Does anyone write fan fiction?
I was recently thinking about writing a fan fiction and i was wondering if anyone here wrote fanfiction and could give tips on how to make it entertaining or true to characters?. Or could someone give links for some well done fanfictions (preferably with Lee in them) for inspiration?. If you could help it would be appreciated.
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I'm a fellow author myself. I'm on Fanfiction.net and Wattpad, but I only publish my stories on ff.net because I personally think it's better.
Any tips? Well, what kind of Fanfiction are you writing? Crossover? AU? What if? It depends on what kind you write.
When I write my stories, I tend to mix the plot; staying true to it but making changes as well. For example, if you write a S1 story, have Carley survive Ep.3 and make her live until Ep.5 or further while staying true to the plot. It's small things like this that make the story more interesting.
As for the characters, try NOT to make them OOC (out of character). Have Kenny still be a hothead and Lee still a rational person (or however you played him). If anything, just replay of rewatch S1 or S2 if you want to know how each characters would react to a certain event.
Good Fanfiction, imo:
Lee meets with Rick from TV Show; follows both TV and Game plots
Clementine reunites with Glenn and is taken to Alexandria
Instead of Kenny, Lee gets separated from the group and meets Sarita
My personal favorite:
Clementine and Jane find Prison from TV Show, mainly Clem x Carl though. No cringe in the slightest, trust me.
I recently just started writing on Wattpad and the advice I can offer you is:
Hopefully these are enough to get you started! If you have any questions, I'm no expert, but feel free to DM me!
I'm currently in the process of writing a fanfiction for TT The Walking Dead on Deviant Art and Fanfiction.Net.
I generally use DA for storing documents and FF for posting.
When dealing with dialogues for Non-original characters like say Clementine, if the dialogue I'm writing doesn't FLOW well in my head, then it doesn't work and I have to re-write it.
Also once you have your bearings, u need to come up with a definitive ending for your story EARLY, or at least have a general idea for it EARLY. That way you have a GOOD understanding of where u wanna go with your story so u can fill in any gaps between the middle and end.
From a long time ago, upon seeing stories of fan fiction nature, I became interested and have read some over the years.
Now, I'm at a point where I want to stop having them remain ideas and want to flesh them out.
Over the years, I've had numerous ideas, some still stick with me and others I let go (they seemed like good ideas at the time).
Primarily my fanfic ideas involves fiction that hasn't been given a fair chance. Ex: Fallout Nuka-Break, X-Men film series. And some franchises that I felt still had more to contribute: i.e. Transformers Prime, to correct some things and set the course straight i.e. Gunsmith Cats, third Superman and Batman films, and others are stories to show my dedication and admiration for what I saw. Also, anything of a franchise that really grabs me and feels like story material.
I try to gather as much info before I start so I make sure all my bases are covered. When planning I lay out scene ideas and work on them again in case i change my mind about something.
I will get to writing. And I'm holding on to the faith that I know I can do it.
Well, I haven't written any TWD fanfiction but I've been working in a LiS fanfic for over six months and I have an idea for some kind of well written remake of ANF in mind. Here are some advices:
Your fanfic, just like any story, needs to have a story structure: A begining, a middle and an end. Many people start their fanfics in the middle of everything, and that's just wrong. Write a story from 0. Forger you're writing a fanfic, imagine this is your own book and you're writing it for someone that doesn't know anything about the fandom you're writig about. Introduce characters slowly, take your time, if relationships are going to be deep and realistic, make them form in matter of months or years, not hours. Specially for people as traumatized as apocalypse survivors. Don't rush things, for God's sake, it will ruin everything. Slow pace. Imagine this is a book, not a fanfic. It will make it look more like a book and increase its quality, which takes me to my next point:
You're writing a fanfic. WRITING. A fanfic about a game. This is not a game, this is a written story, like a book. Imagine you're writig a book (I will give you more advice about this later. keep reading). Some things like hubs will be just awkard, because in no book all characters but the protagonist stay there doing nothing while the PC walks around and talks to everyone. I'll give you an example. In Life Is Strange, Max has the power to rewind time for about a minute or two. The player can do this to manipulate other people and solve puzzles during hubs, or when the game forces you to, or when you get a non-canon death. The power itself, however, has little to do with the actual plot, and it was there mostly for the sake of mechanics and gameplay. And when I read LiS fanfic I get SOOOO bored reading how Max solves puzzles with her powers and how she rewinds because rewinding is a game mechanic. It's fun to use it, to see it, but to read it? Books/Fanfics, Movies and Videogames are very different ways of telling a story. In a movie or a game, you see things, you hear things, music, colors, framing, sounds, etc. are your best friend at the moment of adding symbolism (I'll talk more about it later). But only in a videogame you're actually