the vampire diaries fanfic writing tips

✧ tips on crossovers

i understand that crossovers can be exciting.

but you do want to be careful with them

1. make sure it's known that your book is a crossover from the beginning. i understand you might not know that your book will be a crossover but please do remember that not everyone who is reading your fanfic will have watched the show/movie that you're adding. if the crossover is a big part of your fanfic they might become confused and stop reading. this has happened to me quite a bit.

and i mean if the crossover is a big part of your book. not if randomly one character shows up or they visit another town from a show and it's just for like one chapter.

make sure your readers can understand your fanfic.

2. remember timelines.

shows have timelines. if you want your fanfic to be realistic you need to remember this.

i can't remember the amount of times i read fanfics about klaus' daughter and twin of hope who enters into teen wolf. . . at the beginning of season one.

teen wolf starts at the beginning of 2011.

the vampire diaries begins at the end of 2009.

the originals begins in 2011.

the originals ends in 2026.

and i understand that you would skip the whole show of teen wolf if you started at the end of the originals, but you should consider the timeline and try to figure out something that makes sense.

now of course you could just ignore that. your writers probably won't care. but if you're taking characters from 2011 and placing them into 2026, yes things might be different. the world will probably be different. some comments might have to be taken out or changed. for example, technology will be different.

3. remember that if you're dealing with another supernatural show their rules might be a little different.

for example: werewolves in the vampire diaries are different from teen wolf.

you might want to address that. give a reason for the difference. you'll have to be creative.

for example, anyone can become a werewolf in teen wolf if they get bitten. not the same for the vampire diaries.

the werewolves in vampire diaries have a bite that's toxic to vampires.

do they in teen wolf? maybe. maybe not.

just be aware of the differences between the rules of supernatural in one show and another. vampires aren't exactly the same in tvd as they are in other shows either. just be aware of the difference and acknowledge them, maybe explain the difference too.

3. pick a show.

i think it's really important to pick a show that you want to focus on. trying to do both might be difficult especially when you remember that the timelines don't match up, the storylines don't match up, and the rules are all different. that's a lot of things to perfectly blend together.

4. remember that morality in tvd can be very different from other shows.

this especially applies to shows that aren't supernatural because they obviously don't know about these things.

but in vampire diaries it's pretty much accepted that all vampires are basically killers. almost everyone on the show has done something horrible. even vampires in control. and vampires are different from other supernatural creatures because they do rely on humans to survive. and depending on how they turned, they could've hurt someone.

and they're all pretty accepting of one another. even when they judge each other it's usually not for randomly feeding.

so place that in a show like teen wolf where scott's whole thing is he doesn't hurt people and no one in the pack does. chances are they aren't going to blend well. there might be some conflict.

so just something to pay attention to. how do you think vampires will be received in the show? by the characters? will they be accepted? feared? rejected?

i actually have a few crossover ideas now that i'm writing this. i probably will never write them so maybe i'll share!

5. characters won't necessarily get along just because they share the same role in their show.

i notice this a lot. the main character gets along with the other main character, the love interest gets along with the other love interest, the best friend gets along with the other best friend and so on.

this isn't always true. they share similar roles so maybe they have an understanding of each other and maybe they get paired together but that doesn't mean they're gonna get along.

they could be so similar that they actually clash instead of becoming best friends.