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Part 3

Writing Fanfiction
• The most common (and in my opinion, the best advice) is to,
just do it. Just write it.
• Whatever you are fantasizing about or thinking about, just put
it on paper.
•“You aren’t creating anything. The characters
are just doing their thing and you’re
spectating and documenting it.”
• This statement may sound ridiculous, but the more I write,
the more I find that it is true. We have an intuition about
how characters should behave and the personas they
represent.
• Just by starting to write, often times the characters just come
to life and put themselves to work.
Start with what you’re comfortable with
• I (Joana Smith) usually recommend beginners write their
first story about something they’re comfortable with.
• Take the character that you trust the most and a scene that
you’ve played through in your head a few times, and just try
putting it into a story.
• I usually recommend beginners write their first story about
something they’re comfortable with.
• Take the character that you trust the most and a scene that
you’ve played through in your head a few times, and just try
putting it into a story.
Just write. Don’t worry about the nitty gritty
• FOCUS on the plot, the actions, the feelings, the setting, and
all the things that are happening.
• I used to get stuck all the time fixing sentence structure,
correcting grammar, or figuring out the exact way to say
something.
• Don’t think too much. Worry about that in editing, because
that’s what it is for.
• Once you get into a state of writing, the ideas will come to
you. If you keep stopping, you’ll never reach that mental state.
• FOCUS, CONCENTRATE, & ENJOY  !!!
Read it out loud and edit
• Reading your story out loud to yourself is the best way to edit.
• I catch dozens of mistakes during this process.
• I get to enjoy what I wrote as well as fix up any diction or grammar
errors.
• If you have a beta reader (basically somebody who test reads your
story before you release it), this is also a great place to get the beta
reader involved.
• After that, I publish it publicly and share the stories on social media to
my followers! Comments and reviews always make my day (hint: if you
find a good fanfiction piece, comment and review)!
Last thing: Have fun!
• As you can see, fanfiction can involve a lot of work
and effort. It’s very easy to get lost in the hard work
and forget why you got started writing.
• The internet can be a tough place. While most of the
comments I get have been positive, the negative
comments and name-calling still get me every time.
The comments can criticize just about anything, no
matter how trivial and shallow.
Elements of a Story
• Plot structure – the plan or main story
• Setting – the time and place of the action of a literary
work
• Characters – the person’s of a drama or novel
• Conflict – opposition of action that gives rise to the
dramatic action or story
• Climax – the point of highest dramatic tension or the
major turning point in the action
• Denoument – the outcome of a complex sequence of
events
Parts of a story

PLOT DIAGRAM
Writers of fiction use seven elements to tell their stories:
(compared to house building)
• Character. These are the beings who inhabit our stories.
Sometimes they are actual people but, just as often, they are
animals, dragons, faeries (gotta love those fantasy folks and
their creative spellings!), or even inanimate objects (consider
the spoon, dish, and clock from Disney's Beauty and the Beast).
• Characters are necessary because we need someone to invest in,
to care about, and to root for (or against). It doesn't matter where
your story is set, what the point-of-view is, or how exciting the plot-
-without characters, no one will care and the other six elements
quickly become irrelevant.
• Plot. Plot is what happens in the story, the series of events.
This happened, then this happened, then this happened. . .
• Setting. Setting is where your story takes place. But some
settings are so powerful, they almost seem like characters
themselves (Think Tara, Hogwarts, the island in Lord of the
Flies). Settings can be large and all-encompassing (A
hospital, a jungle, an inner city rec center, The Death Star)
or more intimate (a kitchen, an alley, a park bench). Setting
also includes season and time of day (Summer, 5 p.m.),
climate (sultry, bucolic), and era (The 70s, post-Watergate,
World War II, The Great Depression). Instead of merely
describing setting, though, smart writers impart setting
through the filter of their characters' feelings about that
setting.
• Point-of-view. To figure out point-of-view, ask yourself "Whose
story is it?" and then tell the story from that character's
perspective. Point-of-view includes first person ("I" and "me"),
second person ("you"--this is very rarely used in fiction,
take that Jay McInerney) and third person ("He," "she," "Nick"
and "Abby"). Third person is further split into omniscient (the
reader accesses all of the characters' heads and hearts, a
conceit that's now considered somewhat old-fashioned) and
limited (where we see the entire story through a single
character's perspective).
• Style. Style is like a fingerprint, no two are alike. A function of
diction, syntax, and voice, style tends to emerge from how you
write rather than from a concerted effort to control it.
• Theme. Theme refers to "The Big Ideas" that bubble up
from what you've written. Is your story about Betrayal,
Love, Friendship, Justice, Family, Honor, Violence, Hypocrisy?
You may have a theme in mind when you sit at the keyboard
but, like it or not, readers will carve their own idea of
theme out of what you write. And that's as it should be.
• Literary Devices. Like the hammer and nail mentioned
earlier, literary devices are the true tools of the writer. A
partial list of literary devices include simile, metaphor,
personification, symbolism, alliteration, hyperbole,
figurative language, humor, onomatopoeia, and irony.
• Every piece of fiction from Oedipus Rex to Charlie's
Angels uses The Seven Elements of Fiction to create
fictional worlds that make us laugh and cry, hope and
dream.
• As fiction writers, these tools are yours to do with as
you please. Build something big or small, traditional
or experimental.
• If you don't like what you build, tear it down and build
something else. There is no such thing as worthless
practice.
• And remember: the better your facility with these
tools, the finer the house you will build.
GOD BLESS

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