Would anyone be interested in participating in a Fanfiction Reading Club? This is the same idea as a book club, but the reading material would be Sailor Moon fanfiction. The type of fanfiction (drabble, novel-length, genre, character study, etc.) can change each month to suit a variety of interests and reading preferences. Ideally, the fanfiction would be picked in order to reflect something we all can learn from as writers including what to avoid as writers.

Rather than providing suggestions for fanfiction right this minute, I would like to know if you are interested in participating and what you would like to learn, improve, or avoid as a writer/role-player.

This is brilliant!!! More excuses for me to read fanfictions!!!

I would like to learn about different genres of Sailor Moon fanfiction and analyze what makes them so popular. For example, angst fanfics, romance, mystery, action, adventure, things like that. Exploring different types of point-of-views (1st person, 3rd person) and figuring out how to use them properly would be good, too! I would also like to get some knowledge on writing about male characters or as male characters, since that seems to be a struggle for me xD.

I can't wait for this to kick off!!

Oh, yes, I think what to avoid as writings and using pieces would be a good example. I've come across so many, not necessarily in the SM fanfiction area as I don't read much SM fanfiction, that have been...lets just say not so good. 

I think using pieces are aren't well written and using it as a piece to break down and do constructive criticism and as a learning piece would be really good. Same would go for some really good fanfiction as well. 

A lot of people do like romantic pairings and I've seen some pretty horribly written ones where the author has just missed the connections so here's some ideas for themes we could have:

- how to have good chemistry between characters (whether romantic or friendship, chemistry is important!) 
- witty dialogue
- what makes good description and when does it go into too much
- character development and analysis why this author has either succeeded or failed in writing a particular character. 

Ok, so this may have gone more off into classes than strictly just reading but still just some ideas 


Edit: I could do a class or something on POV as I did my project on POV for my creative writing class it could be like just a quick introduction and popular styles and why one style works better for writing than others.

Oh wow, I'd be interested!

Let's see...I'd love how to develop each and every character involved (but not make it too out of character...I've read SM fanfics that portrayed characters as horribly OOC), including friendships, romances, or just individualness. I'd also love to learn how to make my writing flow and to describe action in a way that's exciting, and to be able to convey emotions through writing (i.e. sadness during a death scene, etc).

That's all I can think of right now, but I'd love to learn more about this.

I love this idea! I admit I already read a lot of fanfiction already, so there's definitely a lot of good material out there (and bad...). 

I want to be able to really get into the heads of every character and be able to understand why they do the things they do, especially the less straightforward ones that end up going OOC very commonly. We could easily do a whole section on Rei's many characterizations, for example...

And I really admire the authors who can weave these huge webs of different plot lines and make 20+ chapter stories that resolve themselves perfectly. How do they plan so well? XD Description of places and more subtle emotions is another thing I think I struggle with...

JupiterThunderCrash wrote:

And I really admire the authors who can weave these huge webs of different plot lines and make 20+ chapter stories that resolve themselves perfectly. How do they plan so well? XD Description of places and more subtle emotions is another thing I think I struggle with...

That is something I know myself that I struggle with and I really admire authors who are able to.

I like this idea!

I agree that we could learn a lot from other people's fanfiction pieces. The one thing I feel uneasy about is criticizing "bad" fanfiction or pointing out their flaws. I mean, published books are one thing because those were made for commercial purposes, but fan fictions are largely pieces that we make because we enjoy it and because we want to, nothing more. I'm not sure we should then put them up for negative criticism or pick out what we shouldn't do with our own writing, etc. Leaving constructive criticism reviews are okay, but I just don't know about putting their work up to be scrutinized by a group of people with the sole intention of finding out what's wrong with it. It seems almost like... picking on them and I know I would never want my fanfics to go through that, even if the author may never know. We're all in the same boat when it comes to fan fics so I don't really like criticizing bad fanfics that way (making fun of them in passing is one thing, but putting them up under a microscope like this is another).

That's just my thought on it, though.

I definitely want to learn more about world-building and bigger plots. I admire fan fic writers who could write entire chapters on times we haven't seen before like Crystal Tokyo or SilMil. They built their own headcanon and expanded it and essentially created their own universe, which is impressive.

I agree with Sailor Mercury that we run the risk of being insensitive if we were to critique "bad" fics, particularly for ones we feel really strongly about. Maybe if the title and name of the author are withheld it would be a little better? Since one assumes fanfic writers probably don't Google chunks of their fanfic to see what people are saying about it.

I think there's a difference between Negative Criticism and Constructive Criticism, which is why I said early Constructive. I in no way intend to bash any fic. Constructive criticism points out what you would have one better and shows you how.

Well, then we shouldn't have "good" fics and "bad" fics to learn from, we should just pick them and assess all their strengths and weaknesses equally. I kind of got the feeling we were going to seek out not so well written fan fics and used it to pick out what we shouldn't do and that just didn't sit well with me.

