What NOT To Do When Writing A Fanfic

The Cover

I'll start with the cover, because that is the very first thing you see for a fanfic. Imagine this:

You're scrolling through Wattpad, searching for that perfect fanfic to read, but instead you see that these stories have no cover, one basic picture taken from Google, OR (and this could be SO PREVENTABLE) it's a photo of a drawing of an OC the writer made up.

We'll start with fanfics with no cover first. If your fanfic, or any story, really, has no cover, most people will not click it. It just has a title: hinny in high school. Now, the title needs some fixing up as well, but that's for later. Where was I? Right. Since there is no cover, it looks B-O-R-I-N-G. No one will be attracted to this story in any way, and unless you have some form of a cover, I will probably never read it. If there is no cover, there is nothing interesting to drag potential readers into reading my description, forget the story.

Next is the basic one image cover. It doesn't even have a title on the image for the cover. It may be below, but you should treat this like you do a real, physical book. In this case, all I have is a pdf of Jack Frost and Elsa of Arendelle. It's a good picture, but that's it. Readers will know nothing else about it from first glance, only that it has these two characters in it. Not much info on the cover to go on.

Lastly is when there is an OC in the fanfic. Cool, an OC! Not so much. My cover has a well drawn Harry, Ginny, and OC (who I'll call Beth), and I'm very proud of it. Too bad no one will compliment me though. I took a photo of my drawing in dim lighting, and my shadow is covering part of the drawing as well, so potential readers can only see Harry's scar and Ginny's wand. It is 2015, so most people should have a scanner in their house. If you don't, I'm sorry about that. It makes things a bit difficult, but worst case scenario is that you have to go to the city's library to scan your drawing.

I also need to fix the title. hinny in high school just doesn't seem to do it for this fanfic. I need something a bit more descriptive.

Well, in my fanfic, Ginny and Harry hate each other, and always have since Kindergarten. When The teacher assigns them as partners in a school project, their feelings change for each other, and start to date. Dean, Ginny's best friend, has parents who own an adoption centre for pets, and Dean needs help to keep control of them all, so he asks Ginny. She keeps cancelling on Harry to help Dean, and they have a big fight because Ginny is spending all her time with Dean. They break up, and my OC, Beth, gets together with Harry, while Dean, who has always had a crush on Ginny, gets together with his best friend. Both couples date, and Dean and Beth realize that Hinny's love is strong, so each couple breaks up so Hinny can be together again and sort things out. How about Found and Lost, since they find love and then break up? I don't want to spoil the whole story though, even though it is predictable, so I won't call it Lost and Found. Sounds great! I also changed my title so the important words have capital letters. I could also add "A Hinny Fanfic" in brackets if I like. So my new title is Found and Lost (A Hinny Fanfic). My title is descriptive, but it doesn't give away the whole story.

You should never judge a book by it's cover though, right? Wrong. People will always judge a book by its cover. If we didn't judge, we would hire the wrong people, let the "nice man from next door" into our house when we are alone, or who knows what (yes, I know these are dramatic examples).

I hope this helped you on your way to a better fanfic! Remember to comment, vote, and share!

-TGD