A Guide to Writing Fanfiction. Part One of Two: Character.

[valis2]

I've overhauled my original LJ entry about writing fanfiction from March 2005. Here is bright, shiny version 2.0!

---

We all write fanfiction for different reasons. Some of us are here for the sheer joy of playing in another's toybox; some are here to improve as writers; some are here to practice for writing their own original works.

For those interested in improving, I offer this guide, in the hopes that it will be useful.

• When a Snape Isn't a Snape (Staying in Character): A good rule of thumb in writing is to Remember the Audience. It doesn't matter if your audience is comprised of grandmothers, fifteen year olds, or just yourself. You need to keep them in mind when you are writing.
  
  When you're writing fanfiction, you are writing for fans. Fans want to read more about their favorite characters. They want to know why Han Solo was solo for so long. They want to know how Remus Lupin became friends with Sirius Black. They want to know what happened after the second Death Star exploded. There are many scenarios that you can fit right into the canon universe you're writing in.
  
  In writing fanfiction, you have the distinct advantage of not having to set the stage because the fans already know the stage pretty well. Fans don't need lengthy introductions; most of them know the canon characters inside and out. But it also means they're going to be less forgiving about what you do with the canon characters. If your interpretation of Clark Kent is a cringing, monosyllabic, agoraphobic crybaby, people who love the canon version of the character will click the back button.
  
  When someone writes a canon character who acts and behaves differently from the source material, it's called Out Of Character (OOC). If you are writing canon characters purposely OOC, then you should mention it in your author's notes, and you should definitely explain why. If Lex is joining a hippie commune, you must furnish proper reasons. People generally don't generally leave a multi-million-dollar corporation to live property-free; there are reasons for their actions, and, as the author, you are the one who has to provide them.
  
  The thing is, most fanfiction readers don't particularly want to read a story with OOC characters. Snape fans, for example, don't want to read a story where a student tells off Severus Snape in a particularly nasty manner and walks out of his class without a single point being taken or a reaction from Snape. That's fairly ridiculous. Snape fans know the character of Severus Snape pretty well, and the reason they clicked on your story is that he was in it. Snape fans want to read a scene where he cuts the uppity student back down to size. If Snape is a nervous stammering wreck for no reason at all, Snape fans are going to roll their eyes and hit the back button.
  
  Snape fans are the main audience of a Snape-centric fanfic. Lose them, and there aren't a lot of readers left.



• Everything You Wanted to Know, and Lots More on Top of That (Expositional blocks): We've all done it. Started a story with action, and then suddenly given our readers whiplash when we quickly shifted to Expositional Mode, pouring huge quantities of information on top of them. Example:
  
  She lingered in the doorway, wishing that she had brought her Glock. The derringer just wouldn't be enough if anything serious started. She'd always liked guns. Guns seemed to bring out her calm side. Normally she would be bouncing off the walls—but hand her a gun, and she'd transform, becoming cool and collected. Even as a little girl she'd always wanted to play cops and robbers instead of dressing up Barbie. Her brothers used to leave her behind until she got old enough to keep up with them, and then they'd play for hours in the backyard. She remembered her oldest brother, dead now, and wished that it wasn't so. His killer would pay. She'd taken down so many jerks in the last six years that she knew how to do it now. She took the safety off the little gun and prepared to deal with the bank heist that was going down.
  
  So many times the character's history just starts overwhelming you as you're writing a scene. You suddenly think of wonderful quirk after quirk, fabulous background material, and flaws galore as you're writing. It's natural, because you're developing the character. However, these things are for your benefit, and don't necessarily have to be transmitted to the reader at that moment, or at all. Generalities ("she'd always liked guns") and mini-flashbacks ("She remembered her oldest brother") sometimes do nothing but confuse the reader, as they would much rather see it then hear about it. I could have written instead a line that implied her devotion to ammunition and firearms without making the statement so explicit, and then the reader would have been able to surmise it all on their own. That would have made the paragraph much more action-oriented and not so choppy and distracting. The background I could have saved for another character to bring up later, or for her to mention in a conversation with her mother on the phone. As the paragraph reads now, it pulls the reader everywhere.
  
  Too many times I've read fics that start with a line or two of action, and then the rest of the entire first chapter becomes a huge expositional block describing everyday habits, life patterns, back history, and food preferences.
  
