Story Trends

theres a lot of 'mike is a vampire' stories out there

One of them falls in love with a girl at school, they meet up years later, sneak around, get knocked up, then eventually get married.

I've seen alot of those, even though it's unreasonably specific.

I've actually seen alot of storie's with no plot or main idea. It's disappointing.

Car crashes seem to feature a lot.

And Billie/Mike get the girl, get drunk, make out with someone at party, have arguement, girl runs out into street crying, gets hit by car, Billie/Mike run out frantically, girl gets rushed to hospital, wakes up, they kiss and make up and get married within a week.

Handguns For Hearts:

One of them falls in love with a girl at school, they meet up years later, sneak around, get knocked up, then eventually get married.

Oh yes. I've seen AT LEAST five of those stories.

Handguns For Hearts:

One of them falls in love with a girl at school, they meet up years later, sneak around, get knocked up, then eventually get married.

I've seen alot of those, even though it's unreasonably specific.

I've actually seen alot of storie's with no plot or main idea. It's disappointing.

Sounds a lot like my story.Ahh fuck lol.

I've seen a lot of stories where Billie leaves Adie .

I made Adie dump Billie in my story...

Do we have to number them?

Er. Affairs, death..suicide, drama..lots of drama in these stories

P-nut:

Car crashes seem to feature a lot.

And Billie/Mike get the girl, get drunk, make out with someone at party, have arguement, girl runs out into street crying, gets hit by car, Billie/Mike run out frantically, girl gets rushed to hospital, wakes up, they kiss and make up and get married within a week.

Good point. Typical cliché: the magical hyperfast love that strikes without warning and fells our hero, causing him instantly to dump his wife/girlfriend of [number here] years. Providing that the wife/girlfriend ever existed in the first place.

Pickle:

Oh boy.

The current trends I see on this board can be described with one word BAD! And 'bad' is only the beginning. If you want to get technical, they are Oh my God! This is the most illiterate, ridiculous, plot-less shirne to yourself with a light underlining of Green Day that has ever been concived from the belly of evil and why in the world did you see that fit to be published?

I call it as I see it.

The most popular 'crap' story is the ever present girl who is the biggest fan of Green Day, meets Green Day by chance, has Billie Joe, Mike or Tre fall desperatly in love with her, and they live by the bay in the Oakland sunshine. This girl is normally a poor representation of the author and you can tell that by their profile bios because the similarities between the bios and the characters are striking! It is also very poorly done, but I will discuss that in further detail in a moment.

Now, there is nothing wrong with a good OC (Original Character). I like to work with them myself and read about them when they are respectfully written. They take time and practice to get right, there's just no way around it. However, many people don't want to learn how to create a character, they just want a quick story and 'fabulous' reviews. Many of the OCs on the board are what many fanfiction writers can refer to as 'Mary Sues.

A MS is perfect. They are tailored for the main man-hero in the story. In many Green Day cases, this girl is in a band, plays several instruments wonderfully without practice or effort, sings, writes songs, has multi-colored dreadlocked hair, several piercings, a full descprition of her 'punked-out' clothes in each chapter, an excellent kisser/lover, a troubled past, broken family, potty mouth and is the object of lust for Billie Joe, Mike and/or Tre.

Admit it, it's true.

Going back to my previous statement, many writers feel the need to put themselves in the story. This is not a good idea. You, as a writer, are responsible for telling the story as it comes, not as you wish it were in your wildest fantasy! Yes, daydreams are normal and fun, but nobody really wants to read them. You put yourself in a MS position with your three best buddies who are in a band with you and you hate your mom and dad.

Fanfiction is supposed to be about releasing your imagination, but there is an amount of respect for the original story that has to be in place and very few here have that respect. It's just a 'Let's see how many times I can fuck Billie Joe in a single, 250 word chapter and how many of my clique will review and worship me for it.

