Current mood:	chipper
Current music:	"Homewrecker," Hellogoodbye

HALP
Okay so I've been busy with work/school and I will get caught up on drabbles LATER I PROMISE---but FIRST---

So I'm on staff for the Creation Station for Kumori-con this year. I was a volunteer last year, and I put together a little fanfiction resource primer. It was done really last-minute, so I was wondering if anyone would have input or general "I wish SOMEONE had told me this when I started writing fanfiction D: D: D:" things that they think I ought to add.



Help from a Practiced Ficbrat:

Kitty’s Fanfiction Toolbox Listing

Various Digging Implements: Oh, now you’ve done it. You’ve started a fic (or are grappling tenaciously with an idea) and everything’s suddenly stopped. You’ve hit bottom. You’re up to your neck in metaphorical dirt with a growing bump on your head from writer’s block, and you haven’t got the slightest clue what you’re supposed to do next. Giving up on fandom forever is sounding like a solid plan.

Stop. Wait. Take a deep breath and then look at what I’ve found to help.

Resources:
http://www.wikipedia.org. Your teachers will tell you never to use Wikipedia as a source for your papers since it’s not “authoritative”, but for fanfiction, Wiki is a resource without compare. If you’re not familiar with it already, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia compiled by everyone who wants to submit, and checked and double checked by every other user. No matter your fandom niche, you will find every scrap of information about them in Wikipedia---from the complete list of their every physical attack, right down to the date of their first air time. This is the Librarian Otaku’s heaven, and should be abused accordingly.

http://dictionary.reference.com/ We like writers who like words. There is nothing more heartening than someone who exercises a full and varied vocabulary---you can only say “she said” so many times before it starts getting stale.

http://thesaurus.reference.com/ Doubly, we like writers who have more than one way to say “big”. If you don’t own a hardcopy thesaurus yourself, this online equivalent will more than make up for those days when you’re stumped for a fresh word.

http://silvablu.skeeter63.org/HMG/00-Introduction.htm Holy Mother Grammatica.

Who am I? I am Holy Mother Grammatica, dispenser of the rules, advisor to writers seeking guidance. I do not work alone. Among my colleagues are Mr. Exposition and Auntie Continuity.

Make friends with the text here. Rub elbows. Read what the good Mother has to say.

http://littlecalamity.tripod.com/HowTo2.html Ms. Nitpicker’s Guide to Fanfiction, also known as: HOW TO WRITE MARGINABLY READABLE FANFICTION. Spot on and extensive, this how-to can work as a great companion to the slightly less ridiculous list and setup given above, compliments of Holy Mother Grammatica. Ms. Nitpicker has a great deal more snark to her words, but the advice dished out on everything from POV to purple prose is just as sound.

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/8097/cascadehospital/ and http://www.geocities.com/aemarshall99/medlinks.html are excellent resources for writing anything to do with medicine. Be it a believable and sweaty-palmed chapter in the ER or a simple fainting scene, these two websites offer medical know-how to lend a touch of believability to your writing. We may not be real doctors, but we can play them in fandom.

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/ Got a British character? Try the British Slang Dictionary on for size.

http://www.livejournal.com. Livejournal is far, far more than just a bunch of people ranting about their emotastic lives :). The fandom communities LJ has to offer is priceless for any writer:
Betas
Personal writing archives
Challenge Communities:
http://community.livejournal.com/150_comms/ is a great place to start if you’re looking for a themed challenge community. Though it isn’t exhaustive, I feel that this listing is a great place to start your search for a set of spark-word theme sets---plus a posting space and an automatic audience to boot.

http://www.google.com. No, actually, I’m serious. Google is endlessly useful in everything, especially fanfiction. Never forget that it’s always available to wade through piles of information in your stead!


HIGH-TRAFFIC MULTIFANDOM PLACES TO POST (a.k.a., two starting points):
http://www.fanfiction.net. FF.net is the largest and most notable fanfiction publishing site, easily manageable and very public. This has both its advantages and its disadvantages: if you’re looking for instant approval and a wide range of viewers, FF.net is the place to be. On the other hand, it feels that it is largely populated with what I affectionately dub “fanpoodles”. For newbies and “veterans” alike, FF.net is the main place to post fanfiction.
Pros: Huge site with innumerable fandoms and languages represented. Clear guidelines for posting and reviewing etiquette. Possibly has the highest traffic of the fanfiction archives I’ve seen and used.
Cons: Lemons, adult content, songfics, and fandom pieces built under the works of several authors---Anne Rice being one prime example---are prohibited, and the abuse-reporting system is scarily efficient.

http://www.adultfanfiction.net. I don’t think this one needs much of a blurb, other than what I feel are perfectly necessary disclaimers. The adult in the address actually means adult. Adult content. Don’t go near there if you’re underage, savvy? Plus, it’s not as easy to post there as FF.net, and managing accounts is a pain and a half. Unless you’re particularly fond of AFF.net, posting lemon material, (and overage), I would suggest keeping to FF.net, purely due to the site’s layout and the traffic you’ll receive.
Pros: large site, anything goes. You cannot feasibly cook up anything, content-wise, that would get you kicked off of AFF.net (to my knowledge!).
Cons: All formatting for italics and such must be done with HTML by hand or it will not be preserved. Additionally, the search engine isn’t as streamlined as FF.net’s.


THOUGHTS/IDEAS? This went over really well last year---all of the copies I printed out disappeared magically :D