inside a story. Gameplay is very important in a game but movies and books don't have gameplay. They're pure stories. So get rid of the puzzles and hubs because it's fun to solve them, not to read them. Get rid of the things that make the game a game and translate it into book lenguage. The symbolism part I talked about before? Music, colors, visual art? get rid of it. They don't belong to the world of books, or fanfics. If you want to use art for symbolism, use different types of art, written art. Play with poetry (talking about that later, too), rhymes, quotes, etc. Don't use music, don't describe how things move in slow motion as Max reaches out around the corner of the bathroom stall, Nathan's bright red jacket contrasting witht he cold blue of the bathroom walls, Chloe's body falling to the ground, blood pouring out her stomach, Max's head alining perfectly with an Illuminatti graffiti behind her... You see what happened? In that video, it took a second or two. I your head, when you read it, it took longer, because I had to describe everything and I didn't even take the time to write the physical sensations ad feelings Max was feeling at that moment! Imagine if I had written those down! Now, for a normal scene, it's fine. But at that moment, Max wasn't focusing in those little details. Max was scared. It was an action moment. Don't describe much action moments. You will have time to describe things when the protagonist is bored, sitting down, waiting for someone, and not feeling or thinking about anything in particular. THEN you can describe the enviroment: when the character it paying attention to it. If the character just went through a breakup, they won't be focusing int he details, they will be feeling, a lot. Describe those feelings. A game or a movie have to show them in physical, visible way. In a book or fanfic, it's easier. Now, I feel like I'm missing a lot of things here, but I think I made my point.
DESCRIBE. THINGS. When the character is paying attention to those things, of course. I already said that is very important to describe emotion with the right words (buy those precious things called dictionaries and look for the word that strikes you the most). A thing I realized is that fanfiction writers don't describe the enviroment or the characters, asuming we already know them, and they focus on feelings, thoughts and story. Do we need description of what we know? Nah. Do we need candy? Nah. Do candies make me happy? They sure do! It's not nessesary to describe someone's room all the time, just when it's the first time, the protagonist is focusing on a certain detail, or when a change is made. It gives the story a lot more quality and it feels a lot better. Describe the environment, describe the character’s looks, their emotions, etc.
SHOW DON’T TELL. This one is obvious. There are better Show Don’t Tell advices in internet that mine so go and read them I don’t have much time right now.
KNOW YOUR SHIT. You’re writing about The Walking Dead? Great! Get DEEEEEEEEP into the lore, the characters, the character’s backstory, the symbolism (use the right symbolism. For example, in TWD, everytime a raven shows up somebody dies. Fire means hope, snow Is hopelessness, etc), the inspiration the writers had, the locations, the weather in those locations, how walkers would work in those conditions. How walkers work at all, really. Get informed about PTSD, use the character’s abilities for the plot. For example: In my fanfic, Kate is super important. Like, a lot. You know, she has no powers or any great ability but drawing and music and art basically. So I use those. There is an scene when the protagonists need to fake some murals to set their enemy off, so who do they call? You guessed it. So she just goes and studies the murals that already exist before making one on her own and see? Art kids are badass. Use the little things like that. If they’re not strong, they’re smart.
WRITE EVERYTHING BEFORE PUBLISHING. EVERY. SINGLE. THING. This is more of a friendly advice but you can still write a very good story without following it. Have the entire story written, all the chapters already there before starting to publish stuff. It’s hard but it’s for the best.
I have this giantatic advice that will solve every writer’s problems ever. I use it both to write books, videogame scripts and fanfics, and it’s the best thing ever, but really, I’m very busy right now, so I’ll tell you about it later. Hope this helps for now.
I do. I'm starting to write twd fanfiction as I do get lot of ideas in my head. I did wrote an Alias fanfiction years ago (when Alias was on tv). Never compleated it.
I should go back writing it. I've always have someone to proof read my fanfiction (before even posting on fanfiction.net). I know I'm not perfect in some grammar areas.
I'm a big fanfiction writer myself. When I write, I generally like to write things that would logically fit into canon, so just like extra books of a series.
It's still in the preliminary stages, but me and friend of mine are planning on writing our own story with both Clementine & Sarah still alive, who will eventually meet up with our own original characters, and work together to survive and protect each other; only to eventually find out that our characters are more than what meets the eye. We were immensely let down by the 2nd half of Season 2, and how it cheaply killed off characters that had a lot of potential such as Nick & Sarah. But as I stated, it's going to be bit before we actually get to working on it. I'm currently in the middle of rewriting the 2nd half of Season 2 to fit our liking, while my friend is about to start extensive development on a mobile game he's working on.