You hardly see a touching Billie Joe/Adrienne story or a story without disgusting, ugly, very badly written sex scenes between Tre' and his OC girlfriend. And poor Mike, like it was mentioned before, what's with him being a vampire? I just don't get that on any level, but if it were well written and plotted, I'm sure it would be an interesting read.

And another thing. . . is proper grammer too much to ask? Is spell check out of style for you people?!?! If you can't write a basic sentence, don't write an effin story! You're just embarassing yourself!

Thank you.

Well said.

Handguns For Hearts:

Pickle:

Oh boy.

The current trends I see on this board can be described with one word BAD! And 'bad' is only the beginning. If you want to get technical, they are Oh my God! This is the most illiterate, ridiculous, plot-less shirne to yourself with a light underlining of Green Day that has ever been concived from the belly of evil and why in the world did you see that fit to be published?

I call it as I see it.

The most popular 'crap' story is the ever present girl who is the biggest fan of Green Day, meets Green Day by chance, has Billie Joe, Mike or Tre fall desperatly in love with her, and they live by the bay in the Oakland sunshine. This girl is normally a poor representation of the author and you can tell that by their profile bios because the similarities between the bios and the characters are striking! It is also very poorly done, but I will discuss that in further detail in a moment.

Now, there is nothing wrong with a good OC (Original Character). I like to work with them myself and read about them when they are respectfully written. They take time and practice to get right, there's just no way around it. However, many people don't want to learn how to create a character, they just want a quick story and 'fabulous' reviews. Many of the OCs on the board are what many fanfiction writers can refer to as 'Mary Sues.

A MS is perfect. They are tailored for the main man-hero in the story. In many Green Day cases, this girl is in a band, plays several instruments wonderfully without practice or effort, sings, writes songs, has multi-colored dreadlocked hair, several piercings, a full descprition of her 'punked-out' clothes in each chapter, an excellent kisser/lover, a troubled past, broken family, potty mouth and is the object of lust for Billie Joe, Mike and/or Tre.

Admit it, it's true.

Going back to my previous statement, many writers feel the need to put themselves in the story. This is not a good idea. You, as a writer, are responsible for telling the story as it comes, not as you wish it were in your wildest fantasy! Yes, daydreams are normal and fun, but nobody really wants to read them. You put yourself in a MS position with your three best buddies who are in a band with you and you hate your mom and dad.

Fanfiction is supposed to be about releasing your imagination, but there is an amount of respect for the original story that has to be in place and very few here have that respect. It's just a 'Let's see how many times I can fuck Billie Joe in a single, 250 word chapter and how many of my clique will review and worship me for it.

You hardly see a touching Billie Joe/Adrienne story or a story without disgusting, ugly, very badly written sex scenes between Tre' and his OC girlfriend. And poor Mike, like it was mentioned before, what's with him being a vampire? I just don't get that on any level, but if it were well written and plotted, I'm sure it would be an interesting read.

And another thing. . . is proper grammer too much to ask? Is spell check out of style for you people?!?! If you can't write a basic sentence, don't write an effin story! You're just embarassing yourself!

Thank you.

Well said.

That deserves a nice knit sweater.

Nice one Pickle...


I am sooo guilty of some of that myself...

*hangs head in shame*


ohhh my gripe... what is it and people writing about RAPE every three stories it seems like...

The vampire thing seemed to come from him dressing as one once for halloween...suddenly everyone jumped on it like it was a fetish of his or something...

Has anyone else noticed how, even in like 1980, everyone in the story has an iPod and the latest iMac and MSN and an Xbox/PS2...THEY DIDN'T EXIST! THE MEGADRIVE CAME OUT IN OCTOBER 1988. Play a Megadrive, then a PS, notice the difference...gah. And CDs...another product of the 80s, stop writing about Billie Joe and Mike going through each others CD collections when they first meet. It couldn't have happened...

