Please read and comment

[Bob Schroeck]

During the past few weeks I've been thinking about all the "pet peeves" and "stupid author tricks" threads we've had in here over the years, and I finally decided to try to consolidate them and turn them into some kind of guide document for fic authors. I'm far from finished, but I've got a big chunk of the first section done, and I thought I might post it here for commentary and suggestions. So please take a look at this and let me know what you think. Thanks!
-- Bob

---

Over the decade or more that I've been part of the fanfic community -- initially anime fanfiction with a brief sideline into Trekfic, but of late branching out to Harry Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and a few other fandoms -- I've read a godawful lot of fics. And among that godawful lot of fics were a lot of godawful fics.This document is an ambitious attempt to help reduce the number of putrid fics by some small but noticeable amount. It started off as a series of threads in the "Other People's Fanfiction" area of my discussion forums on ezBoard. I've extracted the useful information from those threads and expanded upon it, supplementing it with practical advice and guidelines garnered during my three years in the Creative Writing program at Princeton University, 2 years as a newspaper stringer, and seventeen years as a professional freelance writer and member of SFWA, not to mention my eight years of writing fanfiction. (Yes, that *does* mean I started fan writing *after* I was a pro.) I've broken down this document into three main sections:I. General guidelines -- Broad rules that can help improve yourwriting overall.II. Stupid Writer Tricks -- Dumb and dumber mistakes to avoid.III. Crafting Fiction -- Advice on how to construct a story sothat your audience is engaged and entertained.I hope this proves useful to you. Good luck, and good writing.-- Robert M. SchroeckI. GENERAL GUIDELINES1. Learn, and write in, proper English. This means spelling and grammar (more about both later), and on a larger scale, writing proper sentences, paragraphs and chapters. I've seen authors claim that they don't need to do any of this because they're writing "for fun". Well, bunky, let me tell you that I'm *reading* for fun, and if trying to puzzle out what you're saying is too much work, it gets deleted. Quickly. Look at it this way: words are your tools. You *must* learn to use them properly if you are ever going to craft something worthwhile. Imagine two furnituremakers -- who will make the better chair? The one who chips away at the wood with a dull screwdriver and bangs nails in with a pair of pliers? Or the one with a router, lathe and woodcarver's blades, and the knowledge of how to use them properly? Mind you, I know that some of the FFML's authors are writing in a second language when they work in English. But you know something? Unless they say so, I usually can't tell. That's because they often write English better than native speakers do. It's a rare case that one of them makes an error. I only wish the native speakers were as well-educated. Related to this rule is the next:2. Buy a style guide, and consult it regularly. I recommend Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style", which you can get at any bookstore (and, of course, on Amazon.com). There are others, like the Associated Press stylebook, but they tend to be primarily for journalists, while Strunk and White's is focused on more general use. A style guide will help you avoid some of the more common but harder-to-detect errors a writer can make. (And you *will* make them, and continue to make them, no matter how good you get.) It will also guide you in crafting sentences that mean exactly what you want them to mean, instead of just coming close (or worse, looking like they do while missing the mark entirely). If you're weak on English usage and grammar, supplement the style guide with a good guide to structure and writing. I can't recommend Karen Elizabeth Gordon's books highly enough -- get "The Deluxe Transitive Vampire" and "The New Well- Tempered Sentence" (again, available just about everywhere). Not only are they spot-on guides to grammar and punctuation, respectively, they're a whole hell of a lot of fun to read.3. Proofread and preread. Do it yourself, or recruit a friend. If you're lucky or determined, you might assemble a small circle of prereaders. For god's sake, don't trust spellchecker programs. They are notoriously *stupid*. Unlike a human reader, they have no sense of context, and will blithely miscorrect a bad spelling into the wrong word if you carelessly tell them "fix all" or the equivalent. They also *never* have every English word in them, and lacking them, can end up flagging and "fixing" a perfectly good and proper word that they don't recognize. A case in point: the built-in spellcheckers in a number of popular word-processors do not know the word "genteel" (meaning "refined, well-bred, ladylike, gentlemanly") and will insist on turning it into either "gentle" ("delicate of touch") or "gentile" ("not Jewish"). Not exactly the kind of thing which helps the meaning of a well-crafted sentence, that. Make no mistake -- most spellcheckers are designed for *business* writing, and the words they know are biased in that direction. Don't let them get their hands on your work. Similarly, grammar checkers are not the be-all and end-all. They *are* somewhat better tools for the fiction writer than the spellchecker, but again, they tend to be business-oriented. Worse, they have no real way to allow for the less-stringent structure and flow that is necessary for fiction. Use a grammar checker if you want, but be prepared to wade through more false positives than you'd like. The only real solution for both is to manually eyeball your work. This is something that's problematic