  Sometimes expositional blocks occur during a fic as well. I've read fics before where a new chapter begins with a character doing something really strange and eye-catching, and then suddenly the author has to rush in and explain it all. An example:
  
  Harry yawned and stretched. The tips of his wings nearly touched the opposite walls of the room, and he grinned. They were so white and beautiful. He could hardly wait to show them off.
  
  "Hey, sleepyhead, time to get up--Wow, great wings!" marveled Ron.
  
  "Yeah, thanks," said Harry. They had grown last night while he slept. He was becoming an Angel, an Avatar of Light, and he couldn't wait. This was the first stage, where his wings came in, and he slept a lot more than usual.
  
  This is pretty poor exposition, in that the reader sees what is happening, and then it's very hastily explained in the narration, when it could have just as easily been part of a conversation. It's pretty obvious that the author suddenly thought up an entirely new direction for the fic overnight, and shoehorned it in.
  
  Don't forget that you can trust readers to put things together on their own. Instead of writing out that Hermione has become a journalist for the Daily Prophet, you could slowly introduce small details that, when viewed as a whole, make it clear that she works for the paper. Certainly a few people will miss it, but most readers will catch on quickly enough, and the story will be that much stronger. Exposition should seem like a natural part of the story, and it should unfold smoothly.



• Look at my character! No, really! Look at my character!! (Too Much Description): This mistake is related to Exposition Blocks. Describing a character is a very important part of building up just who they are in the imagination of the reader. But that doesn't mean that every single item that the character possesses must be inventoried in a single paragraph the very first time the reader is introduced to him/her. The more you stack on, the more difficult it is for the casual reader to keep it all straight.
  
  Sari put her hands on her hips, admiring her reflection in the mirror. She was five feet six inches tall. Her long red and black streaked hair was pulled into twin ponytails atop her head, fastened with ponytail holders with little gems on them that flashed when people looked at them. Her eyebrows were unusually thick. She drew her twin swords, striking a pose. She wore a leather collar with spikes on it and matching red and black leather wristbands. She was wearing a bikini top made from red leather paired with a black leather miniskirt and fishnet stockings with black leather boots with three-inch heels. She wore one red kneepad and one black kneepad. What most people didn't know is that she had an arsenal of weapons stashed in her outfit. A garrote was hidden in the hem of her miniskirt, and she had several throwing knives concealed in her boots. Her wristbands held shurikens. She looked closer in the mirror, noting with satisfaction her unusual eyes, one red, one black. She loved it when an opponent got close enough to see them and freaked out. She could make the red one turn black if she wanted, but she preferred them this way. Her eyebrows were full and perfectly curved naturally. She smiled, baring her sharp, white teeth. She knew she was pretty. She knew she could kick butt. Her twin swords were made from mithril and could cut through anything. Sometimes, though, she used the Glock in her shoulder holster, just to shake things up a bit.
  
  Okay, how many of you really got through that entire paragraph? It may be scintillating to the writer, full of awesome details, but to the casual reader it can be a pretentious turnoff. Too much of it just makes people hit the back button without giving you a chance. Sometimes it's better to let the character go about her business, or, if your story is very long with multiple chapters, it could be much more interesting to reveal details slowly. If the shurikens in the wristbands are not going to be a factor in the story until chapter twenty, then you might want to reserve their description until chapter ten or so.
  
  Also, too much very specific detail can "push" the reader right out of your fanfiction. Why does she need to be "five feet six"? It's easier to say she's of average height, or compare her to a tall character and say she's shorter. Saying she is wearing "three-inch heels" just piles on too much. "Heels" is enough. Unless later in the story she is saved because her heels are exactly three inches long, it's a completely useless detail.
  
  The character design should make sense from all angles. If Sari, for example, is from a very cold climate, then her normal gear would not consist of a leather bikini top and a miniskirt. If she is from a medieval-based culture, then her fishnet stockings would be laughed at (as well as her white teeth). The outfit and appearance have to logically fit in with her environment, her culture, and her abilities. If she's a ninjitsu expert she most likely will not wear a long, flowing skirt.
  
  This applies to her physical description as well. If her mother has shocking red hair and her father has pitch-black hair it will not make sense for her to have striped hair, unless you support it somehow, but remember...some of the readers are going to know that you've made up an elaborate excuse for your character just so that she can have red and black striped hair. Look into common eye colors and hair color combinations in your source material. And just because your best friend happens to have jet black hair, porcelain skin, and shocking blue eyes with a violet rim does not mean that it isn't a rare combination.
  
