first you know that your characters have to prepare themselves for that final fight and that ending story. If you look at games like Persona 5, the first thing you do in that game is to fight the final boss, then you’re captured by police and have to work as a character from the very beginning up to that fight. You know what is expected of you, and you can grind your stats accordingly.

          The last thing we can offer you as advice, and I suppose as commentary, is that we see a lot of authors add filler chapters of fluff because they’re insecure about the length of their work. They’re worried that if the fanfic is shorter and more plot-driven that it’s bad because many popular works have 300-some pages. The idea that something is bad if it’s shorter is absolutely not true. It is completely okay to cut fanfic short. God, I WISH someone had told me that when I was writing Psycho-Pass fanfic because it would have saved me so much time and so many conversations of “Maybe we add a fluff chapter here to pad the length.” If it doesn’t matter to you as the writer, it’s not going to matter to the reader. You the author are the first critic and the first reader. If you don’t care, no one else will. Emotional execution and driving the plot and creating moments in writing where you feel something is one of the ways where you know you can call yourself a good writer. If you can get people to feel exactly what you want them to at any given time, you can call yourself a good writer. But that takes work. Some emotions are handed to you. Some take time. I had the opportunity to sit down with an author and talk to him about this and he told me: I got humor for free. I could always make people laugh with my writing. But making people think, making people sad… those are things I had to work for. We as readers crave stories like that. We want stories that make us feel or think or question, but as a writer, there is a learning curve. Other people will tell you you’re a good writer long before you start to believe it, but once you can get that kind of control over your craft, you’ll believe it too.

          So now, this is our ending. If you want to be a writer, there are a few things you need. You need ego, and not jerky ‘I’m the best’ ego, you need to be able to be talked about in a negative way. You need to believe that you can write and get better at it because there are always moments of doubt, and believing in yourself actually matters because once Imposter-Syndrome, that feeling that someone will come along and say “we found out you can’t actually do this so it’s time to give it up.” Once that’s there it never goes away. You have to believe in yourself. You need to engage in self-criticism without collapsing entirely. You should be able to look at your stuff and be strong enough as a person to see that what you’ve created is not a reflection of who you are as a person. While you need an ego to write without fear, you need humility to know that no matter how much you write you can always learn more. Since the Editor and I started picking our works back up again, I’ve tried to do something different that I haven’t done in each piece. Whether it’s whimsical and romantic and sad or hard-hitting and collaborative. If you think that you’ve hit the limit on what you can master you limit your own ability for growth. So, you need an ego to write, humility to learn, and you need a mirror of imposter syndrome, which is that someone who doesn’t know anything about writing can still say something useful. Sometimes the Editor has no clue what I’m writing about. She doesn’t know the fandom or the genre, but she wants our works to be good, and even when she doesn't know what the fanfiction is about her advice is no less invaluable.

          We started the Fanfiction 101/102 courses because we saw an increase in errors and misfires in fanfiction writing. Instead of staying annoyed, we wanted to be the change we saw in the world and wanted to share with others what we have seen fail and triumph. What we have loved and what’s overdone. If you’ve made it through both 101 and 102 I hope you’ve taken away something worthwhile, and something that has improved your writing. Thank you for spending time with us.

          While this is our final chapter, we probably will have an epilogue with a second round of our favorite fanfics. That’ll be posted sometime next week because the Editor has 50,000 fanfics to sort through and apparently asking her to pick favorites is like asking her to pick a favorite child. For now, this is the end. If you ever want a critic or notes or anything of the sort, feel free to reach out. We’re always around.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl.

Where in the English countryside are they from? Are they farmers? If so, what crops were common or popular to grow back in the 1960s?

Are they in a town or are they in the middle of no and where? What is that town’s history like? What were they like back in the 1960s?

What music was popular back then? This character is muggle-born so they’re not going to be listening to the Weird Sisters. What would a country muggle listen to in the 1960s?

What’s their name? What names were popular the year they were born? (See Fanfiction 101 Unit 4: Nameberry.com)

What food was popular? What would they be seen eating at the dinner table? What would their comfort food be once they’ve gone to Hogwarts?

How many siblings do they have? Was it common for people to have multiple siblings?

What slang or tics in their speech can you use to convince a reader they are where they say they’re from?

What would their daily life be like? Is it filled with chores and jurisdictions or do they have time to play? Is this character more likely to be an explorer or do they like to stay home and knit?

Do they play an instrument? Do they have time to practice that instrument?

          This is an incomplete list, but being able to contextualize things like this for the era your OC is growing up in will make a more realistic and believable character. You’ll also feel more secure in your character when it’s been born and bred in the historical and cultural accuracy of time. It’ll help you get into the mind of that character and treat them more like a person, not just an extension of yourself. That’s something I struggled with for a long time, and now I’m able to have conversations with the Editor saying “Well Emily grew up in Georgia on the pageant circuit. She would want to please people and try and keep everyone happy, so we know that her leaving is her breaking point.” Asking questions of your OC is natural, and we want you to start contextualizing their answers by the time they grew up in. Another big thing in research is speech. If you’re American and writing a character who is Canadian or Australian or British, they’ll have different speech patterns and slang and ways of talking than you. Make sure you know what those speech patterns are and that you can replicate them to create voices that are distinct. Also, a personal note: the word ‘sassy’ or ‘sass’ is on par with ‘moist’ for me. I know lots of Tumblr posts and comments will use it to describe characters, but it’s very cringe and I’ve yet to find a group that unironically uses it in everyday speech. I think that’s a hint that we need to stop using it. (@ Persassy prompts)

          Another important thing to research are experiences that are not your own. We discussed in the Diversity chapter that it is possible to write characters that are not your race, sexuality, or ability, you just have to be careful. Do not romanticize anxiety, depression, or self-harm because none of those things are tragically beautiful or worthy of romanticism. Do not romanticize eating disorders or bipolar or OCD, so on and so forth. If you are writing about mental or physical disorders, you need to do more than look up what the symptoms are. That only tells you the basic run-down, and if you’re writing a story what really matters is how the character is affected by this illness. How does OCD or anxiety or bulimia take form and how does it influence the character. That is different from the run-down of symptoms. You need to know what cystic fibrosis is yes, but you also need to know how it affects a person in their daily life so you can portray it in a way that isn’t obnoxious to someone who actually has that illness and can make someone who is reading your story believe that the character actually suffers with it. The age of the internet is great for this, and there are many YouTube videos that can tell you about individual people and their stories. Forums like Yahoo answers or Reddit have been resources I've used in the past when I needed a specific understanding on cancer or car accident patients. Some media like the Go Ask Alice series are great for things like drug abuse or eating disorders. Of course, we need you to take a critical lens before deciding what source you’ll use to base your characters on. I’ve found that shows like Bojack Horseman are incredibly accurate depictions of those with anxiety and depression. Shows like 13 Reasons Why? Probably not. If you want to write about serial killers the I Hunt Killers trilogy is something I’m currently using as a resource for my own works. You need to build your own judgment to determine what is accurate and what isn’t. You know that shows like NCIS are incredibly inaccurate and do not depict what actually happens in a police station. However, The Wire got the praise it did because it is almost 100% accurate for how actual wires work. Consume media and build your repertoire so you can look and say “This is good. This is bad. That’s not how that’d work.”

          Our final note is that you need to see what is out there. You should read other people’s fanfiction in the same genre as what you want to publish. So if you’re writing Captain America romance fanfic, you should read a healthy amount of Captain America romance fanfic. If you’re writing Marauders era fanfiction read Marauders era fanfiction. It will help you see what has been done, whether that’s something that’s been done too many times or not enough and you can adjust your own work to fill a proper niche. In addition, one of the hardest things that we’ve discussed in Fanfiction 101 was being able to accurately capture a character’s voice beyond reducing them to a few key identifiers. Reading fanfic in the same genre will let you see how other writers have captured those voices and will give you a better frame of mind as to how you should interpret them too.

          Angst and angst-fics are so popular because they are pure character development. They are a character coming to terms with themselves and getting past an event that continuously haunts and guilts them. It’s all character development, and we as an audience like to see that kind of journey. There’s nothing wrong with angst fics, and light angst in your own stories is good because it shows not only development for the character but more realistic consequences for a character’s actions. We’ve talked about realism before, and fanfics that aren’t rooted in reality will let horrors, trauma, and death roll off the back of their OC like it’s a Tuesday at Wendy’s. Life isn’t like that, and angst fics lean heavily into the recovery and grieving of loss. It’s what makes them compelling because we see how damaged a person can become, and how strong they are to heal themselves.

