Tips for Fanfic Writers:

1. **Write in past tense.**  Present-tense stories don’t flow as well.  One 
of the very few exceptions is when a character is dreaming, hallucinating, 
or having a flashback, but keep these sections short and sweet.
2. **Write in your reader’s native language.**  Remember, this is a chance 
to tell a good story... not a chance to show off how many Japanese words you
know.  It will be easier on everyone if a character says “Good night!” 
instead of “Oyasumi nasai!”
3. **Vary your sentences.**  This is one even I have trouble with.  Don’t 
let all your sentences have the same structure - for example, a paragraph 
with nothing but compound sentences.  (Remember those grammar lessons?)  
These get tedious to read and tend to lose the reader’s interest very 
quickly.
4. **Unless you’re writing a totally random comedy, keep in character.**  
Fanfic readers can spot an out-of-character action very quickly.  Examples: 
Neither Piccolo nor Vegeta are huggy people, Akane tends to jump to 
conclusions (the worst ones where Ranma is concerned), and Duo Maxwell is 
full of himself.  If you want to write a fanfic where a character acts 
completely different from the way he/she normally acts, you’re better off 
labeling it as an alternate-reality fanfic or a comedy-of-randomness fanfic.
5. **Give credit where credit is due.**  At the very least, list the 
writer/artist of the series you’re fanficking and who owns it in the US.  
They’re probably not going to sue lil’ old us, but technically they could. 
Better safe than sorry.
6. **Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue!**  Dialogue is interesting.  Especially 
in those sections where there’s not a lot going on.  Use dialogue to tell 
what the characters are feeling, how they’re reacting, and how they fit into
the scenery.  Even things like “W-what the heck...” can speak volumes in the
 right context.
7. **Describe, describe, describe!**  Don’t just say, “Usagi was studying.”
Tell how she studied.  Tell how she pretended to study.  Tell what she was 
feeling, how she acted toward others, and what her family’s reactions were.
Details are interesting!
8. **The thesaurus is your friend.**  Use it!  Don’t keep saying ‘the man’ 
over and over.  Pick different words to describe him.  This is especially 
important in high-action scenes, such as fights or deep discussions.  
Repetitiveness is boring.  Variety is interesting!
9. **Punctuation, grammar, and spelling are important.**  Any word-processor
worth its salt these days has a spelling-grammar checker.  Make your 
computer feel happy - use it!  If you’re not happy with its performance, or
if you’re not comfortable with your own command of grammar (say, English 
isn’t your first language), get your smart friend to go over it and point 
out errors.  Remember, spell-checker software can’t catch errors like ‘an’ 
for ‘and’ or ‘there’ for ‘they’re’.  So go over it yourself... carefully.  
Mistakes distract the reader from the story.  If you don’t care enough about
your story to spell the words right or make it grammatically acceptable, 
then don’t expect your audience to care enough to read it all the way 
through.  (I’m sorry for ranting, but this is a pet peeve of mine.)
10. **Give yourself frequent reality checks.**  Read over what you’ve 
written so far to make sure you’re still in the same literary universe you 
started out in.  If you say that your character’s home planet is in a 
galaxy far far away in the beginning, don’t start treating her like an 
Earthling-born-and-bred all of a sudden.  Again, if this is a comedy-of-
randomness, you can be a little more flexible - but one of the best ways to
lose readers is to confuse them if they’re not expecting to be confused.
11. **Don’t make excuses!**  Over and over again people will put little 
prefaces that say, “I’m sorry, I’m not a very good writer” or something 
along those lines.  Don’t do that!  First off, putting yourself down is bad
for the ego.  There’s going to be enough people in life who tell you, 
“You’re not very good at such-and-such.”  The last thing you need to do is 
add to it.  Second, excuses are off-putting.  If you go out of your way to 
seem underconfident, it makes your reader wonder why you wrote it in the 
first place - and you didn’t write for the approval of total strangers, 
right?  Right?  Just tell the story!  If you’re really that bad of a writer,
it will be readily apparent.  Likewise if you’re better than you think you 
are, which is probably the case.