  I would strongly suggest that you do not at any point refer to someone's eyes as "orbs." It doesn't sound attractive, and it's a common description that new writers use that will peg you as inexperienced. Trust me on this one.
  
  The more your character stands out, the more apart from the reader you make her. I'm not saying that you can't have a banjo-playing superstar with green skin and crimson eyes who likes to wear sharkskin. I'm just saying that you'll have to work that much harder to make her believable and, more importantly, let the readers empathize with her, unless that is the norm in the universe she lives in.



• My Parents Abandoned Me and All I Got Was This Lovely Angst (Background): Part of creating characters that live and breathe is fleshing out their past. Realistic, believable backgrounds can go a long way when developing character. Backgrounds can influence plot and give even the most basic of encounters extra shades of meaning. This scene:
  
  Harry looked up at Remus, wondering how many days the werewolf had left to live. Remus was dying.
  
  is much more poignant when the reader remembers that Harry has few adult figures of compassion in his life, and that Remus has seen his other friends die or betray the others and has never lived a full life because of his lycanthropy. Background provides the resonating emotion that is underneath the action.
  
  A character's background is, I would argue, even more important than appearance and possessions. It is the engine that drives the character and supplies reactions to external stimuli. So it only follows that a character's background should be carefully thought out.
  
  I've read fics before where the character somehow had time to learn eight languages, is a martial arts expert, a fencing expert, and the daughter of a demon who killed the human side of her family and left her with only her talking, fire-breathing horse for company...all by the age of sixteen. Perhaps somewhere there is someone who can do most of those things before sixteen. She would be one in a million, though. The readers will notice how coincidental it is that she's a fencing expert because the male hero of the fandom happens also to be a fencing expert. They'll wince when he tries to fence with her—and loses. Characters who already know everything and can do everything just aren't as interesting as characters who have to learn and make mistakes.
  
  The background of your original characters should be realistic and carefully thought out.



• Don't Let Your Characters Read the Books: Your canon characters should know what they know in canon. Your original characters should know what it would make sense for them to know. It sounds basic, but it's important, and I've read many fics by beginning authors who don't seem to have figured this out.
  
  I read a Harry Potter fanfic recently where the main character was an OFC (Original Female Character) who was a new teacher at Hogwarts. Somehow she knew that Draco was nasty before he even opened his mouth, and knew that Gilderoy Lockhart was a fraud before he'd even had a chance to prove it. In the books, Molly Weasley was smitten with Lockhart, as was Hermione. Both of them are intelligent and possess plenty of common sense. It's improbable that this new female teacher would be completely immune to his charms, especially at first.
  
  The characters should know what would be logical for them to know. Let Lex show up in an expensive car to prove he's rich. Let Draco insult someone for being poor. Let Grissom open up a shipment of beetle carcasses. Give your new character a reason to think well or poorly of a character. Don't just have them "know" that Lucius is a nasty piece of work. Let it work itself naturally into your fic.



• Everybody Should Like Metropolis (Character interests/viewpoints): Beware of giving your characters too many of your own interests/viewpoints. Don't let them stand on soapboxes and preach about your interests/viewpoints.
  
  Sometimes it's a good idea to write in a hobby or something you know a lot about. Perhaps you like raising exotic birds, for example. I once read a wonderful story where Lupin owns a parrot. What was nice was that it wasn't overexploited; it was simply an interesting detail that gave the fic depth. It was only referred to a few times, and it helped show the kind, gentle side of Lupin, and his affection. The writer didn't overuse it, and presented it in a very logical and natural manner, which is very important. If hobbies and/or interests are slapped on or illogical for the characters involved, it pulls the reader out of the fic.
  
  Forcing the narrative to preach is also not a good idea. If you have strong opinions, say them on your LiveJournal. Don't insert them into your fic ham-handedly. If you like living a pineapple-free existence, that's your choice, but using one of the characters or the narrator to suddenly babble about the evils of pineapple is rather distracting. And if the issue is a touchy one, you might really offend people.
  
  I love the movie Metropolis. A lot. But having Severus Snape quote from the movie or suddenly compare something in the story to the movie would be quite a stretch. Where and when could he have seen it? It doesn't seem very probable, and worse yet, it's jarring.
  
