Writing Advice

Awful Things You Should Never Put in Your Story

Boy, I've read some awful fanfiction. This doesn't include the Hobama ones because those are great and literally the only unique thing on this god forsaken website anymore. Here are some things you should consider leaving out, I'm begging you please:
1. Having the main character be in an abusive relationship, but not giving any indication that this relationship is abusive or bad. When I read After during middle school, I was like 'fuck yeah I want Harry Styles to treat me like shit and be the fuckin worst boyfriend to me that's hot as fuck' because in that story it was romanticized. Abusive relationships are not pretty and certainly not something that should be normalized.
2. Normalizing rape and/or not giving trigger warnings or taking it seriously enough. Listen, rape is awful and you little girls and boys on here make it sound like nothing happened. I read a fanfic once where Harry had sex with his girlfriend without consent, it was brutal, he was drunk and she confronted him about it, this is how it went down:
Girl: Harry, you raped me.
Harry: What?! No!!!
Girl: yeah, last night.
Harry: *falls to his knees and begs for forgiveness*
Girl: it's okay, just don't do it again.
LIKE NO BITCH!!!!! I completely realize that rape survivors have their own way of dealing with what happened and sometimes they choose not to say anything or do anything which is fine, that's their choice and I respect it 100%, but like I said, you cannot normalize rape or sexual abuse/assault in your novel. It makes you look like a dumbass and it's really unfair to those who have been through that because you're treating it like harry forgot to tell the main hoe that Anne and Gemma were coming over for dinner and the girl was mad, but she'll forgive him. Like???? Stop.
3. The bully thing. Okay, so you know those whole, "I fell in love with my bully" shit stories? Yeah, they suck. This goes along with the whole abusive thing, like first of all, if harry styles was bullying me, I would kick him in the teeth, second of all, that whole "he treats you like shit because he loves you" notion is bs.
4. Over explanation. God, when stories take me ten minutes to read what the main character is wearing I want to cry. No one really cares. Make sure to describe your character, but don't make it into a YouTube video.
5. Themes that are gonna imprint on a younger audience too easily. This is basically a sum of all the things I've already said, but there are 12 year olds on this website. When you glorify awful things without explaining why they're bad, someone who is in middle school and still impressionable won't know the difference. This is coming from someone whose grown up on here. Reading stories that didn't tell me abusive relationships were bad, that it's not cute when boys treat you poorly, and that sex is this glorious thing for everyone all the time was a damper on my psychological growth. Just realize that not everyone in your audience is old enough to know what's right and wrong yet.

A/N:
Two updates in one day!!! Wow, I thought I'd never write again. Be sure to comment all the things you despise in stories, or things to be wary of for people who need trigger warnings!