for most authors, as they have a tendency to read what they know they meant, and not what they actually wrote. Other eyes without preconceived notions about the content are the best way to go about this, although if you have the luxury to let a written piece lie fallow until you forget its contents, you can manage by yourself.4. Pick prereaders carefully. Once you have a chapter or a story out, it's easy to get (more) prereaders. If you're any good, almost everybody who liked your work will clamor to preread simply to get an advance look at your newest stuff. Be aware that these folks do not always make the best prereaders. While this is not a hard and fast rule, self- nominated prereaders run the risk of being (or turning into) "yes men" who always respond "it's great!" to any new material. This can make it hard for an author to grow in his skills, or to evaluate his growth. No pool of prereaders should be made up entirely of self- nominees. When assembling prereaders, *always* make sure you ask some folks who have given you more than just praise. Anyone who's ever told you something was broken (and better, how to fix it) will make a good prereader. If you can actually recruit someone who is uninterested in your subject matter, story, or fandom entirely, even better -- they won't be biased by their own enthusiasm when trying to evaluate your writing. Finally, when selecting prereaders make sure they know that you want more feedback from them than just spelling and grammar errors. You'll profit from it in the long run. 5. Pay attention to what your prereaders say. Especially if they say things like, "why does this happen?" or "this doesn't make sense". Ideally, your prereaders are representative of your greater audience, and if they're more frustrated or confused by a story than entertained and intrigued, that's indicative of problems with your approach. Listen to them, and fix as needed.6. Don't be wedded to your text. Nothing you've written is graven in stone. Nothing is so perfect that it can't be revised or even thrown out. Do not get so attached to a passage that you cannot ruthlessly cut it out of the story if needed. And be prepared to rip your entire story down to the foundations and start it over if that's what the prereaders suggest. It'll be painful, and you won't want to do it, but nine times out of ten, it'll be the right thing to do.7. But don't throw away your deletions. Nothing says you can't save those scraps and recycle them, though. For each of my writing projects, I have a "discards" file. Anything more than a sentence long that gets cut goes in that file for potential reuse elsewhere -- and I *have* found ways to reuse things. This is the best way to preserve that turn of phrase or clever scene that you're so proud of, but which just didn't fit in the place where you first wrote it. Plus, if you know the material won't be lost forever, it's easier to make drastic cuts when they're needed. 8. When in doubt, look it up. In the era of the Internet, there is no reason to make a dumb mistake of fact. Between Google and Wikipedia alone, there is absolutely no excuse for errors born out of ignorance. Series canon for virtually everything is thoroughly documented online these days, unlike the Dark Ages in the middle 1990s and earlier. Web-based language dictionaries are reasonably good and mostly easy to use. It will take maybe five minutes to confirm or correct most details about which you are unsure. Take that time. Newbie readers will thank you, and old hands will respect you. And every once in a while you'll find something utterly cool that no one has ever used before.9. Avoid fanon. As a corollary, resist the urge to fall back on fanon, even (or especially!) when it fills a known hole in your fictional setting of choice. Fanon is never unavoidable -- and making up your own detail from scratch will sometimes lead you into profitable new areas of exploration.10. Write for yourself as well as your readers. Or, to put it differently, you are one of your readers -- don't forget you're writing for your own enjoyment.11. Write for your readers as well as yourself. However, don't get so wrapped up in writing for yourself that you forget you have other people in your audience. This is what causes the worst Self Insertion fics -- when the author gets so caught up in his self-indulgent ego trip that he forgets that other people are going to read this, and want to see more than chapter 135 of "L33TWr1T3R Conquerz Teh Wurld"!12. Don't blackmail your readers. Don't *demand* reviews, or C&C, or whatever your outlet of choice calls reader response, and by the gods do not threaten to stop writing if you don't get any. If you're not getting reviews, or not getting *positive* reviews, there's a *reason*, and a puerile threat to stop writing won't do much good. It might even *reward* some of the people who give you bad reviews. Just write. Yes, you want people to enjoy your work, but nothing is enjoyed by *everybody*. Besides, the work itself should be as much reward as the response. If it's not, you're doing something wrong.13. Grow a thick skin. Related to the above point is how you respond to criticism. Every writer gets bad reviews. I've had them, Stephen King gets them, Hemingway got them, hell, even Shakespeare got heckled in print and in person. There's always somebody who's going to hate your work, no matter how good it is. DON'T LET HIM CHASE YOU AWAY FROM WRITING, BECAUSE THAT WAY HE WINS. Remember that you are writing as much to please yourself as your readers, so don't let someone's abuse make you stop doing something you enjoy. We've already lost a couple fair-to-good writers who had the potential to be truly great because they let negative comments get too deeply under their skins; we don't need to lose more.
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Ayiekie]