I'll give ya an update once we finally begin work on it.
Personally, I am not a fan of OC's (original characters), especially them being in the main cast.
It is difficult to take a fanfiction seriously when your grammar sucks, e.g. "Their happy," or even worse -- multiple question marks. Sigh.
Make a list for every character and write down like 5-10 of their traits down buuuut don't tell it directly to readers! E.g. "Ben is naive." NOPE
I had actually started making an interactive story text-based game interlinked with TWD telltale's universe which choices that actually do matter on a website called Twine.
I quit after like 3 weeks tho. if i had continued it woulda been 7 months strong the story but oh well.
Hello there!
I'm a writer that used to post around here. But I post my stories on fanfiction.net nowadays. While I'm not a big writer and quite frankly, not very known, I can still give you some tips to help you on your writing journey!
Show don't tell. This is a huge part of writing and can make a story really interesting, or extremely boring. Here's an example of telling: "Lucy felt the cold air against her skin and decided it was too late to leave. She could see the glittering of snow as it fell, wondering why her group hadn’t left when they had the opportunity. The snow would freeze them. Lucy knew there was no hope." And here is an example of showing: "The cold air pressed against Lucy’s skin. It was too late to leave now. Snow glittered as it fell, their opportunity for escape dwindling with each tiny flake. The snow would freeze them. There was no hope." Do you see what I mean? In the first example, it literally said, she felt the cold air. But in the second example, it said that the cold air pressed against her skin, which lets us know she must be cold, as opposed to just straight up telling us. Oh btw, I didn't come up with these two examples.
Make sure to use proper grammar and tenses. Not using these properly makes it seem like you're not serious about your work and it doesn't look professional. I looked back on my first fanfics and I have to tell you, it was horrifying to see the amount of wrong tenses and grammar I had used. Thank god that a fellow writer had contacted me and told me about this because if they hadn't, I probably wouldn't even know about this issue yet.
Don't give up when bad reviews come. In this world, you're not going to be able to please everyone, not only in writing but in so many other things in life. So don't expect to get praise all the time. I've gotten bad reviews and when I mean bad I mean BAD. They've said so many bad, and hurtful words towards not only the story, but to me as well. But don't let it discourage you. Instead, just message anybody who doesn't like your work and tell them what they didn't like so it can be fixed next time.
I hope that these tips from my knowledge of writing will help you to become the best writer you can be. I hope you have a great day and I wish you the best of luck on your fanfic writing journey!
I actually don't mind OC's being in the main cast AS LONG AS there's only 1 or 2. I hate reading stories where there's more OCs than main cast.
cough Wattpad cough cough
Ok so I'm not that busy anymore let's see how fast I can type now school sucks
I realized I forgot a thing or two so... here we go:
A thing that can be either good or bad in fanfics is that emotional connection between the character and the player/reader is already made. This can be a problem or a blessing, depending on the context and how you manage things. For example: I mentioned before I really like Kate from LiS, right? I gave her a crucial role in my story: in short words, she's Max's love interest (fuck pricefield), they love each other and stuff like that but the thing is, all the time there are very strong hints that Kate is not actually a good person. In an alternative timeline, Chloe (who readers trust unconditionally) threatens to "Put a nail in her fuckign brain”, making reference to the lobotomies and similar psychosurgical operations performed to children in secret during the last decade by people Chloe is SURE Kate works with. Max sees her sneak out in the woods with Nathan Prescott (a VERY BIG RAPIST ASSHOLE) at night, finds books written by the guy that directed these psychosurgical operations back in the decade of 1950 in her room, etc. All the time the reader is told Kate is not with the good guys, but she’s the sweetest, purest, more innocent cinnamon roll in the entire game and everyone loves her—and her personality doesn’t change at all in the fanfic. She’s the exact same person, both in her behavior and her values, and the reader refuses to believe she could be behind all the bad shit happening, just like Max. This is just an example, but you could take advantage of previous Player-Character relationships to write your plot.
Write good dialogs. And god grammar. Stuff. Define your writing style since the beginning. Read. A lot. Read the books you want to take as inspiration. For example: Two of the books I use for inspiration in my story are Book Thief and the His Dark Materials series. I don’t take a single thing from Book Thief since it would be disrespectful, but I imitate a little the writing style. His Dark Materials are inspiration for other things. Little time in this side of the screen, just look up in google “good grammar advice for writers” or something. Read a book.
Write just the necessary. If the scene or chapter doesn’t add to the story, character development, or is not any useful at all, kill it. Don’t add filler content, just important things.
