Fan-fiction

Inspired by some of the fanfics on http://royalroadweed.blogspot.co.il I decided to write my own. 2 complete chapters and just over 4000 words later my main character still has yet to enter the game.

I'm happy with what I've written so far, but every time I go to post a chapter I'm terrified and stop. The way I read something may not be the way someone else reads it. Am I been too wordy or not wordy enough? Is the pacing too fast or too slow? How many rules of basic English have I broken (I'm doing my best with this one, but English was never my best subject.)? What if people simply don't like it?

So I give myself a goal:- Start posting once I reach 5 chapters or 10000 words whichever comes first.

But I wonder, once I reach it, if I will have the courage to follow through.

Some people would just tell me to get over it, it's just fan-fiction, and no one really cares if it's good or bad. But it's my first serious attempt at writing something and why write anything at all if you don't hope it to be good and entertain. And if this goes well, who knows, maybe I'll write something original.

So sorry if this post come off as whiny or self-pitying, but do any of you English professors, aspiring writers or fellow fan-fiction authors have any advice you can give to me or anyone else in the same situation.

Thanks.

Edit: Up to 9k words now. 5k in one day. Not sure if that good or bad. Skipped a few chapters ahead to write a part I'd been thinking over all day, so as not to forget anything. Plus it's a lot easier to write with a clear image in your mind.

Switched from 3rd to 1st person somewhere along the line. Decided I liked it and now want to go back and rewrite what I'd done up to that point. Not just changing from 3rd to 1st, but adding a little, removing some, finding different words for however and despite (I seem to use them alot). Probably do it tomorrow now.

Thinking about writing up a timeline. I seem to have a good beginning, but only parts of a middle and no end at all. I mean seriously, how do you finish a story about a VR game. "And then I stopped playing. THE END" seems to lack a certain something. Hmm...Needs thinking about.
Anyone used this method? What were your thoughts on it?

Personally, I think that the best way to handle writing a fanfiction for this would be to give yourself a set end point, some major quest line or personal issue or whatever that you want your character to do and then just leave it open ended at that. That way, you could come back to it later if you want to write more, or simply let it drop. We don't need to know what happens to the hero after the demon king's been defeated, so don't bother writing it. But, if you decide to do more with your story you can.

As for if you should plan out a middle and an end... yes. If you're writing a fanfiction the best thing to do is to at least know three things, what your character wants to do, if they'll accomplish their goal, and how it affects them. For a casual writer, the easiest way to do that is to know your opening scene (i.e who your character is and how to introduce them to the story) and your ending scene (how will your character be different at the end of the story).

I like to write what was described to me as a "Big Middle", which is the scene in the middle (obviously) that the whole beginning has been leading up to, like your characters initial motivations and what have you. Really big and climactic, like. After that, the character has to deal with what happened in the Big Middle working towards the resolution. Note that the Big Middle has a self-contained rising action, climax, and resolution, but is still only part of the rising action in the overall story. Another good way to write is to write scene-sequel-scene-sequel which is basically writing a single scene, then your character's reaction to that scene, followed by another scene, and so on until the end of the story.

Well I've far surpassed my 10k words goal, but I'm still not ready to to post it yet. I've gone back and rewrote most of chapters 1 and 2 though they both need a bit more spit and polish, just so it reads a bit smoother. Added a bit more background story to chapter 1, so now have a better idea of his personality and motivations as well as his personal issues. Might possibly join chapters 1 and 2 together, so that at least one major task/goal is accomplished in each chapter, but still ending with a cliffhanger to keep people reading. How many words should an average chapter be? Is it up to author discretion? Can chapter length vary or should I try to keep it similar? I've also skipped ahead again a few times writing out ideas I've had. However its left me with pieces all over the place. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, I've got most of the pieces in the right place I just need to find the bits that join them all up. Here's how it looks so far:

Chapter 1 [Done. Needs polish]
Chapter 2 [Done. Needs polish]
Chapter 3 [Beginning Done. Missing Chunk. Partial Middle. Missing Chunk. Partial End.]
Chapter 4 [Totally Missing. Plenty of ideas though.]
Chapter 5 [Partial Beginning. Missing Chunk. Missing Chunk. Missing Chunk. Partial End.]
Chapter 6 [Done. Needs MAJOR polish. Possibly partial rewrite.]
Chapter 7 [Various ideas written down but no real story and only a vague order.]
Chapter 8 and onwards [Lots of ideas. No clue which chapter they will go in or what order they will appear.]

I kinda like writing in this disjointed style, though it's hella hard to keep track of sometimes. Getting close to about 20k words, though I think about 4k of that is just ideas, not actual story. Hopefully should have at least the first chapter posted by the end of next week. So something for you guys to look forward to I hope.

Thanks to laserface. Still no set end point, in honesty I can only think of one way it can end, the problem is writing it so it has a satisfying conclusion, otherwise it will end up just like a Stephen King novel. Defiantly a major quest line planed out, to possibly start around chapter 7 or 8, maybe 9. Though if I start joining chapters together, it might up starting in chapter 4. It will probably take at least dozen chapters to come close to completing it, with minor quests along the way.
Tried using your 'BIG middle' idea in chapter 6. Ended up blasting out the entire chapter in an evening, and though it needs work I'm really pleased with it. Though the big middle came more in the way of character development than an exciting climax. Then of course I re-read your advise an realised you meant a 'BIG middle' for the entire story, not just one chapter. Oh well, it still worked well.

Again, any advise you guys can suggest is appreciated. I'm really having fun doing it.

Sorry for the delay all. My pc self-destructed. I think it's the motherboard. I'm borrowing a friends laptop for now, until I can afford to repair it.

Anyway.

Emailed a short 2000 word fan-fiction to http://royalroadweed.blogspot.co.uk today. So hopefully that should go up sometime soon. Please go read it, comment, criticize or other. The better the response I get, the more likely I am to post another. As well as the ones I wrote once my PC is repaired.

Thanks

Sam

Give the link as soon as you know it's up on there ^^

Here's the link

http://royalroadweed.blogspot.co.il/2012/10/fanfic-system-error-by-samcreed.html

Chapter 2:

http://royalroadweed.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/fanfic-system-error-by-samcreed_31.html

So, I read the first two chapters and I really do love the concept. Rampant AIs are always awesome. That said, you do have a few grammar problems, don't worry about those though, everyone does if they don't have a beta. The important thing is to remember to fix them when they're pointed out to you. If you want I could go through your posted chapters and make a list of errors you could fix when you get author's privileges.

On the topic of content, you were a little unclear with some of your descriptions, but from reading the comments I've gathered that you're planning to change some of those, and your dialogue could use some work. It felt a little stiff in some places. However, that could be a good thing. Which leads me to my third point: much like Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2010 hit movie Inception, you need to go deeper. Henry Carver is an AI.He lives in a game world, but he doesn't get to respawn when he dies, he views stat sheets as a fact of life, he doesn't question that everything he can do is based on his 'class', and, most importantly, he's doing something he wasn't programmed to do. There's a technical term for when a program does something it wasn't designed for, it's called a glitch. Which I think could be awesome depending on how you write it. Will he be hunted down by debuggers, or have to contend with fractures in his code? Maybe he could use it like a super power allowing him to defeat enemies he shouldn't have a snowball's chance of beating (like he did with the goblins).

Anyways, that's just what I was thinking. Food for thought.