It's pretty decent so far. My only issue is that I feel you stray a little bit onto the side of "write like it's professional". Fanfiction writing is ultimately for fun and for love of a series (at least in theory). Should people be encouraged to write better? Yes, of course! Do I enjoy it if they do? Certainly. But do I expect the same quality of writing in a professional, published work? No.
For instance, is it really necessary to buy a style guide? I'm hesitant to say so. Sure, try to spell correctly and use halfways decent grammar and oh, yes, please, learning proper paragraph structure would be a blessing. But learning a style guide is work, and I don't see it as work a fourteen-year-old girl should feel obligated to do before she tries to write the cute little story she's thinking about where Miroku meets Rin.
It is my strong belief that despite the heavy incidence of bad fanfiction out there, that somebody writing a story out of love for a series cannot personally be a bad thing. It is also my belief that the best thing for a budding writer is to write, is to enjoy writing, and that if they enjoy it enough, they will want to become better at it, and by practice and critique will do so. I think giving the impression that you must take college-level English courses and memorise the Oxford Style Guide (and yes, I know that's a bit of an exaggeration of what you said) will turn people off of writing fanfiction, and (here's what it boils down to) I'd rather they write bad fanfiction at first then never write at all.
So by all means, encourage better writing, and especially encourage them to think about what it is they are writing and how to present it. But it seems there's a bit of attitude of heavy-handed demand there that I can see as being off-putting to a new writer.
Of course, YMMV, Bob, but that's my $0.02.

[classicdrogn]

While I can Ayiekie's point here, I think that all it takes to accomodate it is the note that good writers aren't born, they're made, or more precisely grow from bad writers who keep practising and improving their skills as wordsmiths. Nor, for that matter, is there some magic point that one passes to go from "bad" to "good;" if you can *type* then there's always someone worse, and unless you're at if for a very, very long time, work very, very hard, and have outragous fortune that makes the Brothers of Serendip look like bumblers, there'll always be someone better, as well.
The point isn't to make anyone feel they have to slave away in secret, hiding away their efforts until they've acheived written perfection (Much as I wish the homosexual child pornography fans of Naruto *would* - seriously, what is up with that? - since the majority would hopefully grow out of it while they tried) but to help provide a set of clear goals to strive for.
That said... yeah, I think the style guide thing is only going to happen if someone is already pretty well devoted to writing like a pro. I have one, but the last time I looked at it was the last day of the English Comp course I only needed to take for the credits, but I hardly claim to be a perfect writer, and "I haven't finished my stories!" is one of the things on my "I can't Die yet" list. I'll even share my nexty two targets: I Griever and Nathan. That's right guys, you're next on my list of who I'm trying to surpass... too bad for me that you're a lot better at the volume thing than I am, too
Oh well, what the hell. Hopefully I'm no less than half as good as I think I am, and somehow got the point across.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Epsilon]

May I reccommend that if you're going to be suggesting reading materials that you include Orson Scott Card's "How To Write Science Fiction and Fantasy".
I live and breath by that book. It contains more useful information for writing fanfiction on two pages than in an entire Style Guide.
----------------
Epsilon

[Custos Sophiae]

Mostly, I agree, but I too would be wary of style guides. In some areas they assert standards that even the best writers do not adhere to; in others they give little guidance.
On the one hand, trying too hard to avoid such solecisms as split infinitives and sentence-ending propositions can sound unnatural. On the other, they seldom explain what is odd about sentences such as 'An accident was yesterday,' or 'I see red any longer.'
The best way to learn to write grammatically flawless English is by reading it copiously. Indeed, that is one of the most effective, and least painful, ways of learning most literary techniques.

[robkelk]

Good work, so far. I didn't spot any typos or grammatical errors, and it's internally consistent and makes sense...
A few specific comments:

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3. Proofread and preread.
Do it yourself, or recruit a friend.

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I'd suggest not doing it yourself. A writer tends to read what he thought he wrote, not what he actually wrote. (That's also a major reason why software debugging is so time-consuming...) I'd recommend finding somebody who's willing to preread and whose work you've already read and understood.

