Writing For Dummies

Summary: Tsukasa gathers your favorite characters from Shugo Chara to teach all of the young people how to write Shugo Chara Fanfiction. (A Guide to Writing Shugo Chara Fanfiction.)

Chapter One: Plot Bunnies/Review Prep 101 with Yaya

What? Now?

Really? But Yaya's not ready!

...

Eeeeh, Yaya's on?

Oh. Cough.

Hi, everyone! This is Yuiki Yaya, but you probably already knew that if you read the chapter title up there.

Anyways, Tsukasa wants me to teach you guys about bunnies. Yaya agreed to because she knows a lot about bunnies.

Let's start!

Bunnies are small mammals that are usually white, brown, or black. Animes are very misleading! Bunnies are not pink. It's technically impossible.

There actually aren't that many bunnies in Japan. Most of them live in North America, all the way on the other side of the world! Bunnies primarily live in meadows, woods, forests, and I've heard, even deserts.

Why would bunnies live in deserts? It's always really hot there. How could animals with a lot of fluff stand the heat? When Yaya was a little toddler-

Whisper, whisper, whisper.

What do you mean I'm talking about the wrong thing?

"I told you to talk about the plot, Yaya-san, not bunnies."

Really? Um...whoops.

Please disregard everything Yaya has said!

Go take a short nap and forget everything Yaya has talked about!

...Are we good?

Yaya's gonna take that as a yes!

So it seems that Yaya was supposed to talk about the plot of a story and not bunnies. She's not quite sure how the two got mixed up, but no matter! Onward!

Let's see, the plot...

If Yaya remembers from Language Arts class correctly, the plot is made up of the exposition, which is the beginning of the story. That's where you introduce the main character and the setting.

The setting of a story is where and when it takes place. For example, Shugo Chara takes place in the twenty-first century in Japan! Don't be afraid to be creative with where your story takes place. Put everybody in the Renaissance period and make princesses and knights! Take us to Paris, Venice, or somewhere completely made-up, like Candyland!

Wait, no, that's an American board game. Shoot.

Hopefully, you see Yaya's point!

Next is the rising action, which has all the events that lead up to the climax. The climax is the high point of the story. The climax is the most important part of the story, keep that in mind!

After the climax is the falling action, which is exactly what you probably think it is. Then, it's the happy or sometimes sad ending of the whole story.

You've got to keep in mind while you're writing that your whole plot flows and isn't all choppy. If it is, no one wants to read it. Matter-of-fact, no one will like it, and therefore will flame your story! So be careful of that.

(Warning: Fanfiction flames are not for roasting marshmallows.)

Yaya thinks that the biggest thing people screw up on is this:

Summary: Amu is a nerd at school and Ikuto is super popular. What happens when they meet? AMUTO AND RIMAHIKO!

Really, if you're writing an Amuto story (by the way, if you don't know what Amuto is, what are you doing on the fandom?), why heavily clog the story with Rimahiko?

Not that there's anything wrong with that. Hello, who doesn't like Rima-tan and Nagi together?

Yeah, that's what Yaya thought!

Yaya thinks that if you write a multi-chaptered story, then you have to make one pairing your main focus. When you're writing about two different sides of a story because of the two different focuses, suddenly, there are TWO plots in the story.

Stories can't have two plotlines within the one story, otherwise they wouldn't be stories.

Duh.

Hey, Tsukasa, is Yaya done now?

What? I have to talk about reviews?

Aw, poop!

Okay, okay, next are reviews!

Once you've posted a decent-enough story, you have to be prepared to handle reviews.

So now it's Review Prep 101 with Yaya-chan!

Yaya has a special video clip for everyone! Are you guys ready for this?

PLAYBACK!

Susan-Mary had finished her totally awesome Rimahiko story. Finally! Her long wait of two days was over, and she could put stories up on Fanfiction. The world would finally see her greatness.

For "Story Type," she chose the 'Normal' option. In the category area, she quickly found Shugo Chara in the anime/manga section. On the next step, Susan-Mary thought for approximately three-point-five seconds on a perfect title.

"Rimahiko Love Story," Susan-Mary typed quickly with a fangirlish grin plastered on her face, misspelling "love" and not capitalizing "story."

She left the summary box blank and skipped it. She set the language to English and the rating to "T-plus, just in case."

"The genres definitely have to be love and drama," Susan-Mary murmured to herself, clicking the appropriate things. "Characters? Duh, Rima and Nagi!" she laughed airily. "Fanfiction is like, so stupid."

After everything was all set, she smiled at herself, obviously pleased.

Then she noticed the horrible blank box.

"Ugh, I forgot to put a summary." Susan-Mary tapped her right index finger on her chin in careful thought. In no time at all,-literally-she thought of the ideal, eye-catching, interesting summary that would draw the greatest Shugo Chara authors to read her story.

She began reading aloud as she was typing. "Rima and Nagihiko were mortal enemies. What happens when they fall in love and start dating? Lots of drama! Sorry, I'm not good with summaries, but please read anyway!"

She had clearly misspelled many words and the "Shift" button on her keyboard seemed to be broken.

"Yes, I'm done!" Susan-Mary cheered to herself. She moved her mouse over the "Submit Story" button.

Click!

Susan-Mary shut down her computer and plopped down on to her bed. She fell asleep in mere moments, without brushing her teeth. She smiled in her sleep, having wonderful dreams of all the wonderful reviews she would receive in a few hours.

Young Susan-Mary would never be prepared for the flames that would engulf her "story."

BREAK!

Okay, everyone, it's Yaya! I had to pause it because I needed a snack and I didn't wanna miss anything. Don't you guys find it tacky when people put, "Sorry, I suck at summaries, but read anyways!"?

