Have you ever wanted to read fanfiction without getting disillusioned with the writing capabilities of the general population? Do you want to read something that doesn’t read like a Wattpad story for once? Are you tired of pinkettes and cyanettes and everything that reads like it was stolen from 2009 Naruto fanfiction?
This guide will help you with all that, and much more so that you’ll never have to read another “Naruto Senpai >w<” ever again!
Also, please be reminded that all of the tips here are sweeping generalisations, and while from experience they are mostly accurate, they are relatively harsh and might cut out a few decent fics.
Step 1: Use AO3.
Archive of Our Own, commonly abbreviated as AO3, is a website started by fans fed up with corporations trying to make money off of fan-created works, or corporations bowing to people like Anne R*ce who send lawyers after college students writing gay fanfic. The quality of the fiction is generally higher than those found on other sites.
Step 2: Use the filters properly.
Newer users often complain about gore or more… questionable content being written of their favourite uwu pairings, but this could easily be avoided if one simply uses the filters to filter out unwanted content. AO3, unlike most other sites, makes this incredibly easy by having the most nuanced (and intuitive!) filtering system of any online archive. Tick or enter the categories/tags you want to read in the “Include” section, the categories/tags you don’t want to see in the “Exclude” section, and miscellaneous parameters like word count and completion status in the “More Options” section. The first two sections have various dropdowns that show the ten most common tags for each category.
Step 3: Watch out for fics that were obviously written by Wattpad authors.
Now, this might seem a little harsh— it is common knowledge that collectives should not be generalised, and doing so may unjustly disadvantage many people. However, as you probably want to save time when finding readable fics of decent quality, knowing that Wattpad fics are of generally worse quality would help you speed up your browsing process and save you lots of frustration as you drop yet another fic after the opening paragraph because they ended a paragraph with a comma,
If you haven’t read fanfic for long enough to figure out the signs of a Wattpad fic, here is a handy checklist that should help you weed out most of the bad fics:
Putting a ship or fandom in the title or summary. Most experienced AO3 users know that this information should be put in the tags so that users can easily find works.
Fancy lettering in the title or summary. Basically, if it looks like a Twitter handle (𝓵𝓲𝓴𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼), it’s probably not going to be very good. The summaries of most good AO3 works resemble the blurbs on the back of actual publications, or sometimes excerpts taken directly from the text.
The word “book” or “story”. This is terminology generally used on Wattpad, and the summaries of most fics don’t contain the typical “This book is about XXX” line, anyway.
If the ship name is used in the tags over the actual ship tag. AO3’s tagging system means that most ships are tagged like “Character A/Character B” instead of the ship names given by fans like Adrienette or Tododeku.
There are other signs, however these are some of the few most common ones that should be watched out for. Now that you know how to spot a Wattpad fic, let’s move on to the next stage.
Step 4: Bad fics, in general
If you’ve read up to here, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t mentioned the content of any works yet, and stick purely to formatting or writing gripes.
This is because I don’t want to demonise any sort of content — even if the concept seems cringey at first, good execution can make any concept work, even if the original idea was along the lines of “ABO pirates who solve mass injustices through the kidnapping of willing victims”. Unfortunately, the reverse is also true. Good concepts can be thoroughly ruined by bad execution, such as when the author seems to not know basic grammar and spelling, or when they keep referring to characters with euphemisms like “the taller one”, “the older boy”, or the dreaded “pinkette”.
Huge lists of tags with unnecessary information. Now, sometimes a stupid amount of tags is needed: one shot collections, for example — my general disdain for them aside, cover many different concepts that would likely be tagged, or if a fic is full to the brim with common triggers. However, if you see too many tags along the vein of “Smart Draco” or “Sassy Midoriya Izuku”, then the fic itself will probably be full of unnecessary information like hyper-detailed clothing descriptions in every single chapter.
I’m bad at tagging/I suck at summaries. If you know you’re bad at them, try and improve. You don’t need to say it, though you do get points for being honest, I guess. This is less of a red flag and more of a pet peeve for me, but it’s still something to watch out for.
/Reader or OC-centric fics. Self insert, also known as Y/N fic, is usually pretty bad. It’s not always terrible, but the vast majority of it will fall along the lines “Jungkook oppa” or just pure thirst fic. Original character (OC) inserts are basically the exact same, but the author bothered giving themselves a name. The presence of OC’s isn’t a red flag; only when they’re the main character as well.
The words Yaoi/Yuri/BL/GL/boyxboy/girlxgirl. If you see these on any fic published after 2015, run. Run as fast as you can in the opposite direction because the sheer amount of traditional gender roles the author will be trying to shove on top of an LGBTQ pairing are miles more offensive than cute.
Lack of spaces between paragraphs (especially dialogue). This one you might need to click into the fic to tell, but if the author can’t even get basic formatting right then there’s a high chance a lot of other things will be poorly handled as well.
Emojis in the title or summary. Just don’t. Trust me.
Now that you know the basics of spotting bad fics, go forth into the vast world of fanfic. Armed with these new tools, you’ll be far better equipped to navigate the stormy seas of new anime fandoms, fighting against the glaciers of group chat fics that threaten to capsize your dinghy.
I wish you all the best on your journey.
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