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8. When in doubt, look it up.

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Excellent advice, but...

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Between Google and Wikipedia alone, there is absolutely no excuse for errors born out of ignorance.

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There's too much misinformation born of both ignorance and malice on the Web, or on Wikipedia, for me to recommend either as a primary source. We all know about the flawed Nature comparison between Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica, right? And Better Read That Again discusses malicious misinformation on the Web.

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9. Avoid fanon.

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Especially since so much of it is wrong. If you go by fanon, Evangelion's Misato is a martinet, Ranma's Akane is a homicidal maniac, and Sailor Moon's Ami is a lesbian - all of these are contradicted by the respective source material.

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10. Write for yourself as well as your readers.

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13. Grow a thick skin.

---

I'm surprised you didn't quote the song Garden Party in either of these sections...

(Edit: You'd think I'd proofread a post about proofreading before posting it...)

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Angryoptimist]

I think of all the things in there, I found the one on prereaders most illuminating (although, if any further reasonably general-case advice on this is possible, it might do with a bit more expansion on roping people into doing this task).
Utterly disregarding the risk of sounding like I know nothing, I must say that the bit about avoid fanon is not completely clear to me. In particular, is it external fanon = bad / internal fanon = good/useful or external fanon = bad /internal fanon = provisionally acceptable/occasionally useful?

• XKCD #1288
  
• FoxReplace for Firefox

Two great tastes that go great together!

[robkelk]

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Utterly disregarding the risk of sounding like I know nothing, I must say that the bit about avoid fanon is not completely clear to me. In particular, is it external fanon = bad / internal fanon = good/useful or external fanon = bad /internal fanon = provisionally acceptable/occasionally useful?

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There are two reasons I know of to avoid using any fanon.
First, there are too many often-reused cases of fanon that don't match the source material. (I mentioned three common ones in an earlier post. Another incorrect bit of fanon is about the Doublet System in Oh My Goddess: there's absolutely nothing in canon that says every god and demon is part of the system, and there are hints that many or most are not. The fanon that says every celestial in that setting is part of the system is likely wrong.)
Second and more importantly, accepting and reusing fanon artificially limits your options when you write your own story. (I didn't care that every other writer thinks Skuld never swears when I wrote A Certain Distance and A Closer Distance - it was completely in character for her to use a mild oath at a few points in the story, so I put one into her dialogue.)
Basically, if fanon doesn't contradict established canon and works within your own story, feel free to use or ignore it. If that isn't true, though, I recommend ignoring it.

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Epsilon]

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Anyone who's ever told you something was broken (and better, how to fix it) will make a good prereader.

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Just one other comment about prereaders:
Prereaders who tell you how to "fix" something are not neccessarily desirable. The sole job of a prereader is to tell you that something is wrong (to them). They are not the author, and they are not there to tell you how to write your story. Sometimes what looks broken to a prereader is actually something you want there.
Your best comments you will ever get from a prereader are their FEELINGS about something. The best way to do this is to ask them questions. Go through your fanfic draft scene by scene with your prereader and ask about everything they've read. "How did this scene make you feel?" "Was it boring?" "Was it exciting?" "Did you understand what was happening?" "What do you think about this charaacter?" "Do you want to see more of them, or less?" and so on.
And yes, the audience being pissed off at your story can be a valid reaction. Sometimes you want your prereaders to hate a character, an event or even the whole story. Sometimes what you are going for is a visceral feeling in which the actual technical artistry is second to the emotional impact of a scene.
The best piece of advice about pre-readers is that the more you have, the better off you are. They exist to tell you what they think, but what they think is not always what is best for the story. If a prereader didn't like a scene it is more important to find out why than it is to try and please them. Sometimes you don't want people to like a scene.
------------------
Epsilon

[CattyNebulart]

when you order things like you have esspecially with numbers you tend to imply importance to them, with that in mind I would put the prereaders higher, and the styleguide at the bottom. I know I have never got any use out of the half dozen style guides I have (which might explain why I'm a terrible writer.)

I'd reorder some other stuff too, but I am not sure if you gave any thought to the order of the items. Had a longer reply but a thunderstorm deleted it :/
E: "Did they... did they just endorse the combination of the JSDF and US Army by showing them as two lesbian lolicons moving in together and holding hands and talking about how 'intimate' they were?"
B: "Have you forgotten so soon? They're phasing out Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

[Bob Schroeck]

Everyone, thanks for your your thoughts and suggestions. I'm copying this whole thread to a local file, and when I next get the chance, I'll revise the original per some of the comments here.
That doesn't mean stop commenting if you see something. I'll still be reading this thread!
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[katreus]

In terms of proofreading, I'd say wait a couple days and read it aloud.
Scanning your own writing sometimes lets your eyes skip over the wrong parts because your mind fills it in.

