Advice for a newbie

[gamebrain89]

Ok, well I just ran across Viridian's fan fiction stuff about 3 months ago, thanks to that blackhole of a website call tvtropes. Read nearly all of his stuff, and some other stories I ran across either in the suggestions thread or on some of your guy's signatures. As a result, I have the beginnings of a fic idea rattling around in my head. I have started working on a outline for my story, and thought I would ask for any advice for a beginner you guys might have. Basic idea is an AU future Naruto fic, taking place an undecided amount of time in the future, when the Rookie 9 have all become Jonin. I'm thinking mostly on keeping the canon timeline for now,with a divergence point shortly after Konoha was invaded and destroyed . Due to the nature of the story, there are going to be several original characters, but it will focus mostly on Naruto, Hinata (I'd like to think thats not an arbitrary pick but bias is part of the reason this story took root) and another undecided character's interactions with one OC in particular. Until I nail down some more specifics, and think more about where I want the story to go, thats all I'm going to put out there.

I haven't really attempted to write anything since I finished college, so any help/advice/OMG DON'T DO THAT that you can think of would be greatly appreciated.

[bookworm702]

You see a blind man come up and grab your hand. "C'mon, I know exactly where I'm going!" He says as he leads you to the edge of a cliff.

In all seriousness, I can only think of a few things. One, make sure that your OC's are balanced with the rest of the cast. Justified or not, your reviews will be flooded with cries of "MARY SUE!!!11!!" Before the end of the week if you don't. Two, don't be afraid to tweak the personalities of canon characters a little. Life experiences change people, so the cast of Naruto will be different in several ways in your story. Just make sure to explain the reason for the differences eventually.

And third, always take advise from a neophyte with copious amounts of salt. And you might want to wait around for advise from someone who, you know, has actually written a fanfic.

[QuoteMyFoot]

If you haven't written for a while, you may want to get a beta to check over your work to make sure you've got grammar/spelling/general ease of reading down okay.

If you have an OC, be cautious with them. Give them flaws. Develop any and all relationships with the canon cast. Are they a significant part of the plot? Does the plot revolve around them? These aren't things that can't neccesarily be pulled off but they will automatically sound bad to new readers, so see if there is any way to give canon characters a bigger role. (This is very generalised as I don't know your plot.)

Changing characters to reflect the circumstances of the fic is fine, but try to make them recognisable. If not, I suggest including some vague backstory that will explain major differences when you introduce them, and then expanding upon it later. For example, if your AU has a very depressed Naruto, you might say that he accidentally killed Sasuke when he was trying to stop him defecting. So when you introduce this Naruto, you would allude to the fact that he hadn't been able to save Sasuke/Sasuke is dead, but not go into detail about whys and hows yet.

Depending on your writing style, you may either want to a) have a plot fully fleshed out and written or b) have a bunch of vague plot points that leave your story room to manoeuvre and change. Either of these is fine, but you may want to go over your ideas with someone else to evaluate clicheness, realism, or whatever else you're worried about. Also, I don't recommend railroading your story when the plot stops working. Let it go where it wants.

Lastly, if you're new to fanfic, it many help you to write a few oneshots to get a good feel for the canon characters before you start to change them.

...Sorry for fairly lengthy post. D:

[gamebrain89]

If you haven't written for a while, you may want to get a beta to check over your work to make sure you've got grammar/spelling/general ease of reading down okay.

If you have an OC, be cautious with them. Give them flaws. Develop any and all relationships with the canon cast. Are they a significant part of the plot? Does the plot revolve around them? These aren't things that can't neccesarily be pulled off but they will automatically sound bad to new readers, so see if there is any way to give canon characters a bigger role. (This is very generalised as I don't know your plot.)

Changing characters to reflect the circumstances of the fic is fine, but try to make them recognisable. If not, I suggest including some vague backstory that will explain major differences when you introduce them, and then expanding upon it later. For example, if your AU has a very depressed Naruto, you might say that he accidentally killed Sasuke when he was trying to stop him defecting. So when you introduce this Naruto, you would allude to the fact that he hadn't been able to save Sasuke/Sasuke is dead, but not go into detail about whys and hows yet.

Depending on your writing style, you may either want to a) have a plot fully fleshed out and written or b) have a bunch of vague plot points that leave your story room to manoeuvre and change. Either of these is fine, but you may want to go over your ideas with someone else to evaluate clicheness, realism, or whatever else you're worried about. Also, I don't recommend railroading your story when the plot stops working. Let it go where it wants.

Lastly, if you're new to fanfic, it many help you to write a few oneshots to get a good feel for the canon characters before you start to change them.