          Fluff tropes or whump prompts work especially well if the character has been penned as someone who doesn’t trust others or struggles with being vulnerable. Seeing two people dance drunk in their kitchen, sick prompts, and scenes where one character has to be vulnerable works when that character isn’t comfortable there. It creates inner conflict with the character having to trust other people, and having to rely on others. It creates an exterior conflict where the character is incapacitated or becoming open with others. These fluff prompts can work when they’re placed later in the story. They can appear more organically if they’re used as a tool for character development and not an AU in a piece that is already fanfiction.

          The Editor is a big fan of opposites attract. We’ll also combine this with enemies to friends to lovers prompts, which are popular for a reason. They are filled with character development. Being able to look past your hatred and find the beauty in someone you previously despised is a major representative of growth. It shows us how a character can mature and learn to let go of the past and be open to the future. Brooklyn 99’s Jake and Amy is a great example of friends to lovers, but beyond romantic interest, this works for companionship and friends as well. Look at Zuko and Aang’s relationship in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The growth and maturity from these two characters were monumental; it showed the ability to forgive and to be kind and to take the traumas of your past and not let them define you. Zuko is a fantastic example of character growth, and his entire arc can speak for the development that comes from being an enemy to a friend.

          The Editor also likes slow burns. I do too, primarily for the realism they present. To quote Frozen, “You can’t marry a guy you just met!” Love takes time and effort and work. It takes so long for feelings to fester and grow and blossom into something more, that stories, where two characters fall in love in a matter of days, seem unrealistic. Not only that but in the real-world relationships like this are unhealthy and create characters that are co-dependent. Slow burns don’t have to go from hatred to love either. It can just start at indifference. If you look at Percy Jackson, Percy and Annabeth didn’t even kiss until the end of the Last Olympian. They had a friendship for 4 years before that, and in that time were able to figure themselves out before figuring out a relationship. That really represents the pinnacle of slow burns: we don’t want a character’s entire story or history to be tied to some other person. Slow burn fanfic lets the character blossom as a healthy individual and figure out who they want to be, before merging their ideals and their life with someone else. It’s realistic, and the time it takes for two characters to come together only lets your heart grow fonder. Your audience will feel more emotionally connected to these characters because they will have seen them go through so many personal struggles. There’s nothing wrong with taking your time. We want to see it.

          I am a slut for hospital prompts. The hurt/injury cliches, where the character collapses and ends up in the hospital for an extended period of time. It’s sometimes not realistic but that’s some good shit right there. What can make these prompts especially juicy, is if the character is written as a strong or capable character. Seeing Sam or Dean Winchester end up hospitalized hurt the audience more because we know those characters A) don’t get hurt that bad that often and B) Have never relied on hospitals unless it’s really serious. So, when they did turn up in the hospital we knew that the stakes were increased and that the situation was dire. It offers tension, and it can show you how human even your strongest characters are. You can’t re-set a broken leg on your own. You can’t fix a bullet wound by yourself. So seeing these characters have to acknowledge that they don’t have all the answers and can’t fix themselves. It shows the audience how false a character’s confidence or competence can be.

          I personally like little-kid prompts or genius little-kid tropes. That isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and it has to do with little children being poorly written. Usually, this trope is used so the writer doesn’t have to stress about writing a realistic child. If they make the child a genius they can have it brought up to the same speed as the adults. However, writing children is easier than you think (See unit 5) and a super-genius child can be smart, but not wise. What I mean is that a genius child needs to pick a struggle and commit to it. They can’t be both book smart and street smart because they still don’t have the life experience that adults have. So you can have a genius mathematician child, but that kid isn’t going to be of much help in your detective fanfic where your OCs are supposed to be busting drug rings, because what child knows about that? Now, you could have a child know about the criminal underground because maybe they’ve grown up in it and worked as a mule, but that child isn’t going to be a mathematician like the other kid. You need to pick a side of the line, and there are so many ways for a person or a child to be a genius. What makes it realistic is picking just one. Look at Damian Wayne. He was a child prodigy in combat. He was gifted because he had tutors and masters who taught him for his entire life. But he knew so little about the outside world and how it worked. He was gifted but sheltered. Jason Todd is the opposite. He was a street rat, who had an innate knowledge of the criminal underground but didn’t have as much of an opportunity to learn through academic outlets. He knew the streets but didn’t get to learn the books until much much later. Each picked a struggle to start out with. That’s not to say that you can’t expand their range of knowledge later on, but it comes with time is the key note: if your character starts out knowing everything there’s nowhere for them to go.

          Speaking of little kids, the outcast/weird kid making a ton of friends is often used, and it’s an oldie that’s been around since The Lightning Thief. What this prompt represents is the ability of a person who doesn’t fit traditional molds to find their place and their happiness in the world. We all like content that makes us feel less alone, and prompts like this can even be cathartic for the reader to remind them that they themselves are not alone. Your writing should mean something to someone up to and including you, and these prompts warm us up and make us feel like somewhere there’s a place for us. No one likes to be alone.

          What you should take away from this unit is that predictability is okay as long as it’s done well. Cliches are not going to kill your narrative. Tropes and whump prompts are not bad, they just need to be executed in a way that makes us feel like it’s genuine character development and not an out-of-body experience. We want to see development and growth because that truly shows progression not just of time but of a person, and if you can execute it well, you can pull off just about anything.

          Next week we’re discussing research, and diving deeper into how you should be researching your settings, flaws, and how you should study your own field of work. We apologize for the delay. Unforeseen circumstances came up that life never prepares you for, and the Big Sad came over me for a while. We’ll see you next week!

          I personally used to shoehorn a POV change in the middle of the scene because I wasn’t sure how the scene would end and I thought using a different character’s perspective would carry me through the moment. It doesn’t, I just made myself believe that it did. There are many reasons that specific scenes can succeed or fail, and sometimes the worst writer’s block will come because you can’t figure out how a scene is supposed to go. Or, the scene finishes, and now the story is so open-ended you don’t know what to do next. We’ll talk about endings later, for now, let’s focus on why scenes fail.

          If you are struggling with scenes, it may be because they are aimless or pointless. Your writing should be exciting to you; you are the first audience member. You’re the first critic. If you find your own scenes boring and pointless, the audience will find them boring and pointless too. A simple way to get around this problem is to sit back and ask yourself what the goal of the scene is. What is the endgame of this moment? If you can figure out what needs to happen by the end of a specific moment or interaction, you can work your way back and get there. Or, if all else fails, go back to your characters and use them to generate a purpose or tension. In any moment of any book, you can go to it and answer the question: What does this character want? Your own characters should be able to answer that question too, and you can generate tension or motivation with this question:

          Maybe one character wants information another is refusing to give. This back-and-forth can generate tension.

          Maybe two characters are fighting to a goal that they don’t know doesn’t exist. This goal creates motivation.

          Maybe one character is looking for individuality, and they believe their current actions will help them achieve that.

          If you can’t figure out what should happen next or why something doesn’t feel right, go back to your characters and look at what they want. Look at the endgame of that moment, and go from there. I mentioned in the last unit I need to stare at my work until I hate it. I mean that. I sit at my computer and re-read my work until I can find what doesn’t feel right. Then I make the necessary adjustments. If that still doesn’t work, it might just be that the scene is unnecessary filler. If there’s no point in the scene and no purpose to the scene, cut it out.

          Before you start your story, you should pick the point of view you want to write from and stick with it. You can of course change your mind, but if you change your mind halfway through, you have the responsibility to go back and adjust what you’ve already written to match. Which gets annoying. I’ve been there. Try out different points of view. Find what feels comfortable, and once you do stick with it. It’s also your responsibility to establish that point of view quickly in your story, and we’re going to review the three types of POVs in writing:

          First off, we have first-person. First-person is one of the more limited POVs. It uses “I, my, me,” language, and stays with one character for the duration of the work. The reader only ever sees or experiences the story from the point of view of this character. Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief was first-person, and we knew it from the first line: “Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.” First-person lets you hear the inner monologue of a character. You can know what the character is thinking, they can have an inner commentary that is very nice, and the reader can live vicariously through this one person.

          Next, we have second-person. This is where I’m going to @ a community. If you write [Y/N] [L/N] content, one it is so exhausting to type that and I don’t know how you do it, and two, WRITE IN SECOND PERSON. Second person uses “You, your, yours, etc.” It was literally made for self-insert fic, yet self-insert fic writers don’t use it. On top of that the additional tags that have been created over time, including [e/c], [h/c], [h/l], and [f/c]. That is exhausting. I am exhausted just typing it out. You can word a narrative around using those words, and you rip the reader straight out of the immersion in a genre that is meant to be the most immersive! Self-inserts should be written in second person, but they are usually just first-person or third-person stories starring an OC that has no name. It would be better for you, and you would suck the reader in more if you just picked a name and an OC. On top of that, these self-insert fanfictions sometimes spend an inordinate amount of time describing the reader when that is not necessary in the slightest. In the Great Gatsby, Daisy’s appearance was never described. We never know exactly what she looks like, but Fitzgerald uses the joy on her face, the curl of her lip, things that every girl has, and makes them appear beautiful to those who want her and to the audience. You do not need to describe the reader for the audience to believe that they are beautiful. You need to describe the reactions of others. I will give you an example: the following is a scene with the same premise. Steve Rogers is about to pick you up to go dancing. The first paragraph is in second person, the second paragraph is in [Y/N] [L/N].