[Morganite]

What's the difference between internal and external fanon? '.'
-Morgan."I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, or espers here, come sleep with me."
---From "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
-----(Not really)

[Foxboy]

Internal fanon = the "fanon" believed by the author(s) of a given fic.
External fanon = using "fanon" based on other fics. Or, writing a fic in a series you only know from fanfic. Almost anyone who writes Akane from Ranma 1/2 as a totally irredeemable psychopath is using external fanon. Canon, she's short-tempered, insecure, and merely a bad cook. Fanon, she swings the mallet of DHOOM at the merest twitch from Ranma and her cooking is radioactive.
There may be some other "fanon" that comes into play when a manga becomes an anime: filler fanon. That is, the events that are altered from canon to fit a TV rather than manga trope. For instance, Naruto jutsus from the anime filler arcs are seldom as imaginative or iconic as the main jutsus from the manga. I presume there must be a "Freaky Friday" episode of Naruto in the filler somewhere.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[classicdrogn]

A what episode? Body swapping is a Yamanaka thing, or Orochimaru in the long term... and definately canon.
- CDSERVO: Loook *deeeeply* into my eyes... Tell me, what do you see?
CROW: (hypnotized) A twisted man who wants to inflict his pain upon others.
A kung-fu nun in a leather thong was no less extreme than anything else he had seen that day. - Rev. Dark's IST: Holy Sea World
--
"Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles
woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows

[Morganite]

I'm still not sure I entirely understand. If internal fanon is what you believe, wouldn't that mean you don't actually know it's not canon? '.'
I suppose I'd also want to encourage not automatically rejecting things just because they're fanon. Use whatever suits the story best.
I tend to look at canon itself pretty loosely, since I'm mainly a fan of AU and crossover fiction. But internal consistency is important no matter what you're doing. It's possible to pull off a lot of variance from original continuity without seeming too jarring as long as the variations all fit together, but if things start working differently from scene to scene with no reasonable explaination, it all falls apart. (Imagine my mortification when going through one of my stories and finding a character had said something totally OOC - because an entirely different character was supposed to have said it. o.o )
(Not many people seem to be able to do something really interesting that takes place in the middle of a series without breaching the continuity somehow. Continuations, of course, are different.)
On the use of style guides... I'm not sure how much they'd really help most people. If you don't already know you're making a mistake, you can't look it up, and if you don't know, just looking through the book probably won't impart enough to you that you'll start knowing. Of course, once you've found out there's a problem, they're great; I really wish I knew where mine was, because I'm *certain* I've been bungling my posessive plurals.
I've found spellcheckers can be somewhat useful, once you've trained them properly. But, like most such tools, you really need to look over its shoulder all the time.
There's one problem I've had a few times that only proofreading myself really helped with. I tend to write scenes out of order, so sometimes I end up *thinking* I wrote something that I actually haven't. Leaving something for a while and then rereading it is a good way to catch this sort of thing; someone else proofreading might not realize there's anything missing.
I'd also suggest "Don't automatically do everything your prereaders say." I've heard of that sort of thing happening, and it really causes problems. And sometimes you'll get well-meaning suggestions that simply aren't right for the story, for one reason or another.

---

Evangelion's Misato is a martinet

---

I don't think I've *ever* read a fic like that. o.O It seems so anti-Misato. I've seen Misato accused of being lots of other things, but never that...
-Morgan. (And we all know Ami's bisexual anyway... *innocent innocent* )"I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any aliens, time travelers, or espers here, come sleep with me."
---From "The Ecchi of Haruhi Suzumiya"
-----(Not really)

[Foxboy]

Okay, I can say this without looking stupid and/or forgetting supernatural tidbits from a series I get forgetful about. I think the "martinet" version of Misato comes from misunderstanding her Jekyll and Hyde transformations in canon from "bottle fairy" to tactical genius.
She drinks and whoops and hollers because she's trying not to stress out about all the things she has to deal with on a regular basis as the highest-ranking "pure military" officer in NERV. The fact that she holds such an important position at her age and, bluntly, being a woman in Japan, indicates either SCARY competence, Gendo's smokescreen, and/or both.
That said, I almost want to plot an ISOT Evangelion fic.
clarification: ISOT = Island in the Sea of Time, referring to a genre of alternate history/time travel fiction, based on books of the same name, and including Weber's 1632 series, the Zipang anime, and The High Tech Knight novels.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[jpub]

