#not just about Byler but about general themes and what is happening in the plot

[stranger-feathers]

Funniest thing about the stranger things love triangles for me is still the way the writers used almost the same plot beats twice, with siblings on both sides, with similar thematic resonance, and half the fans have still not caught up on where they're going. You are allowed to think it's not going to end up with canon Byler. But the amount of fans (people who are actually invested in watching and understanding the show you know) who won't even admit that they could be setting up a love triangle is still so strange to me. Genuinely, what more do you need to at least consider the possibility ?

[love-kurdt]

How to Write a Good Fanfiction: A 5 Step Manual

Hello! My name is @love_kurdt, also known as Eva, and I’m a Wattpad Veteran of the early 2010s, where the genres of Slash Fics, Y/N, and Imagines ran rampant. I spent years of my life as a kid scrolling through my iPod touch, weeding through Wattpad’s plethora of profiles, on a quest to find quality fanfictions. I found a handful, which I added to a specific reading list to come back to when I needed a break from screaming into my pillow because of the sheer audacity of thought-criminals who called themselves writers.

When I’d reached the point of reading the same five works over and over in a never ending cycle, I decided to make the life-altering decision to start publishing my fanfictions online. Granted, I was only thirteen at this point, so my writing wasn’t spectacular by any means, but I came to discover that over time, the mere acts of reading and writing can light a spark of inspiration that can carry you to creative success.

I’ve been writing my own works for over ten years now, and can confidently say that I have cracked the code to writing a good fanfiction that will have your readers captivated instead of cringing. Please don’t get me wrong– if you want to just write fanfic on the internet for fun, and not to write a novel, that’s great, too! That’s what the internet is for; exercising your free will. But this manual is tailored towards those who want to hone in on their craft and gain a substantial following as strictly fanfiction authors. So without further ado, let’s jump into it. Godspeed!

Step 1: Choose Your Fandom

What show, movie, or book has drawn you in and left you feeling like there should be more to the story? When one of those media comes to mind, you’ve chosen your fandom!

Step 2: Do Your Research

When writing fanfiction, it’s kind of an unspoken rule that you need to know the canon of the fandom you’re writing about. The canon is also known as the source material. For example, if someone were to write a Draco Malfoy x OC fanfiction (*cough* a 200+ page Draco Malfoy self insert fic written at 11 years old in a series of notebooks bound together with multiple layers of Gorilla tape *cough*), the canon would be the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. It’s, in essence, what “really” happened. It’s totally fine if you want to write a non-canon compliant fic, too! In fact, they’re extremely popular, specifically within the “fix-it” genre, which usually involves characters that died in the canon but the author kept alive in their fanfiction. Either way, you should have a general idea of how the canon functions within the context of the fandom, so you can make creative choices that diverge from or stick to the canon.

With the canon comes the fanon, which is basically a compilation of fan theories and headcanons that are often common themes in both canon and non-canon compliant fanfics. A pretty niche example of this is the Byler fandom (the ship between Stranger Things characters Will Byers and Mike Wheeler), where there’s an official list of theories on Tumblr that are used in many, if not most Byler fanfictions. There’s FlickerGate, where the flickering of the garage light in Season 1 is actually Will and Mike in the Upside Down in Season 5. There’s BirthdayGate, where the antagonist, Vecna, manipulates the minds of everyone in Hawkins to forget Will’s birthday, which is a central plot point in a lot of Byler fics since no one seems to remember it, not even his best friend. There’s also LetterGate, where Will confronts Mike in the canon about not sending any letters after he’d moved away, but the theory reveals that Mike wrote plenty of letters– he just never sent them because they ended up turning into love letters, which in turn resulted in internalized homophobia. You get the picture. Most theories reach far into the land of delusion, but it doesn’t stop writers from creating incredible work that could easily be mistaken for a script.

But Eva, what if I just think the characters are hot and I don’t give a shit about the cannonball? I can’t tell you what to do, my friend, but I highly suggest you at least consider the canon so you can avoid all the petty, obnoxious gatekeepers in some fandoms who can be unhinged enough to send death threats if you leave out a significant canonical detail. But you do you!

Step 3: Choose Your Platform

There are three popular platforms to choose from: Archive of Our Own (ao3), Tumblr, and Wattpad. There are also a few other lesser known or dead pages such as fanfiction.net, but I honestly wouldn’t bother with those, since they’re more infiltrated with anons and bots nowadays.