  The old adage If you want to send a message, send a telegram is particularly appropriate here.



• Shortcuts: Characterization is one of the most important elements of writing. Well-drawn, interesting characters can pull readers into your fic, and leave them wanting more.
  
  In the fandom world, many of the environments are magical or futuristic. Sometimes the societies are similar to ours; sometimes they're a little skewed; sometimes they're quite alien. The important thing to remember is that a little careful planning in characterization can go a very long way. Instead of planning, however, many writers rely on shortcuts to flesh out their characters.
  
  I'll give an example. I've read many, many fics where Lucius Malfoy quotes Byron and listens to Bach. I think the writers of these fics are relying on these pretentious traits to establish the character as aloof, mysterious, educated, etc. It's a short-cut. The thing is, the sort of character they're trying to develop doesn't really exist in the Harry Potter world. Lucius is a pure-blood wizard, and would most likely know very little, if anything, about the Muggle world. Writers who attempt this shortcut really need to discover what would make him an aloof, mysterious, and educated character in Rowling's world.
  
  Taking shortcuts in characterization robs your writing of flavor. With a bit of planning and imagination, you can come up with a new method of conveying information about a character, their wealth or level of education. Readers will remember these details if they're clever and interesting.



• But Yesterday You Said I Was Cute (Consistent Characterization): Your characters are the window into your fic. They are the vehicle that transports the readers through your story. If they think or behave in an inconsistent manner, the reader might be thrown out of the vehicle.
  
  If your characterization of Obi-Wan Kenobi is that of a brave, clever, but tortured soul, the readers are going to become bewildered if you give him a scene where he giggles and dances with a Banta (unless he's under the influence of illegal meds). I'm not saying that he can't smile or even have a good time occasionally; I'm just saying that it's better to keep the character consistent in each scene.
  
  One of the mistakes I've seen beginning writers make is changing the characterization to fit the plot. The writer writes a scene where a smart, competent Obi-Wan smashes apart droids, but then just around the corner he breaks down during the mission, and Qui-Gon has to comfort him in a broom closet. The author wants him to have a sappy moment with Qui-Gon, so she stuffs them in the closet together. Certainly people do fall apart, but it just doesn't seem realistic to have portrayed this character as intelligent and efficient, and then have him blubbering the moment things get difficult. I'd imagine that he'd wait until the mission was over to have such a moment, if at all.
  
  If the characters are realistically portrayed, then the plot will glide along with them, instead of pulling them forcefully wherever it wants them to go. When your characters are like flotsam and jetsam on the wave of your plot, then many readers will click the back button. Especially if you do this to the canon characters. Characterization needs to be consistent.



• My Original Character Cannot Be Contained by Your Paltry Canon Rules (Author Self-Insertion (Mary Sue)): Many minds superior to mine have written essays about the Dreaded Mary Sue. I will try to capture her essence in a nutshell. Well, a really big nutshell, at this point.
  
  Original Characters (OCs; OMC=Original Male Character, OFC=Original Female Character) are characters invented by you to live and breathe next to canon characters. A Mary Sue is a negative fan term that refers to an Original Character who has become a nuisance by warping the story. A Mary Sue is an author self-insertion gone awry.
  
  Self-insertion is going to happen to a degree, regardless of whether the author wants it to or not. As long as we're writing about characters and not aliens who are completely, well, alien, we're going to have to put something familiar to ourselves into that character, even if it is just something simple, like breathing in and out.
  
  I think that there are two different kinds of self-insertion: a) regular self-insertion and b) wish-fulfillment self-insertion. "A" happens all the time in all writing, because you need some little bit of yourself to put in the clay to make it come to life. "B" is where the problems begin. They usually start internally with the words "Wouldn't it be cool if..." and snowball from there.
  
  Wish-fulfillment is usually only satisfying to the one making the wish. To everyone else, it can be annoying because the character has so many unusual qualities and, more upsettingly, she warps the story until everything and everyone references her in some way. The Sue becomes supreme, whether in her glorious inner beauty or her über-angst, and she wreaks havoc on the canon world, ignoring or changing the ground rules.
  
  So when does a self-insert become a Mary Sue? When does innocent "A" morph into sinister "B"? Well, it's all a matter of degree, in my opinion. When the character's quirks and strengths start eclipsing the character—when they start to distort the character's shape like a black hole pulling on the edge of a star—that's when to stop. To an experienced fanfiction reader, a "B" stands out fairly quickly. B has no limits. The author does not want to impose limits or vulnerabilities on their character, which in turn creates a one-dimensional flat character that is unable to grow. Everyone has to have some sort of soft spot. Everyone has to have realistic flaws and strengths and goals and nightmares.
  
