Chapter 21 - Straight outta Compton Christ

Good news! After this particular chapter, I will start doing case studies of stories!

For those of you that came across a story filled with Mary Sue shit, horrible OC's, or any of the other stuff mentioned before this chapter, hit me with it! I'll see what I can do with my all-seeing eye of bad tropes.

I actually had a list, but I accidentally lost it from being a blind fuck, so feel free to send me stories that you think could use my 'analysis.' Ideally keep it 20,000 words because it actually takes a considerable amount of effort to critique a 100,000+ story.

Don't worry, it will be more instructional than bashing - although I can't help using my slapstick/dark/rage humour :)

Anyways, here's the latest sections for the dumpster dive in my trope quest. I honestly doubt it will end at this point, as you never know what you find at the darkest corners of a 12-17 year-old girl's mind.

Past Vomit: I believe I spoke a little about this, but after reading some more OC Mary Sue fics, I have decided to expand on that subject.

Before I define it, I want to say that those who use the 'Past Vomit' are likely lazy and inexperienced writers; they do not wish to do proper character buildup, instead opting to revealing their entire history. This is likely to gain sympathy with the core characters they are interacting with, making it easier to advance their plot. Ahem, MENTAL HANDJOBS.

Anyways, the past vomit is basically when a character, usually an OC, reveals their entire past/history to the core cast, even if the character is made out to be more secretive and untrusting. The sudden OOCness could be because the author does not want to write the few actual chapters establishing relations and reveal the past little by little, instead, they are impatient and want to start writing certain plot points.

Is this bad? Yes. Unlike other tropes where it's not really 'bad.' Past vomiting, is very much, 100% bad. Doing so in a story basically skips scenes that could have developed relationships between the characters, making everything seem more genuine and immersive. When authors rush through important development like this, the character relationships would seem forced and unrealistic.

This is the different between saying - Natsu and OC are friends, and actually writing multiple chapters where they bond over missions or life experiences.

A newer story that I have read:

The Aegis of Fairy Tail by BANIX

While this particular story was actually better than more than 90% of the OC stories I've read, with the OC not being some random dragon slayer that takes all of Natsu's battles and whose contribution surpasses the generic random retort in the otherwise canon regurgitation.

Give this story a read, I think a lot of you will actually enjoy it.

Now, why did I put this story in the new-and-improved Past Vomit section? While not actually an all-out past vomit like in that WOTC story I mentioned some chapters ago, this story doesn't really explore the history of the OC enough, opting to simply summarize a lot of the important events and adding some short flashbacks. When you are introducing an OC, it is important to properly incorporate it into the story.

I can understand, many of you get impatient when writing an OC-insert. This is because you want to get straight to canon events, even if it's something that happened in a flashback - such as Natsu finding Happy. I of all people should know just how difficult it is to write the backstory, especially if you don't have canon as a reference. However, I implore you, all of you, to world build your characters, figure out the relationships between your OC and the characters, then write necessary interactions that would set the foundation for that relationship.

Ex. If you want your OC to be a rival to Natsu and Gray, maybe introduce them fighting each other to a stand still, or even the two rubbing each other off the wrong way.

Now to get a little bit more specific into the Aegis of Fairy Tail - it is a reincarnated OC insert. So not an SIOC. It is basically taking a random character from the author's world (or even call it the author avatar), and put it into Fairy Tail.

The grammar, structure, was actually good. It didn't make me want to slam a bowl of acid straight into my eyes from reading it, neither did it make me think I was reading an unholy combination of Russian and Hindi.

Despite the good technical aspects however, the main thing was the pacing.

The OC was inserted into the story in X778 I believe, and was 15 when he was inserted - so the OC's supposed birthday would be somewhere in X763. This would make him 21 when canon starts.

Right at the beginning, the OC is attacked by bandits/dark mages, and awakens a magic called Barrier Make - basically the powers of Bartolomeo from One Piece. Then, he is immediately found by Makarov, allowing him to join Fairy Tail.