1) De FFML-ize this. Make it more general.
2) When talking about pre-readers, point out that if your you're posting to a forum (a mailing list or a LJ community) for final edits, consider everything you get.
3) My apologies if you mentioned this, I skimmed. You might want to suggest that the author realizes that a single CRITICAL review that points out flaws and errors is worth a hundred 'OMG THIS SI SO GUD RITE MOR K?!?!one!!!11!'.
--
Christopher Angel, aka JPublic
The Works of Christopher Angel

[Bob Schroeck]

Again, thanks everyone. All this is going into a local file, so the next time I pick up this project (among everything else I'm trying to do at once), I'll have it all handy. And I'll be adding a credits section to the bottom, too...
-- Bob
---------
...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Necratoid]

First off... I agree with the style guide commentary... telling someone to buy 30-100 dollar worth of books is like telling someone your trying to get involved in Warhammer 40k that in order to get them involved... they must cough up 300-500 bucks to get an army to play with... and if they don't like that army they'll need 3-5 hundred dollars more to try the next army... and each figure is 10-50 dollar a piece to have painted, so its not a gray blob (or they can learn to paint tiny, tiny, objects themselves.). The answer is if they aren't getting hundreds of dollars each week as an allowance they are not going to bother.
The same thing goes for the 'style guides' you recommended. You explain somewhat vaguely in context what a 'style guide' is, but its got an in crowd vibe to that section. Basically a bit of the vibe I got from a stupid line that has annoyed me sense I heard it in 5th grade... 'If you have to ask you'll never know'.
The spend money on something that you have never heard of because some professional writer recommended it is a bit heavy handed. First... Do not start out with recommendations on which ones to buy... Your writing a guide for beginning authors/writes and up. Not a guide for College English majors. Start by explaining what a 'style guide' is in the first place. Once you have explained the concept behind said books and what they are for you can then start recommending specific books. Stating with which of these books they are to all buy, then hinting at what they are for is coming across as an ad for said books.
Back to order Topic 1) is always a good start. Then Topic 3)-7) are all good for order. Then Topic 13) as its the end of the proofreading section and encouragement to continue despite mistake is needed.. Then suggest Topic 2) with my revisions as a close to the General writing section.
Now that you've written the general purpose tips (adding others if needed) you can use the style guide suggestion as a lead in to the next section. The actual content in a generic sense. Starting with a lead in intro paragraph about the specifics of writing fanfiction. Start off with Topic its good to check source/reference materials... also add in that suggestions above remembering that not everything on the net/in the media/in all books is correct. While new things are cool and spiffy... if you make an error that thick skin will help a lot (reinforcing this necessary skill). If you make a mistake (or someone else is mistaken/deluded about the item in question) having a source to point them to helps.
Reminding the readers of Topics 6) and 7), as changes for coherence are related, but different from changes in facts/story logic. Just, because it says what you want it to be doesn't always make it correct.
Now that grammar/spelling/readability is handled and then checking things out to make sure the material is correct slip into the general broad topic of fanon. You made the same mistake earilier as with these style guides It feels tossed in the middle as an after thought and the order is jarring in its abrupt shift of focus... here is the text you gave:

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As a corollary, resist the urge to fall back on fanon, even (or especially!) when it fills a known hole in your fictional setting of choice. Fanon is never unavoidable -- and making up your own detail from scratch will sometimes lead you into profitable new areas of exploration.

