Thank you for visiting my homepage on FanFiction.net. I'm surprised and humbled that my stories are read on a daily basis.

I hope you find something worthwhile, whether a good story (mine or someone else's) or some helpful writing tips. The writing tips will be moved to my other Web site: Fanfic 101 - Where Stories Come to Learn. Please take some time to visit Fanfic 101. In the future, new articles will be posted here and then moved to Fanfic 101. There are already a bunch of articles over there. Come and visit and bring your fanfic writing friends.

The beautiful little girl featured on my avatar is my precious niece, Katelyn. The picture was taken Christmas 2008 and a couple of weeks after her 3rd birthday.

I am a student of story writing and constantly seek to improve my own work. I hope that I can share some of the professional knowledge I've learned from being a member of RWA and from being a final copy reader at The Wild Rose Press.Thanks again for stopping by and taking the time to read this.

Writing Articles

A Writers Fourteen Best Friends (moved to Fanfic 101)

Who is That Masked Man? Zorro, Batman, or the Lone Ranger...?

Let me ask you--who are our characters?

Doctors, lawyers, JAG officers, NCIS agents, Air Force officers, archers, and outlaws, just to name a few of my favorite characters. Yours may be Starfleet officers, office workers, wizards, vampire slayers, or the vampires themselves.

And now, who are our readers?

Our readers are people who watch the show or read the book and know who and what the characters are.

I've been reading a lot lately. I finally found a cache of stories in a fandom I love, and then I found a "ship" I wanted to read from yet another fandom.

What do these two fandoms have in common?

Absolutely nothing but me and an odd phenomenon. One I noticed more in the first fandom than in the second, but it did show up in the second, curiously enough.

So what's the issue, you're wondering...

Well, it has to do with how we have characters reference or describe themselves or one another.

Commander Harmon Rabb is a full-time JAG lawyer and sometime pilot. When I write fan fiction for "JAG," I rarely if ever describe Harm as 'the Navy pilot' or 'the JAG lawyer.'

You know why?

Because my readers already know this about Harm. For me to keep referring to him as such is redundant, and it eventually becomes annoying to the reader.

In regular fiction—the kind you buy at the store or borrow from the library, an author may choose to use this tactic a few times at the beginning of the story.

You know why?

Because this is a brand new story with new characters the reader knows nothing to very little about yet, and this is a fast and easy way to give the readers some background information.

In fan fiction, we generally don't have that issue, unless of course you're introducing an original character. Then the reader will need that bit of background info. Three is usually the magic number in getting a reader to remember something about your character. Please don't keep hitting him or her (or me) over the head with the info. And please don't use the same term over and over, either, if possible.

A couple of downfalls in referring to our characters by what they do or something that defines them is that...

a) You’ve pulled the reader out of the character's POV because a character isn't going to think of him- or herself in that fashion. And pulling your reader from the story not a good thing…

or

b) You’ve pulled the reader out of the character’s POV because characters who are close to one another aren’t going to think of each other in such distant or abstract terms. And that's one of the things that using terms like 'archer,' 'outlaw,' or 'Navy pilot' does--it distances the reader from the pov character--and may just pull the reader right out of the story. And anything that pulls the reader from the story is not a good thing...

For example, Harm doesn't go around thinking of Mac as a recovering alcoholic even though that is a huge thing that defined her for several seasons. He thinks of her as a colleague, a comrade in arms, a friend, and maybe even a wife, girlfriend, or lover. And he's going to refer to her as Mac, Sarah, Colonel MacKenzie, or my colleague, my friend, my wife, or my girlfriend; whatever is appropriate to the situation.

or

c) There could be more than one archer, doctor, lawyer, etc..., and you risk confusing the reader if it isn't absolutely clear which archer, doctor, or lawyer you're referring to. Using the character's name eliminates the possiblility of confusion. If your reader is confused, he or she may stop reading to go back and figure things out. Anything you do that pulls your reader from the story is a bad thing...

Here are some examples from fics I’ve recently read:

Note: I've put a pair of tildes around the offending terms.

This is from "Stargate SG-1":

# 1 -- Sam stood on the side of the bank smiling as she watched the ~~Archaeologist~~ at work. This was what she really enjoyed watching Daniel do. Okay so in the last few years he had come on leaps and bounds physically and had toned up into quite a well-formed soldier, but in his heart he would always be the scholar. She watched him gently handling the monolith and almost for a moment wondered what those hands would feel like on her...

All right—Sam doesn't think of Daniel, first and foremost, as an archaeologist. She thinks of him as her friend, but more likely in this case just as Daniel. Second, archaeologist doesn't need to be capitalized. Third, I realize there are other issues with this passage, but that's not the lesson in this article, so we'll leave everything else be.

Examples #2, #3, #4, and #5 from the same fic in the BBC's "Robin Hood" fandom...

Two characters facing their deaths and having a heart to heart discussion, so...

#2 -- "Go on," ~~the knight~~ encouraged, realizing the raw memories he opened.

Now it's hard to tell whose POV we’re in because head hopping runs rampant through many fandoms (visit Fanfic 101 and read the two articles about pov), but if we're in Carter's POV, he certainly is not going to refer to himself as "the knight." And if we're in Much's POV, he would be more likely to think of Carter as "Carter" or "his friend" or even "his lover" (in this particular fic).

#3 -- The squire blinked back tears. Carter held his lover against the pain of memories too harsh to relive. "And?"

This is just a little farther in the same fic, and the first question is: are we in the squire's POV or Carter's or are they one and the same? RH fans who have been reading this story will know they are not. Much is the squire and Carter is the knight. Much would not refer to himself as a squire, and it's highly unlike that Carter would either, under these circumstances. In the second sentence, Carter refers to Much as "his lover" which is just fine in this case.

#4 -- Through the night, Much held his master as he soundlessly shivered, cried, cursed and begged for death. Much shed his clothes and lay beside the dying man, praying his heat would save Robin. God listened.

Okay, this is a flashback for Much as he tells Carter about his past. And in this passage, Much refers to Robin as his master, which is perfectly acceptable because in the show itself, Much calls Robin "master" more often than not in the first series (season) and a half.

#5 -- It was the squire's turn to bury his head in his hands.

This is from a paragraph where Much is clearly the POV character (and he is the squire, remember)—people just don't think of themselves in an abstract or third person way like this. They just don't.

So when you're beta reading (visit Fanfic 101 and read the two articles about beta reading) your own story or someone else's, be on the lookout for abstract or unlikely character references, but before you deem it as completely inappropriate, take into account the characters themselves and the situation they are currently in.