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.
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.