Respectful when replying

Please be respectful and considerate when you respond to a reviewer's review as they will always have different interpretation of your story.

Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel
Advice!

Name Resources

This is a list of good resources for names.

First Names

2000-Names.com (Beware of pop-ups and spam)
BabyNames.com
Behind the Name
Kate Monk's Onomastikon

Last Names

Behind the Surname

Mythological

Encyclopedia Mythica
Greek Mythology Link

Random Name Generators

RinkWorks: Fantasy Name Generator
Seventh Sanctum: Names
Serendipity

Age isn't an excuse

I hate authors who, when you harshly criticize/flame them, tell you that they write badly "becuz im unly 13!!11!"

Stop it. Age isn't an excuse. You have spell check and you can get a beta, can't you? I mean, I'll excuse the Sues and Stus sometimes, but seriously.

Vividus
Fanfiction Gripes

Assume Your Characters Are Beautiful

Don't waste your time on typing "beautiful," "pretty," "hot," or any of those words that attempts to enhance the character's beauty. Instead, use them sparingly and for important occassions only.

A reader always assumes that a character, no matter how unimportant, is physically pleasing to the eye in their mind's eye because no one likes imagining ugly characters.

Generally, beauty is in the eye of the perceiver, so it's rather subjective. Use powerful descriptions to get your point across. For example:

Stella hated Nikki the moment she laid eyes on her. The moment the woman was in the room, she was at Brandon's side faster than she could be. She hated her for being her pulchritude antithesis. She had long shining hair dark as midnight with blue eyes that could see into one's eyes and a doll's porcelain skin. She was sexy in a mysterious way, invoking the calmness of the ocean at midnight with a fat moon hung in the sky.

Alternatively, if we're talking about how one character, such as a lover, perceives another character, use feelings to emphasize the fact that both characters love each other, not just lust for each other. A relationship isn't built on sex and sex doesn't always enhance the relationship. For example:

Sky turned to watch Bloom. She was laughing with her friends. She turned to smile at him from across the garden. He smiled back. She made him feel more alive than anyone ever had. She made him feel like a simple man, naught more. How he loved her! He, the Prince of Eraklyon, was utterly and truly in love. There was a time when he thought that love was simply an illusion to make reality more bearable, but he had indeniable proof that it existed.

Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel

Story Requests

A story request is a situation in which someone, a reader, requests you to write a story with certain specifications. Whether an author should or should not respond to these requests is up to the individual.

Story requests are rather far and few in the Winx Club fandom but they do happen. However, one can't just send a request without forethought. The following is a message that both Chibi Horsewoman and Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel received on two separate occasions.

can u please do these trix couple requests????
darcyxbaltor
darcyxbrandon
darcyxriven
icyxbaltor
icyxsky
stormyxhelia
I really dont hav that much talent as a writer*, but u do, so id really appricate it!

If you have enough time to waste your own time writing these kind of frivolous messages, you have enough time to write your own stories.

This person was asking two authors with high-level language to write a story for this person who could not even use a couple of minutes to use proper grammar. This is socially unacceptable. It's an insult to some writers. It is the requester's job to convince the writer to write their desired story. Writers are not machines nor are they paid to write fanfiction. Therefore, do not expect them to say yes or feel obligated to oblige you.

If you are about to write a story request, use proper English and be concise. Be sure to do background research on your author to see if he or she is comfortable in writing your specified genre.


Fanfiction Gripes

Ransoming Stories for Reviews

Holding a story hostage for reviews. This is not being a writer, it's being a hack. A writer writes for the joy of it, and to entertain. A hack writes for the pay (at ff net, it takes the form of reviews). Doing so guarantees I'll stop reading and not leave one.

Robert Teague

What is Magix exactly?

Magix is one of the main settings for the Winx Club series. It's magical and its considered the centre of the universe. Besides that, we don't know that much about it. What is it? Is it just a city, a planet, a solar system, a galaxy? For sure, it comprises of one city, but the many (vague) references to Magix in the show also could also mean that Magix more than just a city. Let's explore the possibilities.

Asian Names

Names are important.

Asian Names

If you're a hard-core anime fan trying to put in original characters with blond hair, a name with Asian roots and is clearly NOT of Asian descent, just don't. It's not cool at all when the cartoon is specifically for white audiences. Save yourself the humiliation and the effort of running away from Asian mobs with kamas, balisongs and peasant ninjas for hire. It's a bad idea on so many ideological levels that it is offensive because 1) you will offend real Asians and 2) it looks bad visually in the mind's eye.