*******

          It took a week before he said yes, and you weren’t going to waste it. You reached back, contorting your arms so you could wiggle the zipper of your dress up unaided. From behind you a gentle hand overtook yours and closed the gap.

          “What do you think?” You said, turning and letting the skirt float. He smiled down at you, his hands coming up to brush back your hair.

          “Beautiful,” Steve said, his lips curled and his teeth flashed and he pulled your face to his. You had to stand on tiptoes to kiss him and when you did his lips were stained red with your lipstick. “Are you sure about this?” You pulled away, grabbing the last part of your outfit.

          “I’m a good dancer. I promise! You haven’t seen anything yet.” He took your necklace, and you turned to let him put it on you.

          “I’ve seen you in our kitchen at 2 am.” With a roll of your eyes, you swatted him. “I’m just saying!”

          “I’m just saying you haven’t seen anything yet. Prepare to have your mind blown. Your socks obliterated. They won’t even be knocked off; they're going to turn to ash. That's how good I am.” He laughed, looking at your reflection in the mirror. His hands found their home around your waist and he pulled you to him. You loved it when he did that. You felt safe. Protected.

          “I… what if I can’t match you?” With a frown, you turned to face him. “I, I haven’t been dancing ever. And I just, I want to make sure it’s perfect and I don’t want to step on your toes and-” with a smile, you make your way over to the record player. Your fingers trail over the vinyl, picking one of your favorites. When you turn back to face him, there’s sweet music playing.

          “Come here.” He joins you in the center of your bedroom. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to lead, but you put your hands here, and here, and then you always start with your left…” The world was golden. Bright and syrupy and blissful. You never made it out of the house, but you and Steve did go dancing that night. Just the two of you.

****

*****

          It took a week before he said yes, and you weren’t going to waste it. You reached back, contorting your arms so you could wiggle the zipper of your dress up unaided. From behind you a gentle hand overtook yours and closed the gap.

          “What do you think?” You said, turning and letting the [f/c] skirt float. He smiled down at you, his hands coming up to brush back your [h/c] hair.

          “Beautiful,” Steve said, his lips curled and his teeth flashed and he pulled your face to his. You had to stand on tiptoes to kiss him and when you did his lips were stained red with your lipstick. “[Y/N], are you sure about this?” You pulled away, grabbing the last part of your outfit.

          “I’m a good dancer. I promise! You haven’t seen anything yet.” He took your necklace, and you turned to let him put it on you.

          “I’ve seen you in our kitchen at 2 am.” With a roll of your [e/c] eyes, you swatted him. “I’m just saying!”

          “I’m just saying you haven’t seen anything yet. Prepare to have your mind blown. Your socks obliterated. They won’t even be knocked off; they're going to turn to ash. That's how good I am.” He laughed, looking at your reflection in the mirror. His hands found their home around your waist and he pulled you to him. You loved it when he did that. You felt safe. Protected.

          “I… what if I can’t match you?” With a frown, you turned to face him. “[Y/N].  I haven’t been dancing ever. And I just, I want to make sure it’s perfect and I don’t want to step on your toes and-” with a smile, you make your way over to the record player. Your fingers trail over the vinyl, picking one of your favorites. When you turn back to face him, there’s sweet music playing.

          “Come here.” He joins you in the center of your bedroom. “It’s been a while since I’ve had to lead, but you put your hands here, and here, and then you always start with your left…” The world was golden. Bright and syrupy and blissful. You never made it out of the house, but you and Steve did go dancing that night. Just the two of you.

****

          One is more immersive than the other. One has a more professional approach than the other. Writing in second person is uncommon but not invaluable, and if you can wean yourself off of [Y/N] [L/N] you will master an invaluable skill that will make you stand out as a writer versus relying on what has succeeded for others in the past. If all else fails and you can’t figure it out, just pick a name. Any name. Readers often project themselves onto the main character- that’s how you get characters with basic or generic descriptions: brown hair, brown eyes, etc. they’re trying to fill a demographic. Twilight did this, as did the Hunger Games, Divergent, and Beautiful Creatures. There’s nothing wrong with this. It’s totally okay to just pick a name.

          The final POV in writing is third person. This is where you have a narrator talking over the story and describing events. A third-person limited narrator only sticks to one character’s thoughts, emotions, and feelings. Harry Potter is written in a third-person limited POV. We only see what Harry is thinking at any given point, and we follow him through the story in third person. Third-person omniscient is a narrator that can describe the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of every character in the story. That isn’t just being able to tell the reader exactly what a person is thinking, it’s describing their feelings and reactions. It is making a statement or inference about a character in a way the main character typically wouldn’t. They are subjective narrators that let the readers draw conclusions based on their descriptions. In my opinion, a third-person omniscient story is the most difficult POV to write because it becomes more difficult to let your readers figure out things for themselves. Part of writing is letting your audience draw conclusions and make inferences on their own, and what other characters are thinking or the methods behind their actions are a big part of that. It can work, and Beartown employs an omniscient narrator, but I have found that most fanfiction follows a third-person limited or first-person POV.

            Currently, the Editor and I are in college. Our fall semesters are starting again, and we have 3 stories to maintain: Fanfiction 102, What Do We Owe, and Ashes to Ashes. With 18-credit hours and 3 stories with vastly different vibes, characters, and styles, if we didn’t have a plan we’d be screwed. We’d have to take a hiatus and add an Author’s Note in its own chapter saying that “we have to take care of some personal issues.” After maybe 4 weeks of a break, maybe we feel like we can’t pick it back up. We try, and it doesn’t work, and then the stories get abandoned. That’s how my old unfinished works got abandoned. That’s how I deleted work. Consistency isn’t just for your audience, it is also for you. So, the question is: how do you manage 3 stories with weekly publishings when they have different styles and formats? The Editor and I focus on 2 stories a week. This week, as we are writing this chapter, we have the responsibility to write and edit 2 chapters for one of the stories. This week it’s Ashes to Ashes. So we write our chapter of Fanfiction 102, we write 2 chapters for Ashes to Ashes, and then on Sunday, everything gets one final look-over before getting published. Before we published What Do We Owe and Ashes to Ashes, we wrote the first 4-5 chapters and published those first while continuing to write ahead. So on Sunday, chapter 9 of Ashes to Ashes will go up, yet the Editor and I have written all the way up to chapter 12. For What Do We Owe it’s chapter 7 getting published but we’re on chapter 10. By keeping a backlog of chapters we can afford to have weeks where we can’t write or don’t write. If we have a chapter of Fanfiction 102 that requires all our spare attention, we can afford to ignore our other works because they have a backlog. This system also allows us to focus on one style at a time, which ensures that the OCs don’t crossover and blend together. Sometimes you can tell when two works were written at the same time because the OCs personalities will give and take until they are one. It shows us that the author had a hard time separating the two and treating them as different people. Now, I’m not saying that you have to adapt to this method, but I have found that it works best for me. Other writers we have spoken with will write and upload one chapter a day. If they create their own backlogs then they have a chance to relax for a day or so. I personally can’t do that. I need to stare at my work until I hate it and then make it better. If you are like me, maybe take a few days or weeks at a time to edit. Something that sounds really good at that moment may not be as good the next day when you go back and look at it.            The Editor and I believe you should have a few chapters rearing to go before you think about publishing. We did this for our current in-process works and are doing this for our future works. This allows you as the writer to get a feel for the story, the characters, and the vibe you want before anyone else sees it. It also saves you from having to go back and edit your previous chapters, and then make a note telling people you had to do that. For example, in our 2nd unit Superpowers, we wrote a short scene about a character Astrid. After that unit came out, I texted the Editor: **

>You know now we have to make Astrid Dawes (the example from Unit 2) a real person 

Hahaha yes<

**

           And we have. And we are. However, since Unit 2 came out 5 weeks ago we’ve yet to make a full chapter in that potential fanfic. We’ve been going back and changing our minds on ideas, scenes, characters, and what the story behind Astrid Dawes would be. Once the story is published we have to keep with what is out there, so letting Astrid Dawes drift in the background and collect ideas like an unborn baby is useful in that we can change our minds on her trajectory, backstory, and her arc as a person.