  I remember one of the first stories that I wrote. It was set in a fantasy universe. My self-insert started out as a girl with a pet wolf and morphed quickly into the Earthmother, with power over all flora and fauna, and the wolf turned out to be the most amazing wolf that ever graced the world with its paws, and he, too, was hundreds of thousands of years old. The nature goddess could have been an interesting character, except I didn't want her to die or be harmed and I wanted her to be on top of every situation. So she was incredibly wise, yet snarky for entertainment value, she was nigh-invulnerable, and she knew everything and was more powerful than nearly any other deity, despite the fact that she was relatively low in the pantheon that I had created. I was so frightened that she could be hurt or change that I made her into this static, incredibly boring author avatar who ruined every scene that she entered, though I didn't know it at the time. Even my friends pointed out that she was annoying, and I was shocked at the time.
  
  Sue authors don't think their Sue is ruining their scenes. They don't realize that a character who can easily change the weather pattern of the entire globe with a snap of her fingers is boring. There is no tension involved. The readers figure out fairly quickly that the Earthmother can handle everything that is thrown her way, and more. Why bother reading further? A character who is an inexperienced Weathermage trying to change the weather to save her husband is much more interesting, because the reader genuinely doesn't know if she'll be able to avert the storm or not.
  
  Too often the Sue is so good at everything (except harmless things like cooking) that there is little or no tension. Will the Sue cast a tremendously powerful Stunning Spell that knocks out all of the Death Eaters and allows her to kill Voldemort with her super-awesome magical .45? Oh, of course. Will the Sue have difficulty taking on twenty-five orcs at once with only her bow and arrows? Nope, not at all. There can't be any tension if the reader knows that the Sue will always come out on top.
  
  There is a theory in writing that there are two types of characters: flat characters and round characters. Flat characters are the same from the beginning of the piece to the end. Round characters change and grow. Usually that change and growth is the point of the story. Generally you have one, maybe two, round characters who are the main characters of the piece, and you surround them with flat characters. I've noticed that many beginning fanfiction writers tend to make their main character full and complete before the first word is even written. If the character has already learned everything and is perfect, or near perfect, then what is the point of the piece? The character needs room to grow and become a more rounded character, or you've merely written an exercise in How Cool Is It When She Beats Up All Those Ninjas. Characters who don't need anything are not as interesting as characters who do need something and have to overcome inner and outer obstacles to find it.
  
  Most likely you are writing fanfiction primarily for yourself. However, putting it out in a public space means that an audience is going to read it, and you should think about their reaction. When people read a story, they usually want to identify and empathize with the main character. They want to think, "Oh yes! I do that too! I'm clumsy/goofy/afraid of bees as well."
  
  When the character has so many amazing qualities, is super-strong, an elemental witch, has fairy wings, and can wield the Sword of Power, it's going to turn some people off. Think about it in terms of real life. Some women see a beautiful, talented, thin celebrity who is dating Brad Pitt and do not empathize with her. They feel they have nothing in common with her. In fact, they might be jealous and disdainful. It's the same with Mary Sue. What does the reader have in common with Mary Sue? Not much, usually. Characters need to be grounded somehow, so that the reader can identify with them.
  
  It's not that the character simply "needs a flaw," either. She needs real, human traits that real people possess, like a tendency to be closed-minded, or wishy-washy. Something that you've seen in people before. A realistic flaw cannot be "she bites her nails." That's a bad habit. A flaw is something that you can explore in your writing and either solve or use to create tension. Is she certain that she's hideous? Does she always want to impress people? Those are real flaws. Insecurity and vanity in your characters will give the audience something to chew on. It will make better storylines. See, if the Earthmother shows up then Voldemort will be obliterated, and the One Ring will turn out to be merely a trinket that she thinks nothing of destroying while she's filing her nails. Miss Insecurity would keep going, afraid to put the Sorting Hat on, or Miss Vanity would try to take the Ring from Frodo, and you'd have a story there.
  