So yeah, remember that other advice I was going to tell you about? The big one? Here it is:
Imagine you get an idea. It sounds great since the beginning. You start writing. The first chapters are gold to your eyes. Everything is going perfectly…
And then you realize you don’t know where the hell you’re taking the story to and it doesn’t make a lick of a sense.
It happens to everyone. That is called “Writing with Compass”. It means that you have an idea of where you’re going but you go sorting things as they go without planning too much.
Surprise: you’ll get lost.
Or not, if you’re very lucky.
But I’m unlucky as fuck, so I use this other technique: Writing with Map.
So this is basically what you do: You get a notebook, a big one, and start writing down whatever you don’t have very sorted out. In my story there are a lot of conspiracies and family secrets and paradoxes and very confusing shit. I had a compass idea of what I wanted, but I didn’t have it very clear. A little things that help is to talk to your Walking Notebook. My walking notebook is my sister. I just talk to her all the time about my stories. I don’t care if she’s listening to me, but it helps me to tell someone what is going through my mind. Talking out loud helps me to sort things out. That’s a thing you do before writing in the actual notebook. Just write what you have (only the parts that you don’t have figured out about what happened before the story and lore and stuff, like I did with my conspirations and stuff. Don’t write the actual story yet.
This is also the moment to develop your OC’s. A little advice with OC’s
Define everything. Every. Single. Thing. The more detail, the better. But don’t throw it in the reader’s face since minute 0. Take your time. You need to know your character better than you know yourself.
And finally, how to actually write a story:
Take your beloved notebook, fill it with things you don’t have quite figured out, add detail, add motives, add backstory, add everything you need until everything makes perfect sense to you. Now write the story. Not line by line, but a small resume. A technique I don’t use but is pretty useful they say is writing the story in five paragraphs (first paragraph the beginning, second, third and fourth paragraph the middle, and fifth paragraph the end), then in ten, twenty and then all the paragraphs you need. Make it make sense. Rewrite the story. Rewrite it at least three times, because when you’re at the middle of everything a new idea will pop out and you need to make it fit. Write it until everything makes sense. And then, when you feel it’s done, start writing the story in your computer, line by line.
Not a big thing? Ok.
Because another problem you will face here is that you get very random ideas. Very random scenes, very random things that make sense with the lore you worked on before but you can’t fit together. Put this part before or after this part? Where should I put this? My solution is this little shit called cards. I just basically written down the scene I want until all the story is there. New ideas just pop in my head and I can add them later with no problem. When you can’t think of more scenes and ideas you start ordering them. After it’s done, write a resume down like I said before. Then do it again, and again, and then you start writing the actual story.
Is this advice shit?
No shit
Yes shit
Goodbye sir
(!) Not trying to offend anybody or piss somebody off, just asking a question out of regular curiosity.
Why do people write fanfictions? Is that because they love another person's story so much they just enjoy spending time with already created/developed characters or just think the universe is so large there's still a room for another storyline?
I just can't understand why someone who obviously has the creativity and time to write constructive stories would choose to follow previously established rules rather than make their own. I am a writer myself and I try to be as original and "myself" as possible, to create my own personal, unique style. I do think the real story will always be in the mind of the real author and only that exact person will truly understand their creations. I do think it can be fun and extremely flattering, but I also believe people should try to be a little more confident and give something original a try. Unless they do both, and I'm just rambling away.
Well I write Fanfiction because it's a good way to practice on your writing if you ever want to become an author. That and I find it to be a hobby. It also shares your creativity and imagination with others. For example, if you didn't like the way Mariana or Kenny died in New Frontier, you can share what you think will happen if any of them stayed alive during the events of New Frontier.
I'm very much like that as well. Most of my Fanfiction consists of an OC I create. If people like the OC, then it means I'm doing well so far as being original.
That's pretty much my reason. I'm sure people have other reasons as to why they write Fanfiction.
But what for? At the end of the day, they are still dead.
Anyway, yeah, I understand the practice part. However you can do it on your own, no teaching aid. For example, write 10 sentences about a burning candle using at least 15 epithets and 2 Homeric similes. IMHO it's a great way to find your own style. But thank you for your answer.
To get your ideas seen by others. There are very good "what if" stories out there that deserve to be noticed by the original writers.
Some People will find that boring and complicated to do. It's easier for them to find a source of "inspiration" for their stories. Nearly every Fanfiction has an original idea too.
You're Welcome!
Ooh, ooh, I write fanfictions!
So, uh, here are some of my opinions about writing. Bear with me, I'm a bit tired today, and also super hungry.
