Gary Kleppe and friends wrote:

           A GUIDE TO WRITING REALLY, REALLY GOOD FANFICTION

Main Author: Gary Kleppe

Contributing Authors: Matthew Lewis, The Eternal Lost Lurker, Akari
Ukryuu Has a Posse, Ronny Hedin, Anand Rao

uh oh. the peanut gallery. 
 
 

WHY DO PEOPLE WRITE FANFICTION?

Primarily because we're bored. Also in order to promote our favorite
characters (see below).

Doh.
 

IT'S LEGAL TO WRITE FANFICTION, ISN'T IT?

Don't kid yourself, pal. In the US, Fanfiction is a felony in
twenty-seven states. Ever notice all those series in the RAAC archives
that never got finished? It's because the authors were finally tracked
down by the law.

By Tommy Lee Jones.
 

WHAT SHOULD I KNOW ABOUT THE MECHANICS OF WRITING?

Good writing is made up primarily of letters, which include a through z.
Especially important are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y. Without these,
yr wrtng mght nt b rdbl; this is a condition known as consonation, which
can be relieved by a good vowel movement.

Ugh. Actually, I've seen a few where they had poor vowel movement, and
constant consonant consistant. . .ackp  problems.
 

In the above sentence, the reader is distracted from the scene by the
misspelling of "Gosunkugi." The cure for this is to *always* remember to
run your fics through electronic spell-check before posting. 

I had to add Gosunkugi to my spell-check. . .didn't you?

What spell-check are you using?

Remember that the readers you get are not going to be the brightest
people in the world, so be sure to repeat things often enough for them
to get it. Example:

        Ranma stared at the document from the hospital which clearly
        showed his birth mother was not Saotome Nodoka. The document
        also showed that Saotome Genma was not his father. "They're...
        they're not my parents?" he said.

which should be followed up by"

	"No," his moch father said. "We are not your parents."
	"I'm sorry," the fake mother said. The false maternal
	figure turned to the bogus sire.

Then again, this started getting into some reachy and archaic vocab, so
if the reader needed it repeated this much, they might not understand
the third or forth subreference (assuming they got the first.)

HOW MANY JAPANESE WORDS SHOULD I INCLUDE?

Ideally, your fanfic should be entirely written in Japanese. Since
hardly anyone will be able to understand it, they won't notice any of
the problems with your writing. If you can't manage this, at least write
the dialog in Japanese and leave the narration in English. If you don't
know how to say something in Japanese, just put in whatever combination
of syllables looks good to you.

an "a" here, a "kyo" there, and an "ike-ike biggu bangu."

 

WHAT KINDS OF FANFICTIONS ARE THERE?

The most important kind of fanfiction is the lemon. Lemons are stories
that explicitly depict sexual activities, so named because they leave a
sour taste in one's mouth, if not other places. A lime is a lemon with
most of the really good bits taken out. WAFF (Washington Apples Fan
Fiction) stories are kind of like lemons, only they're not.

Gee, I don't know of anything else that -tastes- other than your mouth.
. .
 

Then there's the self-insertion. This is where you put yourself into
the series. The cast automatically accepts you, and helps you out.
Remember that you're still the author of the story, so you can give
yourself knowledge of the series, super powers, and if you put yourself
in Ranma 1/2, you have to fall for Nabiki, who also falls in love with
you.

gee, again with the
self-insertion-ranma1/2-get-nabiki-super-powered-gaijin.

this is its own genre, dammit! Treat it with respect!
 
-TJ