  And beware of giving characters the most clichéd flaw that I can think of: having a bad temper. Certainly you can write an interesting story around a character with a bad temper, but most that I've seen in the hands of a beginning writer involve the character simply being angry without any realistic limitations or setbacks. In real life a bad temper is not an asset, and people with anger problems alienate friends and family. Their outbursts are not tolerated the way they are in fanfiction.
  
  It is my little pet theory that Mary Sues reveal their authors' hangups. If someone has trouble with anger, perhaps repressing too much, she'll write the ANGRY Sue that yells at people over the slightest provocation. The important part of this scenario is not the yelling. It is the reaction. Either both parties will sustain the yelling for a while, with the Sue coming out "on top," or the Sue will march out of the room after a "snappy" comeback, leaving "devastation" in her wake. The Sue author thinks that they've invented the wheel, when in reality her Freudian slip is showing.
  
  The rules of canon should apply just as strongly to original characters as they do to canon characters. If Harry Potter canon mentions that few people are born Metamorphmagi, and few people become Animagi, then having an original character who is both really strains the believability factor. The more incredible powers/traits that you heap upon a character, the more unbelievable they are, and the more likely the reader will hit the back button rather quickly.
  
  Here's one way to go about making OCs more believable: the more unusual powers, the more drawbacks. Want a character who can shoot magical beams of energy from her hand? Well, if you can somehow work it into canon believably, you should give her something detrimental as well. Perhaps doing so drains her terribly so that she has to sleep for thirty-six hours afterwards. Or she has no aim at all and only hits her targets with luck. Or perhaps it burns her hands terribly, and she has to heal for days. There needs to be some balance so that the character isn't just out-and-out powerful.
  
  There are various Mary Sue Litmus Tests floating about on the Internet. They can be a good guide for figuring out if your character is Sueish or not. However, they should also be taken with a grain of salt. When it comes down to it, the worst Sue character ever can be redeemed with good writing, and the most non-Sueish character can be horrible, when poorly written. There are characters who sound like Sues when described, but somehow transcend Sueishness because the writing is excellent.
  
  One comment about character profiles. I've read many, many "Is She a Mary Sue" profiles on FictionAlley, and nearly every Mary Sue profile says the same thing: "Fiercely Loyal to her Friends!" "Doesn't care if someone knocks her down...but watch out if you pick on her friends!" I don't know why this gets to me so much, but it does. There are realistic limits to friendships, and exploring these can create interesting tension. What if the friend who was picked on suddenly turns on the main character instead of the bully? What if the main character follows the friend around too much and gets in the way? Those are interesting thoughts, unlike the strange hive mentality that appears in some fics, where five friends never argue and always braid each other's hair.
  
  That gets old quickly. Real friendships have a bit of drama. Friends do not agree on everything, after all, nor do they blindly follow their friends into fire. Even Hermione has moments where she disagrees with Harry. Gimli and Legolas aren't always in accord. Friends respond to friends based on a complex system of values and other intangible factors. It can depend on whether the friends have any antagonism in their past, or whether their parents were rivals, or even if one was jealous of the other in the past. A good writer has to get into the OC's skin and really understand where they're coming from and how they would react in a situation.
  
  When you are telling a dream you've had to someone else, especially someone you know, it can be fascinating. However, when someone you don't know describes a dream they've had, unless it's really unusual, or involving people you know, it's not really that interesting. Fanfic is the same way. It's important to strip the daydream qualities from your work and examine them carefully.

On to Part Two

Comments

[dzurlady.livejournal.com]

My Parents Abandoned Me and All I Got Was This Lovely Angst
*dies*
Nicely written. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Hee! Glad you liked it. I had a lot of fun coming up with the titles. ;)

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Argh! That was me.

here via metafandom

[toxictattoo.livejournal.com]

Everything You Wanted to Know, and Lots More on Top of That (Expositional blocks)

[winces] Now that I think on it, I'm guilty of that. Looks like I have some work ahead of me!

Re: here via metafandom

[valis2.livejournal.com]

We can all improve, somehow, I think. :) I have a lot of work ahead of me too, and I'm glad to be in fandom, because it's a great place to practice.

[elle-blessing.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing :) You had a lot of really great things to say and you got them across clearly and very well. It's always nice to be refreshed on the basics, especially in such an entertaining way :)

♥

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay! I'm so glad you read it. Thank you for the great comment!

And I had a lot of fun coming up with the examples. *grins*

audi clunk 198

[(Anonymous)]

309942