How to Write a Good Fanfic

5.1.1 - What is Fluff

"I clearly stated in my summary that the story is plotless fluff, so why are you being such a nag." Amelia felt the review she received was condescending for the very fact she did point out the story was plotless, so why did the writer need to critique the fact there was no character development in the relationship between the two characters. The piece was a fluff piece, so why indeed did the person feel the need to comment about the characterization when it was meant to be fluffy to the point it didn't matter if the characters were out of character, because they were supposed to be acting cute.

"Warning your writers that your story is plotless doesn't get you a pass on critique, but apparently you don't get what the fluff genre really is."

"Don't like, don't read."

...

What is fluff?

Most people believe fluff is a sub-genre of Romance where the key identifying factors of the sub-genre are plotlessness, and a sickly sweet feeling running through the entire story which makes the reader squeal with joy in an unabandoned manner. This misconception, however, is why a lot of people dislike fluff, feeling a shudder run down their spine whenever they hear someone claim they write fluff.

Yes, I just said this is a misconception.

This misconception came about because plotless Romance pieces with sickly sweet feelings are a way to easy to churn out, so the fluff genre is littered with a high number of poorly written stories. The rule of thumb, ###, is that 90% of what people write is badly written, but in this particular case for the fluff genre the number shoots up to 99%.

This isn't though what the fluff genre is about. In fact, head over to Wattpad's Fanfic profile, and look at the contest winners for the first Valentine's contest back in 2015. Not a single one of these stories are plotless, and most certainly have very clear goals in mind in regards to where the story is going. All of the entries are the romance of course, but this isn't because fluff is a sub-genre of Romance; instead the reason lies with the fact the pieces were written for Valentine's contest where shipping was key.

Fluff genre is simply defined as having an overall happy feeling to the work, and is the exact opposite of an Angst piece where the genre is defined as having an overall negative feeling. This idea that fluff needs to be sickly sweet is a myth, and in fact going sickly sweet with a fluff piece is actually bad writing, as sickly sweet is super unrealistic. Nobody's life is perfect, so the idea that a fluff piece needs to be conflict free is another myth.

In other words, this essay isn't about how to write a good fluff piece. A good fluff piece is actually, I think, very easy to write if one understands the gist of what is going on, at least for a shorter piece. To go into how to write a good, long one, look at Slice-of-Life, where the real overlap in genres lie, and what fluff is more likely a sub-genre of. Here are some examples of what constitutes a fluff piece.

- A mother brushing out her daughter's hair, the conflict being the brushing out of the hair.

- A couple of friends going fishing, the conflict involving one of them not catching a fish.

- A girl secretly crushing on a guy, only for the guy to turn her down in a very sweet manner.

Yes, the squeal factor is there, but not because things are sickly sweet. The squeals come because the writer manages to pull at the reader's heartstrings. In fact, I've found most supposed fluff romance pieces don't pull at my heart strings due to the characters being out of character. What tends to pull my heart strings are family pieces, but also times when a friend does something for another. Add to this, a fluff piece doesn't need to be completely happy. For example, I've read a fluff piece which was all about the child spending time with their dying mother in the hospital. While the mother dying is sad, the moment spent between mother and child is all fluff, the fact the mother is dying simply making the moment even more precious.

So, maybe it might help to look at fluff pieces as precious moments, not chances to force two characters together. Characters should remain themselves, but this precious moment, this singular slice-of-life, is something you the writer want to portray as super precious, not simply super cute. So yeah, fluff is a sub-genre of slice-of-life, which is another essay I shall be writing.