The last time I updated my tips for FanFicFriday was around the time of the Comic-Con contest. Since then the Gender Studies, Drabble Contest and Back to School contest occurred. It is time for another round of tips. I don't have any tips for the Drabble contest as I didn't find myself reading through the entries. There were just so many posted. I did read through the winning entries, so there honestly wasn't much I could offer there.

I actually missed getting to read through some of the entries for the last contest, so I discovered something rather neat when I read through the contest entries. One of the grammar rules writers typically follow is to start a new paragraph every time someone new speaks. The reason for this is because it is hard to read paragraphs with multiple dialogs going on. One of the down sides to this rule though is that several lines are sandwiched between larger paragraphs can look odd.

One writer's solution to this problem was to have no spaces between the lines of dialog. Thus the text had the look of being one solid paragraph but was without the reading problems you get when there is no breaks between the lines what so ever. This is an example of how breaking the rules can actually end up being a good thing. One of the major rules to breaking grammar rules and writing technique is to first know what you're doing. The second is don't make changes to make things prettier, do it because the changes do in fact make it easier to read for your readers.

Try to avoid writing popfic.

For those who don't know what popfic is, popfic is stories written about famous people by their fans. While people do tend to label popfic as fanfic, the reason they label popfic as fanfic is because the “fan” part of fanfiction is misleading to some people making them think that “fanfic” is “fiction written by fans” when in reality it is “derivative fiction created by someone other then the writer”. This means that the judges are going to favor the later over popfic despite the fact some popfic has indeed won some of the contests. RPF makes up just over 10% of the contest wins at this point in time. I don't see this changing. If you want to write popfic because you're inspired to do so, still go ahead and do so.

Try to avoid writing for Anime/Manga based fandoms.

While Anime/Manga could be used for the Comic-Con contest there were no winners within the demographics. Anime/Manga makes up less then 5% of the contest wins at this point in time. While this may end up changing later on, Anime/Manga are at a disadvantage due to the fact most of the stories occur in Japan and many people have limited knowledge of the Japanese culture. The judges are also more likely to know about the Western fandoms and can judge easily on it's own merits. A solution if one wishes to write for an Anime/Manga based fandom is to focus on elements shared between Western and the Asian cultures. If you want to write a story for an Anime/Manga based series then do so.

Try to avoid using an OC as a main character.

While the last contest favored stories with OCs for the winners, the number of stories that have won with OCs is less then 10%. If one removes the last contest wins then the number is just over 5%. The previous contest had a smaller batch of winners and was judged by someone other then the Wattpad team as well. Notably I'm not including the popfic in these numbers as it stands to reason they'll need OCs to flesh out the casts a bit.

This isn't to say that a person can't write an OC if they want to, or even if they really need a OC for a a main character. One of the first things going against OC characters winning in these contests comes from the fact canon characters are going to be favored over OC characters for these stories. The other thing that is going against OCs winning is that they are hard to write. Characterization has to come from scratch and the OC has to blend in well. If you want examples of well written OCs I do suggest looking at the two that won the Back to School contest as both are top notch OCS.

The other thing going against a story with an OC for a main character winning is many are Mary Sues. I'll freely admit that many of the OCs entered are popular in their given fandom, but the reason they are popular in said fandoms is because they fulfill the person wish fulfillment requirements of not just the writer, but also the reader. While an outsider may not be able to tell whether the writer is making the canon character OoC, they can pick up on other elements.

If you choose to write and want it to be one of the few that ends up winning then here are some things you shouldn't do, many of which “scream” Mary Sue to the people reading not for wish fulfillment purposes. Don't give your OC an unrealistic background. Don't give your OC special powers or traits to make them stand out, but in the same regard don't give the OC characters special flaws in an attempt to make them look pitiful for the readers. Sell the OC based on a well rounded personality, a well rounded plot as well as a well rounded relationship with the canon characters.

Take your time to write your stories.

Taking your time to write your stories as I've said helps to make the story better written. Taking your time also means planning out how you use your time. I've yet to get through all the entries for Back to School, but I can already tell you that well over a dozen of the stories ended up disqualified due to not completing the length. Some of them were actually well written. Actually... the number is around a dozen and half and may end up being a full dozen by the time I'm done. That is well over half of the stories entered. If you didn't manage to finish your stories I do encourage you guys to finish them.

Don't ask for favors in regards to judging.

It is one thing to admit to the judge that English isn't your first language, but completely another to ask for them to over look errors caused by using your ipod instead of a computer or even because you're a young writers. I know that for some of the younger writers that the ipod is the only device they have and that their parents computers are going to be tied up. One of the rules is that the stories use good grammar. Period.