...Sorry for fairly lengthy post. D:

No problem man all advice is appreciated. Only one original character (the only one at the moment) could be considered one of the main protagonists, and she is probably going to be a pretty disturbed little girl. While she is a huge part of the story I'm working out ( you might say the corner stone of it), I'm not planning on telling the story from her view point. The characters will all be pretty similar to their normal counterparts, just several years older and wiser. Essentially after the invasion of Konoha, and Nagato's defeat, because the unsure how much nagato and konan told naruto, Akatski disappears for a certain amount of time to regroup and recruit new blood,(not planning on any OC's there, just them building up an army. The Army of zetus thing made me want to gag). Story proper should start 3 or 4 years after the invasion with the rookie 9 in the 19-20 year old range.

[Satori]

Naruhina shippers have a really bad reputation for having the two completely out of character to facilitate shipping. Naruto is not, by any stretch of the imagination, romantically inclined. Resist the temptation.

Also, if a OC exists only for the benefit of your main character, that's no good. Every character should have motivations and desires of their own - no one's life should revolve around someone else... unless said person is seriously pathological.

[gamebrain89]

Naruhina shippers have a really bad reputation for having the two completely out of character to facilitate shipping. Naruto is not, by any stretch of the imagination, romantically inclined. Resist the temptation.

Also, if a OC exists only for the benefit of your main character, that's no good. Every character should have motivations and desires of their own - no one's life should revolve around someone else... unless said person is seriously pathological.

I'll remember that. the character definitely has her own motivations.

I'm sure this won't be great, I've never written a major story before, and just playing around with an idea I had in my head, I'm sure there are similar stories out there, but I wanted to try my hand at something. As for the shipping, I'm not planning anything overt with that in the story proper, besides a few hints at something. I just plan on expanding on naruto's reaction to her confession more at first ( actually showing some after effects instead of throwing it out like nothing happened), as they end up working together. I'll have to have one of you read the prologue and see what you think when I finish writing it.

[bookworm702]

Naruhina shippers have a really bad reputation for having the two completely out of character to facilitate shipping. Naruto is not, by any stretch of the imagination, romantically inclined. Resist the temptation.

*Ahem*

Spoiler: show

Naruto has shown romantic inclinations in the past. It seems like he has put any romance on hold until he deals with the current situation in canon It remains to be seen whether he still retains feelings for Sakura, and how he will deal with those feelings if he has them. If he does, I think he'll probably take the Rock Lee "I told her, it's her choice if she wants to reciprocate" approach.

By all means, do not try and change the character's personalities out of hand to make a relationship work. But also, don't feel that you need to exclude romance altogether.

[gamebrain89]

Naruhina shippers have a really bad reputation for having the two completely out of character to facilitate shipping. Naruto is not, by any stretch of the imagination, romantically inclined. Resist the temptation.

*Ahem*

Spoiler: show

Naruto has shown romantic inclinations in the past. It seems like he has put any romance on hold until he deals with the current situation in canon It remains to be seen whether he still retains feelings for Sakura, and how he will deal with those feelings if he has them. If he does, I think he'll probably take the Rock Lee "I told her, it's her choice if she wants to reciprocate" approach.

By all means, do not try and change the character's personalities out of hand to make a relationship work. But also, don't feel that you need to exclude romance altogether.

Well, my story idea basically makes a relationship a forgone conclusion. how that shows up in this story is yet to be seen. but yeah, I wasn't planning on going way Oc for either of them. That irked me about alot of the fics i read, making both go way out of character to either make their story happen or push them together right away.

[Kirai]

Naruhina shippers have a really bad reputation for having the two completely out of character to facilitate shipping. Naruto is not, by any stretch of the imagination, romantically inclined. Resist the temptation.

*Ahem*

Spoiler: show

Naruto has shown romantic inclinations in the past. It seems like he has put any romance on hold until he deals with the current situation in canon It remains to be seen whether he still retains feelings for Sakura, and how he will deal with those feelings if he has them. If he does, I think he'll probably take the Rock Lee "I told her, it's her choice if she wants to reciprocate" approach.

By all means, do not try and change the character's personalities out of hand to make a relationship work. But also, don't feel that you need to exclude romance altogether.

So we should expect him to serenade Hinata under moonlight, bring her roses, invite her to expensive restaurants etc.?

I doubt Satori meant that he doesn't have romantic feelings, but that he just isn't going to be able to express them very well, beyond: let's go on a date! Where? Oh the ramen stand, or something similar.

This is the guy who promised to make lots of babies without realizing it folks.

[bookworm702]

Oh, heavens no. Naruto is probably the least suave guy in the series. So, yeah, if he did decide to date Hinata, the most likely outcome would be "Hey, Hinata, lets go grab some ramen!" And Hinata would love every minute of it, because she's on a date. With Naruto. Heck, a full contact sparring session with him would probably make that day one of the five best days in her life.

Even if he didn't decide to date her, though, he would probably do his best to let her down gently. He knows all too well the pain of a rough rejection. Of course, being Naruto, it would be clumsy, but heartfelt. What happens from there probably depends on how Hinata reacts.

[gman391]

NaruHina really irks me because of the OOCness to be honest.

