Quick disclaimer: This isn't for the people who the people who bash fanfiction, this is for the people who read and write fanfiction. Anything I say in this video is not fact, it is merely an opinion. Any other opinions can be said in the comments.

Also... I completely agreed to the idea of me reading MHA fanfiction just to do research for this post... the things I do for my fans...

Beginning!

Fanfiction is possibly one of the biggest ways to express your love for a piece of media, yet somehow, it is also considered to be one of the most bashed ways of supporting media.

And that's why I, Theguestcreator, have decided to try and help those who want to write fanfiction and not get hated on!

Now, something I feel like I should mention is that I've only written one piece of fanfiction that I've published online, and it surprisingly did well. And by well, I mean it got fifteen likes. Fifteen likes to me are like getting a few hundred. It also didn't get any hate, so that is always a good sign!

Let's split these tips up into three different categories, those being the following: Writing, story, and character tips.

Writing:

Writing is possibly the biggest part of any piece of fanfiction, but also the most important. Writing can determine how people view your story. If you have good writing, congratulations, people don't find your story bad! If you have bad writing, people think your story is bad.

So here are a few quick do's and don'ts for writing!

Do:

• Have proper grammar. This means to have correct spelling, punctuation, and terms in your writing.

• Make sense. You have to make sense, or else people won't like what you make!

• Most importantly, take inspiration from the source material and do research. If you don't know what you're writing, you probably shouldn't be writing it.

Don't:

• Have bad grammar. It har when no have good grammer.

• Ignore the source material. People hate it when you ruin something's image, and you don't want that to happen!

• Ignore people's advice. If people give advice, take it. who knows, maybe it'll make your writing better.

I get that not everyone is Stephen King in their writing prowess, but you have to get better. If you don't get better, nobody will like what you make!

Story:

The story is essential, it could be simple or complex. Take my first attempt at writing and publishing fanfiction, Doki-Doki Literature Club: The New Guy!

DDLCTNG was the first time I ever wrote about a piece of media I liked, and surprisingly, a lot of people liked that story!

The story of DDLCTNG was incredibly simple, the story was basically the base game but with a new MC with a few different scenarios thrown in there. It followed the source material, had good grammar, and didn't include anything that would seem random or outlandish for the settings or characters. And it ended up being one of my most-liked posts!

I'm not completely against the idea of fanfiction not being related the exact same as the source material, all I'm saying is to limit it. If you wanna make a story about SpongeBob being a mafia boss in bikini bottom, go ahead and make it, as long as it's related to SpongeBob!

Take one of my personal favorite examples, Enemies Blue. A horror film about TF2 in a dark and gritty retelling was absolutely amazing! And it followed similar material to the base game, so it worked!

Characters:

No matter what piece of media, we all have a character that we love in it. But the problem is that the transition from official media to fanfiction is a rough and bumpy one that often butchers the characters. These are some of the easiest ways to avoid butchering characters.

• Follow the source material.

• View the characters from every angle.

• Understand their thoughts and feelings.

• Head canons are fine but put them in the realm of possibility. (Example: If a character is hyperactive and the creator doesn't explain it, you have the headcanon of them having a giant sweet tooth causing their hyperactivity. Don't assume something completely unrelated to that and say that it's because their always excited about the US winning against Germany in WW2.)

• Imagine what those characters would do in said situations.

And now, possibly the most difficult topic with fanfiction... OCs.

OCs are fine, I completely support them. In fact, I've made some OCs in the past. But... a lot of OCs are... not all that good...?

A bunch of them fall into the Gary/Mary Sue archetype, which really damages the image of the story. You can fix this very easily!

GIVE. THEM. PROBLEMS.

It's so easy to just make your characters flawed in some way, but don't just slap on trauma and have that be a small fork in the road. Make the problems actually affect them in some meaningful way!

Oh... and self-inserts... I guess they're fine? Just don't make them the MC again but this time it's you.