Bad!fics, your thoughts?

[Sweet Veil]

Warning:YMMV I made this thread because I've noticed things have been slow around these parts for a while so some new description would help liven things up a lot bit.

The topic we'll be discussing, "crappy fanfictions". How much preparation do you give a story before publishing it and what is your definition of a badfic? Something that I've noticed about many new fanfictions is they often end up being "bad!fics" because of a lack of preparation or actual true commitment in writing them, no my comment isn't meant to come off as condescending. The definition of a bad!fic is one without an official definition, it's just something I decided to use to describe poor stories, I don't even know if people even use it. So, I'll say that badfics often include bland/bad characters, crappy grammar, bad pacing, bad description, shoddy dialogue, clicheness, choppy length, and/or unoriginal plot lines and points. There's a saying to describe badfics, "Rome wasn't built in a day", I feel as though some are caught up in the "hype" of how fun it would be to write a fanfiction at the time and race to write it down in a hurry and post it, expecting, of course, to get immense amount of attention for their newly published work. Because of this it more then likely will come off as mediocre and poorly handled, the writers will usually abandon the story.

Then there's chapters which are handled similar in essence, poor length and choppy grammar in an attempt to get it out to the public faster. I feel as though the things that keep fics from being mediocre is the amount of work, patience, and time one is willing to put into the story, especially in its early phases. Bad chapters and badfics often makes one look desperate for glory or attention and can reflect bad on the community and/or author. I think if we all gave a little more time and patience toward making our fics. a little better and focused less on timing we could get more activity as a whole in the section and more recognition. Again, this isn't a call-out toward anyone, just my two-cent.

Length in particular is something I've noticed that people put emphasis on when describing a fic, I've seen some describe my stories' chapters as being "intimidating" naturally because of the length, but they usually don't complain too hard about the length after reading the story and finding out it isn't half bad despite the length of the chapter. Being completely honest and saying my utter and own opinion from experience of reading various fics. on other sites and here on Serebii, if a fic. is chaptered, a.k.a not a drabble, and each chapter is in the neighborhood of 500-1,500 words it's most likely a piece of a crap that was rushed. Keep in mind length doesn't completely dictate whether a fic is bad or not, this is in addition to several other problems I listed. I'm just saying that fics of this length usually contain the aforementioned problems. People seem to usually complain about fics being too long but most of the longer fics I'm encountered are the exact opposite and manage to be very compelling and usually only elicits whining for the first few chapters or so and are stuck to and better stories overall.

Another thing to note is "filler" chapters. Chapters in which no progress is really made in the grand scheme of things for the story. Chapters where nothing is really gained are pretty pointless for fanfics imo. It usually comes off as a stall for the authors and screams being unprepared imo.

So what do you think? Are my conspiracy theories a load of crap? Does a badfic turn you off? Thoughts? What do you think a badfic is?

 

[an illegible mess.]

i agree with most of your reasonings, except for the thing about filler chapters. in my opinion, filler chapters can serve as a purpose to explain something that wasn't thoroughly explained in the previous chapters. for my story, the devil's gift, it was focusing on the past of the villainous character and pulling out a side of him that many people didn't get to see, thus, making them feel bad for him. filler chapters can be fun and informative despite not adding any continuation to the story. usually one filler chapter is fine in a story, but multiple ones can get annoying.

 

[Kelleo]

I agree that filler chapters can actually be good for fics for exactly the reasons Lady Lucifer brought up. As for how many there should be, though, it really depends on the overall length of the story and how much is going on, imo. For example, if you were to write something as long as my Fire Emblem fic, Dawn of Darkness, which also includes several subplots tying into the main plot, several fillers wouldn't hurt, especially since there's a lot of characters to explore.

I do agree with everything else in the OP though.

 

[LightningTopaz]

Fillers are also a good way for the audience to catch its breath after an action sequence, or as comic relief during a particularly emotional stretch

 

[Caitlin]

My opinion on "filler" (which is a dumb term to begin with) is that it's the perfect time for character development to occur. Between major events in everything I've written, I've tried to focus specifically on the character themselves rather than their achievements.

I've already stated what I think a bad fanfic is in another thread, but to put it simply: Ones without any form of creativity or originality. "Game character travels through game region" are so dime a dozen that they lose any merit they may have had if they focused on original characters, original settings and original ideas.

Basically, stuff that brings nothing new to the table either through characters or general plot are, in my opinion, not worth reading.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

My definition of a bad fanfic is pretty simple. If the author hasn't spent so much time working on it, going over every detail and making sure every word and sentence flows as smoothly and conveys as much as possible, having at least two other people read over it between revisions, and revising at least twice, that they absolutely hate it by the time they post it, it's usually going to be bad. Truly good writing takes a metric fuckton of work that often isn't actually very fun at all, but I for one would rather put out something that's geniunely good that I've had to work to achieve rather than spew out dribble at the drop of a hat.

