I find I generally have one of three reactions to any given piece of fan fiction:

1. Wow. Shouldn't you be writing for the show? (This is rare.)
2. Eh. (This is by far the most common.)
3. MY EYES! MY BRAIN! AAAAAARGHHHHH! (This is way too common. Especially in Tolkien fan fiction.)


I have this theory that fan fiction could actually be a useful tool for teaching creative writing. One of the hardest things about writing fiction is creating interesting, three-dimensional characters and then keeping them in character. Fan fiction has the modest advantage that the characters have already been created for you, so you simply have to keep them behaving like themselves. Now, I realize that this implies that you have to analyze the characters to some extent, but this is a useful exercise for an author, even one who's creating their own characters. For someone who's a serious fan of a TV show or novel or other fictional world, you'd hope they'd have at least absorbed enough to be able to identify the traits that separate one character from another, and that make a character who he or she is.

Unfortunately, a lot of fan fiction writers seem to write about their own characters who happen to have the same names (and maybe the same eye color) as the characters in the fandom they're writing about.

I've been keeping a list of my pet peeves about how Battlestar Galactica fan fiction writers handle Kara Thrace (Starbuck). It's getting disturbingly long. Why do so many of them want to put her in skirts? ("Me in a dress is a once in a lifetime experience." Eh?) Or thong underwear (under a flightsuit? Yikes...!)? Where did they find this person who's just waiting for Lee Adama to sweep her off her feet and ravish her? (Yes, yes, I know where they found her; why do they keep calling her Starbuck?) Who's this person who's dying to have Apollo's babies? (Hello, did you see "The Farm?" What part about "I don't want a child" didn't you understand? And if the story was written before that, do you really think Starbuck's going to stay out of the cockpit for nine months any time soon?) Let's not even start on people who have her saying "honey," "baby," or calling Lee any other cutsie names like "CAG". Another one that gets me is the frequency with which Kara seems to "burst into tears" in these stories. Don't get me wrong: We've seen her cry on the show, more than once -- it's actually one of the things I like about her, that underneath that cool exterior she's actually very emotional. But she tends to cry in private -- her public outbursts usually involve punches being thrown (perhaps a bit less frequently on the show than in fan fiction, though :-)). There was that pushed-right-to-the-edge breakdown in "Kobol's Last Gleaming Pt. 2", in front of Helo, but even that wasn't exactly what's conveyed by the phrase "bursting into tears." If I see one more reference to Kara "squealing" I'm gonna gouge my eyes out. Kara Thrace does not squeal! Or shriek! Or make girly screams! (OK, yes, I watched way too much X-Files.) Oh, and she has never, not once, ever called Lee "Adama." (OK, that one's not so bad, but it's just ... weird. Because people have her do this all the time in fan fic, when she's never ever done it on the show. She's called him "Lee," "Apollo," and "Captain," and I think that's it.)

(I debated whether or not to add examples here. Some people are Very Sensitive about criticism of their work. (Of course, there's the minor detail that no one seems to know or care that I'm here, so that might be a moot point.) Anyway, I decide that I have to point out a few of the more egregious offenders. There's this little gem, for example. Kara calling Lee "CAG"? Check. Kara in a dress? Check. Kara's body "shivering" and "humming" at the mere sight of Lee? Check. Kara squealing? Check. It's ... o, my eyes. The shame is it's fairly well written, as are most of the author's other pieces, which are in a similar vein. Also, check out pretty much anything at awfulbgfic. Warning: Don't read with liquids in your mouth, your computer may suffer.)

Of course, if fanfic writers took creative writing classes, they might be able to improve their grammar, spelling, and general language usage. The ones that make my skin crawl: Mixed tenses. (Please. Pick a tense and stick to it. Unless you really, really, really know what you are doing, in which case, why are you writing fan fiction?) "Loose" when you mean "lose". ("She'd somehow managed to loose her thong in the excitement." (OK, I made that one up, but it's probably in a K/L fanfic somewhere.)) "Lead" as the past tense of "to lead" -- the word is "led," like in "Led Zeppelin." No, really. (This bothers me in a lot more places than just fan fiction, I must say.) There's probably more but my brain hurts too much now.

Tags: bsg, fanfic