            Going back to our current projects, we also don’t fly blind to those. If you’ve taken an English class you’ve probably had to do the: here’s a prompt, write a paper in 40 minutes. If you haven’t had to do that, you’re either lucky or you have a big storm coming. The most sage advice I ever got was from a friend of mine. When she wrote those essays, she would leave half her paper open for the introduction, and start writing her first body paragraph. She didn’t always know where she was going but she knew what she wanted to say. After that first body paragraph was written she could go back and write the introduction and the thesis that would be her roadmap for the rest of the essay. When we write these chapters, we don’t always know what’s happening or how characters are going to get there. However, we know what we want to say. For example, the other 4 units that we’ve yet to write for Fanfiction 102 all have notes. They all have footnotes and bullet points of what we know we want to say. During each week while we write those chapters, it’s on us to make sure that we get those bullet points across as clearly as possible. The same is true for our other fictional works. We don’t know how Cicely Godith, our protagonist of Ashes to Ashes, is going to get to do what she’s doing in Chapter 13, but we know what she’s doing now. We don’t know how to convey the urgency of Johnny and Claudia’s plans in What Do We Owe, but we know what those plans are. Having a thumbnail or a set of shorthand notes are useful to you as a writer because it gives you an idea of where you’re going. The journey can be freeform, but the destination will give you a stopping point. We will discuss more in-depth in a later unit, but we wanted to introduce it now.

            Finally, we want to talk about the one exception. Consider this the counter-argument to our previous discussion: if you are coming back to a story after a long period of abandonment, it is okay to re-edit chapters. I almost expect you to re-edit chapters. Let’s use the Psycho-Pass fanfic I wrote in 2015. I was 16 years old, I’d just seen Psycho-Pass and I wanted to write a story about where Shinya Kogami went during the gap between the end of the first season and when we see him again in the movie. We know what he was doing but we don’t know how he got there. That’s the hole my story filled in. The last chapter was published in 2017. There are only 7 chapters. I clearly didn’t have a consistent uploading schedule. I didn’t have notes or ideas on where these characters would go, and I didn’t have a backlog of chapters. The story was abandoned. I do not write the same as I did when I was 16. Writing is a skill. It develops over time as it’s practiced and used. If I were to revisit that story, I could not jump back into my 16-year old mindset and continue on like nothing happened. It would need to be brought into this decade, and I absolutely would have to re-edit the chapters. If you are coming back to your story after years of abandonment you can always change what you’ve written. Always. Come at it with a new plan, a new attitude, and a new methodology and style. The story may change but the bones of the original will always be there. In addition, don’t delete your old work. Save the original chapters to a google drive or a folder. That is your first draft, and you’ll be surprised how much good work and reference you can pull from it.

            This chapter was more anecdotal. We understand that and if that isn’t your style we apologize. Next week we’ll be @-ing a rather large community. If you write with [Y/N] [L/N] hide your mess. We’re coming for you.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl. 

Also, check out Hold Me Close! A Sirius Black fanfiction. Rachel does an amazing job writing and uploading it on the same day. I wish I had her focus and determination.

          What we usually see in child OCs is that they are cut back emotionally and mentally to the age of a common 3-year old. Pervocracy wrote a great memo on how to handle children while they worked as a childless nurse. I will summarize that memo and add my own notes as well. It will be cited below for your convenience.

          From the time of birth to a year old, the child is a baby. They can crawl and walk, and may have a few words or be able to recognize people, may know parts of the body “Can you show me where your feet are?” but they are essentially small animals. You have to be gentle and affectionate, and don’t expect them to cooperate. Babies cry, but more often than not they cry as a means to communicate.

          A child aged 1-2 years old is a bit more difficult. They have more mobility and have gained more of a voice. The “terrible twos” come in to play here and the child is able to walk and run around. Often children at this age are dependent on the response of their caregivers. If a child falls, they only will make a big deal out of said fall because their caregiver does. They cry because their caregiver has clued them in socially that they are hurt. That’s why you see a lot of moms tell their babies, “it’s okay!” or “you’re okay.” They have to reassure the child that they are in fact fine so the child does not react. Children at this age can speak, but it may still be simple sentences. They can’t get deep yet. They also will recognize strangers and want to avoid them.

          A toddler/preschool child is around the age of 3-5 years old. They are more socialized, given this is the age where most children go to daycare, preschool, or kindergarten. They are potty trained by this age. Do not write a 3-5-year-old OC and have her still in diapers. That isn’t realistic. These kids are also fully mobile, and this is the age where you can start seeing the baby’s personality. Are they a hyper child? Do they like animals? If the child dances, most dancers start pre-ballet classes at this age. Do they want to go outside all the time or are they more comfortable spending time inside? Babytalk from the child, ie: mama, dada, I want, etc. Is not realistic. Again, the child may have simple sentences, but they’ve learned enough words at this point to not have to resort to speaking like that. These kids are easily distracted and likely have been weaned off naps. Parents can still babytalk these kids, a phrase here which means speak to them in that sweet little-kid voice, but the baby will not babytalk to their parents.

          A small child is roughly the ages of 6-10. These kids in America are already in school. A 6-year old is the average age of first graders, and a 9/10-year-old is roughly a 3rd grader. They will not respond well to babytalk. These kids want to be treated like adults but may still have childlike tendencies (may still pout, whine, cry, etc.). They have been fully socialized by this point as they will have had years in daycare or school racked up at this point. They are outgoing and less afraid of strangers. Most prodigy children who play an instrument will have started their instrument around age 5 or 6 (source: was a prodigy child. Started violin at 6). They like to see cool or fun or gross facts and are eager to learn and joke around. At this age you’re still watching Spongebob unironically, so treat them as such.

          A preteen is around the ages of 11-14. The child, if it’s a girl, may experience her first period, the child, if it’s a boy, will go through puberty. Girls may develop quicker, as many boys can recall a point in like 5th grade where all the girls were suddenly taller than them. These children are fussy and frustrated because they think they know more than they actually do, but are still treated for the most part like kids. They still need bedtimes and house rules and restrictions, but they don’t want them. A child will likely learn swearwords and start using them out of sight of their parents around the age of 12. This is also where a child’s cringe phase comes in because they will be going through middle school, which is the worst time in every kid’s life and a time that they all want to forget.

          A teenager is around 15-18. These are young adults. They have freedoms, mainly the ability to drive a car, but their life experience is limited. Around this age is where a child would get a girlfriend or boyfriend. No sex at this age. Don’t do that to your OCs. In Harry Potter, we often see writers jumping the gun and having their OCs hook up with Draco Malfoy in the third year. That’s too early for a kid. That kid would still be a preteen, and their life experience is limited. They also would be incapable of giving consent for something like that. Wait until they are 15-18. In Harry Potter fanfic, that would be years 5-7. This age of OC will want some autonomy away from their parents. If they visit the doctor’s office they may want to go alone. If you offered them a sticker at the doctor’s office, they’d take it ironically. They may experience early stages of depression, anxiety, or stress that can be caused by their school or home life because they have more expectations placed on them. They may have hobbies or be involved in after-school activities. A 17-year-old or 18 year old will be thinking about college.

          Notice the progression as the ages go up. A 5 or 6-year-old won’t have the pressures of a 17-year old, but they can still hold a conversation and do similar activities to the teenager. A 1-year old will speak in baby talk, but that window is very small and narrow, and in fanfiction we often see it carry on for much longer than it should. Babies grow faster than you think. They develop faster too, and you don’t want to limit your OC’s ability for growth because you’ve shoehorned them into one specific age. Child OCs deserve character growth just like adult OCs. The fun part about writing kid OCs is that the audience can see them grow into what would be already-developed personality traits and hobbies in an adult OC. The things that would get added to your internal character bio get to grow and blossom right in front of us. If you write a child OC, give them the chance to do that. Give them the chance to grow.

          Finally, most Harry Potter or Percy Jackson fanfics start the OC off as a first-year, which luckily for us is the same age as a new camper at Camp Half-Blood. Both are 11 or 12. We had a note for young OCs in Fanfiction 101 Unit 3: Please Stop Using Emily Rudd. I will reiterate that point: these OCs are 11-12 at the start of the fanfic. You should not be describing how “strikingly beautiful” an 11 or 12-year-old is. On top of that, children don’t notice things like that. Save attraction for when they’re like 14. That’s when it’ll have a more meaningful impact.

          Next week we’ll be getting more technical. The next unit is a topic the Editor and I have a lot of experience in, and hopefully, we’ll be able to bring in some outside perspectives.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl.

Sources:

          If you’re straight or cis and writing a gay or trans character, you need to do your research to accurately portray the character in a realistic and believable way. An example we love is Todd Chavez in Bojack Horseman, who portrayed an asexual character, and Todd’s journey as he came into his own. Bojack Horseman also portrayed polyamory with Hollyhock, who was the adopted daughter of 8 dads. What we enjoyed was that Todd’s sexuality added dimension to his character. It didn’t reduce him to being the token LGBT representative, and it didn’t force him into a box where he could only focus on LGBT issues. Todd was and is so much more than that, and his sexuality is a part of his story, but it’s not the sole story.

