Start Writing Start Writing
Browse Topics
  •  

Story Feed

More Stories From
This Author

Special Lesson #1: Oh no! My story got turned around! What do I do?

by inspiration
Tags   fanfic   writing   writingtips   writingafanfic   | Report Content

A A A A

Before I start this lesson, I would like to give a huge apology for not updating since July! I started high school this year so I'm still transitioning and I haven't had time for writing. I am sorry everyone, I really am.

 

However, it's Christmas break, and I am ready to go!

So I remember getting this comment back during the summer;

And I knew how easily that could happen; it had happened to me mulitple times before.

So first off, I will help explain how to prevent your story from getting turned around in the first place, and then I will do my best to give tips on what to do when it does.

So, how can I stop my story from going the wrong way? 
As I have mentioned before, plan your story out. I know that this isn't going to ensure it 100%, but it will help you know where you want your story to go. Now you don't have to know exactly how many chapters you want and how long they are going to be, but even just having a simple chapter layout would help.

For example, this is a layout that a friend and I made for a story that we never actually did.

Prolouge; Day they met in preschool
1; A day of school, describing
2; Liam gets a pain, more describing
3; Liam collapses, random filler crap
4; Niall makes liam see the doctor
5; Liam ends up in the hospital, he could die
6; Filler
7; Niall watches the video
8; Filler
9; Liam is all better yay! 
10; Drunk driver
11; Grieving
12; More grieving
13; Romeoing
 

Yes it's for a One Direction thing go away.

So as you can see, it's not like we have every detail planned out, we just wrote down the general events of each chapter so that we would know what each chapter should revolve around.

Also, you could write your entire story before posting it (which is what I do and that's why I have 30+ fanfics sitting in my folder...).

 

Now if you did that and you posted a chapter and kind of had an "Oh crap!" moment and realized that this isn't exactly how you wanted your story to go, you have a few options here, so don't panic! at the disco just yet.

The easiest would to be to just delete the chapter and give a small explantion (if it's on a website like AFF, FFO, Live Journal, etc), because your readers are more than likely to understand.

Or, you could work it into your story, and this might be very hard. I would know, don't worry. But as a dedicated writer, you can work around the mishap. Look at your plot line, and try and find where it got screwed up. Why and how did it get turned around? Did you accidentally kill an important character? Did a pairing break up that wasn't supposed to? Well, it happens. 
I can't really give too much advice on this other than have faith in your writing abilities and sit down and just think. You can work around it!
 

 

<< Previous  

Comments

Comments are moderated. Keep it cool. Critical is fine, but if you're rude to one another (or to us), we'll delete your stuff. Have fun and thanks for joining the conversation!

You must be logged in to comment.

Pastelsky  on says about chapter 5:
This booklet, oh my goodness.
Your teacher is wonderful.
You are wonderful.
This cafe is wonderful.
'nuff said.

dubunim  on says:
Congrats on the feature!! 8DDDD

meticulous  on says about chapter 1:
I really like your way of executing your lessons! I also have a really amazing English teacher that gave me the knowledge to write my own fanfiction, poetry, and essays. I found this helpful as well! By the way, congratulations on your feature!

WinnieStar  on says about chapter 6:
okay, this helps but one thing that also make a good story is to make sure it makes sense, not the plot line and stuff but the sentences and grammar. you should post something about it because some forget to edit their chapter or something. :) sorry if this sounds forcing you to write something about this.....

WinnieStar  on says about chapter 5:
okay, you must have a really cool, can-teach-english; english teacher
my english teacher sucks, i don't learn anything but do some not-so-helpful sheets of paper. -__- one reason why i suck at english and stuff

misslavender01  on says:
and i forgot to ask.can you teach us about how to find a catchy title? it seems like almost everyone had some problems with the lesson. ^^

misslavender01  on says about chapter 5:
waaah your writing tips helped me.alot.but sometimes if i wanna search for some ideas or inspirations..i'll go to the random picture generator.hehe.it's weird but soemtimes it helps me.i'll probably going to your cafe again so update soon. :)

nutteu  on says:
Wow, this is very helpful ^^
You explai -wrote- them in a way I can easily understand. Oh, and the latest chapter is a BIG help too. Thankyou so much for sharing~
Definitely gonna wait for the next update~

coffeeplease  on says:
update more!:)

dubunim  on says about chapter 5:
Ugh. Character Development. I seem to lack in this region the most! ;A; But, omg! This chart will help so much!!!

Log in to view all comments and replies


^ Back to Top