This is where you want to think about 1) where most of the members in the fandom you chose reside, and 2) the demographic of readers you want to reach. For example, I observed a higher number of Nirvana fans on Wattpad than the other two platforms, which is why I chose to post my full length Kurt Cobain fanfiction, “You Know You’re Right,” on there. It also helped that my favorite author of another Kurt Cobain fanfiction on Wattpad, @/ugh-nirvana, had hits in the hundreds of thousands, so I was confident that my book would do well on that specific platform. On the other hand, the Stranger Things fandom is in full swing on Tumblr and ao3, so I chose to post those fanfictions on there rather than on Wattpad. It all just depends on who’s where.

You also have to consider how active you want to be on your platform(s). Tumblr is more of a blog situation, while ao3 and Wattpad are solely for publishing the work. If you want to have a life beyond the realms of the world wide web, choose Wattpad or ao3, as inconsistent updates are a bit more accepted than on Tumblr. But if you want to throw yourself headfirst into a fandom and put your whole author-ussy into your fanfic, then Tumblr is the platform for you.

You should be aware, however, that Tumblr involves a lot of upkeep, as well as constant, strategic, and active participation within your fandom. Visual aesthetic is vital to any functional Tumblr blog. Most profiles have directories, with color coded links to each work’s homepage, which is linked to each individual chapter, which are then distinguished by a unique GIF to capture a prospective reader’s attention while they’re scrolling through copious amounts of content. And there are always new ideas and theories in development in certain fandoms, so it’s crucial to keep up with recent updates in order to stay relevant.

After all is said and done, you don’t have to get married to one platform for the rest of your life. You can choose to be exclusive to one or two platforms, or publish everything on all of them! The decision is ultimately yours!

Step 4: Obey the Writer’s Trifecta of Consistency

Yes, I came up with this term, and yes, it should be a real thing. Because in every piece of writing, whether it be fanfiction, a short story, an actual book, a screenplay, what have you, it is critical to be consistent in your People, your POV, and your Plot. Let me explain.

People

Your people, or your ensemble of characters, consists of three hierarchical levels: your protagonist/antagonist, your side characters, and other background characters. I should emphasize the importance of building character profiles for everyone, including your pre-existing characters from the fandom, but specifically for your original character(s) if you have them. That way, you know who serves as a major plot device, who serves as someone who just helps time move faster, and those who are mentioned by name but have very little significance to the events of the story. I’m going to reference Harry Potter again, since most of the world is familiar with the characters. Harry and Voldemort are the protagonist and antagonist; Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Professor Dumbledore, Hagrid and company are side characters; and Peeves, Seamus Finnigan, and Blaise Zabini are background characters. Keep this hierarchy in check; don’t let your main characters fade away, and don’t let your background characters shift to the forefront for no reason. If you do plan to move a character up or down the ladder, make sure to have clear motive as to why you’re bringing this character into or out of play.

2. POV

Your POV is the point of view in which you’re writing from. Assuming you’ve been in a typical middle school English class, you’ve heard of the first, second, and third person points of view. I cannot tell you how many times I have read fanfictions that jump from one POV to another, sometimes within the same sentence. I open the door and see Kurt Cobain standing in the corner of the room. She walked across the floor to meet him there. See what I did there? I jumped from first person present tense to third person past tense. Do not attempt this at home.

The least common of the three points of view is the second person, or what I like to call the Y/N point of view. In fanfiction, second person POV is often used in self-insert fics, where instead of a character’s name, it’s replaced with “you.” That’s why a lot of romantic character x reader fics are so popular. You should feel free to use this one, especially if that’s the kind of vibe you’re going for, but I’m going to elaborate a little bit more on first and third person, as they’re a bit more “literary.”

The first person POV confines the narration to the mind of one character. It can also be done with multiple characters, but be sure to do it so it’s painstakingly obvious to the reader whose POV you’re writing from. Also note that if you plan to write multiple first person POVs, try to keep that number on the lower side, as a large number of POVs can get really complicated really quickly. Third person narration can be done from two angles: limited or omniscient. Limited is more similar to first person, in which you’re confined to one person’s viewpoint, but they aren’t the narrator; you’re just seeing the story through their eyes. Omniscient is my favorite, because you can narrate from a bird’s eye view with the freedom to travel from mind to mind and read their thoughts.

Building character profiles can be really helpful when developing both first or third person POV; if you connect with a particular character more strongly than the rest, that should tell you whose POV you should write in. If you choose to switch POVs, be sure to do it either on an alternating/rotating basis, or if you repeat, it should be apparent as to why that particular character is the “voice” of that scene.

3. Plot

Dare I say that Plot is the most important step of them all, so do not skip this one, whatever you do! The biggest mistake most fanfiction writers make is having a concept but lacking a plot. It’s like biting into an apple just to discover it’s a lemon. Many writers are capable of starting off strong, but once their initial story begins to meander, traveling into uncharted territory, their brainchild can become a monstrosity.