 

[Sweet Veil]

My opinion on "filler" (which is a dumb term to begin with) is that it's the perfect time for character development to occur. Between major events in everything I've written, I've tried to focus specifically on the character themselves rather than their achievements.

A filler is basically a chapter that can be skipped over and you would have little to no problem following the current story line and what's going on. Character development, significant character development, isn't usually something you see in fillers. So most of the time if a chapter has character development it isn't a filler, like a trainer overcoming a fear of Ice-type Pokemon. If you skipped the chapter in which that happened you would be wondering why they aren't afraid of the Beartic they encountered a few chapters later. This is significant character development so by virtue of that a character development chapter isn't really a filler.

 

[izarith]

Truly good writing takes a metric fuckton of work that often isn't actually very fun at all, but I for one would rather put out something that's geniunely good that I've had to work to achieve rather than spew out dribble at the drop of a hat.

this is very true. however, for the majority of people fanfiction is merely a hobby, and hobbies are supposed to be fun!
no one's earning money from fanfiction (well, other than EL James, but i digress) & no one's paying for it, so it seems a bit silly to expect authors to put tons of effort into every story. plus when you consider what age group pokemon fandom is mainly comprised of - middle school & high school age kids, for the most part - you can't really fault them for writing cliches or having a few grammar mistakes.

i am very picky about fanfiction. if i see one annoying technical error, if the characters are OOC, or i simply don't like the prose (too bland, too awkward, etc.), i'll backbutton immediately. but then i just forget about it and go in search of something better. badfic will always exist; no point dwelling on it ;p

 

[ShinyFlareon]

Any and all comments I make, I make through the lens of someone who hopes to one day write professionally. I want to take pride in my work, and I think anyone who puts themselves and their work out there for others to read feels the same, at least a little bit.

 

[Fennel]

I'm not exactly the most knowledgeable fanfic reader around, but from what I've seen, pacing seems to be a big problem. It hits on one of the two extremes a lot -- either ramble-y and directionless, or deaths and plot twists popping up in every other paragraph. I know some people want to have a little spontaneity in their writing process but I think planning ahead would help fix these issues.

Some other turn-offs include:

- Bad spelling/grammar. Okay this one is pretty much a given, but still. I won't backspace because of one misused "there/their/they're", but if mistakes are frequent then I'll usually read no more than half a chapter before deciding whether to quit or not. Also, people really gotta space out their paragraphs and dialogue when posting fics online, it hurts my eyes.
- Too many canon characters unrealistically shoved in one scene/story. You've seen this one before. The author is a fan of Misty, Clair, Steven, Volkner, Lenora, and Hilda so what do they do? Make them pop up one by one in the story with no good explanation.
- When people forget that the fic is set in the Pokémon world. Like...some Charmander at the very beginning will go "char char" and disappear forever and no Pokémon are ever mentioned again. If you can swap your characters' names (canon or OC) with any other random names and still have the story work, you might as well make it an original fic, ya know? It's 1 AM and I don't know what I'm talking about anymore, maybe it's my personal preference.

Totally agree with the OP on people churning out mediocre work like lightning to please readers. It really, really doesn't work. I just want to say to the authors, just chill and enjoy what do you do, you know? Don't take the people going "OMGzzzz so guddddd WENS dA nExT CHATPER gona BE UPP???!!??" on the wrong level.

 

[Caitlin]

My opinion on "filler" (which is a dumb term to begin with) is that it's the perfect time for character development to occur. Between major events in everything I've written, I've tried to focus specifically on the character themselves rather than their achievements.

A filler is basically a chapter that can be skipped over and you would have little to no problem following the current story line and what's going on. Character development, significant character development, isn't usually something you see in fillers. So most of the time if a chapter has character development it isn't a filler, like a trainer overcoming a fear of Ice-type Pokemon. If you skipped the chapter in which that happened you would be wondering why they aren't afraid of the Beartic they encountered a few chapters later. This is significant character development so by virtue of that a character development chapter isn't really a filler.

Eh, whenever I hear people throw the term "filler" around, they basically mean "oh, it isn't a gym battle or a pokemon isn't caught, so it's shit and I'm not going to read/watch". That alone makes me think the term is dumb enough and already fuels my dislike of it.

To each their own. I am incredibly selective of what one would call filler material. DP158 (that terrible Magnezone vs Metagross episode) is basically the bar for me when it comes to determining if something could be skipped and nothing is lost.

 

[Drakon]

Badfic has only two definitions to me:

1.) Grammar/spelling errors are so severe that the story is unreadable.
2.) Story is really poorly thought out.

 

[Zekurom]

I don't categorize fics as "badfics". I find that labels like that are counterproductive. Rather, I have fics that I dislike for certain reasons, which I may think they are "bad" because of them.

In short, "no such thing as a badfic, only a badly written fic."

A better topic, in my opinion, would be, "what makes a fic badly written?" The way you say "badfic" makes it seem like they are a specific category of stories.