"Hi, my name is Ayumi Hamasaki and I just transferred to Alfea to improve my fire magic." Ayumi bowed deeply, her long wheat blond blue-streaked hair almost touching the floor.

Asians are not considered white people. A white person is someone of European descent only. By Canadian definitions, anyone who is not white is considered a visible minority.

Even if said character with Japanese-sounding name clearly states he or she dyes his or her hair, it is not always aesthetically pleasing on all Asians. Don't look at Asian popstars like Ivy and Utada Hikari for what Asians look like, they're glorified Asian people like Paris Hilton. Real asians don't look like them. A lot of Asians are mistaken for American aboriginals because of Paleo-Indians crossing the Bering Strait oh so many years ago.


Mixed White and Asian Names

Don't give your original character a white first name and an Asian last name. 'Reilly Yamanaka' and 'Desdemona Zheng' does not bode well with Asian mobs either unless he or she is really Asian-looking and his or her parents are immigrants to a white country and/or married a white person.

This does not apply to former European colonies like the Philippines. White names are prevalent in this country because of assimilation. A person named Kimberly Cortez can be Philippino.


Meaning of Asian Names

Don't choose names for their meaning or try to glue them together to have an awesome meaning, you'll just offend someone who actually understands the language and look like an idiot. Your best bet is to go to a 'Top 100 (insert culture) Names' and just pick from there because you have a guarantee that the name will not have a butchered meaning since real parents choose to name their children those names. Be sure to stick to the gender too.


Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel
Advice!

Describing the Winx Club Physically

Kikurukina: [...] I haven't seen this in a while, but every now and then, someone will go to the trouble of describing the members of the Winx Club in great detail.

My advice: don't even bother. You should assume that your reader has a basic idea of what the fairies look like. Spicing your paragraph with the occasional "Bloom brushed her coppery locks out of her face" is all right but don't overdo it by spending pages on just waxing how they look like. The reader should generally already know what these characters look like because they want to read fanfiction about them.

After17: Some detail is good however, I mean, I don't think Bloom would be Bloom unless you pointed out her fire-y red hair. (Yes? No? Maybe?)

But I agree, especially when they point out the obvious...

Seriously, I think its worse when someone says Musa is Chinese - in AU, fine, I get it, but how can she be Chinese if she's technically an alien? (To us anyways)

[...]

Advice!

Arranged Marriages are not Unhappy Marriages

An arranged marriage is a marriage set up by someone other than the groom and bride. This is an old tradition that has its roots in royalty and aristocracy. Despite being a tradition mostly dropped in Europe and the Americas, this is still commonly practiced in Africa, Asian and the Middle East.

Some viewers may have the impression that arranged marriages lead to unhappy marriages because of the way Sky and Diaspro's engagement ended and Diaspro's subsequent appearances in the series. While Diaspro's actions are debatable, it should be made clear that arranged marriages do not necessarily lead to unhappy marriages.

How does Brandon Become a Prince?

Brandon, who is a squire, marries Stella, Princess of Solaria, who will one day rule the kingdom of Solaria. What happens to Brandon title-wise?

Adding Foreign Languages to Your Story: Romance

Occasionally, especially if you're writing a romance, you may be tempted to add the dialogue of another language into your story to make it more exciting. What's a racy romance without your hunky guy not having a sexy foreign accent or unique way of speaking?

Titles as Last Names

Queen Elizabeth II is the current queen of England and of the Commonwealth Realms, but have you ever noticed that she does not have a last name written anywhere? Why is that?

In the Winx Club, you may or may not have noticed the lack of last names for characters because their title usually replaces it, and of course, many of them have titles. For example, Stella's 'name' is "Stella, Princess of Solaria"  and Sky's 'name' is "Sky, Prince/King of Eraklyon."

This article from Answers.com will help you understand how last names work for royalty, at least for the British monarchy, and why it works. The ideas in this article probably provide the foundations for the names of royalty work in the Winx Club's fictional universe.

Post Formatting

Sooner or later, you realise that the posts on this blog have strange formats.