For me, this is actually a red flag in terms of OC story telling. Within half a chapter, the author has already established the base magic and the fact he would join Fairy Tail. Of course, you don't have to write a 60,000 word prologue like I do, but you shouldn't skip all the important events - events that determine the fundamentals of your character!

Scenes and chapters that should have been dedicated to exploring on how Elder Tyrell (the OC's name) decided to go on Barrier Magic, its limitations, the controls, and basically all the world building aspects were skipped. I know, I know. Everyone has their different writing styles - but I personally don't like this style of writing, simply because it gives the author can excuse to bypass assumed limitations of magic simply because no such limitations were mentioned by the author.

Basically, a set up for major asspulling - just like Mashima. The world building and mechanical aspect of magic is so blurred that Mashima can basically just randomly pull out powers like Bleach did in the Final Arc and somehow call it reasonable. I mean at this point you might as well print off all the garbage stories on Fanfiction, dump it in a barre, then bob for it - that's your next magic.

IMO, if you are going to write an OC into the backstory, show us some scenes of him practicing magic, some scenes of them studying new magic, or even coming up with ideas as a theory!

If Elden was going to learn barrier magic, perhaps a scene of him trying out different magics, then realizing he was more attuned to barrier make? Then, you could have him thinking to himself on whether or not he could manipulate the barrier instead of just forming them? What about shapes? Could he basically use barrier make as a base then create creatures like Lyon by using hundreds of thousands of barriers as the individuals 'polygons?'

Anyways, other than the magic itself, what about joining Fairy Tail?

Some people think joining Fairy Tail is completely cliché, and an overused Trope. Is that inherently bad? Nope, I don't think so. What IS bad is when people try to subvert tropes by having a character join another guild and end up doing a worse job than Margaret Thatcher is at being a competent leader.

So what I'm saying is, if you are going to have your OC be in Fairy Tail, there is nothing wrong with that. Everything comes from your presentation. If you write an OC-insert just to make the story fatalist, then that story is what is wrong with Fanfiction.

Now why is Elder Tyrell joining Fairy Tail first thing bad for the story? Because this eliminates a lot of the elements that brought him to Fairy Tail - important aspects of character development. Like I said in previous chapters, if you suddenly just insert a character that is already strong, then what is the point? It'll basically become a curbstomp of epic proportions. Is a battle even intense if your character can shit all over Jose by actually shitting on him?

If you want your readers to build a connection to the OC, you need to show their struggles, their achievements, how they OVERCOME their struggles. Don't just summarize their struggles because that. Does. Nothing.

If you want to see what I am talking about, read the first three chapters of the story. The author goes from OC joins at X778 into canon X784 within the span of THREE chapters. Maybe about 10,000 words? He summarizes all of the interactions and history within the first, sets up the pairing in the second, and then basically shows off Elden's strength in the 3rd with how he stacks up to the guild.

The information is there of course, but the weight? While I disagree with how that story had done things, I'll leave the final choice up to you. There are probably some people that think my word as some sort of literary bible. But I'll say to think for yourselves. If you think the story is compelling and delivers enough impact, then we can agree to disagree.

Different Tastes and Opinions: Okay so particular section might be more confusing in nature, but I will try to make it instructive as well. So, when it comes to having different tastes and opinions, what am I really talking about here? There's actually a considerably large interval in the grey zone where people draw their lines on what makes a story 'good,' or plain garbage.

Remember that story, Uzukage's Dragon Sword? The one that actually looked like it was written by a mentally deficient monkey drunk on vodka and had a harem? There are people that enjoy that story, although I would like to think, there are more that wouldn't.

Regardless though, what I want to talk about is the line itself.

For me, there are multiple 'lines' One I draw that marks what is absolute garbage, another I draw where the story is actually entertaining, and the last one is where I actually see the story as a piece of art, and not just something you read to pass the time while taking a shit.

Now, people are going to disagree with you, no matter what you say. The trick is to be confident in what you say, but always be willing to rethink what you believe. Someone may bring up 10 points, and you acknowledge 4 of them and end up reforming your opinion based on that, or maybe even just dismiss all ten altogether.

