Things you *hate* to see in fanfiction

[MC80a Liberty]

True enough, but those are the exceptions to the rule. Just because there's a relative handful of authors who can write a good story despite using these clichés doesn't excuse the overwhelming number of hacks who can't. In addition, I'd say that a well written and (relatively) original fic is still better than an equally well written but heavily clichéd fic.

[Cyber_Skaarj]

Almost anything (in my oppionion) can be excused.

Almost anything, yes. But the one thing that really cannot be forgiven (and something you have demonstrated quite well with your little hiccup with the word "opinion") is appalling spelling and grammar. Not only do many authors seem to be too lazy to even try to use something like MS Word or equivilents to correct the most obvious mistakes, but they also don't seem to bother to use pre-readers to catch the errors that Word and the like miss. There are many people out there that would happily go through a fic authors chapters before final release to help correct such things, but from the state of many fics that I've attempted to read over the years it seems that those people aren't being used when they should be.

[camk4evr]

Here's something else I hate to see in fanfiction: Author's who don't capitalize proper nouns and the first person, singular, pronoun 'I'.
I'm not trying to offend Atlan or anybody else, as I do this in e-mail and IM's to friends (or anything else where I'm typing fast and not really paying attention), I just find it annoying to see in fanfiction.

[Atlan]

Man, i have to agree, camk4evr.
In my defence, having finished high school a year ago, I got top of my year in english, maths, Legal Studies, and Econimics. Partly talent, partly lack of compentent compitition.
But when i finished primray school, i was spelling (only just) at a level three years younger than i was. And my spelling never realy got better. As a few (heaps and heaps) of people have noticed.
But being the horible hipocrite that I am, i can never read a fic with bad spelling.

[Hiryo]

I hate to see:
1.) Ranma paired up with Akane. (I simply can't read it!)
2.) Ranma stuck permanently as a girl.
3.) Ranma paired up with a guy.
4.) Fics in which Ranma simply is FORCED to be a girl despite his wants and that from all
parties without a reason but that the author use it as a plot-development to get from point a
to point c. I.e. Nodoka: "From now on you go to school as girl for the whole year or you have
to commit seppuku!" . . . .
That's the most of it. Sure there are good stories like 'Careful destiny,' (especially the
Carless sidestory' :p which are good that I read it despite what I hate . . . . Although that's
soooooooo rare for me and up today it's the ONLY fanfic that I still like/remember offhand
depite the Ranma/Akane pairing. However, that could be since Akane is totally OOC (since
it's an AU) could explain that a bit.

[MacShimi]

One of my greatest areas of dissatisfaction comes from one of two problems:
The first is distorting or ignoring the primary source material. Ranma is a macho guy, the probably the best martial artist of his generation (and possibly one of the best for centuries). Ranma is at the same time defensive and insecure about his identity and very secure in his skills as a martial artist.
Therefore stories that make Ranma happy to wear girls clothes, without a compelling reason (eg: a tournament like the Martial Rhythmic Gymnastics or Martial Figure Skating), is wrong. Ranma may not experience gender dysphoria in his female but he’s certainly eager to change back into his natural form. Ranma tolerates his female body, but he doesn’t like it.
The original series was written as a cartoon comedy. Actions like malleting people are typical expressions of the genre. Think of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner or just about any of the traditional Warner Brothers cartoons. There’s a big difference between the exaggerated violence of the cartoons, where the characters are fine in five minutes, and real violence where people suffer lingering injuries. Ranma’s injuries from Akane are typically healed in a few pages, or in fact help the story along as in the case of the Cat’s tongue Shiatsu point. Authors who turn Akane into a sufferer of psychotic fits forget this. Now I’m by no means a big fan of Akane’s. But let’s like or dislike her based on her actual actions, not on her fanon reputation.
My second point here is authors who make this series the be-all and end-all of Ranma’s life. This series is of a roughly two year period around the time of his sixteenth year. Now think back to when you were sixteen. Easy for some, harder for others. There were a great number of things which seemed immensely important to all of us at 16. How many of them still have that desperate importance to us now?
It’s normal for teenagers to have some emotional problems. It’s also normal for them to overcome these problems in their late teens and to adapt themselves to lives as adults in the time between their last days of schooling and their first few years in the workplace. Do you really think that Ranma will be as emotionally insecure as he is shown to be in the Manga ten years later? I think not. So authors who write stories set years, decades or centuries later should realise this. People change. Sure Ranma might remember how important, annoying, powerful or what-have-you an event seemed at the time. But this will be leavened with the perspective of his later experiences.
Too many fictions are written not just with teenaged characters, but tacitly accepting these characters self-evaluations at face value, (well… possibly basing all characters around the evaluation of one of the canon or fanon character’s interpretations of the others). My point is that writers need to have perspective when they write. They need to be able to separate what they believe from what their characters believe. Otherwise we don’t see story telling we see emotional propaganda.
I think this can all be summarised in this quote:
“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.”
-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 – 1936)

[Acey]