If they have an "Advice" tag, there are generally three ways that the posts are formatted:

1. Dialogue form: Posts that are written in script format because it is a string of users commenting on one topic.
2. Stand alone form: A post that only contains the user's words because what they say sufficiently covers the topic.
3. Quote form: A post quotes the original user and a text explaining or elaborating on the user's intent.

Describing the Physical Setting With Senses

Robert Teague: [...] Describing what's around the characters helps as well, even if you think the readers are already familiar with it. Example: As Flora walked across the quad, she noticed how the walls of Alfea reflected the sunlight and made things seem brighter. Pausing by the Wishing Well, she looked down into the depths, and could smell the cool, pure water. [...]

Zadien: I'll expand on Robert's post and point out that you must always remember to use your senses when writing. It helps people merge themselves into the story if they know exactly what the protagonist is seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling and touching. If you remember include your senses, your descriptions should be pretty impressive to the reader. However, don't just say, she heard this, he saw that, she smelt this, he dealt that. That's just boring. Make it part of the story and part of the character. Flora is very much going to be in tune with nature while Stella is going to notice brightly coloured things and if there's a sale mentioned, she'll be the first one to pick it up and Musa's all about sound, so remember that.

Stills and Photographs: But there is such a thing as waaay too much description. It's a fine line, but Scenery Porn and lots of long, expanded sensory details, can really detract from the story by stopping it in its tracks. Description is better spread throughout than clumped together.

Advice!

What is "canon"?

Canon is any fact that is unequivocally irrefutable because there is evidence to support it within the series or media. For example:

Stella is the Princess of Solaria, because she stated that she is the Princess of Solaria and she is treated as royalty in Solaria.

What is "fanon"?

Fanon is a conclusion made from various facts presented and lead the audience/readers to believe that something is true, but not necessarily part of the canon. For example:

Helia is a wizard because his uncle, Saladin, is a wizard.

In the Winx Club, it's assumed that people inherit magic. If Saladin is a wizard, we would assume that the parent of Helia related to Saladin is a witch or a wizard as well. Therefore, Helia should also be a wizard.

However, Helia nor Saladin have ever stated that Helia is a wizard. Helia has never clearly demonstrated the ability to cast magic. Because of this, the above statement is neither true or false.

Reviews: They Aren't There to Start A Fan Club

First of all, I would like to point out that I'm not mean, wolves are mean. (Thank you, Cornelia Hale- WITCH reference)

Second, when someone reviews your story they aren't necessarily doing it to help you start a fan club. They may be trying to not so gently nudge you in a better direction than where you're heading.

Like when you load your story and you have a large block of dialogue one person talking after another- that shouldn't be that way. It's wrong, hard to read and seizure inducing. If someone asks you to fix that they mean separate all the dialogue not just the large blocks.

[...]

Chibi Horsewoman
Advice!

Flaming vs. Real Constructive Criticism

The only thing I can offer advice on is how to deal with flamers. I spent two years on a flamer's forum, and a lot of my friends flame, and I flamed a long while ago.

So, several things.

Yes, flamers are not nice. But if they're an actual flamer and not a troll, then they'll flame someone whose story really does suck, badly enough that it's nearly illegible, it's bolded/italicized/underlined completely, et cetera.

Don't send them angry review replies unless you want to look like a fool; that's part of the point. They like to get a rise out of people.

If someone gives you constructive criticism, don't yell at them with a "YOU FALMED MEE!1121!!" Learn the difference. Constructive criticism applies to the story itself, that's it; flames generally attack the story and the author, i.e. "You suck, you should just stop writing, my eyes will never recover" and whatnot (although that's probably the worst example of a flame). At least, that's from what I know.

Sometimes flamers are right; your writing could really just suck. I have a friend who got flamed, engaged in a flame war, but eventually it all got left behind, she and the flamer became friends, and she looked back at her work and it really was just plain bad.

Reverse psychology ("FLAMES WELCOME!") doesn't work on flamers. And "THIS IS MY FIRST FIC PLEASE BE NICE" doesn't work, either. Nor does "FLAMES WILL BE USED TO POWER MY STOVE" or something similar (I've seen things like that, too).