Characters are, to me, the absolute most important part of writing. It doesn't matter how well written the plot is, how many mind blowing twists and gut-wrenching moments happen - if the characters are poorly written, I just won't care enough. Case in point, A New Frontier - sort of a monument to everything characters simply shouldn't be. But that's a rant for another thread.
The thing I'm going to talk about, as someone who writes characters, is a distinction that often simply isn't made, characters instead being used as plot devices or as hollow caricatures. I'm not going to point any fingers, or say 'THIS PERSON SUCKS', but you can often tell when a character isn't acting quite right.
The Person/Character Distinction
Here are two examples of characters that act like people, rather than 'just another character'.
Chloe Price
Life is Strange
"This shit-pit has taken everyone I've ever loved... I'd like to drop a bomb on Arcadia Bay and turn it to fucking glass."
Chloe Price, in Life is Strange, acts as a best friend - and potential love interest - to the player character, Max "Never Maxine" Caulfield. Before the events of the game, Chloe's father - William - died in a car crash, and Max left Chloe shortly after, when they were teens. After the loss of William, and Max moving away, Chloe took on the philosophy of 'fuck the world', and became a nastier, more destructive version of herself. While the real, kind, Chloe still exists, she's mostly buried under a persona of a 'bad bitch'. That being said, throughout the course of the game, Chloe and Max become thick as thieves. They can even share a kiss or two.
Chloe's reaction to grief, to me, is heartbreaking in its realism. It's integral to her character, and it's an event that she still dwells on five years later, even blaming him for being the way she is. Her reaction to loss, and indeed to adversity in general, is to turn her back on the world and start screaming at the people she cares about.
It's real. It's authentic.
And that's why I love her role in the game. That being said, she's written so well that she's polarising. People love her or they hate her, like marmalade. The sign of good writing, for me, is wild opinions.
Jane
The Walking Dead Game; Season Two
"I did it for you, Clem. For us. We're free, now."
The queen of unpopular opinions. Ho lord.
Jane's a woman who's let grief consume her, for me. She abandoned her little sister, and left her to die. However, while Chloe said 'FUCK THE WORLD', Jane turned in on herself, and resorted to staying by herself, living in isolation, rather than risk getting hurt again. Clementine has affected people differently. Lee saw her as a shot at redemption, yet also someone that needs protecting and teaching. Jane saw her as a shot at redemption, in my opinion, but for a different reason. She wants - maybe even needs - a second chance at being a big sister.
Before I get my head torn off for writing about Jane without unironically including 'bitch' in the same sentence, I will argue to the stars and back that Jane is an example of a 'person' in media. She acts like a grieving and hurting person, after losing her little sister. While she's the exact opposite of Chloe in how she deals with grief, she's just as realistic. Both characters are characters that not only I admire, but also love to hang out with within their games. I get genuinely miserable after beating Life is Strange or The Walking Dead; Season Two, because I know I won't be interacting with the characters again. Though, admittedly, the second Jane flashback in A New Frontier is pretty great.
They act like people, is the point I'm trying to make. Yes, they add to the plot. Yes, they - ultimately - do serve solely to help push the plot along. But they do so in a way which makes them seem like people. A character, to me, can be so much more than just another player in the game that is a plot.
Two authors I want to quickly 'shout out' for doing this distinction gorgeously - and writing characters that I like more than most people! - are two very good friends of mine. TheDomdotCom (you can find him @TheDomdotCom or at his fanfiction page here and ForeseeObstacles (you can find her at her fanfiction page here) both write fantastic original characters that meld seamlessly with the game's cast - TheDomdotCom writes a character called Dominic, a self-insert character who gets stuck inside the world of 'The Walking Dead' and wants to go home, while ForeseeObstacles writes a character called Amelia, a young woman who's trying to look after her little sister, Clementine. I would implore you to check those works out, and show them some love.
On the subject of Jane and character writing, just want to take a moment here to talk about a project of mine. Unlike most fanfictions, this story isn't plot-driven. It's more character-based, and searches through two characters thoughts and feelings, rather than telling a tightly plotted story. If you want to read Secret Sisters, you can use that link. People seem to like my exploration of the characters of Jane and Clementine. Maaaaaaybe you will, too.
How do you do make a character a person?
That's the killer question. I'm quite tired from type-type-typeing this for the past little while, especially when my browser closed and I lost all of this ... twice. So, I'm just going to talk about - to me - one of the most crucial points in writing a character. If anyone wants me to share the others, just lemme know in a PM and I'll fire off some more stuff.
