Fortunately, as a fic writer, you aren’t competing for readers’ hard-earned money, but you are competing with every other fic author in your fandom for those hits, kudos, and comments that are the commerce of the fic world.
Most fic authors are not professional writers. Readers know this and are generally forgiving of the kinds of mistakes and problems we amateurs make, provided the big-picture items like plot, character, and pacing are good.
There are, however, a few problems that can make readers nope out of a story faster than Harry Potter can whip out an Expelliarmus! and, unfortunately, the general fanfic oeuvre is rife with them.
Most of these are sins all novice fiction writers, me included, have committed at one time or another, and they are the ones I see readers complain about the most in the depths of fandom subreddits. (I’m focusing here on mechanical issues rather than big-picture issues, which are harder to fix and beyond the scope of a blog post like this.)
You’d be surprised how many fics slip from present tense to past tense and back again during a chapter. (You can alternate tenses between chapters if the story calls for it, of course, but that’s unusual.)
There are techniques for transitioning between present-tense narrative and memory or flashback. As author Randy Ingersman notes in his blog post on “How to Write a Flashback,” there are three essential elements in writing an effective flashback:
He provides some good examples of the techniques in the post.
Avoid “head-hopping,” which is when the point of view (POV) changes from one character to another mid-scene.
If you’re telling the story from Harry’s POV, for example, don’t interject thoughts or observations that could only come from Severus.
Some readers don’t mind head-hopping, but for others it’s an absolute deal breaker. (In the past, particularly in the romance genre, it was considered acceptable, but it’s fallen out of fashion in the pro-fic world in favor of tightly held POV.)
If you want to do it, do it deliberately and don’t change POV in the middle of a paragraph. Make sure it’s clear whose head the reader is in at all times. But know that it turns many readers off.
Whatever you do, don’t interject a note like Hermione’s POV or some such to indicate a POV change. That pulls a reader right out of your story and dumps her on the floor in a sad little puddle of disappointment.
If you’re using a dialogue tag (like “said”), use a comma (or question or exclamation mark) at the end of the bit of dialogue and a lowercase letter for the first word of the tag, unless it’s a proper noun (examples below use US English format, with double quotation marks; UK style usually uses single quotation marks):
“Go away,” Jane said.
“Go away!” yelled Jane.
“Should I go away?” Jane asked.
And please consider limiting your dialogue tags to the basics like “said,” “yelled,” and “asked,” which are almost invisible to the reader and won’t pull them out of your story.
If you’re using an action beat instead of a dialogue tag, use terminal punctuation (period, question mark, or exclamation mark) and an uppercase letter for the first word of the action beat:
“Go away.” Jane slammed the door in his face.
“The power of Christ compels you!” The crucifix fell from the wall, startling Father Damien.
You don’t always need a dialogue tag, but it should always be clear to the reader who is talking and acting.
A new speaker needs a new paragraph:
“I hate you!” said Harry. He swept his cauldron off the desk and glared at Severus.
“I don’t care, Potter.”
“You will.”
“I doubt it.” Severus cleaned the mess from the floor with a quick swish of his wand.
Conversely, in long passages, you can (and should) divide a single speaker’s dialogue into appropriate paragraphs to avoid the dreaded “wall of text” that many readers hate.
You can indicate that it’s the same speaker by leaving the closing quotation mark off the end of a paragraph and using an opening quotation mark on the following paragraph. It’s also not a bad idea to use an action beat to make clear the delineation between speakers, like this:
“I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really hate you, Snape!
“You are the worst Potions teacher I’ve ever had, and I’m definitely never going to name my son after you.”
Potter stalked out of the classroom and slammed the door behind him.
“We’ll see about that,” Severus murmured.
‘Nuff said.
For fledgling fiction writers, I highly recommend editor Louise Harnby’s “Making Sense Of” series of books. She has clear, practical advice, with great examples from published fiction. I think they’re available at Amazon, and she also sells them via her website. (No affiliation here; her work has just been helpful to me.)
In an upcoming post, I’ll outline some ways to self-edit your fic.
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