But to get back to gb's original post (welcome to the forums by the way)

Show don't tell us why the characters changed.

Keep them in character and three dimensional (Flaws and Virtues, they make mistakes. They do the wrong thing for good reasons and so on)

Explain how your AU came to be.

Above all get a beta who can cover for your weaknesses. I suck at grammar so I use a beta who's fairly good at it.

I can't really advise you more without knowing more about the fic. Happy writing

[doc.exe]

IMO, the best NaruHina fanfics out there are those that acknowledge that, given Naruto's social ineptitude and Hinata's shyness, any type of relationship between the two would develop in a slow burning, very awkward but also very tender way (essentially the definition of the term "Adorkable"). Their character flaws would certainly be a hindrance, but both have shown (even in canon) that they can be quite devoted towards the people they love and make sweet gestures towards them, even if in a very clumsy or awkward way.

If you plan on hinting or developing any future relationship between the two, don't forget to take those elements into account. As the other said, serenades and expensive dinners would be ridiculous and completely OOC. They passing a quiet moment sitting together after an extensive training session might be better.

Talking about other topics, do you plan to have any action sequences or fights in your story? In those cases you need to achieve a certain balance in terms of the descriptions and narrative in order to make them exciting and appealing. Describing the action sequences in too much detail can make them boring or difficult to read, but describing them in too little detail can make them really dull.

The same goes in terms of their lenght. Make it too long and the audience will eventually lose interest in the fight. Make it too short and they might complaint about it being anticlimatic. It ultimately depends on the narration, the context in which the fight takes place and the characters involved. A bunch of thugs with no plot relevance may be dispatched really quickly by a jounin. A climatic final battle between two kage level ninja may take an extended time in unfolding while both characters try to best each other.

[Satori]

Here's a pretty good example of how Naruhina woudl realistically play out:

Do not feed the animals

[gamebrain89]

IMO, the best NaruHina fanfics out there are those that acknowledge that, given Naruto's social ineptitude and Hinata's shyness, any type of relationship between the two would develop in a slow burning, very awkward but also very tender way (essentially the definition of the term "Adorkable"). Their character flaws would certainly be a hindrance, but both have shown (even in canon) that they can be quite devoted towards the people they love and make sweet gestures towards them, even if in a very clumsy or awkward way.

If you plan on hinting or developing any future relationship between the two, don't forget to take those elements into account. As the other said, serenades and expensive dinners would be ridiculous and completely OOC. They passing a quiet moment sitting together after an extensive training session might be better.

Talking about other topics, do you plan to have any action sequences or fights in your story? In those cases you need to achieve a certain balance in terms of the descriptions and narrative in order to make them exciting and appealing. Describing the action sequences in too much detail can make them boring or difficult to read, but describing them in too little detail can make them really dull.

The same goes in terms of their lenght. Make it too long and the audience will eventually lose interest in the fight. Make it too short and they might complaint about it being anticlimatic. It ultimately depends on the narration, the context in which the fight takes place and the characters involved. A bunch of thugs with no plot relevance may be dispatched really quickly by a jounin. A climatic final battle between two kage level ninja may take an extended time in unfolding while both characters try to best each other.

The action sequences are actually one of the things that worry me the most. I have next to no experience with that, and with Naruto, it seems to me that it would be hard to keep it from devolving into, 1. Scream technique name 2. Character says Ow. 3. Repeat. I'm going to try my best, and sift through some other stories for ideas.

Here's a pretty good example of how Naruhina woudl realistically play out:

Do not feed the animals

Ok, that... that is just pure genius. That is perfect. So much better than the tripe I've run across.

[Tempest Kitsune]

If you need help with action sequences, I've been told I'm a fair hand at them.

[Phht]

The others have made good points, but something just annoys me.

Calling yourself a "noob" is an insult to you. If you're here actually asking for help and tips and trying to improve, you are a newbie. If you put out crap first, failed to take advice and help, rejected said advice and help impolitely, and continued to put out crap without improving, then you would be a "noob" because you're a fail.

Just had to get that off my chest because it's been annoying me since I first saw the thread title.

[gamebrain89]

The others have made good points, but something just annoys me.

Calling yourself a "noob" is an insult to you. If you're here actually asking for help and tips and trying to improve, you are a newbie. If you put out crap first, failed to take advice and help, rejected said advice and help impolitely, and continued to put out crap without improving, then you would be a "noob" because you're a fail.

Just had to get that off my chest because it's been annoying me since I first saw the thread title.

Forgive my choice of words. Its been changed, and I really appreciate the words Phht. Everyone's been really helpful, and given me lots of awesome advice. Gman even did the first read through of my prologue for me , and has given some great suggestions. Hopefully It'll be ready for a second read through soon.

If you need help with action sequences, I've been told I'm a fair hand at them.

I just may take you up on that TK.

And now I need a second beta to do a read for me. anyone interested?