This is a lesson I learned, and am still learning when it comes to Fanfiction. Sometimes, when you write a story, someone may not necessarily like what you are planning.

In fact, for my One Piece story, my beta fervently disagreed with me on the method of reincarnation and the OC's abilities, but even when I considered his point of view, I still ended up going with my original idea.

So, what exactly am I saying? Whenever someone posts a review, a PM, or even says something disagreeing with your choices. You don't have to just straight up dismiss them and think 'I'm right, you're wrong.' Because when it comes to writing a story, there is no such as right or wrong. It all comes down to how it feels to write the story. If you absolutely love what you are writing, chances are, other people will feel that passion and love it too.

If you decide to follow someone else's advice and end up hating the story, chances are, the readers will feel the lack of passion and end disliking it as much as you do.

Following through a story: Now some of you might be thinking, why is Minipa saying this part? How does it help us?

Well, I've seen a lot of people with stories that start off as something interesting. An unused prompt that stands out from the other stories, only for it to stop updating years ago. How come this happens? That, was what I asked myself.

I realized for many of these stories, the authors will write based on the reviewers, and not based on how they want the story to go themselves. I get it, some of you might not even know where to go with the story, and want to drop it. Perhaps you lost the passion with the story you had when you started, but just think, what made you start the story in the first place? It takes a lot of planning to write a full story hundreds of thousands of words long, and I will say that no matter how much initial passion you may have with a prompt such as 'What if Gray had a little sister?' chances are, you won't be able to carry the story through.

Personally, I think a story like that is better off as a series of one-shots.

So for those of you that stop writing because you don't know where a story is going. I got some advice for you. Story Build, character build, and world build!

If you are trying to build a house before setting the foundation, you won't know what you are doing! Just like a story, if you think of plot points as they come, then you get: plot holes, inconsistencies, random bullshit, and more! Then, when reviewers come and spots these, they will critique you on that and make you lose confidence and passion in the story. Then, when that disappears, what motivation is there left to continue?

However! If you had all the plot figured out, all the character relationships planned, AND the arcs planned. Then you will never lose sight of the story. Plot inconsistencies would be few and between because you have all your notes, and there will be far less random bullshit because you have already built all the fundamentals of a story! Not only that, but if your passion carried you through the building process, you will be more than likely to follow through because you have all the ingredients ready!

Again, I wrote this section because I want all of you aspiring writers to be able to rekindle that passion. Some of you may treat Fanfiction as more of a 'story Instagram,' where you just post one shots to see if people like them, then end up writing a story. I'm not a big fan of that, but if it works for you, that's totally cool. Regardless of how you 'test the waters' so to speak, ALL stories begin with its skeleton, make that first and everything will come.

So please, no matter how you begin a story, how you plan to write it, or how many chapters you plan. Just try. Write down whatever you can think of in world building, story building, and character building. Hopefully the chapters inside this discussion helped you on those things, and I do wish all of you well in writing future stories.

'Plans' of authors: While this is something that I observed on the reddit Fanfiction discord server, I see it sometimes in authors note as well. This is borderline shit fixing but none of them are story breaking. Regardless, I'm still going to do a short section on it.

Okay, so this section is directed particularly to people who ask other people for betas. This actually ties back to the differences in taste and opinion - since if you ask for a beta, and there's part of the back story that they don't agree with or something that feels missing - then the beta might ask questions about it. Then, the author will reply with 'I got plans for that.'

You might think, why is this a problem? Compared to bad grammar, this isn't even an 'actual' problem. It's more of something to be aware of so the process of betaing will be smoother - regardless if you are the beta or the one being beta'd.

Okay so let me explain on this particular issue, when you ask for a beta, you have to give them enough information to work with. Not only that, you should make it clear what you expect from your beta. Do you just want them to look over grammar? Do you want them to help you with character building? Story building? World Building?

