What do you hate to find in fan fiction?

[Sovereign]

I agree completely with the last comments but I'd also add another large problem with some fanfics I've seen (though not read). Any fanfic has to make sense and strive to keep everyone in-character, regardless of the writer's aspirations. For example, in Naruto fanfics it seems to be a thing to change a group of terrorist criminals into everyone-loving people who want nothing more than to find love.   Of course the same rules go for OCs even if they have more freedom than canon characters.

Also, it seems like that kind of writers (Mary Sue or slash) don't really care about plot or entertainment value at all. They seem to be writing their stories solely for themselves but they can't expect others to wish to read them with the same vigor. I can forgive fanfics having elements that may not be completely sit well with the canon but if they choose to write a fic about some franchise, they should respect the source material to their best extent.

[LBT90321]

Copyright infringement

[Ducky123]

Copyright infringement

Ehh, what?  :huh:

In terms of fanfictions, I'm probably very close to Malte's opinion (liking mostly "pure" LBT stories with very few exceptions) just more open-minded, I guess. There are stories I would never touch (mostly crossovers and sci-fi stories) but I've also read a few incredible stories which have not been strictly LBT (rhombus, I'm totally not looking at you )

As for things I hate... well, many strong arguments have been said for a various amount of fanfictions and I must say I agree with most of the views shared here. Sex is totally off-limits and so is violence just for the sake of it. What I most hate in fanfictions is simply them being poorly written. When you're presented to stories from writers who write on a level high enough to consider writing for a living (in my humple opinion, that is ) and then you read some poorly written nonsense, you just get angry because you know you've wasted your time you cuold've spent reading something GOOD or improve your own writing

[Sneak]

well, I guess there's little excuse for poor-writing if it's very very first and probe work of author...

truth to be told, I'm afraid to post my first works because of fear to be ridiculed or hated...

[Ducky123]

truth to be told, I'm afraid to post my first works because of fear to be ridiculed or hated... sad.gif

You'll never know until you try, I suppose. My offer to help you with proofreading/english language problems is still valid, just ask me

[HotelValleyfornia]

I'm a little interested to know how y'all typically define "slash fics". Does the definition include...'explicit' stuff (which I avoid myself), or just slash in general, including fluffy slash? Since...well if we're going by the latter definition, then I've written a little "slash" myself. Oops.

Well, in a lot of the fandoms I follow (6teen, Total Drama, etc) I seem to have a problem with most of the characters I prefer getting relegated to bit parts or not appearing at all. A HUGE ton of 6teen fics are mostly focused on either Jonesy, Nikki or Jude. Not much Caitlin or Jen and especially not much Wyatt. But that's not a problem with the fanfics themselves - more just the community in general.

What I don't like is when a certain character gets mistreated terribly, or demonized. There was this one Total Drama fic that completely decimated Geoff's character and made him out to be a serious *expletive* so Geoff and Bridgette could break up and Bridgette could be romantic with Cody. I really didn't care for that, I really like the Gidgette ship and Geoff as a character. And one time, I read a 6teen fanfic that KILLED Caitlin...made me feel really downbeat

And I generally struggle with ships I'm not a fan of, especially if they're not written well. There was this one 6teen sequel fic that was really cool, even added Danny Fenton/Phantom as a central character...but then it hooked up Jude and Jen. And that's a ship I just can't get behind (Jude/Starr and Jen/Caitlin shipper here), so I was like "nope". Don't get me wrong, ships I dislike CAN be done well (Jupiter Queen writes excellent Jude/Caitlin fics. And in The Land Before Time, I don't care for Littlefoot/Cera but I love how "The Time of the Great Growing" does it). But it's generally an uphill battle for me with them

Those are my main examples I guess. No offense intended, of course

[The Mr E]

1. Redundant and clumsily descriptive writing (I've done it before in attempts at high quality, but it's neither fun to write nor to read).  I like descriptiveness, but too much of a good thing is always bad.  However, descriptiveness can create an interesting tempo.  Snappy wording is great for fast-paced action, while greater wordiness can create a slow motion effect (too much slow mo is bad, of course).

2. When a story's summary revolves around "A young girl named _____."  (Seen that a loooot, and the premise is almost invariably generic).

3. Mr E: "When stories are written in script / play form, like this."

4. Inaccurate age ratings.

5. When characters are portrayed as having certain ... um ... preferences that were in no way originally indicated.

6. Misunderstandings and fallouts between characters that should be easy to avoid, and take a long time to get resolved.  "Wait, let me explain!" "There's nothing to explain!  Get out of my life!"

[F-14 Ace]

2. When a story's summary revolves around "A young girl named _____."  (Seen that a loooot, and the premise is almost invariably generic).

I can think of one example where it was done well, and all the rest are just blatant ripoffs of that premise. 

[The Mr E]

2. When a story's summary revolves around "A young girl named _____."  (Seen that a loooot, and the premise is almost invariably generic).

I can think of one example where it was done well, and all the rest are just blatant ripoffs of that premise.

Which fanfic is this?  I'm curious as to what it's like.

[The jewelstone queen]

You know you should think twice before reading a fanfic that has no paragraphs, no line seperation, and is just this long continuos body of words.

[Mouse-a-saur]

I don't dig humans in non-human fandoms. I'm not a fan of toxic relationships either.

The grammatically incorrect ones speak for themselves. I still think the absolute worst is when you find a fic that looks promising but someone is horribly OOC and it takes you out of the immersion. 

[somerandomfangirl]

I don't read fanfiction that much mostly because I like to read about obscure characters which never get written about. Nah it's actually because fanfic scarred me for life. I wouldn't say there's anything I particularly hate (apart from maybe going into excruciating detail regarding certain NSFW topics), but here's a few things that put me off:

- Bad formatting and grammar.  I don't care if it's the best idea in the world, I can't focus through a block of text especially if you don't know what a comma or full stop/period is.

- As Mouse said, humans in non-human fandoms. Saying that I have read and enjoyed sci-fi LBT fics that involve humans.

- Not tagging your fanfics correctly. If I come across something icky that wasn't tagged, I'm gonna... not like you very much. 

- Character bashing. Fine if you don't like a character, but dedicating that much time to hating on them through fanfic is something I'll never understand.

- "Oh no! Anyway..." moments. I do get irked if something traumatic happens and the characters just shrug it off as an everyday thing. If a character is established as stoic then okay, but if you know the character will be affected and don't show it, then I'm going to struggle with it.

- Mary Sues. Saying that some Mary Sue fics are very entertaining.

- Making characters extremely OOC for no reason.

- Unfinished fics, especially if they're left on a cliffhanger. I understand authors lose interest or have life things going on though. It's why I now won't upload anything until I'm sure it's going to be finished. So far I haven't finished one of my fics, but then they're all pretty long.

[HotelValleyfornia]

Just thought of another thing.

I don't like when people put their...let's just say "fascinations" in fics, especially for family-friendly mediums. One time I came across a Land Before Time fanfic about Littlefoot and Ruby "punishing" Chomper via using a giant wooden stick. And that is all I will be saying on THAT

[The Mr E]

The Mr E: "When a fanfic is written in a play script style, Shakespearean format.  Minus points if there's zero wordsmithery to back it up!"

Also, inaccurate ratings.