Where Fanfiction Writing Fails

The way I tend to write stories usually involves me picturing a scene as if it were a movie. Then taking that scene and wording it in a way that I'm not just describing a scene in a movie. Writing is very specifically not film. Which is to say that what matters when you write, and if you want to write a physical thing happening, it can be tedious to try to describe a fight with precision. Especially, when you want to make it feel cinematic.

That's the main rub of the whole thing, and what makes me dislike certain writers and specifically, fanfiction writers. They try to describe sight gags and funny things like they show up in film or animation, but they fail to understand that the humor of it fails in words. Because to get the joke, you literally have to explain it. Describing a visually humorous thing tends to break the rule of not explaining the joke.

Some of the best fanfiction writers are able to change what is usually a visually centered show and write it as if it were literature. Some are even able, through fourth wall breaking third person narrative to express character moods and emotions succinctly and expressively.

Again though, this goes back to just proper writing ability. Even when some of the best advice I've read, leads to "write like a camera point of view" then switch to "internal", the movie camera isn't always easy to describe, or shouldn't be described in extreme detail. Like with everything a balance is necessary, but some descriptions become stupidly convoluted when being read.

One way I practice writing these scenes is to watch a show, and then rewrite the scene as if it were to be in a book. It's amazing how you can focus on a single thing, or how entire scenes can be described in one sentence instead of paragraphs of descriptions. Sometimes more time can be spent describing a scene, because the density of details is so important.

Overall though, I have to be able to picture the scene first. Which is why I think scenes I've tried to write before, are easier to write later when I try again. This is why writing every day is so important. Training to make scenes and layering details becomes easier the more times you do it.

So that's my biggest point to make, when writing, don't try to recreate the exact scene, it won't work. Instead transform the scene from visual to novel. Don't try to describe sight gags, find the humor from a different angle. Sometimes a detail that is so very important to visual comedy can be ignored in writing, or can be written or mentioned differently. Feel free to write the in-between moments that get skipped or shortcut moments that can be described more fluidly in a single sentence.