Rick Riordan is a master of writing experiences that are not his own, and he cheated the system by basing his characters off of people he knew. This is a method that you can use. You can base your characters off of friends, public figures, etc. If you decide to not do that, googling what transgender men and women have to experience or what top surgery is isn’t enough. I would suggest looking to Youtube, where many transgender and LGBT  influencers have talked about their experiences. I would suggest looking to forums, Reddit being one of them. Yahoo Answers is also a really good source. What you want is as many experiences as you can get: ones that are similar, and ones that contrast. The goal is to combine them and make your own character in a melting pot of other experiences. You owe it to not only those who read your story but yourself to do the research. You want your characters to represent the communities you do, and the ones you don’t as best you can.

          Let’s move on to people of color (POC). The same rules we’ve discussed prior apply: A poorly written POC is worse than no POC (Looking at you Baljeet). In addition, that POC’s ethnicity should not be their entire personality, and if you are creating a character just to say that you have made a POC, then you have already failed. There are many issues we see when we find people of color in fanfiction. Among them are language barriers, naming, and a misinterpretation of cultural values and experiences.

          Putting words in a foreign language in the middle of fanfic is very, very common. You see it everywhere. In Avengers fanfic it’s Russian or Norse. In Batman fanfic, it’s any of the languages that the Batkids speak. The writers put in these conversations that sometimes go on for pages in another language, and then add an author’s note at the bottom with the translation. This is awkward, and when you read books, this is something you never see. If you want your character to speak another language, you don’t need to actually write the other language. Putting a few sentences through Google translate doesn’t make you a better or more dedicated writer than someone who adds the tag: “she was screaming now, all her words coming out in rapid French.” Tags can be used to dictate a change in language, and I encourage you to use them. Now, there are of course exceptions to this rule, and those exceptions usually lie in food, names, and things. Calling someone a name that is in another language is fine. Describing food in another language is fine, and things are generally ok. But that’s just for you. Your characters also have to speak the language.

          No one worth their salt or heritage is going to go through a moment where they start out speaking in their fluent tongue and then “forget” to switch back and forth between English and their native language. It is so incredibly unrealistic and awful and it lets the reader know someone who is not actually bilingual wrote this piece of work. When you learn two languages, here’s what really happens: you forget words. You have to stumble through words in your own language before you get to the one you need. You call things, “that thing.” You point. You sometimes say “what’s that called?” you find aspects of the second language, or even your own language stupid and you don’t want to do it. You get words mixed up and you make mistakes. That’s all okay, and that all happens, and should be written as such. One of my teachers never forgot the French word for spider because she got the shit scared out of her by one and didn’t know what to call it when she needed someone to kill it. My aunt took 3 years to learn Turkish by immersion and now can speak it fluently. You don’t even need to be fluent in every language, and many people only know a handful of words in one or a few sentences in another. That’s totally okay! If anything that’s more realistic because it’s super hard to learn a new language and speak it fluently. Don’t force your characters into a box like that. Let them make mistakes.

          Culture is a huge thing when writing POC. You have to keep in mind that culture shifts, and what may have been culturally huge for one set of characters won’t be as significant for others. You want your characters to interact with their culture in a way that is realistic, and not reductive. Kelly from the Office is a great example, as she invites the office to celebrate Diwali with her. Lara Jean from To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is another example. We see her eat Korean food at home, and in the books, she still celebrates Korean holidays. Where the shift comes into play can be seen in Never Have I Ever where Devi is not as Indian as her parents, and we see her struggle with the culture. She still goes to Hindu association things, Ganesh puja, and she wears Indian clothes. However, she’s still a normal teenager out chasing boys and worrying about colleges. In Superstore the Muslim character prays 5 times a day, and still works at the grocery giant. The big takeaway is that these people have lives that include, but aren’t limited to their cultures. They aren’t reduced to stereotypes.

          Naming characters is already rough. However, naming characters from a different background than you are even tougher. The Editor has a lot of anger towards Panju Weasley, from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Her exact words, as they were texted to me:

**

>Like Cursed Child where Ron and Padma has a kid named Panju.

>What the fuck is a Panju?

>That’s literally the dumbest name in the world

>All she had to google was Indian names.

>There are so many fucking lists.

>I dont even think it’s an actual name. Like it might be a nickname for some people but I dont think people have actually named their child panju.

**

          As usual, the Editor is very correct. There is a simple solution to getting around what we’ll call the Panju Dilemma- a phrase which we’ll use to describe terrible naming choices of POC. In Fanfiction 101 we had an entire unit centered around naming. Nameberry.com exists, and if they don’t have it all you need to do is Google the country of origin and the sex of the OC. Sometimes you can add in the year the OC was born, to really get a feel for the time period, but that doesn’t always work. For example, in one of our stories we have a cluster of kids from Syria. When it came time to name said kids, we Googled: popular Syrian names 2003. That’s how we got our OCs: Reem, Nour, Nizar, Jano, and Stella. Naming is very important, and you owe it to your readers and your characters to do them justice, and not saddle them with a terrible name.

          The final note of diversity we want to talk about is actual ability. Ableism is often overlooked in movies, shows, or books. It is something that is shoehorned in as an extra adversary for the OC or the cast, only *gasp* This time the biggest adversary is themselves. I hate that. I want to eliminate that because as someone with a disability and someone who has worked with kids with disabilities, you can absolutely write and code characters like that in so long as, and say it with me now, it is not their entire personality.

          You can totes write a character with anxiety and/or depression, so long as you don’t snub these very real mental disorders that millions face on a daily basis. You also have a duty, especially with anxiety and depression, to not glorify, glamorize, or romanticize either. Do not romanticize self-harm. Do not romanticize anxiety. Do not romanticize depression. They are not cruel tricks of life that befall beautiful intelligent women. It is not “tragically beautiful.” Depression and anxiety and self-harm are not a paragraph for you to lament on while the OC gazes longingly out the window at her lover. Anxiety keeps some people from talking on the phone they’re so nervous. It gives girls panic attacks in mall food courts because they don’t know what’s going on anymore. Depression isn’t your OC watching the rain in a hoodie and sweats, it’s not showering for days on end because you can’t find the motivation to. It’s having insomnia because you can’t sleep. Self-harm is not an OC’s love interest holding their wrists and telling them to stop. It is deep pain and numbness and hurting yourself to try and feel something. It is rubbing Neosporin on your cuts and hoping they go away. It is forcing your friends to keep it a secret because you don’t want anyone to know because what if they take it away from you. These mental disorders are not yours to romanticize. They are yours to show the growth and power and strength of your characters. They are yours to use to show how trauma has affected your character and can represent normality behind mental health and emotion and talking about things like this. Even more so than girls, writing a male OC with anxiety or depression is more empowering because you are allowing a character to talk about their feelings when that isn’t seen as acceptable by their sex. If you feel you are able to take that plunge, and you can do the adequate research to represent the disorder well, go for it.

          In addition to mental health, physical disabilities are often overlooked. I have a chronic illness. I have never seen in a book, movie, TV show, or fanfiction anyone with a chronic illness, let alone my chronic illness. That in of itself is a broad term, and I’ll let chronic illness mean anything from lupus and POTS to asthma and anemia. These disabilities make a character have to work harder, but hey, look at Captain America. The boy had every disability under the sun and he got out alright. No one is going to make changes for you. You have to be the change you want to see. If I want OCs with chronic illnesses, I have to write them and do them justice by not only my community but the communities that I don’t represent. Jeremy Scott’s The Ables is a great example of writing disability and using it as part of, but not a character’s entire identity. The main characters all have superpowers but are put in a class that doesn’t allow them to use said powers. This is because they are all disabled. The main character is blind and telekinetic, another can read minds but is in a wheelchair, another is a genius but has cerebral palsy. Their disabilities are a minor obstacle, but not the big bad, and that is a great way to write disability. People who live with physical disabilities or chronic illnesses have to deal with said limitations every day. To us, as time goes on it becomes less of the monster at the end of the story and more of an everyday beast. It becomes normal, and there are bigger things for us to worry about than just our disease. This speaks for every aspect of diversity we have covered in this chapter: The people with said note have to live with it every day. It is a common enemy, not the final boss. To treat it as such is to say that it is our biggest concern in life. I wish my chronic illness was my biggest concern, but I have other fish to fry.