Dialogue
Dialogue is, to many, a difficult thing. There's no one right way to write dialogue. For example, I like to write in the accents of characters, even if that sacrifices spelling and grammar. However, some choose not to do this, as they prefer proper spelling in their works. However, I like to think this adds 'believabilty' to the written speech. I like to think that, however, this isn't as important as the next bit.
What a character says is hugely important. Canniness in dialogue, for me, is the most frustrating thing to read or listen to. When people talk, they often stumble over their words, or hesitate or take breaths and cough. The difference between this:
"Maybe we could ... shit, shit, that way looks like a way out! C'mon, hurry up!"
And this ...
"We need to get up there to escape quickly."
See what I mean? And, yes, I've read a fair bit of dialogue which is of the latter quality than the former. The former, to me, has a natural pacing to it. A 'trick' I can recommend, with writing dialogue for the Walking Dead is to get your hands on this tool, the Telltale Speech Extractor, and give it a whirl. As far as I know, however, this does require having the games downloaded to your PC. Here's a pixelly picture of it, because my laptop resolution is craaaaap.
This has almost every single little line that characters say, even grunting and screaming from death scenes. This can really help capture how a character talks. Before I started writing 'Secret Sisters', my favourite project right now, I sat down and played through all her scenes in the games, then listened to these lines - the relevant ones, anyway - over and over. What this did was help me figure out how she reacts to certain things, and get some experience with her inflections of words. 'Gotta' instead of 'got to', stuff like that.
If you don't have access to a PC, you can use this playlist to listen to all the lines from The Walking Dead, organised by character, in Youtube videos.
Season One voice lines
Season Two voice lines
Though, bear in mind, the screams are still in there. Might make ya jump, a little.
Hopefully this post has something of interest to read. If you, or indeed anyone, wants to talk to me about writing, you can PM me on this site or you can PM me on the fanfiction site (That one's more likely to get my attention). A link to my profile is here. So, yea, if anyone wants to chat, please hit me up! I really like chatting with authors, on the whole, and I hope I can help someone out in some way.
Thanks for the opportunity to ramble about characters. Definitely lemme know if you upload your fanfiction anywhere, I'd love to read it!
I have been known to dabble in fanfictions, like many people have stated on here, the key is to make you characters be read as human. People have flaws, Heroes have flaws. When you are writing your character or using one already established, keep in mind their flaws.
Flaws are what make us human. Flaws are what add to a story and is the difference between bad story telling and interesting story telling.
Here are 2 characters..one has flaws and is very interesting....the other has no flaws...and is as boring as a dried out turd.
TWD S1....Kenny: A bad story teller would have just used Kenny as your stereotypical redneck. Yeah he has a family...maybe a bit racist...but ultimately forgettable. But Kenny...Kenny is human. Kenny is filled with fear. Fear of the situation...fear of losing his family...fear of being a failure. Before the outbreak...we learn through dialogue that Kenny was a somewhat neglectful father and husband. He went out...made money to provide for his family...loved them...but at the same time was happy to be away on his boat.
He lets his fear lead him to make some questionable decisions. He also has a gift for denial. It is his coping mechanism when shit hits the fan...but it is hurtful as his wife needed his emotional support. The entire situation that culminates with her suicide and the death of his son is so heart wrenching...that even if you hated Duck and were annoyed with Kenny...you had tears in your eyes when it reached that sad end near the train tracks.
Kenny's flaws are painful because everyone has experienced situations in their lives that ring those bells. Think back to how many times you have taken family for granted. How many times have you lashed out in anger because you were angry or sad. How many times have you found yourself unable to provide reassuring support..because you yourself are too hurt. Kenny is very human..and his character Arc in season 1 shows us a man who accepts his weaknesses and decides that he will not let them dictate his life.
Star Trek Captain James Tiberius Kirk: In Star Trek, Capt. Kirk is seen as the best Captain in Star Fleet....in charge of the flagship...the USS Enterprise...all the women love him...all the men want to be him. And he is about as boring as a dried up turd. He has no flaws...and weirdly the only way he ever seems human is through his interactions with Spock who does not let emotions get in his way....and Doctor McCoy who appeals to basic human decency.
Whether he is fighting in a ship to ship battle or in some arena against a Gorn...Kirk always wins...he always figures something out...even if it is somehow building a canon out of materials that would have McGyver calling bullshit. He has no flaws, so the outcome is almost always a forgone conclusion. Oh and he is a bad Captain...just ask any Redshirt you see.
Now you might like Captain Kirk...but these two characters...who comes off as actually being believable?
And that is the important thing in story telling...if your readers enjoy and care about the characters you create...you have already won their hearts....it is now up to your plot to when their minds.
