Here are my personal do's and don'ts of writing a TWQ fanfic. One again keep in mind these are mainly just my own opinions and I've done a lot of these in my own books!

THE DON'TS

- Woodville OCs that are witches. Don't get me wrong, the concept of this is very interesting, but most of the people I've seen write this don't understand how the magic works. I've read a book where the OC cursed almost everyone and yet she never had any repercussions???????? Just no. If you're going to write this kind of OC, you have to make the magic have a price. Make the OC feel immense guilt for something, make them lose something that was important to them and have them think it's because they used their magic. DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT have them go around casting fireballs out of thin air. If you know you're making your OC a witch simply to have them be overpowered, you probably shouldn't write that.

- OCs that are not Woodvilles, but are witches. The show made a big point of saying the Woodvilles are supposedly descended from a river goddess named Melusina and that's where they got their powers from. Your Neville OC won't be casting magic lmao. Your characters are not Gandalf.

- sexual assault for no reason. I'm sorry but if you add SA to your story for literally no reason other than shock value... stop. For most people it's uncomfortable to read and the author's I see doing this almost never handle it well. I understand if the SA is a big part of their character, but most of the time it's truly there just for shock value.
This is my reaction every time a SA scene just suddenly pops out of no where, with no TW and with no actual fallout in the future plot:

- Adelaide Kane as the faceclaim. She is so overused that I make a face every time I see her as the main characters face claim. There are so many other beautiful dark haired actresses you could use. I don't think she's a bad faceclaim for side characters, but for main characters she is definitely overused.

- the Mary Sue character. If your character has no flaws, never makes any mistakes, is everyone's favorite for no reason, even the villains are actually secretly in love with them or admire them, then I will click of your book faster than I fail my math tests. It is uninteresting and boring to read a story like that. Make them have flaws, make them make mistakes. Your OC shouldn't just be there to fix the plot points you don't like with the flick of their wrist like some fairy god mother.

- the secret marriage trope. It's been used so many times that I can't stand it anymore. The first few times I've read it was ok, good even in some stories, but after the third story that had this plot, I began to hate it. It's also somehow always with Edward as well 💀 like give my boy more credit than that. He secretly married Elizabeth in the show and he actually made her his queen, I doubt he would just abandon your OC after marrying her, especially since during this point in the story he's always in love with the OC and she's almost ALWAYS pregnant. And if we're talking about the other York brothers, it would not work for them because George would never lower himself to a dull secret wedding with no one to give him attention at the feast and Richard is far too bound by honor to abandon your OC for shits and giggles.

- making the Lancastrians pure evil. Listen, I did this in Queen's Poison, but that was my very first story EVER and I immensely regret doing it now. If you make all the characters black and white, the story can get dull very quickly. The Lancastrians are still human beings with their own tragedies and sufferings just the same as the Yorks. I literally never see people explore them as humans and not just the big bad villains

- make sure you write a story that's actually believable. I'm sorry but some of the most popular stories of TWQ I've read have some scenes where I'm sitting there like:

And not in a good way. Some of the things the OCs pull have be making sure I read that right ten times and leave me throwing my phone. I'm sure if I mentioned the story by name people would get mad at me because the story is really popular lmao. I love the book as well, it was the first TWQ story I read but some parts are eh

- taking scenes from other period dramas and putting them into your books. I've seen people copy scenes from Reign, the Tudors, Vikings, Medici, even the vampire diaries for some reason and put them into their book. I've binged all of these shows, you can't slide it past me 👺

- don't use americanisms or modern English (thank you teaandcrumpets05  my love for this one). I'm not even joking when I say i once read a book where one of the characters called someone else a "fugly bitch" ?????? Or when they walk up to their mother and say "mom" ???? "Hey bruh" ?????? The white queen is set in medieval times I promise you they did not say any of those things. Reading this sort of dialogue gives me a whip lash

- making Woodville or Neville OCs that take Elizabeth's, Isabel's of Anne's story line (*screams in Cecily*). Some people really out here making OC with the same last name and personality as those three and then make them have the same story as them, only changing a few things. Honey this isn't a self insert. If your going to make OCs from the same family as the canon wives of the york boys, make them have their own personality and story. I don't want to be reading the show word for word on Wattpad. If I wanted to do that I'd just go watch the show.

- I hate that I have to say this but please don't copy other peoples work. I wish I didn't have to mention this but unfortunately I've seen so many people copy other peoples plots while changing minor things and then calling it theirs (the secret marriage plot has this happen a lot). I've also seen someone literally copy paste someone else's book and just change the names of the characters and claim it as theirs. Don't do it, even if it's a fanfic, it's still stealing someone else's work.

THE DO'S

- do you research. You don't even have to go in too deep to understand things well enough, but please do look for some things. Even if you browse the Wikipedia page (which I don't recommend but it's better than nothing). It'll make your story so much better if you not only have your facts straight but also know what you're talking about

- make it historically accurate. This falls in hand with doing your research. I'm not too bothered by small mistakes like adding chocolate or tea to your story (I've done this WHOOPS), because those are minor details you won't even think of looking up. It'll really help your story if you use the right vocabulary for things though, especially for things like clothing. It's a minor detail, but you don't understand how giddy I get when I see the correct vocabulary used.

- make your OC original. I know this is easier said than done, but you don't know how many Woodville, Neville and Lancastrian OCs exist out there (cries in my Woodville, Neville and Lancastrian OCs). Yeah I've definitely made more than one Neville OC (especially in books that aren't even published yet) but tbf I started making them when there were like 5 twq fanfics on here and like 2 of them were in Spanish so. I suggest looking at the intro chapters for other people stories to get a good idea of what kind of OCs exist out there and work around that

- make three dimensional characters. I want your OC to have flaws, especially if they're still young and don't truly understand things. When they get older, give them new flaws, but don't forget to also give them some redeeming traits, you don't want people to start hating your OC.

- make your OC fuck up. Have them ruin something completely, betray someone, murder someone, lie so painfully to someone that it truly has dire consequences. And speaking of consequences, HAVE THEM HIT YOUR READERS IN THE GUT. I want to feel like I was the one who was betrayed, the one who committed a grave act of sin, I want to feel your characters pain, regret, even their triumph if the consequences are in their favor

- make your OCs morally grey. This is honestly a preference but I can't stand OCs that are like "nOooOo wAiIit edWaRD sToP✋ yOuRe bEtTeR tHan tHis" and having the exact same morals as we do in modern times it literally does not make sense for them to do that.

Anyways that's all for now! I'll definitely think of more in future chapters though don't worry.