In Love With Flame Rising
 Yup. You read that right. In Love With Flame Rising at your service and I'm sure it's a pleasure to meet you. Of course this depends entirely on the person reading this, but if you disagree with me you are more than likely a douche; so really, it's okay. Why I made this account you may ask? Because, honestly I think Flame Rising is awesome, and I figured he'd get some kicks out of seeing someone make a pen name like this. (Am I right or am I wrong F/R?) My sole purpose here is to help people with their writing. Another words, constructive crit. will be given generously, though, I'm not going to mince my words. I figure the best way to not get flames by flamers (duh), especially ones with good cause like F/R and Lulu and Neo(and the people in my favorites), is to help people out (and occasionally make them realize that grammar and spelling are their friends). (ILWF/R is not responsible for any and all feelings that will be hurt during this process) A cute little place to find a beta or to volunteer to be one: http:///betaread_search/ The Reason I Do What I Do I just received a review reply that floored me. Someone was actually taking my advice and re-vamping their story. They took my criticism maturely and decided to keep writing in order to improve. And she actually thanked me, saying that my review didn't make her feel like shit. I'm honestly going to try and give reviews that don't hurt feelings or make people feel bad about themselves, because no one's perfect, yeah? Sometimes all we need is a little practice. I'm not against flamers, but I will (generally) be right behind them giving advice and trying to help so that the author doesn't get flamed again. (Should you choose to be an asshole when I'm trying to be polite, I will then burn you to a nice, even crisp.) If anyone needs some constructive crit. before they post a story, let me know and I will be happy to help out. If you ask me for help, I will be respectful towards you and your writing, and will help out to the best of my ability. So yes, I am available to beta if anyone is interested. TBC How to become a Good Writer Now that is the most intelligent question that ever been asked of me. How do you become a good writer? How do you know you're not being influenced by people who really aren't good writers? What do I read to show me how to use grammar, spelling, and syntax and make it into an amazing story. -Well, that's easy. You practice; different writing styles and prompts to challenge you until you figure out what works best for you. As for some good fic writers? Well, I have a few for you to look up in the Naruto fandom (in no particular order). 1) kimi no vanilla- She has this epic story Butterfly in Reverse, it's the most excellent fic I've ever had the pleasure and good fortune to read. It contains yaoi, but even for people that don't like yaoi, her story is just so good that it can be overlooked. She incorporates the anime/manga, the characters as she interprets them (even something OOC is IC when she writes it) and even slips in some OCs. 2) scribblesitm- You can find her in the LJ community mabu_universe. Her whole Water Runs Red series floored me. It shows a side of Iruka that would be sacrilegiously OOC for anyone else, but she created a whole universe so full of plausible excuses that I couldn't even begin oppose her. It also contains yaoi, but I assure you it's the BEST read you can find for a KakaIru. 3) Hey-Diddle-Diddle- The empress of ficlets. She's poetry in motion, her ficlets are generally short, but she demonstrates how to say a lot in a little and how to be poignant without being wordy. Her stories keep your heart in a choke hold until she deigns to let you go, and even then you keep going back for more. 4) Incognito Temptation- No yaoi here, but she's got over 70 gems that need to be recognized. Another authoress that says alot in a little, but if you ever want to learn how to capture your reviewers then you need to check her out. 5) Reaper Nanashi- She freakin' owns all Papa!Yondaime fics. It's an AU story she has called Door Number Two, and she has over 3500 reviews and I promise you she deserves each and every one. Ever wondered how to pull off a AU fic? Check her out. These are only a few of my favorite authoresses, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to PM me. But these ladies are amazing, they take every bad aspect in fiction and turn them into masterpieces, they are great writers. Five Things to Check before Posting a Story. 1) Spelling. No matter how good your story is, atrocious spelling mistakes will always knock you back at least twenty points. And I'm not talking about typos, but things like misspelling the names of important places and people in your fandom. I would also like to let everyone know that fanfiction(dot)net now comes with a spell checker. It's inside the document manager when you edit your stories; there are no excuses. 2) Correct grammar should be a given, if you have issues with grammar, get a beta or start to read more frequently. Bad grammar is like bad spelling, it knocks you back quite a few points. 3) Details. You as a writer should write as to engage the reader in their reading. Instead of just saying it was a dark night, descibe the overcast skies and the moon that was obscured by ominous clouds or something. And try to put variety into your writing. Instead of putting, "Sakura said hello, Naruto said hello, Sasuke said hello." MIX IT UP! Maybe try: "Sakura and Naruto cheerfully greeted their teacher while Sasuke grunted in acknowledgement." Heck, I don't know, but make it interesting. 