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Questions I have for my first story.

4 years ago

The first one I have is to do with the dreaded topic of fan fiction. Yes, I know so original, but as I continue with my concept of the idea I find that it is becoming less and less a fan fiction. It is starting to be more about the powers and the world than it is about the characters that people of the fandom know and love. I am starting to question if what I am trying to write a fanfic or a story that is inspired by the source material. I guess my question is should I try and keep it so that the original fans can still identify with it or should I just write want I want and not be concerned how true it is to the source material? 
 

The second one that I have is should I use stats for my first story game? I love when stats are in a game because it gives me something to look at and evaluate how well I am doing in a numerical value. It would also lend itself well to what I am writing. My fear is that this is something that is well outside my skill level and is not something that can be learned easily. How hard is it to use and should I try to with my first story?  

Questions I have for my first story.

4 years ago
If you can figure out how to set and track a variable, you can do stats and most other things. It's not that complicated, but it may get tedious depending on how many you're using, and proofreading and testing becomes doubly important.

As for your first question, I'm firmly in the camp of just writing what you want. Your main audience here isn't going to be the fans of whatever the original thing is, and we'll be looking more at whether it's a good story in its own right than at whether it stays faithful to the source.

When it comes to fanfic it's good to keep in mind also that you can't expect readers to be familiar with any of the things you take for granted with fans. Setting details and characters ideally would be introduced as a natural part of the plot progression, the same as you would for any other story.