If a writer has this kind of issue I actually suggest explaining to your parents that you are participating in a writing contest and they may work on allotting you time to write your story. If it takes you time to type up your stories then try writing them via hand and having the adult family member type them up for you. The bonus to having them do this for you is that they can help you catch some of the grammar errors in your story, but the down fall is that writers who don't want their parents knowing some of the things they write... like BL... will have to reveal it to their parents.

I'm moving back now to the young writers who ask for an exception to be made because of their age. This is really not fair to the other writers who participate in the contest in the fact they're putting in their best effort into their work. It really stings people to see lower quality work win and the fact the writer happens to be a younger writer doesn't change the fact it still stings. I'm also going to say here it isn't fair to other young writers who do in fact write better then you do who didn't ask for an exception to be made. Some of these writers already write better then some adults.

Some young writers may think that this is discriminatory towards younger writers, not making an exception for them. It's actually not. A competition is a competition.

Just because you didn't win doesn't mean that you didn't create a good story.

In every single competition I read through as many entries as possible to try and guess which ones will win. I have my favorites that I really would like to win, but I also have stories I come across that I expect to be contenders to win. Two of the three winners for the Back to School contest I figured to be possible candidates while the other I hadn't gotten a chance to read until the winners were announced. The only ones I didn't guess would win were in fact stories that I didn't get the chance to read before the winners were announced.

Why do I bring this up? The number of stories I come up with as potential winners for the contests is more then the number of winners that end up being chosen. I also never end up finish reading through all of the stories that are submitted for the contests. There is a limited number of winners they can choose. Something I've noticed though is the fact some of the contest entries may not end up on the winning list, but they do end up in the other lists for the fandoms they are written for.

What ever you do, follow the instructions.

If you don't follow the instructions you end up getting disqualified. Thoroughly read the entry in order two to three times. Then proceed to read all comments for the contest. If nobody else has asked your question, then ask it. If someone else has asked your question then say you want to know to by replying to that said question instead of asking said question again. This makes it easier for the people running the contest to actually answer every bodies questions. Here though are some things that I noticed people not following the instructions on.

- If the judges say a story must be a certain length, then the story must be a certain length. I've seen writers submitting stories that were under the given length, and other writers giving stories that went over the given length. One page on Wattpad equals 800 words.
– In the Comic-Con contest I saw a lot of stories that were only one page in length.

- A story should have the no more parts then requested by the Wattpad team and it should also have no less.
– Sometime when they asked for one-shots they were given one-shot collections and chapter based stories.
– In the Back to School contest there were supposed to be at least five parts, and no more then ten parts. This of course didn't include introductions and such.

- If the judges say the story must be a new story, then the story must be a new story.

- Pay attention to the contest prompts. If you don't follow the contest prompts then you're not going to win.
– In the Comic-Con contest I saw stories where a bar never ended up being mentioned.
– In this latest contest there were ten prompts. I saw some stories that were vague as to which prompts they were using in each chapter and there were some who didn't bother to use the prompt at all.

- Pay attention to the fine details.
– The Comic-Con contest asked for no OCs and no popfic and yet there were people submitted popfic to the contest and others submitted stories with OCs in them.
– The gender studies contest said they wanted the stories to explore the consequences of the gender issue, but there were plenty of stories that just changed the gender of the characters and ran with it.
– For the Back to School contest I saw one story that counted as a crossover for popfic. I also saw a story that didn't take place in a school setting.

Here are some stats from the winners of the last five contests.

The second genre for most of the stories for this particular fanfic contest was “Short Story”. A few stories had a second genre of “Random” or “None”. The most genre used the most between the winners is a toss up between Humor and Romance, while the third most used genre is the Science Fiction genre. Genre that have yet to win for the contest are Action, ChickLit, Classics, Historical Fiction, Poetry, Spiritual and Werewolf.

The fandom with the most stories happens to be Sherlock. The next fandom is a toss up between Harry Potter and Marvel and the forth fandom happens to be Doctor Who. The fandoms that have had winners so far are...
Anime ~ Naruto, Ouran High School Host Club
Books ~ Eragorn, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Tolkien's Middle Earth, Night Circus, Peter Pan, Percy Jackson, The Vampire Diaries
Cartoons/Comics ~ Avengers, Batman, Jabber Jaw, X-Men, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtals
Movies ~ Pirates of the Caribbean, Rise of the Gaurdians, Star Wars
Popfic/RPF ~ 5sos, Exo, Ghost Explorers, Kellic
Television ~ Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, Elementary, Glee, Sherlock, Star Trek, The Walking Dead
Other ~ Creepy Pasta

I'm not saying that writers should write for the genre that have ended up winning, or the fandoms with the most wins. I'm not saying writers should write for the fandoms that have ended up winning. Some people don't care about winning, but wish to still follow the challenge prompts. Their goal is to be original and write for something that hasn't won anything yet.

Note - If you do want to write Popfic/RPF -- put a lot of effort in it. The judges are really picky when it comes to the ones they pick out.