From the Author's Desk

@Fanfic - First Time Writing Fanfiction

This article was originally published in the official Wattpad Fanfic book, "How to Write Fanfiction", on August 19, 2018.

So, You Want to Write Your First Story?

by Avery Mason Paige

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Before We Get Started...

So, you want to write your first story? The first (and most important!) thing to remember is this: no one (and I mean no one) ever starts out with — or ever fully achieves — perfection. Perfection is purely subjective, meaning that no two people will ever have the same view of it. What one reader may deem as "the perfect story," may not be another reader's cup of tea.

It is important to remember that as you embark upon this journey (that is, writing your own story) that you are going to make mistakes. Your story will most likely not be an instant success. And, though there will certainly be readers that love it, there will also be those that may criticize it. And all of this is okay. All of this will help you grow as a writer.

Whether it be posting what you thought of as a completed chapter with a pesky grammatical error that eluded you, or writing yourself into a corner that results in having to go back to change some of the story (JRR Tolkien did this many times while writing The Lord of the Rings), or publishing a new update that has a continuity conflict with something you had written previously (most notably, JK Rowling herself was guilty of this with the first published edition of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in which *SPOILERS* the graveyard scene depicted apparitions of Harry's parents that were released from Voldemort's wand in the wrong order), just remember that you are human and tackle these challenges as they come. All great authors had to start somewhere, and it was usually at the bottom with very little writing experience.

Alright, you have accepted the fact that the first thing you decide to write and (possibly) share with the world is not going to win you a Pulitzer Prize. I would now like to offer you a few bits of advice to help you get started, most of which I discovered while planning my first real attempt at writing anything of substance:

Tip #1: Start Small

My most well-received published story, American Noise (a Captain America fanfic), started out as nothing more than a random scene that crossed my mind: A Post-Avengers/Post-Thaw Steve Rogers wandering around an antique store with a melancholy look on his face. Where the idea came from, I could not tell you. However, regardless of its origins, the thought intrigued me. I started thinking (or, I guess you could call it daydreaming) about why Steve was there, his exchanges with other people in the store, how he felt about those exchanges, etc. And BOOM! I was creating a story without even realizing it.