Dear Fanfiction writers, YOU'RE PISSING ME OFF!
1) Stop with the freaking surprise angst at the end!
Look, I get that people like angst. I hate it, but that doesn't mean other people do, but seriously, if your story is ending all happy and it was going all one way the entire story, do not suddenly throw in some angst at the end. The surprise is not funny, it's not good writing, and it doesn't make me want to read more of your work, especially if your're only thinking of writing sequels. It's one thing to have a surprise reveal, like that whatever character was a bad-guy the whole time, or something reasonable. It's entirely another for a bad-guy character, one you already want to kill for existing, to suddenly kidnap one of the good-guy's kids to raise as their own, and the good-guys have no idea, and the kid, who was only introduced for this puropse, will end up killing or hurting their family when they grow up, and then there only might be a sequel story.
This is straight up useless angst, it is not a cool twist, and it makes half the people reading it want to kill you. If you already had a good ending going, don't try to go for shock and awe!!!!! It will not work, and it makes you seem like a crap writer. If you want to allude to a sequel, or angst is a must, either lead up to it better, or place it in the beginning of the sequel, leave the original story alone. Doing this will ultimately make the original better, and any sequels much more stable. Otherwise makes readers want to kill you. I actually read a story recently where the above happened, and needless to say any appreciation i had for the story/writer is now gone and I WILL NOT read the sequel story if there ever is one.
Summary: Save surprise angst for the begining of the sequel, leave the origional alone, it in no way makes you a better writer, it just pisses off your readers.
2) No surprise monster endings!
And by that i mean no magical fix-it all endings.
This is bad writing, this is lazy writing, and should be avoided at all costs. A fun idea is no excuse for sucky writing practices. If you are about to do this, just don't. Before you even start writing, go through your story, make sure it's viable, work through everything, and try to write an actual ending, or at least do better build up.
3) THINK/TALK YOU IDIOT!
Look, I can't tell you how many times I've read a story where something bad happens, (example: someone's parents/friends are killed by the bad-guys) and one character suddenly becomes a revenge fulled maniac, becomes completely off character, and tries to kill one of their friends/the good guys for it. they never ask questions, they never try to talk through it, they just decide that the only thing to do is become a murderer and go after the good-guys/their friends. What? Or, using a less drastic version, the character overhears something out of context and makes this completely far-fetched assumption based off absolutely no facts and then goes off to do something stupid without taking to anyone. Or, someone gets this idea to go do something like, i don't know, protects them from something, and decide that instead of telling the other they will push them away.
BULL! BULL!!BULL!!! THAT PISSES ME OFF MORE THAN ANYTHING! Especially that last one! this partially ties in to my hatred of angst, but also because it's an absolutely idiotic way of writing! Real people talk to each other, or at least others. The above things are a prime example of a useless drama cop out. Seriously, all they do is suspend the drama, which only works for soap-operas people! and reveals that the writers have no idea how to keep the action going properly.
This doesn't even happen only in fanfiction, this is done by real writers too! Prime example? J.K.Rowling. Does anyone else realize that if Dumbledore had just straight up said that "hey harry, there are these things called horcruxes keeping voldemort alive, and, surprise! you're one too. And oh, also I suspect Sirius Black might be innocent and Wormtail betrayed your parents. And hey, you know how you think you're Dad is all great? Yeah, he was a bully and a jerk and always treated Snape like a freak, and stole your mother from him, and didn't die a hero, he was an idiot who left his wand lying around while a dark wizard was hunting him, and treated his secret keeper(wormtail) like crap. And really the only reason Voldemort even went after them was because he flipped a coin and said, 'I think the Potters might be more dangerous than the Longbottems today' So yeah, got all that?"
DO you realize how much could have been avoided! A whole lot of deaths, that's for sure!
These are not victimless crimes, US, the READERS, have to put up with this crap. SO STOP! ACTUALLY GO THROUGH YOUR WRITING!
Thank you.
Well, that's all I got for now, but don't worry, I'm sure I will come back to this topic before to long.
Thanks for reading. =D