Flame Rising is a retired flamer, he hasn't been on this website in two years, but I hung out on his forum a lot. This is his criteria for flaming:

1. You can't f*cking spell and/or you know less grammar than a six year old.
2. You try to blind your readers by bolding or italicizing every f*cking word.
3. You are too f*cking retarded to use the enter key.
4. You think people give two squirts of dog cr*p about your emotastic life.
5. You wh*re for reviews.
6. You fancy yourself God's gift to poetry because you can rhyme sh*t.
7. You have A/Ns longer than the story, and they include conversations with your other f*cked up personalities that no one gives two sh*ts about.
8. You think your readers are so stupid that you constantly have to announce point of view changes with the words "-Insert Character Name's- POV".
9. Your summary includes something along the lines of this: "NO FLAMEZ OR ELSE MIKICHU WILL EATZ U!1!!11!"
10. You violate the site's TOS and/or Guidelines. (My personal favorite, kiddos.)

I censored it. XD But I always consider his criteria when I write, because he was one of the harshest flamers on this site, I think. His forum, goodness, there were at least three threads of people coming in to yell at him for "daring" to flame them. And they got chewed up and spit out within minutes.

...Not that flamers are mean. Some of them are nice when they're not flaming you. :)

If you guys hate all flamers... -ducks tomatoes-

Vividus
Advice!

Attracting Readers by Your Title and Summary

Your title and your summary are the only chance you have to grab a reader. That reader is browsing through an archive of thousands and thousands of stories that they could be reading that aren't yours. you have to sell your story, and sell it well, in three lines.

Make it look nice. Use proper capitalization and punctuation.

Don't waste space with "This is my first story so please be nice" or "I'm terrible at summaries" or "Better than it sounds." Use that space to instead add more the the summary.

Don't say "No flames" because that's exactly what draws flamers in (like moths to a...oh, crap.)

There is no need to list off the pairings in your story unless it focuses on one specific pairing (and even in that case, when you submit the story there's a place where you can choose the main characters. That is where your pairing would go.) "BxS SxB TxT MxR FxH LxN/O RxOC" is a waste of space and completely redundant - "canon pairings" is sufficient if you aren't focused on a single couple.

Stills and Photographs
Advice!

Clothes are Clothes: Describing Them

Clothes are clothes.

Do not cite pictures of clothes for your readers so that they know what the characters are wearing because it defeats the point of writing a story. You might as well just make a comic, instead of writing a fanfiction. It also shows a lack of effort. It's great to be inspired by real outfits but using a third of your story to just describe clothes is a waste of time. Readers like having the freedom of imagining things to their tastes.

If I said: "Musa wore a red dress." What would you imagine?

A good amount of you would assume she was wearing a cheongsam and the other half would assume she was wearing a plain dress.

Musa wore a knee-length red dress.

She's either wearing a short cheongsam or a cocktail dress. Every reader interprets a description differently. Her dress could be A-line, a sheath dress, something with ruffles, a halter top, sleeveless, etc.

Musa wore a knee-length red dress with puffed sleeves and a flared skirt.

That is sufficient. Do not go into any more detail than that. There is a point when descriptions are too much for the readers and you might as well draw it yourself. No one really cares if there are golden Chinese dragons and magenta chrysanthemums in the brocade or black mother of pearl buttons and pink diamonds beaded on the skirt that shone like stars in the midnight sky.

It's good to not be too detailed because the main point of the story is not the dress but what's happening. It's okay to let readers come up to their own conclusions about how the dress looks like. No one is going to remember it to the smallest details anyways five paragaphs later.

Plus, it's a natural habit for readers to assume that its beautiful.

On the flip side, if the entire point is about how a character is oogling the dress, then it's alright to get a little more descriptive about the clothes. However, pay attention to who is observing the outfit. The way a man, such as Riven, admires a dress is completely different from how a woman, such as Stella, admires it.

Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel
Advice!

Quality over Quantity: Your Reviews

Do not gauge the quality of your writing by the number of reviews, but by the quality of the reviews themselves.

Kikurukina Bal Des'cagel
Advice!

Authors, you may have a lot of reviews on your review page for your fanfiction, but having a lot of reviews doesn't mean you have a good story.

If some of your reviews happen to look in any way like the following...

• "BWAHAHAHA!!!!! keep up the good work!!! teehee ya just ignore those flamerz! but UR GONNA WRITE MORE RITE?!!! well g2g! bye! ~*~*~ CHIBI-SAN ~*~*~"
• "WAHHHHHHHHHHH!!! you should rite a sequal!!! that rocked!! YOU HAVE TO FINISH THIS!!! DRACO IS HOTT --UR BIGEST FAN!!"
• "lololol!!! update soon plz!!! wat a sad story :( :( :(!! UR GONNA WRITE MORE RITE?!!! OMFG!! --.o0 me 0o."

