The Craft of Writing, or Yes, Virginia, It's a Learned Skill

Fanwork
Title:	The Craft of Writing, or Yes, Virginia, It's a Learned Skill
Creator:	Macedon
Date(s):	1996, revised 1998 with an added addendum for fanfic
Medium:	Meta
Fandom:	Multifandom
External Links:	archived copy
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The Craft of Writing, or Yes, Virginia, It's a Learned Skill is an essay by Macedon, the author of the Talking Stick Series.

It was written in 1996, then revised in 1998.

The essay contains a number of pointers on the nuts and bolts of fiction writing and covers such topics as handling point-of-view, dialogue, sentence structure, openings and foreshadowing. This guide has appeared on a number of writing guide rec lists.

The essay itself doesn't have a fannish focus, but in 1998, Macedon appears to have added a fanfic addendum:

COMMENTS SPECIFIC TO FANFIC:

1) Please don't open a fanfic story with the full name and title of a series regular. This is one way fanfic is not like original fiction. Ain't likely to be anybody reading your Voyager story who doesn't already know that Paris is Lieutenant Thomas Eugene Paris, pilot for Voyager. Or, if you're into the X-files, don't start your first (or even second) sentence with "Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully...." We

know her name and title, thank you. For fanfiction to introduce characters in such a fashion is both unnecessary and annoying.

A writer of fanfic can assume a certain level of knowledge on the part of readers which a writer of original fiction can't; take advantage of it. Assume in your readership the same basic familiarity with facts that the show's script writers assume for their episodes. They don't introduce every DS9 episode with a Sisko's full name and rank! Same goes for semi-regulars like Dukat or Nog, or (for the X-Files) Skinner or Margaret Scully. The exception, of course, is if one brings back a guest star from one or two episodes. Then one might remind the readers who this person is: _____, Worf's adopted father. (See, I can't even remember his name!)

2) If writing original ships or characters, don't put a long list of the neato-cool-techno-geek things the ship can do, or include the cast of characters at the beginning of your story. If a reader can't keep up with the story without all that stuff, the writer is being lazy--and most readers won't bother. It's boring, folks. If you want to include story backmatter like casts of characters, technical information, pronunciation charts, then put it at the back.

(On a side-note, I never personally read stories in screenplay format. Other readers don't mind, perhaps, but I want my fiction in narrative form, thank you.)

3) Don't exaggerate aspects of a series regular's appearance. Janeway's hair is not red or strawberry blond. It's dishwater brown with red highlights. Scully's eyes are blue-grey, not baby blue, and Kirk's are hazel, or maybe swampwater green, not gold, gold-flecked, or honey- colored or any of a half-dozen other exaggerations. Chakotay is not a big man (nor does he have big hands). Kevin Sorbo is big, Arnold Schwartzenager is *big*; Robert Beltran is on the bulky side of average.

Try for accuracy, not purple prose. ;> I know what these people look like; I see them every week.

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See also	Alt.startrek.creative