Hello, TheDomdotCom here. I've been writing The Walking Dead fanfiction for a little over two years, and have worked on many projects since then. I want to hit on several points about fanfiction in general, before I delve into the specific questions you posted. I'm sure some of the points I will be hitting below have been explained by others, but every single one of them is important for writing fanfiction, or writing in general, and I hope they provide you with the help you are looking for!
Know your characters - This is absolutely important. You can't write a good character if you don't know them, whether it be an OC or a canon character. Know everything you possibly can about them. Who they were, what they like, what they hate, how they react to certain situations, what their backstory is. This goes doubly so for OCs. An OC must have as much detail in their backstory and personality as any canon character. They have to be believable, with their own flaws, and their own strengths. The reader doesn't even have to know the full extent of your OC's background. It's often best to tell the readers about a character over a period of time, rather than infodump it on them at the very beginning. But, you should always know who your character is, and where they've been. It is important to remember that you're always fighting an uphill battle with OCs. Readers will always prefer the canon characters. That's who they've grown to love from the games, or the TV show, or any medium of The Walking Dead. They're who they come to read fanfiction about. You're the one who wants to write this OC. Make them care. Make your OC stand out, provide something for the story other than just being there, and the people will like them. I've heard so many times from people about how they hate OCs, but often enough, they've just not read a good OC. Provide them the example they want to see, and you'll turn them around to your side. With canon characters, read up on them, watch them; do anything you can to know every little tick and personality trait about them as you possibly can. The more you know about how a character acts, and who they really are, and what they want or need, the better you can write the character.
You will make mistakes - It's a simple fact of life. We're all human, and we all mess things up somehow. When writing a story, you will make mistakes that you hadn't considered before. Sometimes, they're unavoidable, and the only thing you can do is roll with the punches, and learn from your mistakes. Along these same lines, you have to be prepared to receive critical reviews. The reviews I look forward to the most aren't usually the ones that go "omg great story, 10/10", it's the ones that show where I messed up, and offer solutions, as well as show what they enjoyed about the chapter. One thing a lot of people have trouble with, and I've had in the past, is looking at those critical reviews, and being disheartened by them. I've seen it so many times. You will never please everyone, and you will most likely get reviews that are straight up bashful. But, the best method in improving your work is often to listen to what those critical reviewers were talking about, and apply them to your future writing. I owe everything to those reviewers, because they helped shape me into the writer I am today. See the silver lining in what might otherwise be a bad review, and take it as a learning experience, and with time, hopefully those reviewers would find less and less things to nitpick about.
Know what you want to tell - This is absolutely important. Without a 'vision', most stories tend to fall apart. Think out what kind of story you want to tell. What is the theme? What is the message? What do you want the reader to feel or think about your story after they finish it? Writing something just because you want to often doesn't lead to interesting and exemplary writing. Do you want to explore a 'what if' scenario where Lee survives being bit, and to see what might happen if he made it to the events of Season 2? By all means, you have something to work with there. Think about what kind of role Lee would play, and how his presence could change the story. Think of every little detail, and the story will come to you. More often than not, if you know where you're going, and know how your characters work - nice little callback to the first section, eh? No? Alright. - you'll find it much easier to write scenes, and keep writers' block at bay.
Make what YOU want, and try to find a way to make it work - This section is, more or less, in two parts. More often than not, you'll find people out there wanting you to make certain stories (in the past, I've had so many reviews asking for dumb things, like Adult Clem x Lee, and more often than not, I had to straight out reject them, whether it be out of disgust, or disinterest), but, you should always write what you want to write. While you are writing for an audience, you are also part of that audience. Write something that you'd want to read, and you'll find others that'll feel the same way about your content. Now, sometimes, what you want to write may be a little bit difficult, or unrealistic. A good example of this is something I've done for a story of mine, where I mixed elements of The Walking Dead and Life is Strange together. Basically, I had time travelers in The Walking Dead. If not done properly, this may detract from the experience, as it can come off as super unrealistic, and your story loses its believability. I had to find the perfect balance between the two colliding themes, which, more often than not, was extremely difficult to do. But, in the end, it added more to the story, and pushed it into its own, all because I took that risk. One scene I want to mention, due to how it threaded these different themes together, is a scene I had done where the main character had found himself face-to-face with one of these 'time travelers'. Now, for clarity sake, the main character also has powers of his own, one of them being retaining memories of events that happen before a 'rewind'. So, in this scene, the 'time traveler' uses his power to torture the main character by killing a beloved character in front of him, over and over again, until the character finally broke down. You get to see the character's heart break, how it all falls apart around him, and how helpless he feels in the moment. Over the course of three months, he'd grown accustomed to dealing with walkers, but nothing such as this. It's a wake up call, providing something akin to a 'slap in the face' for the main character, along with properly introducing those sci-fi themes alongside the normal Walking Dead ones. Now obviously, whatever ideas you come up with won't be completely similar to this example, but you should be willing to take chances, as long as you can make them work. Now, if you're trying to mix My Little Pony with Walking Dead, that may be a bit harder, and I may end up telling you to 'please don't', but the fun part of FanFiction is exploring ideas you normally couldn't in canon.