You may need to re-evaluate what your reviewers are telling you, indirectly.

Think about it. Are any of your reviewers telling you anything that can help you improve as a writer? Who do your reviewers seem to be? Are they just people who eat your stories up as much as Twilighters eat Stephanie Meyer's books? (And you probably know how severely bashed the Twilight series is for its writing.)

If they are and you have a desire to improve, you may need to get outside help, such as contacting a beta reader or talking to the one reviewer who took the time to write an essay about how bad your story was.

Having a lot of reviews probably gives you a lot of confidence, and it can give you a lot of false confidence as well. As the saying goes: "Quality over quantity..."

What is a beta reader?

A beta reader, also known as a betareader, is a person who will look at the final copy of your story or chapter before you publish it for everyone to reader and check it for errors. However, they are not restricted to simply reading the final copy of your story. They can serve to be your editor, someone who checks the style and flow of your story, and proofreader, someone who simply checks your grammar, or a combination of both while you write your story. They may be willying to also discuss plots, because you can bounce plot devices off of them to see if it is any good or just plain rubbish.

A good beta reader will tell you the truth. They will not sugarcoat anything. They will tell you whether or not your story is a pile of garbage or a diamond in the rough.

If, in the case that you get one of their reviews of your story back, and you are offended, turn off the computer, take a step back and take a breather. Come back a few days later and tackle what they said. They are not there to piss you off, they are there to help you. Remember, you went to them for help and they are giving you help.

What is Winx Writers Anonymous?

"Whether this was your intended destination or you inadvertantly stumbled upon it, we warmly welcome you to Winx Writers Anonymous! If you are a part of the Winx Club fandom in any way, from a highly acclaimed author to an anonymous reader, this is the forum for you.

The Winx Club category here on FanFiction suffers from worn-out, cliched plotlines; poorly written, one-dimensional, stubbornly OoC characters; atrocious grammar and spelling, and general abuse of the English language; improper use of donkeys; excessive appearance of meatballs; and paragraph-long sentences.

Still with me? Good. =]

The biggest obstacle in the fandom is its audience: namely, its median age. Quality in writing comes with skill, and skill comes with experience, which is something most of the Winx Club writers (generally between the ages of eleven and fourteen) don't really have. (We believe that receiving constructive criticism well and incorporating suggestions is great experience, though, which is what we're here for!)

Don't worry - obviously, we're not all serious and frowny-faced. We want this forum to be a fun community, a melting pot that everyone can add their personal suggestions to, and everyone can take from helpful advice from. Hopefully, if all of the writers and readers have a place to complain, offer critique, and take inspiration from, the quality of the stories in the fandom will improve drastically.

So pull up a tuba and make yourself comfortable. Take the tips and tricks presented by your fellow Winxers to heart and implement their ideas in your own writing. Feel free to enlighten the hive mind with advice of your own, as well.

[...]

Much love!

~The Winxers"

Original

If you know your grammar isn't good, do something about it.

Instead of warning someone that your spelling and grammar aren't good, get a Beta reader. I mean you know that you lack skill in these two subjects (And weren't paying enough attention in English class to know when to use Were and when to use Was) and you know enough to warn people about it. So why not do something about it?

Chibi Horsewoman
Advice!

Many authors will tell their readers that they may have poor English grammar skills and there is nothing wrong with having weak grammar, but complaining about having weak grammar does not improve one's grammar. If you know you have a problem, in this case, weak grammar, do something about it.

Don't be afraid to crack open an English grammar book, ask a betareader to proofread for you or look on the internet.

On the other hand, some of you may be thinking, "Why do I need to study grammar? English is my first language!" You may be surprised to find out that your grammar is not as good as you think it is. If you have ever had one serious reviewer tell you that you need to improve your grammar, it might be worth checking into.

The point is: your English may not be as good as you think it is.

A good reference book for English grammar is Grammatically CORRECT written by Anne Stilman. It is a concise grammar book divided into five sections: Spelling, Problem Words, Punctuation, Grammar and Style. It covers the basics of the English language.