4) Plausibility. If anyone were to be a plausibility-nazi, it would be me. And yes, this might mean that sometimes you might have to do a little research on amnesia or pregnancy or the correct way to have sexual intercourse. If you don't know something, don't try to fudge your way through it, it only serves to make you look ignorant and uninformed. There is a way to make anything plausible, all you need to do is do some research; it's better for you in the long run and your readers will definitely appreciate it. 5) Flow. Do you have gaps in your story? Does it move from one thought to another smoothly and with reason? This might sound like something from your English class but it is so true, you don't want to leave your readers stuck in 16th century England while you're in 21st century America. The best way to detect this is to just read your story out loud. How does it sound? Do you like the way it flows? It's simple really, just take a little bit of time to read it over and read it out loud, I promise you that your stories will start to turn out better A Rant. Okay, so I'm going to be spending most of my time in the Naruto fandom and there are many things I would like to address. Some will be generic and applicable to all fandoms and others are Naruto specific. 1) By posting your story on , you, essentially are publishing it. And, since your stories are published there should be absolutely no excuse for you to publish crap work. If you suck at spelling get a dictionary, get a beta, or use spell check. And don't, for the love of God, say that the spell check didn't catch your mistakes and as a result, you shouldn't be expected to. Umm, hello, if I can catch your spelling mistake there should be no reason that you shouldn't be able to. I'm not the best speller in the world, but there are just some things that you shouldn't be misspelling, especially if English is your first language and you're above the age of 13. Betas are in abundance, find one, and milk them for all they're worth. Edit: Fanfiction.net now comes with a spell-checker! In your Document Manager when you go to edit your fics you can find it in there. (In your face! No one has any excuses now!) 2) It's my belief that anything can be made plausible in fanfiction if you put enough thought and planning into it. Yes, everything, including mpregs and gender bends and crossovers. But, it seems that most people lack common sense in that area. No, no matter what you say, Kakashi isn't going to get pregnant by having anal sex. Kakashi is a man (unless of course it's a gender bender) and men don't have ovaries and a uterus or a birth canal. Meaning, he won't mysteriously get pregnant and have his baby out of his ass. I've seen it done, and I've seen it done well. There's one fic where Sasuke used Sexy-no-Jutsu to change his reproductive organs, thus making pregnancy plausible. The same goes for Avatar characters being in the Naruto world and fighting with Shikamaru for no apparent reason. Don't do it. Plausibility is the fanfiction God. 3) So, character bashing anyone? Apparently (without my knowledge) Sakura became the biggest bitch in the world, Kakashi hates Gai, and Sasuke is teh emo!bitch. Right, so Naruto doesn't hate Sakura, he has a crush on her for crying out loud. Unless you're giving us a reason for Naruto all of a sudden hating Sakura, and hating her yourself doesn't count. Then leave the poor girl alone. I admit, I'm not a big fan of Sakura, but character bashing is childish and makes absolutely no sense. And for the record, Kakashi is the Copy Ninja, he can avoid Gai if he wants to...and the fact that he doesn't in the anime/manga means? Gasp. Kakashi doesn't harbor an unfounded hatred for the man (unless of course you give a plausible reason for it. See a pattern?). 4) Okay, you are a human being, not an anime character, you do not belong in Naruto or in any fandom. I have yet to see a decent self-insert. I'm not saying don't write them, write them for your friends, we don't care, but umm...please don't post them on here, we'd like to preserve our virginity as long as possible, what with all the fan-fic rape that going on around here and such. 5) "So sasuke went 2 kanoha 2 visit sakura and tel her to cum w/ him to orochumaru. sakura loled and went w/ him 2 live 4ever" Kill me, now. Numbers are not substitutes for letters, spell Konoha correctly (and yes, I've read a story like this) and characters do not LOL or OMG! And, something that has always bothered me is when authors spell something incorrectly and put and A/N (in the middle of the story no less) and say "to lazy to look up actual spelling" or "sp?". Wikipedia, Google, and are your best friends, please use them. 6) This is fanfiction.net, not a chat room. You are not l33t. 7) When someone like Flame Rising or Lulu and Neo flame your story (no matter how mean or rude they are) they have a reason for flaming your story. Maybe you should check and see where you went wrong. And constructive crit. is good for you. They help you become a better writer and convert you from flamer food to someone people like to read from. Don't be offended if someone constructive crits your story. There is a difference between a flame and constructive crit. Granted, some people, including myself might straddle that line. So just call them an asshole, and use the good points they gave you. 8) The fanfiction.net guidelines for what entries are and are not allowed are like the Ten Commandments. Depending on my mood, or how bad the story is (if a song-fic is well-written I'll gladly skip over it), you will be reported. Song-fics, MST, Self-Insert, Chat/script dialogue(shudders), Interactive entry? Oh yeah, you're gonna be burned. 