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This is aimed at people who 1) know what this 'fanon' thing is in the first place, 2) preaches to the choir, about the evils of said spackle for writers. Also sounds ranting and looks like a half finished thought in and aside. Basically, like some randomite wandered on stage and said 'Fanon, live it, love it!' and you respond with 'Ranma Saotome, fanon is all your fault!!!' Then start talking about target audiences.
For example I looked ip 'fanon' on dictionary.com I got it was an article of clothing. Which means if the reader of the guide doesn't know what 'fanon' already they are going to be utterly confused.
Instead mention they should actually see said cannon and what the canon is. The books, Tv program, manga, anime, or even subtitled fansubs at the very least should be watched/read before writing. Fan created facts and events that didn't happen in the original continuity/continuities are fanon. Make specific note it is not advised to write for any series where they have only read fanfiction for it. Technically, you may want to explain what fanfiction is in the first place for a paragraph in the opening intro section as well.
For example we had a thread that mentioned authors you can't write fanfiction for. One of these is Anne Rice. I remember reading about why she stopped letting people write fanfiction for her work, when you originally could. The short answer: Stupid people. The long answer: Rice feels it necessary to respond to every e-mail from her fans. At some point she stepped back and realized the reason she wasn't getting anything written was over the course 2-4 months she had ended up responding to thousands, if not tens of thousands of e-mails daily and ran out of time. What were these e-mails? Angry e-mails about how she had to fix all these plot holes that they found reading fanfiction for her works. It just didn't register with her large numbers of her fans that she wasn't writing under a thousand or so pseudonyms. As I said stupid people.
Now that you have given an explanation of what is wrong with using fanon, what fanon is mention that it is important to notify the reader of major/noticeable changes to the continuity. Whether with a intro paragraph or so in the intro explaining the changes or bringing things up in the text of the story itself. Dont discourage them from making changes just point out that if the reader doesnt learn of an important change its a major flaw.
Then you have a good start off point to get into the annoying things people do and the specific grievances people have with stories starting with the talking voices in the blank void.

[robkelk]

A few more thoughts...

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Learn, and write in, proper English.

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Except in dialogue. Hardly anyone uses proper grammar when speaking; characters' dialogue should reflect this.
(Here's an example of what not to do:
"I say, Ranma, would you please hold still so that I can thrash you?"
"I'm terribly sorry, Ryouga, but I just can't allow you to do that."
It's grammatical English, but terrible dialogue... unless they both fell in the Spring of Drowned Kuno, of course.)

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Buy a style guide, and consult it regularly.

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While I agree with the folks who suggest explaining what a style guide is, I disagree with the people who suggest de-emphasizing style guides. These belong at or near the top of the list, in my opinion. Style guides set forth their authors' views of the rules of the English language. Most people learn the rules before sitting down at the wheel of a car, or sitting behind a gamemaster's screen; why should sitting in front of a typewriter be any different?
There's another, often-overlooked advantage to consulting a style guide: You can only break the rules on purpose when you know what they are. There may be a grammatical rule up with which you will not put, but would you even know about it if you haven't learned the rules?
Since you're recommending punctuation guides along with style guides, I suggest mentioning Lynne Truss' "Eats, Shoots and Leaves", the most entertaining punctuation guide I've ever read.

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For god's sake, don't trust spellchecker programs.

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Definitely distrust automated spelling checkers. In addition to the reasons already given, they won't notice a wrong but correctly-spelled word. If you type "lust", "lost", "list", or "lest" instead of "last", a spellchecker will let it pass. (A grammar checker might let it pass, too; "last" can be a noun (mold or form), verb (endure), or adjective (final).)

-Rob Kelk
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Custos Sophiae]

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Style guides set forth their authors' views of the rules of the English language. Most people learn the rules before sitting down at the wheel of a car, or sitting behind a gamemaster's screen; why should sitting in front of a typewriter be any different?

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Because there is no authoritative set of rules for English.
Some of the rules in style guides are either debatable, or wrong. They state rules as absolutes when, even in the best written English, some are only trends. They fail to list all the exceptions, and there are some issues they do not address at all.
A style guide can be useful, of course - most of what they say is the undisputed truth - but they should not be used uncritically.

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay, last night while I was off the Net (see message in General/General for why), I did a little work on the first two points of section one. I haven't implemented all the suggestions yet by any means -- I was mainly running from memory of what people said -- but folks may find it a little better. Let me know what you think.

