Fan/fiction tips
There are a lot of things you can do with your fan fiction. There can be many elements and such that can make them better. Some are more important elements, but some can just be there just to add in on some things. Here could be a few things that could help on fan fiction. But meh, I could be forgetting some. Feel free to add in on some if you want.

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Basic Structure:

A beginning:

A beginning can be pretty important. The way you start your fan fiction can kind of set up a mood of how the story would be. Like if it’s serious, dark, funny and such. It shouldn’t be too hard to do, but you can think it over to and see if it can fit with your story. Try not to make anything vague or irrelevant though, as it drags you away from a clear story. Try to stay in reality as much as you can as well, where as you don’t defy the laws of gravity.

Prologue:

While it’s not necessarily needed, it can kind of add onto the story, like set up the plot and such. It could also introduce some characters as well. Do whatever you want with a prologue, but you don’t necessarily need one. Perhaps you can just use it to tell of some recent events, and what the main character is doing now, and foreshadowing something that is going to happen.

Ending:

I’m pretty sure this is important. At some point, you MUST have a relevant ending to your story. Remember, don’t start a new story; end your story. It shouldn’t be too hard to do, so when you structure out your story, you can think of how to end it.

Epilogue:

This isn’t really needed as well, but it can be pretty good depending on how you use it. Epilogues tell of what happens after the story. If you’re going to make an epilogue though, you should pay attention, and not make it too descriptive and such. Just add on what the characters did after the story. Like if they defeated the bad guys, what are they going to do afterwards. Be careful though, as an epilogue could possibly start a new story, which isn’t so good. So try to keep the epilogue from starting a new story, that’s all to say, I guess. The things you can say in an epilogue shouldn’t be too complex, just a few things. Remember, this is optional, so you don’t even need to think about this.

Settings:

Yes, settings are a nice touch to your story. Overtime, they can change, but changes should be done through steadily. It’s confusing if one minute you’re in a beach, and the next your fighting monkeys in outer space. Do you catch my drift? You can be descriptive with the setting, and you can take your time, but please don’t just jump into a completely different scene.

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Ideas:

Jokes and gags:

This can range from several kinds of topics, I guess here’s a bit listed

Useless jokes:

This usually has something to do with like a useless line that never means anything to the story, and is well useless. It doesn’t do anything to change the storyline, it just kind of adds in some things to the story.

An example might be if my character, Shadi is going around school saying that Green Day sucks. The next day he says that he is allowed to swear in class as long as the class doesn’t abuse the option and comments on Green Day again. He tells to Alex “I don’t swear so much. Swearing is for losers, and only people who listen to Green Day swears a lot.” But later on he winds up swearing so much because he forgot his homework. Much later on he is captured, and continues to swear, but finally admits that he listens to a bit of Green Day but not a whole lot because they’re overrated, but we all know he listens to overrated bands.

Running gags:

Running gags can be kind of funny, but only for a while usually. That might be the case. Examples of that would be like The Simpsons couch gag or Kenny’s death from South Park. Try coming up of your own kinds.

My running gag is usually questioning reality, and possibly breaking the fourth wall. Sometimes in my fan fiction, they’ll question if everything is real or it’s all fiction.

For instance, in one moment, Shadi explains that you can’t fall in Slow-mo because of gravity, but later on, the screen goes in slow-mo or so, Shadi falls slowly because time slowed down. He then questions if that really happened

Relations with certain things:

I don’t really know how to say it. It could probably be like foreshadowing to like something a character is afraid of or just something that relates to them perhaps. Like from Xiaolin Showdown, Omi is afraid of Squirrels, but it was kind of shown in two other episodes before revealing his fear.

Also, Shadi hates hyenas, he encounters one in present time and freaks out. He starts chasing it around. This is because of an event he went through in his childhood.

Repeating gag:

Not so sure how to explain this either, I guess it’s pretty much repeating a scene, but it should probably only be done twice for a certain scene.

Like Shadi running up to an electric socket and hits it with his Sugar Cane. He is shot backwards, and recovers only to hit the socket again in the same way with the same result.

From this point on, you can either have an interruption that will stop the process, have it happen again but halfway through, something happens, or have it happen again and stop on the third time.

I can list a few more types of gags I guess:

Reverse Psychology:
ex.
Bugs: Duck Season
Daffy: Rabbit Season
Bugs: Rabbit Season
Daffy; Duck Season fire!

Unnecessary Approving:
ex.

Tails: Wait, Sonic don’t do this!
Sonic: Sorry buddy, my minds been made up, and you can’t stop me, please just don’t try
Tails: Okay!

Things out of Water:
Such as fish being outside of the water and jumping around, waves hitting people, whatever you want.

Puns:

Some puns can be funny but not all the time. You can make up some puns, but try to limit it a bit, don’t go crazy like 4KIDS XD

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The Good stuff:

Dramatic Irony:

This is usually good, as it kind of leads me hanging. I usually don’t like when this happens though, I just kind of feel sorry for the victim and such. I mean you wouldn’t want to get blamed for something you didn’t do, right?

