Author : time-skips to genin days right off the bat

Me :

: :

So you just gon...skip the academy days like they mean nothing to you 😔

Ok lmao I'm kinda kidding. It's fine if you want to skip the academy days if nothing much happens in it and there's nothing to unpack there, but then I see a lot of fanfics where

+The ocs are already best friends forever during the genin days without giving us prior knowledge as to HOW this happened

+ The ocs have some sort of cool power and, once again, no knowledge to how this happened

Starting from the genin days is not a bad idea if executed properly, but most times what I see is authors starting from the genin days and making their plot exacctly like Naruto but with different characters–but anyways that's not what I'm going to talk about today.

Just give us like, from one to five chapters about your oc in their academy days and how they made friends or why they know Naruto. It makes everything much more BELIEVABLE than just thrusting us into the genin world where your oc has already established connections we didn't get to SEE and therefore do not CARE about.

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The Academy

Usually kids are 5-6 years old when they join the academy, but can be younger depending on how good they are and I guess there should be an entrance exam into the school.

The Academy (from what I've seen in canon) takes on classes like reading, writing, math, science, geography etc and always try to weave them into the shinobi world. There are also specific shinobi classes like Kunoichi classes and Taijutsu class and what not.

(And no, Kunoichi classes are not sexist. They can be taught by sexist teachers, but the idea alone is not sexist. Kunoichi are meant to be able to pass off as normal civilian women in some missions, hence they need to know some cultural girly things. Also, Ikebana.)

Understand that your OC is not meant to be a strong fighter in the academy days (for fuck's sake, it's a child) unless you're writing a child prodigy (another story for another day). Your character is still learning all this shinobi stuff and is allowed to mess up as royally as you'd like.

Of course, unless they're a loner or anti social, they're gonna make some friends, and it will be likely (if they're in Konoha) they'll make some friends from Konoha 12. Show how that happens too.

Certain events can take place depending on your timeline and where your oc is, like the Uchiha massacre, or the time Zabuza slaughtered his entire class in the Mist. It doesn't matter if your oc knows an Uchiha or doesn't, big events affect everybody.

Last point is to always remember that if you're writing the Academy days then your oc is most likely a child–and though children in naruto are required to grow up faster, it doesn't take away from the fact that they are still little kids– they're irrational and naive and adorable– and studying some Child Development Psychology books and websites is great help.