Gosh, I hate that! Why put that you suck at summaries right in the summary? "It's pointless," as Rima-tan would say. Heehee.

Okay, Yaya got some candy, so let's start up the video again!

PLAY!

The next morning, Susan-Mary launched herself at her computer chair excitedly. She missed by a long mile, and landed in a heap on the floor next to her chair.

"Ouch," she murmured, rubbing her bruised arm.

She quickly got ready in a matter of two minutes and started up her computer. She opened up the Internet and went to , which was bookmarked in her "Favorites."

Susan-Mary logged into Fanfiction with her e-mail, "rimahikorulz4eva" and her password, "rimahikorulz4lyfe,"

She found her story on the first page of the Shugo Chara archive, with a grand total of...

ELEVEN REVIEWS!

"I knew I was good," Susan-Mary smiled smugly and clicked into the story to read all of the reviews.

The first review was from someone who went by the penname of "screamattheskyx3." She said: "Oh, God, what IS this? Seriously. This fandom is already practically dead, except for maybe thirty or so really good authors. Please stop writing. NOW. Thank you. -Sky"

"What's her problem?" Susan-Mary rolled her eyes. "She's probably just like, jealous or something."

The next review was from "Chika Hoshi", and went along the lines of: "My honest opinion on this is that it needs a LOT of work. Your grammar and spelling could use tons of improvement. Since you're writing a real story, you can't use abbreviated forms of words. For example, you can't shorten "love" to "luv." The idea isn't the best, but it isn't terrible. It would be a lot better if Rima and Nagihiko were actually in character. Nagihiko isn't a big flirt and Rima doesn't freak out and blush around him all the time. It seems to me like you're thinking of Amuto or something. Also, it doesn't seem like you're following the storyline that you set out in the summary. All the other characters seem fine, however. You just need to work on Rima, Nagihiko, and the entire story. Chika H.~"

The other ten reviews were from some notable Rimahiko storywriters. Among them were, "Talia Windwalker", "Haruka Sumairu", "Riri-chi", "RakkiiHappiiDokkiiShidonii", "Aquatwin", "NessieWinsa", "Goose-chan", and "tsuki no kimi."

But, as expected, none of these reviews were what Susan-Mary was looking for.

Not one, "I loved it!" or "Great job!"

Where was the love?

"Who do these authors think they are anyway?" [1] Susan-Mary rolled her eyes. "They probably aren't even good."

Susan-Mary began looking up these authors and as she started looking at their stories, she fell into a deep, dark despair.

These authors were apparently some of the best-of-the-best in the fandom. Their stories were surprisingly...amazing. Some of the authors' stories had hundreds of reviews; one girl even hit around nine hundred reviews.

A sharp realization hit Susan-Mary.

She would never be as good as them. She could try. And try. And try, and then epically fail.

There was only one thing for Susan-Mary could do about this horrible situation.

No, she wouldn't flame all of them until her fingers were numb from typing.

No, she wouldn't hunt them down and terrorize them.

She would eat the pain away.

"Mom, I need lots of ice cream, like, NOW!" Susan-Mary ran down the stairs. However, her foot slipped, causing her to tumble headfirst down the hard, wooden stairs.

"Susan-Mary? What's wrong, honey?"

"Ouch..."

"Again? Honestly, that's the fifth time this month!"

And STOP!

Hopefully, that video taught you all something.

No?

NO?

Ugh, seriously?

Well, obviously, if you get a flame for your story, don't freak out about it! You got flamed for a reason. Ninety-five percent of the time, it's because your writing skills are a little worse than Kukai's. The other five percent...

Yeah, Yaya isn't sure what the other five percent is.

It'll come to Yaya eventually!

Anyways, the last thing Yaya wants to say is to not beg for reviews. Like, don't say that you need twenty reviews before you update.

The odds of getting twenty reviews before you update are rare-wait! Yaya takes that back! The best authors would get forty-six reviews when they only asked for twenty.

But remember!

The reason you're reading this is because you're new and you're just getting started on Fanfiction! Or maybe you need to improve your writing skills. But maybe you're just reading this for the fun of it because you love to be around Yaya. Who doesn't?

The reasons are very unclear.

Don't assume you'll get a lot of reviews. So don't set goals! Are we all clear on that?

Are you guys nodding to yourselves?

If not, please do so within the next five seconds!

And go!

...We're all on the same page now, right? Yaya will be taking the utter silence as a "Yes!"

Yaya hopes you guys have learned something.

Maybe you learned a lot-if so, great for you! You're definitely on your way to being a writer!

Maybe you learned that Kukai's writing skills are quite poor. Sadly, it's totally and absolutely one-hundred percent TRUE!

This is Yuiki Yaya, signing off!

...

Whew, that was exhausting! Yaya's hungry now!

Hmm, when does the ice cream shop close?

Eh? Yaya's still on?

Oh, hi!

What are you still doing here?

We're done! It's all wrapped up!

You're still here?

Kairi, just turn off the camera! NOW!

[1] Please do not feel offended if one of your favorite authors who happens to be an amazing writer wasn't on that list. I've read stories from mostly those authors, so that's why I chose them. I've already spoken to them and they were all okay with being mentioned as well. :)

Now on to the actual Author's Note!

I've been having this idea for a while now, and I think it's a pretty good one. People, if you haven't noticed, the Shugo Chara fandom is DYING. We need to end the suffering! Hopefully, many people read this and their reading skills will improve. If not, I'll have wasted my time on it and gone through the trouble of writing it for no reason.

So please actually DO the things that Yaya tells you.

I swear, you'll be a much better writer.

*Shout-out to Riri-chan! :D It's her birthday everyone, so get her some cake! xD

THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL BE BY OUR BELOVED RIMA-CHAN! Hurrah!

-Sky