How To Write Marvel Fanfiction

i couldnt think of a joke for this chapter its about POVs and Tenses leave me be

Me running out of jokes would be a bad thing if they made sense and were funny in the first place. 

(cue rimshot)

I feel like these two things usually get their own chapters in other books but since I think they're kinda related, in the way that distant twice removed cousins are related, I wanted to put them in one place. Also, they're both kinda short and my chapters seem to be getting longer soooo

We'll talk about PoV first because I said so. 

Point of view is, shocking, the point of view from which your story is told. It can be told in the first person (the narrator uses I/me pronouns in the descriptive), second person (the narrator uses you/your in the descriptive), or third person (the narrator uses they/them in the descriptive). Since second person is pretty much only used in reader insert type fanfiction, we're going to ignore it and focus on first person and third person. 

Now first person is pretty self-explanatory. It's usually written from your main character's PoV, and they narrate all of their actions, thoughts, and interactions. The only things the reader can know are the things they learn through the character, so obviously if it's told from your OC's perspective, we're not going to know the thoughts of Steve or whoever.

The PoV that a lot of people fuck up though, is third person. 

The very important thing about third person PoV that no one fucking remembers from 7th grade English class is that there are three types of third person PoV. And you can't flip flop between them however you please within one chapter. 

The types are

Objective: This is basically written from the perspective of a fly on the wall. This PoV sees the interactions and can make notes and commentary on those actions, but does not know the thoughts or secrets of any characters. For example, if you're writing from this PoV and following your OC, all the objective third person view can tell you is what is happening in the moment. It can't tell you how the OC is feeling or anything about their backstory. It's just a camera watching. 

Omniscient: This PoV is like God watching. It's all-knowing of every character's thoughts and feelings and any relevant backstory. With this PoV, you could mention relevant information about the OC's backstory throughout the story, because the PoV knows that information. It's all-knowing of everything that's happening or has happened in the world.

Limited: This is literally the same as first person PoV, except using they/them to refer to the character. The PoV is only from the OC's (or whoever's perspective that chapter s from, I guess) perspective. You know only that character's thoughts and feelings, and their background. It's basically their stream of consciousness, but they're not the one necessarily telling the story. 

You see those choices? You can only pick ONE. You cannot randomly flip flop between them throughout your story. It's incredibly jarring to me as a reader to think you're writing from Limited third person for the first half of a chapter, and then you randomly start describing someone else's thoughts. Pick one and fucking stick with it, you fucking doorbells. 

So which PoV should you pick?

Whichever one you want, really.

Some stories are better suited for different PoVs. Certain stories require the reader knowing every single character's thoughts in order to understand what's going. Other stories, typically mysteries, hinge on you not knowing what ANYONE is thinking, as not to spoil the ending. It's all in what you think feels right. 

But the most important thing is if you're writing from first person or third person limited, do 👏 not 👏 switch 👏 PoV 👏 if 👏 you 👏 don't 👏 need 👏 to 👏

Basically, it's incredibly jarring to a reader if you're flip-flopping PoVs every other chapter. Or worse, in the same fucking chapter. 

If you need to switch PoVs that often to understand both characters thoughts, you should probably just fucking write in third person omniscient and save everyone the trouble. It's incredibly boring to read sections of chapters that are literally repeats of the same scenes of the last chapter, just from the other person's perspective. 

It's filler and it's fucking boring, y'all. 

You can occasionally write a chapter from a different person's perspective if you think it genuinely adds something to the story. For example, writing a chapter from the villain's perspective to show them scheming something that'll totally throw everyone off. It's cliche, sure, but it's a valid reason to switch PoVs. Don't just switch PoVs because you wanna show how [insert character here] reacted to that totally cute flirty scene. If you need that, you're not writing from the right perspective in the first damned place. 

Okay, now let's talk about tenses. 

So this is a lot more simple. There's past tense, present tense, and future tense. The future tense is rarely used in fanfiction -not to say you can't use it, it's great for writing a character's fantasy or prophetic vision or whatever- so I'm going to mostly ignore that. 

Writing in present tense simply means everything is happening in the here and now. Verbs and shit are conjugated for that tense. "He says" and "She nods her head". That sort of shit. Writing in past tense simply means everything already happened "He said" and "She nodded her head". It's very little different, and honestly a stylistic choice on what you feel more comfortable writing. It doesn't affect your story. You can however, uses tenses to show a shift in the story. For example, writing the story itself in present tense, and writing flashbacks or dreams in past tense shows a clear tone difference. But you don't need to do that. 

The big point here is, like PoVs, you have to pick one and stick to it.

If you switch tenses, it needs to have been done on purpose. Don't randomly flop back and forth and leave the readers confused as to whether or not you actually did do it on purpose or if it means something. Usually, it's just you fucking shit up. Always make sure you stay consistent with your fucking tenses.