9) Just because your story has like 100 reviews does not necessarily mean it's good. If you have no substantial reviews (read: If you're getting reviews like this 'OMFG This is like...THE BESTEST STORY EVER!' or this, ' Please wright more!'. ) then it's safe to say those who are reviewing your story are either fan-brats, prepubescent little girls/boys, or they just wouldn't know a good story if it bit them in the ass. People who leave the aforementioned reviews tend to stay away from the more intelligent stories and flock towards stories they can understand (ie. bad grammar and horrid spelling). Seriously, they go everywhere in droves. So, yeah, ultimately, your story sucks. 10) Dude. Why are you telling people that your story sucks, like, seriously, people can figure it out for themselves. You have no clue how much this pisses me off, I mean, have some backbone. Don't post a story if you know it sucks and are admitting it. Post a story stating that you did your best and are looking to get better. No one's looking to read shit-stories with shit-authors that give shit-excuses. P.S. While Japanese is a wonderful language, and very accommodating for the most part, it has asked me to please tell the Japanese-fangirls to stop raping and otherwise violating it's chastity. "Choto mate, wait a minute Sasuke!" Have you ever noticed that when they really want to look knowledgeable about Japanese, they limit their conversations to only the words they know? Meaning the script is like this: "Konnichiwa." "Konnichiwa. Daijoubu desu ka? "Hai. Daijoubu. Anata wa?" "Genki." "Nani shitteru no?" "Iie." "Shimatta." "Kuso." "Baka." "Teme." For the love of God, unless you're using the names of places of things like: kunai, hitai-ate, shuriken, Konohagakure, etc... Please refrain. Especially if you don't really know Japanese.
The OC I do not like OCs. I detest reading any story with OCs. Do you wanna know why? Because 99 percent of them are God-moded Mary Sues and Gary Stus. They defeat powerful canon characters and sweep canon heroines/heros off their swooning feet. Not many people can write OCs into fandom, because it comes out horrible. Half the time, the OC is the author themself or someone who the author idolizes and wants to be. Dude. Come on. Granted, I have read stories with fantastic OCs, most of them coming from the Scarlet Spiral RPG on GreatestJournal (honestly, those girls are amazing, and their OCs are to die for). The Things that Make Up a Good OC 1) The character can be beautiful/pretty, nothing is wrong with that, but everyone has flaws, your character included. Realism is what makes a good OC a good OC. 2) coughREALISMcough. Yes, that darn word again. Realism means that your SasuNaru lovechild isn't part fox and doesn't have Kyuubified Sharingan eyes (I actually read a story like that on here. Guh!). Realism means that the beautiful and super smart 10 year old foreign exchange student does not show up the teacher and Uchiha Itachi, and mesmerize all of her class by her silky smooth skin (all in a span of an hour or so). More to come later. How to Review 1) The absolute worst review you can ever leave is, "the story wuz so good i could ignore the grammar and spelling mistakes." No, you can't and you shouldn't. While you can still like the story, you can leave compliments and gush about the story while pointing out a few mistakes. Yes, you can be tactful and helpful at the same time. Hold the author responsible for their mistakes, don't lower yourself to reading sub-par work. 2) "KAWAII." That does absolutely nothing for the author. The best thing you can ever to for a writer is to point out what you liked and why you liked it, and that usually only take a sentence at the most. (And of course, what you didn't like, and why you didn't like it mixed in with the gushing.) Do you like reading well-written stories? Well, it's up to you, the reviewer to help the author out and let them know what works and what doesn't. 3) Some people don't like constructive crit., and that is okay; it's stupid, immature and childish, but it's okay. Save it for someone who wants to improve in their writing and flame the asshole. 4) Okay, yes, I know it's hypocritical, me talking about nice reviews and such. But, I limit myself to badly-written stories, there is nothing I like about the story, which is why I'm leaving a review, generally I try to say something nice so I don't come off as a complete douche bag but sometimes it's can't be helped. It's a very sensitive subject when you criticize an author's work (although if they state they'd like it, don't hesitate, they'll appreciate it more than you know) and you've got to do the best you can. I would recommend only leave constructive crit. for stories you like, that way you can have something nice to say, but go off the deep end if you want, you get very amusing review replies. And now for a public service announcement... Ninety-five percent of the kids out there are unconcerned by the dismal state of their education, or the fact that their fanfiction is raping the English language. If you're part of the five percent of fanfiction writers/readers who do care about such things, cut and paste this, and then leave reviews for those poor souls who know not what they do. |