          What we have done here is not an all-inclusive list of diversity. This chapter took 2 weeks to write because the Editor and I wanted to do right by our community. Not just the communities we proudly represent but the communities we don’t. There are many more nuances and aspects to diversity that are out there, and what we have presented is our best. Yet it is still incomplete. If there is something important that you feel we have left out, we sincerely apologize. We acknowledge that what we have written here is not all-encompassing for diversity. We wanted to talk about issues that are common occurrences. However, what we have covered is not the end-all of what’s out there. We apologize for the delay, and to make up for it, our next unit Writing Children will be published at the same time as this one. We sincerely apologize for the delay.

          A common exception to writing flaws in superpowers is DC or Marvel Comics. I have seen many many times the scene where, “an OC’s file gets passed around and we the audience get to read a laundry list of superpowers including but not limited to fire, ice, air, metal, lightning, etc.” I understand that superheroes in DC Comics have an abundance of superpowers. Look at Wonder Woman or Superman. Do not fall down that rabbit hole. You will struggle to write conflict for your character if you give them that many abilities. Hell, Superman’s own writers struggle to write conflict for him. It’s why he’s the most iconic but ultimately most boring character. On top of that, the “passing around a file” scene is another very overused cliche. I understand that it’s an easy way for the audience to see what the OC can do, but I think we as writers can challenge ourselves to be better than that. In addition, don’t take away the choice to share from the OC. If we’ve learned anything from X-Men, it’s that superpowers aren’t always taken well and some would rather die than be seen as a mutant or a freak. We know that these unnatural abilities are strange and confusing and that the people who have them need time to grow. They don’t need their supervisors outing them to God and everyone. Let your characters share their powers on their own terms. Let them have a special moment with the cast where they get to feel wonderful and special and magical. You’ll reveal more about the OC’s personality and develop a deeper relationship with the cast. Here’s an example.

          Let’s say we’re writing Avengers fanfic. Let’s say we give our OC control over light. Here are two scenes that are revealing the same information to Captain America. One is done on the terms of the OC, who we’ll call Astrid, the other is done by Nick Fury.

*****

          Astrid led him back to her room. It was like his own, the same size, and the same basic tidings- bed, dresser, desk, chair. While his had been dark gray, as had the rest of the team’s, Astrid’s was bright white. Steve noticed heavy black curtains tucked back from her window. The black stood out against the white of the rest of her room. She had a smile on her face. Her eyes were alight with excitement, and she pointed up at the ceiling.

          Covering the ceiling of Astrid’s bedroom were over a hundred hanging crystals. They had different shapes, sizes, and lengths and all swung from the ceiling on thin clear strings. Astrid turned off the lights. She pulled the black curtains out and covered her window which plunged them both into darkness.

          “I had to beg Nick for these. I told him it would be good practice.”

          “Practice for what?” A light turned on. It took Steve a moment to realize the light was coming from Astrid’s own hand.

          “No one’s really told you what I can do yet. I wanted to show you myself.” Carefully, she pulled one of the crystals down and let it rest in the palm of her hand.

          Rainbows bounced off the walls. Tiny refractory lights bounced around the room, off each crystal that was a brilliant gem in the darkness. Off the metal of Steve’s shield. Off the brass buckles of Astrid’s shoes. She grinned merrily, a beautiful cascade coming around the both of them.

          “It takes me forever to fall asleep. I never want to stop looking at them.” Steve smiled, studying the way the light danced on her walls.

          “Yeah.” He breathed. “I get it.”

*****

And the other, done by Nick Fury.

*****

          Steve sat at a roundtable with the rest of the team. At least, he thought he did. Looking around, he could see one person missing from the group.

          “Where’s Astrid?” Fury and Coulson exchanged a look. Coulson handed over a file and strode out of the room.

          “Agent Dawes is currently occupied. We thought it best to tell you without her.” Fury slid the file across the table. “Along with being an Agent of SHIELD, Agent Dawes joined up because of her… condition.”

          Steve opened the file. He could see a picture of a much younger Astrid looking back at him. Her date of birth, her parents, everything was laid out before him. When he flipped the page he found page after page of notes.

          “She can do what?”

          “We don’t have a real name for it yet. Just light manipulation.” Steve kept reading. The reports dated back years prior, with medic referral forms, personal statements, and even more photographs of Astrid.

          “Is Astrid a potential threat too, Director?”

          “We all are. Agent Dawes recognized her own risk ahead of time.” Fury took the file back. “She’s been training for years. She has it under control. Stark and Banner already know about her-”

          “I’m the last to know?” Steve said angrily. He looked at Tony and Bruce.

          “Hey, not my fault you got here late.” Tony turned back to his phone.

*****

          Do you see the difference? See how much more personal the first one is? Not only do we get to see Astrid actually use her powers, but we get a moment of bonding and trust between her and Steve, whereas in the second one her personal information is being divulged on her behalf. Not by her. It’s beneficial to make these superpowers personal, in the sense that the OC should be able to tell people on their own. Let them establish that trust with their team, and don’t shove it off to Nick Fury or Coulson or even Batman. It’s their gift, they need to share it on their terms.

          Superpowers and The Rules of the Universe go hand in hand in many ways. What I mean is the Rules of the Universe apply to superpowers as much as they do to timelines and cast desires and canon. When you write superpowers, they have to make sense with the world they live in, and not every OC needs superpowers. If you look at Twilight, you’d most likely have an OC with more subtle, less combat-oriented abilities (see Edward’s mind-reading or Alice’s seer talents). If you give an OC something heavy combat-oriented in this universe it feels a little clunky, and a little more like the Avengers but vampires instead of vampires with talents. On top of that, not every vampire needs to have a talent. It’s totally okay to have a vampire who can’t do anything special. I’m more compelled to read stories with those characters because they seem more realistic. It’s okay to have a character less important to the Volturi than Edward or Alice, or less gifted than Jasper. You can explore their individuality without tying them or limiting what makes them special to “they are a vampire and they have a gift.” Another example is Harry Potter. In that universe, the only extraordinary gifts we know of are Olcummency and Parseltongue. One is something you’re born with, the other takes patience and practice. It would be unrealistic to give a Harry Potter OC additional gifts. It would be rare to give them either of the aforementioned gifts because if something is described as rare in the canon, it shouldn’t include your OC. Your OC is not an exception to something’s scarcity.

          Let’s talk about powers themselves. I have several gripes with superpowers, and we are going to discuss all of them. First and foremost, something that kind of shows your own ass as a writer is using the -kinesis phrase of a superpower beyond the common ones people know (telekinesis, psychokinetic, etc.). It looks like you just googled, ‘list of superpowers’, and found atmokinesis and put it in because you liked the description. Who talks like that? No one knows what those -kinesis phrases actually mean we just use them because we think they sound cool. Don’t tell me that the character has atmokinesis, just tell me they can control the weather. You don’t need to use big words to make your gift sound impressive. It’s what they do with the gift that makes it impressive. Going off of this, not every superpower needs to be combat-oriented. You don’t need to give people super-strength, invulnerability, or fire powers for them to matter or be useful. It’s actually more creative and more unique if you take a superpower that isn’t combat-oriented and find a way to make it mean something. The best example is the Tumblr post that will be linked below, where the OC’s main ability was helping. It was helping out wherever they could and trying to make a difference and making the lives of their friends, who had some of the “strongest” superpowers in the universe, better. It is beautifully written, an incredible short story, and shows the value of being there for others versus trying to save the day. If you are writing a character with superpowers, I would absolutely recommend reading it.

          Finally, make it make sense. With superpowers, it’s kind of like the old saying, “if you describe a hammer hanging on the wall you better use the hammer before the end of the story.” Don’t describe something that you won’t use. So things like controlling taste, smell, temperature, those are things we never see used in the narrative, so there’s no need for the character to have control over them. If you’re struggling to come up with superpowers, the Editor and I have a few methods we’ve developed over the years to get off of and stay off of the superpower list websites:

I like to have my superpowers mirror the character’s backstory. I have a character who was kicked out of their home at 16 and therefore became a “hearth” where they could bind one location to appear at many, and with the turn of a knob bring the group from New York to Seattle to London. I did this to represent the character making their own home once they were exiled. Another example is a character who was almost killed in a tsunami. They can breathe underwater, and swim impossibly fast. You can give characters with a passion for drawing the ability to bring inanimate objects to life, characters who went to Antarctica as a researcher who came back with ice powers, characters who lost their twin that can multiply themselves, or characters who suffered amnesia that can now modify the memories of others. It’s fun to tie the gift to the story, and to me personally, it feels more cohesive when I do that. However, this isn’t for everyone. When you do this, the character’s superpowers shouldn’t become their whole personality. That should never happen in the first place, but especially here.

Another method we’ve used and we like is contrasting superpowers. If your character is blind, give them telekinesis (Scott 2015). If your character is afraid of heights, give them the ability to fly. If they’re afraid of dogs, make them talk to animals. Learning to get over their fears and weaknesses in the grand journey of mastering one’s powers shows growth, and shows character development, and we should never shy away from an opportunity for character development.

