the vampire diaries fanfic writing tips

✧ the importance of justification

i have said this before but i would like to make a post about it.

if you can justify it, you can probably include it in the fanfic and have it be realistic.

someone can't argue that your fanfic isn't realistic to the show if you can justify why something happens.

if you want to make i don't know damon do something in your fanfic that might be seen as out of character and you can pull examples from the show where he acted similarly, then it's not out of character.

we are writing fanfics. we are not the writers of the actual show. we do not know everything about the characters and how the writers wrote them.

you could have a character do something that everyone who reads your fanfic says is out of character, but maybe the writers wouldn't say that.

the point is we don't actually know. we didn't write the show.

the best thing you can do is watch the show and make inferences about what might happen or about what a certain character might do in a certain situation.

you need to be able to pull out the facts from the show and separate your feelings and justify what you do based on the facts.

it's not about how you feel about a scene because if you base your fanfics on your feelings and opinions then yes someone could argue that your fanfic isn't realistic unless your opinions are somehow a 100% accurate reflection of what actually happened (they probably aren't).

for example this is probably the one i see the most often:

elena didn't kill kol.

i have noticed that people hate her so much that they actually believe that she did.

now was she responsible? that depends on how you define responsibility. i would say yes because she definitely did play a role and did help kill him.

but jeremy was the one who actually killed kol.

yet i see fanfics (and just regular fans believe this too outside of fanfics) where the author hates elena so much that they actually ignore this. they place no blame on jeremy and act like elena acted alone.

she did not. that is not an opinion. that is a fact. from what i remember damon and stefan also played a role but i'm not 100% certain.

look at rebekah, she hates elena so much that she also says elena was the one that killed kol and never shows any dislike for jeremy over it. she never says anything about him. only elena.

i've read fanfics where the oc is a friend or in a relationship with kol and jeremy kills him yet they only blame elena. they completely ignore jeremy's role.

now i'm not saying that they shouldn't or can't blame elena, the point is that you can tell that the author has let their emotions influence how they write about the events of the show and therefore comes across as unrealistic.

now could you justify this response? if the oc was best friends with elena or something then you could probably argue that she'd be more upset with elena because of betrayal.

but on it's own, it doesn't make sense. because it didn't happen that way. you can't let your own emotions influence how you write something and expect it to come across as realistic.

you want to be objective as possible.

honestly it might help more to look at the transcripts. don't watch the characters or listen to their voices. maybe even block out the names (never tried this so i have no clue how that could work). maybe even write out what happened the scene. only what each character did, not how you feel about what they did. be as objective as possible.

because then you can use what actually happened to justify what you want and have it come across as realistic because you're basing what you write off of things that actually happened.

also make sure to pay attention to things that actually happened in the show and not just common opinions of the fandom. i think sometimes you might want to appeal to the fandom so they stay interested, but if your concern is your fanfic being realistic, then you want to base your fanfic on the facts of the show. not opinions.

also always think about asking someone.

if you really like caroline for example and you're worried you can't write her objectively, consider asking some people that you know. maybe someone who is indifferent and ask them if it's realistic. maybe ask people who really like her and people who really don't and see what comes out of that conversation.

i am always willing to help if you ever want to get an objective opinion.

of course i also sometimes struggle with that i think everyone does, but i think i have a decent handle on it since i've been writing these fanfics for a long time and i've never been told by someone that they can't imagine a character acting like this or people saying it's clear what characters i don't like.

in fact, some of the characters i dislike the most actually have pretty big positive roles in my story even though i don't really care for them. and some i really like are barely worked in and are sometimes written negatively.

i hope this helps.