Remember, a beta's job is to help the author achieve the goals of the author. And as someone being beta'd, it is important to give them ALL the information needed. If you have your world building notes, just copy and paste the entire thing (this is basically what I do with my beta - then he will look at parts that seem unreasonable and then I would fix it before actually incorporating it into the story). This allows me to not have gaping plot holes or magic inconsistencies... AND REMOVES THE NEED TO ASS PULL MAGICS JUST TO KEEP CHARACTERS ALIVE.

So, if you ever have to say 'I have plans for that,' then you're basically not giving the beta enough information. This section actually also comes down to WORLD FUCKING BUILDING. If you have your notes on how your story will go, then your beta already has a pretty good idea what you are looking for.

If you have an OC, and you want your beta to look at the character and see if it's reasonable, make sure you give them all your character building notes. Don't just be like - this OC is John: he has brown hair. That's like shitting on an empty canvas and telling your beta it's supposed to be the Mona Lisa.

For reference on character building - Look at Chapter 14, it outlines how I make notes on OC's and/or canon characters that have changes to them.

Reincarnation Fics - Baby arcs: Okay, so this part might be a bit different compared to the sections above, but is actually a common issue I have spotted regarding a lot of SIOC stories - specifically on reincarnation.

Have you guys ever read stories where it begins as an SIOC, as maybe Lucy's twin brother or some other random bullshit. Then you notice that the story is 100,000 words long, and you say to yourself, HELL YEAH THIS WOULD BE WORTH A READ, I wonder what Arc they are at now?

But, you discover that all 100,000 words is dedicated to age 1-6 or an overly smart OC that somehow managed to start twelve businesses, cure cancer, remove poverty and begin the fundamentals of forty seven lost magics.

I get it, you guys want to set up your world building, but there is a thing called meandering. If you are able to write a story longer than the first Harry Potter book and somehow not even hit certain plot points, then there is something wrong. 100,000 words of a baby/kid arc, constant mentioning of the language barrier despite it just becoming annoying as time progresses, and numerous chapters set up in the same way to explain how the OC has powers that they shouldn't even have in the first place.

Basically, you have a list of powers and skills you want, but you know if you just pull it out of your ass, you will get called out for it. So what do you do? Write a million chapters and show them struggling. I get it, you want your OC to be fucking bad ass, but even struggling and training does not justify how they are able to get dragon slayer magics with enough colours that it might as well be a skittles factory.

NOTE: WRITING BUILD UP IS NOT A VALID REASON TO MAKE YOUR OC AN ALL-SLAYER EVERYTHING.

So what exactly am I saying here? If you have an OC, and you want them to go through the growing up arc, you DON'T need to write a game of thrones length novel literally explaining every detail of their life. If you want scenes to build up magic, maybe do a scene where they start learning, and a scene where they make a new spell.

Mashima has set pretty DAMNED low standards when it comes to training scenes - basically time skip and ass pull. Just putting 1-2 scenes in magic training has already put you above the curve. So there is zero reason to put 20 scenes for each of the twenty spells you want your OC to have.

If you show your OC creating an army of spiders with a maker magic, then chances are, they will know how to make comparably easier objects. Because the audience can assume that with control to make a hundred tiny critters, they can make simpler objects. Like with Gray for example, we know he uses Ice Make, does Mashima show a scene of him practicing every single spell he has? Nope, he just has him learning Ice Make from Ur when he was young, and that's basically it.

In fact, you can actually pull it off without even showing your OC use the spell. You can just do a scene, where the OC is thinking to themselves on how the spell COULD be used. Timeskip, then just do a quick scene of how they figured it out. I would accept that myself as a reasonable explanation for a new spell - but not if you do it 50 times and for 12 different slayer magics. I don't need 10,000 words of frame-by-frame analysis of every single angle and muscle spasm to justify the creation of a spell.

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Also, I'm basically out of sections to think of, so it will be case studies now.

Hmm, should I put case studies in this same story or start a whole new one altogether?

Put a story that fit the category from the beginning author's note into the reviews, or comment a section that you want me to expand on, and I will add a section on the next chapter.

See ya, you cunts!

Check out my Youtube channel: Minipa! First video of many is out!