Something I see a lot of: One of the band members being a fan's father, and the fan doesn't find out until 9-14 years after they're born.

what's wrong with that? i write a lot of stories. most of them with a lot of sex. but mine are orginal.... heh heh

Well I think it's your story so you can write about what you want, you shouldn't have to worry what anyone else says..just my idea. Doesn't matter if it's pathetic because it's your story.

oh, i know. i don't write pethtic stories like that. i just wanted to say something!

P-nut:

The vampire thing seemed to come from him dressing as one once for halloween...suddenly everyone jumped on it like it was a fetish of his or something...

Has anyone else noticed how, even in like 1980, everyone in the story has an iPod and the latest iMac and MSN and an Xbox/PS2...THEY DIDN'T EXIST! THE MEGADRIVE CAME OUT IN OCTOBER 1988. Play a Megadrive, then a PS, notice the difference...gah. And CDs...another product of the 80s, stop writing about Billie Joe and Mike going through each others CD collections when they first meet. It couldn't have happened...

I would say CDs and cell phones are the most commonly seen in stories that are supposed to be dated in the early eighties.

sampalletband:

Nice one Pickle...


I am sooo guilty of some of that myself...

*hangs head in shame*

It's not so much that you've done it, but whether or not you've grown out of it. Pretty much, all of us have done that when we first began. I did it. I admit it and it was BAD! I am ashamed to say that I had wrote that crap. But, I was green and not familiar with the concept of writing a story. I just wrote what I wanted to without thinking about it first.

However, a lot of folks here don't want to grow out of it. They want to keep spitting it out because they have thier little fanclubs and they are members of their fanclubs fanclubs! It's a nasty, clique circle here that hinders anyone from growing and expressing originality.

I find it a triumph when I see an author, I can go to their profile, read their first story, second, third, etc and see a constant improvement. That means they are not a lemming and they have a brain!

Another story trend is reviews. Notice how nobody reviews, they just say that they like the story and they want you to PM them when more is up? Yeah, their nice because they're from your readers, but I would love it if someone pointed out something that I overlooked or tried to guess the next chapter. I don't want a praise fest, I want to know what my readers are thinking when they read my stories. I try to do that when I find a good story. I don't know if it helps them, but it might.

Pickle:

sampalletband:

Nice one Pickle...


I am sooo guilty of some of that myself...

*hangs head in shame*

It's not so much that you've done it, but whether or not you've grown out of it. Pretty much, all of us have done that when we first began. I did it. I admit it and it was BAD! I am ashamed to say that I had wrote that crap. But, I was green and not familiar with the concept of writing a story. I just wrote what I wanted to without thinking about it first.

However, a lot of folks here don't want to grow out of it. They want to keep spitting it out because they have thier little fanclubs and they are members of their fanclubs fanclubs! It's a nasty, clique circle here that hinders anyone from growing and expressing originality.

I find it a triumph when I see an author, I can go to their profile, read their first story, second, third, etc and see a constant improvement. That means they are not a lemming and they have a brain!

Another story trend is reviews. Notice how nobody reviews, they just say that they like the story and they want you to PM them when more is up? Yeah, their nice because they're from your readers, but I would love it if someone pointed out something that I overlooked or tried to guess the next chapter. I don't want a praise fest, I want to know what my readers are thinking when they read my stories. I try to do that when I find a good story. I don't know if it helps them, but it might.

Another great post Pickle...

I know as an one of the Editors here, I read ALOT of stories... I see ALOT of trends of what you are saying.

Personally for myself I don't write for the readers, I write for me. My OC was first made up in 1986 so I have been writing for a while, though the Green Day angle is new...lol, "Write what you know."

It's hard to introduce an OC at a Green Day site without having GD in the story, I had to revert to some of those guilty tactics in the early chapters in order to bring the story up to speed and get GD involved... Though NOW I believe my stories are standing on their own merits.

I enjoy posting chapters that I know will spawn interesting comments. When I introduced a new character, the comments were funny

I usually don't leave many comments myself, and when I do, I try to explain how I felt when I read that chapter. Most times, the writer has left me breathless and waiting for the next chapter for the solution of the cliff hanger they left in the chapter I finished reading.