When this occurs, the reader can understand what’s going on, while characters in the story don’t or misunderstand the problem. This usually gets into problems and such. Such as a certain character taking the blame of someone else.

Much can happen with this element, and it really does leave me hanging to find out if the problem can be sorted or understood at the end. Sometimes, the problem isn’t even understood by the characters, and the only ones that would know what was going on was the reader.

Very much so, even if it’s a character I don’t really like, I do feel kind of sorry for them if they get caught into the mess. Another fact is that this is a feature can also be either intended by another character or unintended by the character.

For instance, a girl is bored of always being nice and polite. She wants to do something new, so she decides to go to a Monster Truck Rally or so. But she feels weird going as a girl, so she disguises herself as a boy, using her brother’s clothes. She gets into the stadium, and later on, she gets onto the Monster Truck, but crashes it, causing the arena to blow up sort of. By this point, the clothes fell off, and she was back in her regular clothes. She flees the scene immediately. Later on, the police come to their house to tell the parent’s that the brother went out and blew up the arena later on, although it was the sister that did it, but she didn’t mean to. This was actually from this show I saw a long time ago, so I can’t really remember much, and I don’t really remember what it was called either. Ah well!

Now an intended one I don’t really know. It could kind of be like this flash movie where Super Sonic was causing damage. He knew that if he leaved the scene after beating up Sonic, Sonic would take the blame. So he left Sonic alone, and Sonic gets thrown in jail for the destruction. This I guess would have been intended to happen.

Character roles:

This could be pretty important as well. You need to give a character a certain role in order to make a fiction like work. Roles include such as a main hero, main character, villain and such. Usually in stories, there is a main hero, and a villain. Sometimes it even throws in an abused character, or one that’s accident prone and such. If you know me, then you should know which character I chose for that role. Well as goes with some others, go crazy with this, but not too crazy. Don’t put in too many main characters though, that’s not so good, as their isn’t really one focus, but focusing on too many characters that aren’t even that important. That was the mistake in Sonic X, because it focused on too many humans we probably don’t even know.

Category:

This could go all around the place. Topics include like a serious fiction, the genre being adventure and stuff. Fan fictions can be funny and serious as well, it’s all how you put it together. Go crazy! Add action, unnecessary drama for the humor, or just make it serious with no jokes whatsoever.

Cliffhangers:

The way a chapter ends could also affect your story I suppose. Ending it in a cliffhanger can leave readers… well hanging, ha-ha. Either way, it is kind of fun to make up cliffhangers sometimes. Maybe you could get some to predict what might happen as well. I don’t really know, try this though

Descriptions:

Now descriptions are pretty important. They can really liven up your fan fiction. Usually the more the better I suppose, but seriously, don’t go crazy. You might eventually bore the readers, so go easy with the description. When you use descriptive language, reader’s can feel as if they’re there with the action I suppose. Like if you describe a beach, the reader might imagine themselves at the beach and such. I don’t really know. Use some description though, to make sure the story isn’t just dialogue

Foreshadowing:

This is rather an interesting effect. It can give clues for what will happen next. It can be hard, but if done right, it can make a story pretty good. You have to give hints that can connect to things that happen later on though, so you do have to remember what you’re writing, and have to think it over a lot, I guess. You can refer to Shakespeare’s works if you want. He was really good at this sort of thing.


Character Development:

This is a pretty good feature as well. I think this is pretty much building character for a character. More of their personality and past can be revealed in some chapters. Here’s an example I guess.

You could start out with a normal character that's a little dumb. Later on, we can learn that this guy likes to be in flowerbeds and such, and an event that caused him to be stupid or something. Or maybe he just has ADD, do whatever you want. We could also learn that he's claustrophobic, and they're afraid of mice. Anything. Build up your character as the story progresses; reveal stuff about them that we don't know. Try it!

Climax:

A climax is like getting to a point where the problem can be solved. It doesn’t always have to happen, but it can be pretty cool though. Its cool and all, and could possible happen after a cliffhanger. I don’t really know; if anyone else wants to add some stuff, feel free to.

Type:

This is like the way you write your story. Like if it’s first person, or third person. As of first person, the story is told by the narrator’s view, and I think third person is the way you’d view the fiction. Stuff like that.

This also goes for format as well, you can choose between these two formats:

Paragraph
Script

Where as script is pretty much more simpler, you could probably use this form if you’re a newbie with this whole fan fiction idea, but as you get better, I highly suggest using paragraph form. Script is pretty much just simpler, and it lacks description and action; such like that. It’s pretty much just dialogue.

With paragraph form, things could be much better. You have a lot of things you can add, and usually more descriptive stuff, the good stuff XD You can ranges on this, so remember to think around what you want though.


Sorry if it's a bit iffy, but then again, most things I write is iffy anyways. I'm not sure if I already said this, but if you have any more suggestions, feel free to say them in your comments. Not sure if it's in the right section either, hopefully it is