No, I tried to avoid setting up a 'good' vs. 'bad' parallel in my introductory post. I never said it would be set up that way. I never even mentioned the words 'good' or 'bad'. Sorry, I can see how this can be misconstrued, but that parallel will not be involved in the structure of the club. 

I want this exercise to be focused on improving our writing, not a place for bashing. No one fan-fiction is perfect, so we will always find things we like in a fanfiction and things we think the author could have done better if given a second chance. 

Also, when the writers place their works on the Internet, they open themselves to constructive criticism, but not to flaming or bashing (if the reader's actions are expected to be decent). I think we have a thread on constructive criticism somewhere in the guild. We'd follow established guidelines for constructive criticism.

Count me in!

My hope would be to learn how to construct good mental pictures since fanfiction does not have the visuals of manga or anime. I would also like to know how to identify self-insertion for original characters and making the protagonists too powerful.

I'm in!

The trial run for the fanfiction reading club is up! This week we will focus on an awesome writing style you can use to better understand a character, the character study. Click on the link to find out how the reading club is structured and to read this week's story.

Next week, we will look at another character study.

Afterwards, I'll put up a poll for us to vote on a theme, and then I'll take one fan-fiction recommendation from each one of ya'll.

So, I got a lot of interest pretty quick when I first proposed the idea, but little response when I implemented the idea. Do you want me to change something? I am flexible and willing to change ir compromise.

I am still all for this! I have the fanfic bookmarked on my computer, I just haven't had much time to read it yet.

I haven't had the chance to read it yet! I know it's short... just... have been swamped with work.

I'll try to read it tonight.

No worries! I just got a little worried I was doing something wrong and ya'll were too kind to say anything. (: now that I know things haven't gone belly-up, I'll be patient. Thanks for responding so quickly to assuage my anxiety, lol.

I third the being swamped with work and other commitments this week. Tonight is supposed to be GC Night for me to catch up with things on here and/or from my work PC (but shhhhh don't tell my co-workers) if work slows down later in the afternoon.

I'll join in! I love reading fanfiction but I'm too 'picky' to pick my own to read, but if I'm reading with others I'll be more inclined to read (I'm the same way with books a lot sadly...). I usually end up browsing ff.net for hours and never actually reading anything... oops...

Anyway, not sure I'll get to the character study tonight (I've been up since 4am for work) but I have a day off tomorrow so I'm sure I'll get to it then!

After we read the two character studies, anyone up for writing their own character study on a character? Not for us to provide constructive criticism, but to practice writing in the character study genre? I plan on not requiring the piece be posted or anything, only if you want to post it. After you guys get practice writing the genre, I would rather see your opinions on how it can help you as an author, what you like about the genre, tips and tricks for writing it, etc. So, we would be discussing the process rather than the content of what you wrote.

I'm actually interested in doing some kind of workshop where we can try to write something and critique each other's work. I found that very useful back in my Creative Writing classes.

But maybe that's for another thread as we're only a reading club

^I shall take your suggestion to my Workshop planning partner!

For the next week I would like to take one suggestion per person for the theme for the February fanfiction reading club. With each suggestion you can recommend one fan-fiction for the club to read that matches your suggestion. We'll vote next week on the theme.

And, the character study fun does not have to end! You can still discuss what it is like for you to write your own character study. No one has thus far, but there is no need to be shy. (:

^Does it matter if the fanfic is complete or not?


(Also I haven't had time to write a character study...I've been sooooooooo busy IRL)

No, it won't matter if the fanfic is complete or not. Depending on the length of the fan-fic, we may only read a few chapters, either way.

I would like to recommend The House on Thornrose Lane by Alicia Blade on Fanfiction.net.

It is the most-reviewed Sailor Moon fanfic on ffn, and it deserves it. It is definitely the best fanfic I have ever read, and it combines the Sailor Moon universe with all of our favorite classic fairytales. The author is actually the now-famous Marissa Meyer, author the The Lunar Chronicles (yes, she tied in Sailor Moon to her popular book series!). This story is very well-written, and its dynamics and the methods of foreshadowing and the twists within are so inspiring. This is a romance/fantasy, and it really has some great elements that I think would be good for a club like ours.

The first chapter is really more of an introductory chapter, so it's not as interesting as the other chapters, but I do think taking some time to maybe read a few chapters together would be fun ^^ I hope we end up doing this in the future, because I have yet to find someone else who has read this, and I am dying to talk about it with people. It's just so good - I would read it to my sister as a bedtime story xD.

This sounds like a great idea! Can I join please?

I would like to join as well!

Nice suggestion (:

What theme are you suggesting to go with it? (Or is your genre suggestion the romance and fantasy genre?) I would like for each interested person to suggest a theme (character study was our first theme) and a fanfic that matches the theme.