Discussion You Know You're a Fan Fiction Writer When...

you see things like this in your newspaper and start thinking 'new nice bad guys

[image=http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk124/earlybird-obi-wan/forcenetart/awars.jpg]

 

You come up with a snippet of memory that says 'Trouble' is the name of Obi-Wan's eopie in his exile on Tatooine. Then you scour all of your EU material in the bookshelf and even Google the phrase 'Obi-Wan named his eopie Trouble', which discloses some weird associations, but not the answer to your question. You work around this hurdle and resolve to ask a TFN mod.

 

...You're suffering from a nasty cough and wonder how to best describe that rib-racking, raspy, ragged dry hacking cough in prose.

...You then start wondering how you can incorporate it into a story.

 

...when all you want for Christmas is not your two front teeth, but a mass PM function on the forums for fanfic updates!

 

...when you compare your dog to the ESB space slug after watching him slink backwards back under the table during dinner.

 

...when reading old work, you find a scientific word or concept that makes you know exactly which chapter of your science book you were studying when you wrote that part.

Just literally had this happen. I had used the word symbiosis. I was so young and yet so immensely proud that I had used a word from my science book in a fic...

 

...when you think about quitting your job to write fanfic full time. Can you tell business is slow for me. LOL! I think I would actually save more money by not working. I won't have to pay insurance and fees. ACK, I need to go to Monster.com.

 

...When, in preparation for the Dear Diary challenge, you practice writing your character's diary entries in a different handwriting style.

 

...when the first thing you do when you finish a new RPG game is grab your notebook and jot down an outline of how you're going to do a better job rewriting the ending.

 

...When you read over the Head-to-Head Tag Teams scenario setup for a battle between Aayla Secura, Shaak Ti, Commander Bly, Zuckuss, Bossk, and a wampa, then see what Hidalgo said about the outcome, and you are already plotting up a different result and have written the first page that sets up the story.

...only to abandon it in favor of a bounty hunter adventure in the frozen wastes of Hoth, because you have all the bounty hunters and a snowtrooper action figure to play with, and a tauntaun!

 

When your sitting down fishn in the bay and you spot a grass fire on a far away island; it looks very cool. Your fishn buddy talks about all the animals that are going to die from it. You say to your fishn buddy, "I'm gunna write about a force lightning storm in my Star Wars book".
Your mate falls off his chair laughing calling you all the nerdy star wars names under the sun. All you can do is smile and say with a grin on you face,
"yeah, I think that will be a good chapter".

 

...When you partake in a deep discussion about writing and all your examples are fanfics. All of them. Including your own.

 

...you spend almost as much time finding the perfect, heavily-researched, perfect title that nobody will read as you do writing the actual chapter.

 

...you get the "Worst Case Scenario Daily Survival Calendar" as a gift and immediately look forward to using it to make your characters do crazy things more realistically.

 

When researching for the diary challenge, you make sure you have the correct droid model, place of manufacture, the year, and the correct way to write the date in the GFFA.

When looking up all that obscure info only takes you 20mins to find....

 

... you get cranky about not being updated by email to all these 'you know you're a fanfiction writer when ...' bits because the Big Move is in the future far, far away. You fantasize about an actual working 'search' function, too. You consider 'XenForo' as the new Star Warsy name in your next story, almost certainly a hero's name.

 

...You're writing your diary entries right after you take your nightly medication, just so the drowsiness and tremor side-effect will be authentic...

...Even if no one will ever see the hand-written versions.

 

...despite being a poor, underfed and overworked student with THREE deadlines for huge research theses looming, you spend an entire afternoon slaving away at working out details of a *weird* plot bunny involving Dooku, a high-class Coruscanti good-time girl and a SW version of Jack the Ripper

...you spend an hour of that afternoon sketching maps based on your fuzzy memories of the PT films, trying to work out how the Temple might be visible from the red-light district.

 

When you consider finally going back to your old stories just as the boards are about to move.

 

When you haven't been around the fanfic boards for a few years, but still feel the need to post a few last times before the boards change

 

Haha, been down that road many a time.

...when some of your best fic titles come to you when you're either taking a shower or on the toilet, but your worst titles are the ones you spend a while thinking about.

For that matter, when your best fics come to you while taking a shower or on the toilet, but the fics you're stuck on are the ones you've exhaustively plotted out from beginning to end!

...when you read books on forensics and body trauma so that you can work out a plausible death scene (or even a near-death), and people see you reading these books in public and start to wonder about your state of mind. Particularly when you're wearing a t-shirt that declares you an inmate of Arkham Asylum. And you're usually a very quiet person who keeps to themselves.

 

...you start confusing your fanon for canon...

 

I find that that happens to me more often when I'm referencing to audio adaptations. I have to stop myself and realize, "no, they didn't actually say that. I just adapted it that way for audio and my adaptation, though based on canon, is still fanon."

...when you're reading a writer's guide and all your notations have something to do with fan fiction.

 

...when you study pregnancy growth charts to find out if something could work for your plot or not. (It could totally have worked, would have worked, but the logic of it did not. Ack.)

 

Or you stare at young kids wondering how old the kid is because that's just what you imagine your story's youngster would look like but you're not sure what behavior/speech is appropriate because is that kid 18 months or 3 years old? (Yeah, I'm not around kids as you can guess)