Nekosmuse is my new god.

[icarus]

amethyst_lupin pointed me in the direction of a great meta by nekosmuse The Ten Commandments of Fanfiction.

Thou shalt never use epithets. Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou. If I never see Draco referred to 'the blond' or Ron called 'the redhead' again, it will be too soon.

Thou shalt use warnings. Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou. I cracked open a fic the other day and halfway through it - Surprise! - was the rape scene. Ack. I still have that unpleasant image in my mind, and I'm glaring at author and never want to read them again.

I shalt not spoil the rest. Enjoy!

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

If you condemn epithets, you declare yourself cleverer than Homer, Virgil, Dante, or Shakespeare - all of whom used them with gay abandon. The point is not letting them get in the way of the developing sentence. Personally, I feel that your source is fanatical and wrong-headed in this matter, and I dropped a very broad hint to that effect in her LJ. Speaking of which, what is wrong with characters reading poetry or singing at each other? That is plain silly. She has read a couple of poorly conceived scenes and has abstracted a rule from them.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I think it's a handy guide for new writers, and pretty funny to boot. These are all things that are easy to screw up, but can be done successfully. I follow no rule-book slavishly, and broke all my own personal rules of writing long ago. Never write rape? Never write first person? Chan- ick? Parent-child incest- ew? Never write PWPs? Oh yeah, it's all gone by the wayside.

Icarus

[mad_maudlin]

Actually, I think her point about poetry and song is that it's fantastically hard to do well (especially with contemporary/pop music) and it's frequently out of character. Her comments seemed to be addressed specifically towards the Lost fandom, you might note.