1. Immaculate grammar or not, I cannot abide a fic the primary purpose of which is to illustrate how the author's favourite character/couple stands head and shoulders above their peers in terms of emotional maturity, intelligence and martial arts ability and villanises all those characters who refuse to acknowledge this.
(The one exception to this is probably Mirrors Multiplied, the story of which is so expansive and random, you tend not to care how horrible the Genma of World #Insert Random number here was when Ranma's now busy piloting an EVA or battling Hild's demons in another dimension.)
2. If the main thrust of a continuation Ranma fic is the development and 'inevitable' sealing of the Ranma/Akane relationship, I keep my distance. It has been done (quite well and quite awfully) countless times before. Unless there's a spectacular twist to the story or the writing is outstanding, I just don't want to know about it anymore.
3. Immersing a character or characters from the series in an environment populated by OCs which are destined to become PoV characters at the expense of the original Ranma cast.
4. Explaining major plot points before the story. If they are so important, include them in the fic! I pass any fic that begins by explaining that 'Ranma/Genma etc. was cured' or 'Shampoo/Ukyo left Nerima' or even 'Kodachi murdered Akane and went on a killing spree which was put to a stop by Nabiki (who has been training) and stakes her claim as Ranma's husband and battles Cologne to a tie for Ranma's hand while Ukyo no longer cares about Ranma and is involved in an illicit affair with Shampoo despite being married to Mousse's younger brother Ice McCool who fell into the pool of drowned DBZ character and because Ukyo's seiyuu is Hiromi Tsuru it has been revealed she's the reincarnation of Bulma and is preganat with a demonic version of Kenshin but Konatsu (who is a vampire) is blackmailing Pink and Link who as it turns out are Shampoo's long lost sister and aunt respectively, and only Swordmaster Nodoka can save the world from Akari Metallium's schemes!
... Actually I wouldn't mind reading that last one ^^

[Bliss]

Sounds like a very interesting spamfic.
Concerning Spamfics, while I believe it's pretty contradictory to ask for spamfics with an actual point, some that I've read just get ridiculous... *The eat poopy series by some random author on FF.net comes to mind... They just become pointless drivel, and just because it's a spamfic people tend to ignore such basics as grammar and punctuation.
This is mainly found on FF.net, but I hate fics that feature a 500 or so word map out of the whole series before starting the prologue. I rather find out what you have planned as I read rather than having a heads up before you even start writing.
I also tend to avoid stories built around specific pairings. That's not to say they are bad or anything, but I like to see it gradually progress to a certain relationship while still having it remain quite open that the actual pairing will come as a suprise. I guess in other words I like stories that look like it could go many ways when it comes to romantic pairings, that way it keeps a bit of suprise in the story. That's the biggest thing I find I miss, everything becomes too predictable after awhile, and you get standard templates, or cliches. I like stories that have twists... that keep the readers guessing.

[lwf58]

Just ran across another peeve.
I hate to see fan fiction where, instead of writing something original, the author takes the events of a manga or anime story and changes the characters to those of another series without changing the script at all.

[Valkyrie Ice]

You know, I think at one time or another, I've do just about every single one of these things (except Star whatever cross over) and people still tell me they like Tears.
Though I have corrected _most_ of them....
Val

[iiradned]

Was just reminded a fic writer (in Harry Potterverse) who started out writing a fic that hewed pretty close to canon. After book 4 came out her fic understandably went AU. All fine and dandy until book 6 came out then, she started ranting that JK Rowling had butchered her (Rowling's) characters and that they could not possibly do what they did in book 6.
I understand some her(the fic writer's) views about sudden shifts in characterizations, but I know that Rowling knows her characters best and that there may yet be a reason for such shifts.

[Battlekrome]

things that tick me off about fics..
well other than the obvious 1 chapter fics that had so much potential and then the author went poof
Ranma + Akane pairings i have to admit tend not to be well written at all...
(there are ones that are done well but some are just horrid)
specific ranma + ranma cast pairings...
some of these are horrible... mike rhea anyone?
Converting of series from comedies to drama due to authors inability to write comedy... this is common. Not that you can't get a good dramatic ranma fic but it twists the essence
As for book 6 of the HP series (by rawling) i did find the chars out of character compared to previous books (heck just read the snape vs potter stuff, 'who is this snot nosed punk and what did he do with harry?')

[Atlan]

In Ranma, there is one fanfic idea that should never have been done. But it has been, over and over again. And they keep writing new ones, and continuing old ones. What is this idea, you ask? Simple. Ranma has a brother.
Dam, most SI's suck. There are a few that dont suck too badly, but they are in the minority. But fics where the main point is Ranma's brother are never worth the time it takes to click on the link to them.
The next runner up is where Ranma speaks chinese when he meets the Amazons the first time. Always, if he knows the language, he speaks elequently, getting himself out of trouble with clever dialogue. Thats just another SI.

[Forum Troll]

Ranma specific one: Akane and Mallet-Sama...the belief that only akane has a mallet she can pull outta nowhere and that with it she is very skilled.
Everyone in the Ranma manga has at one time or another hit another person with a mallet they have pulled out of nowhere. It is a gag, like anvils in western cartoons. Also, Akane uses her fists to hit Ranma more often than anything else.
Repeat after me: There is no mallet of doom. There is no mallet of doom. It is just a comedic gag that anyone can do.
Troll
PS Why hasnt the use of a microphone pulled outta nowhere been more prevalent in fanfiction? I remember that gag more than the mallet in the manga.

[Daniel Jess Gibson]

And I still refuse to admit these so-called "Ebonics" into the realm of real dialects and languages.

Dirty little secret is that Ebonics is a dialect of English, from England, that the Royalists brought it over after they lost to Cromwell and settled in the southern colonies.
I am curious about the hatred of present tense. I find people who shift tenses, often in the middle of the sentence, to be far more irritating.
Pick a tense and stay with it.