A final method that we’ve recently adopted is genetics. Something you see in Avengers fanfics is that the OC was inexplicably kidnapped and experimented on by HYDRA despite them having no shortage of volunteers as we see in Avengers: Age of Ultron, therefore, the existence of these OCs who are usually kidnapped doesn’t make sense. That is only mildly my business. What is my business is these test subjects having powers that don’t really make sense or that we don’t understand how they got them. It would make sense realistically, that a character who HYDRA experimented on would have powers that affect their vulnerability and less “shoots fire out of their hands.” This is because we can only assume that if they’re not using an Infinity Stone, they’re splicing and combining genes from animals to make a perfect soldier. If that’s your cup of tea, using a genetic connection to explain someone’s powers, go for it. The Editor and I have been using recently is the idea of gifts passing through generations. Let’s return to our new hero Astrid. Instead of being experimented on by HYDRA, having a backstory where she was maybe mugged or is afraid of the dark, or a backstory where she loves creepy-crawly dark spaces, we can say the following:

**

          “Wait… How many people can do what you can?” Tony looked up from his phone to Astrid, who had become engrossed in her newest prism. “Hey! Glow-stick!”

          “Mmm?” Tony tossed her his phone. “Oh… you don’t have to friend him.”

          “Why isn’t he here?” Astrid stood up and walked back to Tony, handing him his phone.

          “Why isn’t who here?” asked Steve.

          “My brother Jeremy. He’s like me.” She shrugged her shoulders. “He didn’t want to go. I texted him when Director Fury reached out, and he didn’t want to give up on his Northern Lights project. My cousins said no too.”

          “What do you mean, your cousins?”

          “Didn’t you know? I thought you knew everything Stark. My gift’s genetic. It’s been in my family for generations. I have my brother, and like, 3 other cousins who can do what I can. I’m the only one who responded to Director Fury’s text.” Astrid sighed. “If my cousin Dixie were here, she’d tell me that means I’m the idiot of the group. C’est la vie.”

****

          You can totally make superpowers genetic. It’s something that isn’t done often and is very fun because you can get into subtle mutations or variations of the same power. With Astrid, since we know she controls light, maybe the gene mutates with one of her cousins who can bend light in a way that they appear invisible. Maybe one of Astrid’s children can make the light into solid objects. Try making your superpowers a recessive gene. It could be a fun way to showcase the OC’s support network and give an explanation for their gifts that’s uncommon.

Our final note is that if you are writing a character with superpowers, we want to see the character learn to use those powers. It is so boring to have a character come out of the gate with gifts that they’ve mastered perfectly, OR, have a character initially struggle, but learn and master their gifts in 1 training session. That’s so boring to the reader, because there’s no development, and there’s no struggle. If a character earns their powers and is experiencing the new and wonderful, we want to see that struggle. That way at the end of the story when they have near-perfect control the ending is so much more satisfying because we know what went into that. Look at Avatar: The Last Airbender. The final fight with Ozai and Zuko’s final fight with Azula is the ultimate show of growth and mastery. You clearly see that neither of these boys are the same kids from the beginning of the series. The same is true for Percy Jackson, where all the Olympians have moments where they have powers, but don’t know or can’t use them. Let us see the struggle. It makes the journey more worthwhile. And, speaking of Avatar, no more “can control the four elements.” We’ve all seen the show. We all know the source material. It’s not original and your OC is not the Avatar.

          Next week is a big one! We’re talking about diversity. Not only diversity in race but diversity in LGBT, in experience, and how to capture and make your stories diverse, and where it makes sense to have a story that’s diverse.

Xoxo, Gossip Girl

References:

The Ables. https://www.goodreads.com/work/best_book/41929531-the-ables. Accessed 26 July 2020.

          Villains are the most difficult to figure out. When you write a villain, you are writing a character and explaining to yourself, and therefore the audience, not only why this person is a bad guy, but why they’re doing bad things. I do not like villains who are Bad Guy McBadGuys that exist solely to make the OC’s life miserable. That isn’t a villain. That’s an asshole. These characters are the most common villains we see, and I myself am guilty of writing them in the past because we don’t want to give the bad guys thought. Usually, the writer wants to focus on the protagonist, but the side characters and opposing characters need way more thought than the OC. The OC’s motivations are easy to figure out. Their job is to complete the quest, save the day, and oppose the villain. Their entire goal as a character can be written around a villain, and when that happens you better be damn sure you know why the villain is doing what they’re doing. One-note villains are common in both Harry Potter and the Avengers. Usually, this is because the villain is either a Death Eater or HYDRA, and they can be bad for the sake of being bad because we know both groups are bad guys. I want you to remove yourselves from that approach. I would highly encourage you to read the comic series published a few years back called Captain America: Hail HYDRA. If you know Avengers you probably know this comic, because it’s the one where the writers tried to say that Captain America, God’s Righteous Man, has been a secret HYDRA agent this whole time. It was a whole Twitter moment, it was the #saynotoHYDRACap thing. That comic. In that comic, along with Captain America pledging his support to HYDRA, is an account from a character named Robbie Dean Tomlin. We as the audience follow Robbie’s story and see how a young kid can get wrapped up in an organization like HYDRA and get beaten and broken down to the point that he’s willing to become a suicide bomber for them. What Hail HYDRA can teach us is how to make a villain relatable, and how a normal character can get wrapped up in a group that we as an audience can look at and immediately know is bad. We see them as evil, but we never question why or how a character gets involved in that. If you are going to write a villain that can compel an audience, you need to start asking those questions. Why is this character where they are? Are they angry? Are they scared of someone else? Does this character think they’re doing the right thing? If so, why are they/do they use violence to accomplish their goals? Why is that necessary? When you look at Robbie Dean Tomlin’s story you can answer all those questions. You get him not as a villain, but as a character, and that’s where it starts.

          Another great example of villains as characters and not as bad guys is found in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Specifically the episode ‘The Boiling Rock’ where Sokka and Zuko break into the Fire Nation’s highest security prison and pretend to be guards. Their goal is to break Sokka’s dad and girlfriend Suki out of prison. The important note is that during the episode Sokka is able to chat with the Fire Nation guards. These people are his adversaries in this episode. They could imprison or kill him if he is discovered, but the guards aren’t set on that. They aren’t hell-bent on torturing the prisoners either. They’re just people. Not only that they’re nice people. The guards are nice to each other. They’re nice to Sokka, and they give not only their characters but the Fire Nation more dimension. Not every Death Eater under Voldemort is going to share his exact viewpoints or his bloodthirst. They are not all hell-bent on, ‘I must capture and kill Harry Potter,’ or, ‘I must spit in the face of muggles and mudbloods because they have to know their place.’ The same is true for HYDRA, or the Empire if you’re writing for Star Wars or the Fire Nation. You have to start writing your characters as people and give them the backstory and reasoning that would make them evil.

          Me personally, when I am writing a story the villain is the first character I write. I want to know them and know why they’re about to be mean to my OC. We’ll use two different villains I’ve written as examples: Anna and Sion. We will also use a common villain from fanfiction, Dolores Umbridge, for comparison.

          Treat your villains like protagonists. In a sense, they are the protagonists of their own stories, they just happen to be the antagonists of your OC’s. Know about their hobbies. Whether they have a family. If they don’t, what happened to that family? This information doesn’t need to be used necessarily, but it helps you as a writer know your antagonist as a person. For Anna, I know that she loves the outdoors. She likes rock-climbing and kayaking and she enjoys time outside. I know she has a son that she loves dearly, and she has a specific brand of French candy that she keeps well-stocked for herself. Sion, I know she has been married twice and has kids from both marriages. I know she likes fantasy novels because the idea of mythical beasts sounds cool to her. Dolores Umbridge, we know as readers loves the color pink. She likes frilly and lacy things. She loves cats. She’s the epitome of the old white ladies who shop at Dillards. It’s okay for you to give your villains something that isn’t stereotypically villainous. When we get into good examples of villains we’ll explain more why quirks and characterization is so important.

          Once you’ve created a character with a personality, start to flesh out where they work. What they do. This will give you a better idea of how they will interact with the OC. This too can be against the grain of stereotypical villains, which the Editor and I usually see as men in dark rooms brooding over something we the audience don’t know and beating the OC because it’s fun. Again, that isn’t a villain, that’s just an asshole. I also as a reader don’t know who that villain is as a person. I just know that I’m supposed to really really hate him or her because they’re mean to the OC. So, give them a personality, and tell me about their life. Are they the CEO of a massive corporation? Are they politicians? A teacher? A spy? Give me something I can take in and help me as the reader understand who this person is. We know Dolores is senior undersecretary to the Minister. She is a woman in a high place who loves her job. Anna, for example, we’ll say is a former spy. She was a spy when she was younger and has moved up in her organization to the point where she oversees other agents and acts as their support. Sion on the contrary is the head of the department of Chemistry wherever she works. She oversees students and has her own research lab. All characters have opportunities to interact with people, and therefore the OC. Your villain shouldn’t be a hermit. That’s less realistic, because then, how can we expect them to go antagonize the OC if they never leave the house?

