While the quality of the average fanfic has improved a lot over the years—thanks in part to some ground rules laid down by sites such as FF.net—I still see many of the same age-old travesties being carried out by today’s authors. Maybe they’re newbie writers or just old timers who haven’t learned any better, but either way it needs to STOP.

Too many good fics are being buried under mountains of badfic, and I’ve had enough. Polluters of fanfiction archives everywhere, I’m officially calling you out. It’s time to change your wicked ways, and your good friend Char is here to help.

Just follow these 5 simple rules:

1. Stop the self-insertions – Nobody but you wants to read your own personal fantasies about whatever bishie you happen to be crushing on at the moment.  Start a private journal, narrate to your shower head, tattoo your names together on your inner thigh—I don’t give a fuck what you do, just please keep your wet dreams to yourself. And before you say something like, “But my fic isn’t a self insert fic! My OC doesn’t even have the same name as me, and she’s from their world, not ours. Her name is Aishitara, samurai ninja queen. She has three magic swords, a pet dragon that she tamed with her sweet musical voice, fiery auburn-gold hair, amethyst eyes”—let me stop you right there, because nobody’s fooled.

   

   Putting an idealized fandom-esque version of yourself into your stories still counts as self-insertion! What’s more, you’ve turned yourself into a Mary Sue, which in many ways is even more pathetic and annoying—and certainly no less absurd—than the garden-variety self-insert fic.

2. Stop the songfics – Just heard Taylor Swift’s latest single and can’t get it out of your head? Does it inspire you? Are you thinking to yourself, why not combine my latest song obsession with my love for Inuyasha—wouldn’t that just be the greatest thing ever? WRONG. First off you’re assuming that other people who like Inuyasha also like Taylor Swift. It doesn’t matter how great your story is—if the person reading it can’t stand Taylor Swift and the whole thing is interspersed with lines from Shake It Off, they are going to hate your fic. Second, when you write a songfic, you’re stripping the song down to just the lyrics, which removes the vast majority of what makes it so enjoyable in the first place—that is, the GODDAMN MUSIC!! Even if it’s a great song, it loses most of its impact when you relegate it to words. Don’t bastardize an awesome song and don’t ruin a perfectly good fanfiction by trying to Frankenstein the two together.

   

3. Stop the long-winded author notes – So your mom got on your case again about the number of holes in your jeans and so you had to change clothes and so you were late for school…or you’d just like to preface your InuKag fic by explaining, in detail, why Kikyou is such a betch. Spare us the diatribe, please. Author’s notes should ideally be short, to the point, and relevant to the fanfic itself. Sharing a little detail or infusing them with some personality is fine, but keep it to a minimum, for God’s sake. People clicked on the link because they want to read a fanfic, not learn all about what you had for breakfast that morning. If you really want to share that kind of info so bad to the internet at large, then start your own shitty blog like I did.
4. Stop writing walls of text – Paragraphs were invented for a reason. No one wants to wade through an amorphous blob of text. My sentiments on this are perhaps best expressed by the artwork of Allie Brosh:

   

5. Stop abusing the English language – For the love of all that is Holy, learn how to use spellcheck!! There is absolutely NO reason these days to have spelling errors. EVER. Even free-to-use word processors like Google Docs and OpenOffice have spellcheck built in, and yet I still see shit like this being posted: “i suck at summeries lolz”—summeries. SUMMERIES. (Brain explodes) But seriously, it’s not that fucking hard, people. Grammar mistakes are more understandable, but still not excusable. If you’re uncertain about your grammar, there are TONS of online resources at your disposal. You may as well start educating yourself now anyway if you want to be successful at anything in life. Without proper syntax and punctuation, you might as well not even bother writing  anything for anyone else to read because it’ll be damn near incomprehensible.

Take these rules to heart and clean up your act, you lovable scoundrels! That, or GTFO. I’ll take a reduction in badfics any way I can get it. <3