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I. GENERAL GUIDELINES1. Learn, and write in, reasonably proper English. This means spelling and grammar (more about both later), and on a larger scale, writing proper sentences, paragraphs and chapters. I've seen authors claim that they don't need to do any of this because they're writing "for fun". Well, bunky, let me tell you that I'm *reading* for fun, and if trying to puzzle out what you're saying is too much work, it gets deleted. Quickly. Understand -- I'm not talking about being able to write like a professional before you start. No. Some fan writers can and have done it, but it's not something one should expect of all fan writers, and certainly not in their first works. There's no shame in not being Hemingway, or even Tom Clancy, when you start. Not even Hemingway was Hemingway, at least in terms of his writing, when he first put pen to paper. *BUT* -- if you expect someone to read what you wrote, try to have at least a high school-level grasp of the language you're writing in. Some may accuse me of snobbery when I say this, but if you want your work to be widely enjoyed, and maybe even acclaimed someday, you *have* to have a minimum profciency in using your language of choice. Look at it this way: words are your tools. You *must* learn to use them properly if you are ever going to craft something worthwhile. Imagine two furnituremakers -- who will make the better chair? The one who chips away at the wood with a dull screwdriver and bangs nails in with a pair of pliers? Or the one with a router, lathe and woodcarver's blades, and the knowledge of how to use them properly? Just as an example, I know that many fanfiction authors are writing in a second language when they work in English. But you know something? Unless they say so, I often can't tell. That's because they frequently write English better than native speakers do. It's a rare case that one of them makes an error. I only wish the native speakers were as well- educated. Related to this rule is the next:2. Acquire a style guide, and consult it as needed. I recommend Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style", which you can get at any bookstore (and, of course, on Amazon.com). There are others, like the Associated Press stylebook, but they tend to be primarily for journalists, while Strunk and White's is focused on more general use. A style guide will help you avoid some of the more common but harder-to-detect errors a writer can make. (And you *will* make them, and continue to make them, no matter how good you get.) It will also guide you in crafting sentences that mean exactly what you want them to mean, instead of just coming close (or worse, looking like they do while missing the mark entirely). You don't need to adhere slavishly to its suggestions -- in fact, you probably shouldn't -- but when you're having trouble getting something to come out just the way you want it, a style guide can be an invaluable aid. If you're weak on English usage and grammar, supplement the style guide with a good guide to structure and writing. I can't recommend Karen Elizabeth Gordon's books highly enough -- get "The Deluxe Transitive Vampire" and "The New Well- Tempered Sentence" (again, available just about everywhere). Not only are they spot-on guides to grammar and punctuation, respectively, they're a whole hell of a lot of fun to read. A good thesaurus and dictionary are also handy. Fortunately you can find inexpensive paperback editions, and even some hardcovers aren't too exorbitant. If you are hesitant to shell out $50 or more for reference books just to write fanfiction, you do have alternatives. Since reference works aren't big sellers, you can often find them on the "half price"/"75% off" table in bookstores. Used book stores are also good places to look for copies at discount prices, along with public library sell-offs. (Don't worry about getting older editions; while the language is always evolving, the core elements are sufficiently constant that you'd have to buy a *really* old edition -- half a century or more -- to stumble onto something that's no longer relevant in modern usage.) If you're so strapped that even buying at discount is out of the question, you can check these books out from (or just *at*) your local library. Or, if you're still a student, your English teacher/professor. You can also consult the Net; there are a number of good grammar/style sites, although you need to be careful about your choice of site -- if you can, get an independent opinion on how good it is before you start to rely on it. However, if you're really *serious* about writing, there's no excuse for not (eventually) getting your hands on your own set of references. It's like trying to be a mechanic without owning a set of good tools.

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Thanks!
-- Bob
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...The President is on the line
As ninety-nine crab rangoons go by...

[Custos Sophiae]

I do have, and use, a British style guide but I've also got the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. an hefty tome which takes a rather different approach.
They do agree on most topics, but where style guides mostly say how English should be written, CGEL says how standard English actually is written, and sketches the logic underlying the language's chaotic surface. Where a style guide would say 'avoid the passive except when ...' CGEL explains what the passive is for. Understand that and you won't misuse it.
I wouldn't recommend the CGEL alone to any writer - quite apart from the price, it's not an easy read - but anyone interested in the English language, which should include writers, would probably find it, or other books with the same approach, useful in conjunction with style guides.
However, the CGEL writers also have a blog, Language Log, where they frequently comment on language usage. Again, they're not trying to tell people how they should write, but they do say many interesting things.

[Loki Laufeyjarson]

A short comment on the topic of people not wanting to buy an expensive refernce work or guide on "how to write..." when they are not only mostly poor students but also just doing thw whole writing thing for fun.
There a lot of free resources on the net that can be valuable alternative.
Some books that are avaidable online like at
www.bartleby.com/reference/
where you can get "The American Heritage Book of English Usage" and "The Columbia Guide to Standard American English" as well as many other classic and contemporary refernce works.
Other sources like this website:
Common Errors in English
were so sucesful that they have been made into bucks.
There are some that can occasionally be helpful like
www.worldwidewords.org
And often if nothing else you can search through places like alt.usage.english to find if somebody had the same problem as you before.
If nothing else helps you can always simply do a google search on any phrase or term you are in doubt about. It will not show how right or wrong you are, but it will give you examples of others who have done the same, the context they have done it in and how many of them there are. You might still get things completly wrong like that but at least you will have lots of company.
So having no money to buy tons of books is no excuse.