          So, we now have a character with a personality, and we have a character with a career that fits their story. A good way that I’ve found to turn a character who would otherwise be good evil, is to pile on those flaws and have them act on their weaknesses more so than their strengths. We give our protagonists strengths and weaknesses but seldom do they lean on their weaknesses and put faith in insecurities. Let your villains down that kool-aid. It’ll make the drop into madness smoother. For Sion, we’ll have a character who is insecure. She is insecure about her usefulness, she’s worried her department will be absorbed into another, she’s insecure about her age and about some freak from nowhere with none of her training or experience being able to take away and undercut her value in the society she lives in. She has many children to provide for, and has a lot to lose should she lose her job (psst, this is where the OC comes in). Anna as a character grew a bit differently. Her insecurities came from her backstory, where she fell in love with another spy, had a long happy life with that spy until the same life that brought them together and made the world a game killed him. Her weaknesses come in that she feels abused by the system, and that she will not let others be abused by the same system. She feels more gallant than a character like Sion, and that she is saving characters who wouldn’t listen to her otherwise. Who doesn’t understand that the world is filled with bad people and no one else is willing to take out bad people? (psst, this is the easy driving force for the protagonists to oppose). Dolores’s insecurities come from ignorance. She follows the Minister on blind faith and doesn’t want to be proven wrong. If he fails she sees herself as failing too. In addition, she has internalized intolerance that has built up over time because of the oppression of half-breeds and muggle-borns. She helps write laws that oppress muggle-borns. She makes them submit for questioning. Dolores is happy where she is because her prejudice is a blanket of security for her. She loves her job, and she wants to stay where she is. So when Dumbledore or Harry try to uproot her, she is antagonistic.

          The impact of Sion, Dolores, and Anna, is that you end up with characters who do bad things but don’t see themselves as bad people. Anna believes she is doing the work that no one else is willing to do. That she is going after bad guys. Sion believes she is keeping her department alive. That she is looking out for the good of her people. Dolores is serving her ministry. None of these characters are truly evil, but when you present a young upstart who comes out of a factory that gets the spotlight and attention, or a group of ragtag kids who are trying to save as many people as they can regardless of experience because, “you can’t change where you come from,” or a wizard trying to shake down the years of intolerance at the central government, you get antagonism that is natural and makes sense. You get conflict that makes sense not only for the protagonists, but it makes sense for the antagonists to oppose them. That should be your goal when writing a villain. It should make sense for the villain to oppose the protagonist and vice versa, and it shouldn’t be because the villain is evil and that’s it.

          Now, to drive these points home further we’re going to break down great villains from the media and discuss why they are successful in the context that we’ve given you. We hope that by explaining these villains in the terms that we’ve just described, the importance of creating villains as characters first will make more sense.

          Let’s talk about Azula. She was the first to come up when the Editor and I discussed villains. We as an audience know Azula’s backstory. We know she was “born lucky,” and was beloved and revered by her father and grandfather. We know she had a bad relationship with her mother. We know she had friends. These are all aspects of personality that make Azula someone we can understand. Azula is serving her father and the Fire Nation. It just so happens that that nation is under more evil leadership. When we see the downfall of Azula, we see how the writers used her own insecurities to become her undoing. We see her instead as a deeply paranoid person, who is afraid of being betrayed by people she is supposed to trust. You see her crack under her own pressures. The brilliance of Azula is that we as an audience can relate to her in her downfall, and we see who she is beyond being a bad guy. She’s not like General Zhao, whose motivations and desires were more straightforward. She has complicated goals and wishes and desires that allow us to understand who she is as a person.

          Lucifer from Supernatural is another great example of a compelling villain. You see it in his development. He is meant to be the ultimate evil because he is after Sam and wants the end of the world. What the writers on Supernatural did is really explore the why of Lucifer’s actions. You see it in how his brothers talk to him. You see how Lucifer was, “the only one who could see what was going on.” That he couldn’t handle the new baby (mankind) coming home and lashed out. That he was kicked out of heaven by trying to prove that humans weren’t perfect. You see in the actor himself, that Lucifer is given a reason to be angry and a methodology behind his anger. This makes him more compelling as a villain. He isn’t evil just to be evil and he isn’t opposing humanity just to do it, he has a reason behind what he does. It makes us understand him as a character because his anger is relatable.

          Loki is often a villain or a love-interest in fanfiction. Sometimes when we’re feeling spicy, he’s a villain turned into a love interest because oh my god growth. Loki is given familial relationships and friendships that help us understand who he is as a character. On top of that, he’s given justifiable anger similar to that of Lucifer’s, which makes him act bad but believe he is in the right. Often when we read Loki fanfiction we see the tortured soul Loki who needs someone who can “understand” and “see him” in ways that his brother of 100-odd years somehow inexplicably cannot. This does not just apply to Loki (see Draco Malfoy, Lucifer, and sometimes Paul Lahote but he isn’t a villain). If you are going to give Loki a family that doesn’t know or understand him, you need to give Loki character traits that said the family wouldn’t know about. Hobbies he likes, activities he enjoys. Often Loki is reduced to reading, but in-depth analysis can allude to his reading being a means of escaping a bad situation. Does he write too? Tell me more. Loki is often reduced to either the tortured soul or the lunatic and he is neither. He is a boy first and foremost, who has been lied to his whole life, who was taken in as a political prop and was shoved aside and made to feel unwanted because he was not the blood son. That kind of stuff stays with a person. It messes you up and puts a lot of negative ideas in your head. From here is the source of Loki’s anger, but don’t say that his family doesn’t know him. They do, what they don’t do is accept or nurture him. The exception to this is Frigga. Loki’s motivations as a villain come from his backstory and the relationship he has with both his father and brother. Where fanfic writers often stumble is this dynamic, which is not one of unfamiliarity but one that lacks acceptance. Loki was ostracized for being different, but that isn’t to say Thor and the Warriors Three didn’t know he was different.

          Let’s talk about the Death Eaters. The Death Eaters are a great example of how systemic intolerance shapes a generation. They serve Voldemort out of both fear and loyalty because his power is something that is ingrained in their minds as something that is right. His ideas are perpetuated by Salazar Slytherin and enforced by pureblood families. The Death Eaters are examples of those who grew up in intolerance. They don’t necessarily follow Voldemort because they agree with him, but because their families do, their colleagues and friends do. They are so deep in this life they don’t know how to get out. Look at the obvious discomfort of the Malfoys in books 6 and 7. They clearly don’t want to be there. Death Eaters are way more complex than people give them credit for. If you’re writing Death Eater characters, lean into the Draco Malfoys and the Regulus Blacks of the world. Study how people in cults act and reflect on their time after leaving the cult. These resources will help you write characters that are more compelling than just, ‘Mudbloods suckkkk lmao.’

          Because he is so popular as a villain, we’re going to talk about Lucius Malfoy in addition to Death Eaters. Lucius Malfoy’s representation in fanfiction is horribly executed 9 times out of 10. This is because he follows the same fate of many characters that we discussed in Fanfiction 101. Lucius Malfoy is reduced to one-note beats and the most blatant parts of his personality. Because he is a villain, that beat is “I hate mudbloods and love Voldemort.” He’s like one of those MLM moms who are like, “love my God and my Essential Oils.” Lucius Malfoy should not be reduced to MLM moms with Live Laugh Love and internalized misogyny. He is way smarter than that. You don’t become one of Voldemort’s most devoted followers and come back from that without having your wits about you. Lucius is way smarter than what fanfiction writers commonly give him credit for. He’s intelligent. He’s driven. He was a Head Boy in his time at Hogwarts, and he knew how to try and sink his enemies without implicating himself. If you write Lucius Malfoy you need to dip into the cat-and-mouse games that are Lucius's personality. He’s not aggressively evil. He’s quiet. He slips in after the fighting is done and takes what he wants. The best example of this is during Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Everyone knew that it was Malfoy who slipped Tom Riddle’s diary in Ginny’s cauldron. However, there was no proof. Lucius Malfoy is a careful man, and in fanfiction that needs to be reflected.

          Villains are the most important character in your narrative. You need to view them as people. As characters first and as bad guys second. Your OC’s story can be centered around the villain, who should be complex, thought-out, and should have methods behind their madness. The audience needs to understand who your villain is by reading about them, just as much as your OC or side characters.

          Next week we’re discussing superpowers. We’ll break down how to make a cool set of superpowers, the common mistakes in superpowers, and give good and cringe examples.