Research, research, research! - This section sort of plays off things I've previously said in the past couple sections. Always research into what you're writing, whether it be the source material, or, maybe, things like 'how a body decomposes after a certain amount of time'. While that last one may lead you to be on a watch list somewhere, knowing how such things work in reality makes it easier for you to write something convincing in the world of The Walking Dead. How do you start a fire? Can you realistically walk very far on foot before tiring out? How much of a jackass was Troy, really? Ask questions, figure out how things work, and it'll help make your story more believable.
Put as much effort into it as humanly possible - The amount of times I scroll through fanfiction sections and see interesting premises, only to be let down when the writer barely puts any effort into their writing at all always frustrates me. We're not professional writers by any means, but you should always try to give it your all, when writing. Give 110%. Put more detail in, write about the characters and how they're feeling. Writing's often about finding a balance between detail, dialogue, and emotional indicators. Speaking of which...
Have emotional connections to your characters - Feel what your characters are feeling. Put yourself into their shoes, think how they'd think. If a character is grieving after the loss of a loved one, write about how dejected they are from the world around them. Use less descriptions of the environment around them, and more descriptions of how they're feeling. Use inner dialogue to show how the characters are feeling. A good friend of mine, @BHBrowne, is by far the best I've seen at inner dialogue (his fanfiction page can be found here, and a whole 'essay' he wrote about inner dialogue has been featured here). Inner dialogue is one of those things where, if you manage to get the hang of it, provides a lot of emotional depth to your writing. It makes the narration feel more like a character is telling the story, rather than some faceless narrator, who's telling you everything that's happened off-screen, and emotionless. Basically, if you can feel what the character is feeling, their sadness or hatred or anger, then it's possible the reader will feel the same thing.
Don't try to be the 'most popular' - This is more friendly advice rather than an actual rule, but it's important nonetheless. FanFiction is a hobby, and it could lead to better opportunities for you down the road, like getting your own work published some day. But, going in with the intention of being the 'coolest and most popular writer in the section' just makes you seem kinda... douchey. More often than not, you'll find success where you least expect it. Start writing something that you love, let it prosper without the need for others to validate you. If you're writing something good, people will take notice on their own. I'm not saying you shouldn't advertise your own work, however. As much as I hate doing so, advertising is an important step into getting your work out there. There's an etiquette involved, however, and you have to be careful about not overstepping those bounds, lest you be labeled as 'annoying'. What's important is that you enjoy what you're writing. Other people will, too, if you've put in the time and effort and love into your work.
You can be taught how to write, but only YOU can make yourself a great writer - Here's the thing about writing. It's a form of art. As great as we may want to be at it, sometimes some people just don't... really click, with it. Some people aren't made to be writers, their destinies lie elsewhere, and some may just have not found their calling yet, in the world of writing. The big thing I want to say here is that... while others can teach you everything you need to know about how to write, like some secret formula (Can't get your hands on this one, Plankton), you have to apply everything you've learned in your writing, and even then, it may not be enough. But, if you have a passion for it, and have put in the time and effort into your writing, you're one step away from writing something truly outstanding.
Be yourself - Last, but certainly not least, is this little gem right here. Don't try to follow in the footsteps of someone else. Forge your own path, create your own style. You may be writing something based off of the work of another, but give it your own spin. Originality is key, and more often than not, brings you the most readers. Believe in what you can do, and the rest will follow suit.
Now, with that massive wall of text done, I'll finally wrap this up xD Writing isn't something that's easy, in fact, sometimes it's extremely hard to do. The amount of times I find myself stumped on a scene, not able to figure out the right way to word a sentence, or what to do next, can often lead to a grueling experience, like plucking your hair out and hoping that it lands in some sort of artistic fashion. Practice makes perfect, sometimes, but practice definitely makes better. Go out there, and write something you've always dreamed of doing! Do something creative, and wow us! I'm only here to give you a few pointers here and there, only you can fill in the blanks, and create your own masterpiece. I hoped these helped in some way, though! If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to send me a PM, and I'll be more than happy to provide more advice, but I think we're all tired of reading this by now xD