In order to write a solid plot, it’s pretty common knowledge that you need to have a beginning, middle, and end in place. It doesn’t need to be overly specific or down to the last detail, you just need to figure out how your characters make it from point A to point Z (the larger scale), and how points B through Y factor into the plot (the smaller scale). There are a few routes that you can take in order to do this: you can write the entire thing ahead of time without any input, you can write the entire thing with the feedback of a beta reader or proofreader to help you work out any kinks or mistakes before you publish it for the entire platform to see, or you can publish it gradually and take feedback from your readers as you go. Should you go with the last option, though, you should be made aware that if you aren’t already an established author, it may feel like you’re talking to a wall, and you will likely feel discouraged from writing the story altogether.

I find it helpful to outline the whole thing. I have a closet door in my house dedicated to a Dave Grohl true crime fanfiction I’m working on. I’ve written the entire story from beginning to end on index cards, split into four different parts with each card representing a chapter. What’s good about outlining is that I can edit my story as I go along. If I decide to change something, I can add or remove an index card, then replace or rearrange the other index cards to work around the change I made, and that way, I don’t have to start over from scratch. It’s helpful to see everything laid out in front of me, so I’m not left at the end of a completely improvised plot with a slew of loose ends that I’ll need to go back and edit. It’s also better than publishing each part individually then having to redo everything after your readers have already seen it. And I don’t know about you, but I enjoy it when I’m able to save some time, energy, and lengthy explanations to random people online. That is, unless you enjoy constant feedback from readers, in which case you can change the plot on a chapter by chapter basis based on their feedback.

Consistency in all of these respects is key. I cannot emphasize this enough. Keeping all of these elements in check will help you create a sort of cohesiveness that will neatly wrap the story up with a little bow on top. 

Step 5: Use Relevant Tags and Content Warnings

Repeat after me: tags matter! Again: tags matter! When you’re about to publish your fanfiction, you’re going to be given the option to add tags to your work. For my first few years spent on Wattpad, I had no idea what tags were, so I didn’t use them. Thankfully, the platform was still pretty small, so people still found my work pretty easily. Nowadays, though, it’s nearly impossible to find what you’re looking for without searching excessively specific tags and using a million filters. It’s unfortunate, but look at it this way: there are so many people contributing to so many fandoms that the content is seemingly endless!

What you’re going to want to do is add as many tags as you can but keep it as simple as possible. I know that sounds kind of oxymoronic, but I mean it in a way that all of your tags relate directly to your story, and not just to the fandom itself. A lot of readers feel misled when they’re scrolling through their filtered search page for, let’s just say, a Byler fanfic, and end up neck deep in a Mileven fanfic in disguise. That’s not a fun experience.

Lastly, please remember that you are publishing your work on the internet, and you don’t know who may encounter your work! Listen, we live in a world where everything needs to be overexplained, everything needs trigger warnings, and everything needs to be neutral or else someone is going to hate you. I get it. I’ve been writing fanfiction for a long time. It might be annoying to add content warnings, especially if one of those warnings spoils a major plotline, but if I’m being honest, I’d rather be safe and add the damn warning than not add the warning and be responsible for someone’s worsened emotional or mental state. Bottom line, it’s just fanfiction! Let’s do our due diligence to create a community full of love and understanding for everyone!

After that, you should be all set to publish! Let’s review one more time for the road:

Choose Your Fandom

Do Your Research

Choose Your Platform

Obey the Writer’s Trifecta of Consistency

Use Relevant Tags and Content Warnings

If you’ve stuck around for this long, thank you so much!

I hope this manual helps you along your fanfiction writing journey, wherever it takes you <3

[castlebyersafterdark]

I gotta say I'm not really sure how they're gonna pace the show, in regards to Byler but also stuff in general. Maybe it's because I just woke up and I can't think about it lol (good morning btw!)

If it were a book I could tell you, lol, but in this case with how long some eps are gonna be, and with us getting the same number of eps as previous seasons, it's such a complicated beast in my opinion.

And I'm of two minds about the Byler of it all: I want byler yesterday, lol, and part of me would loooove to have a kiss or some undeniable romantic hand holding, etc., that shows they have something going on, earlier the better.

the other part fucking loves that it could take time. Now, I do not want it to be the last fucking episode or worse yet, the last scenes of the epilogue. Fuck that noise. But I could be convinced that the Big Byler Kiss happens later in the season, since this season has to build up byler in a new way. We have all our evidence and such for the last 4, but I'm sure the writers are aware that all that isn't gonna be enough to demonstrate the bond that's forming, if that makes sense. We need Will and Mike doing the Nancy and Jonathan stuff a la seasons 1 and 2; we need their angst, the TRUE LONGING AND PINING MY GOD, and finally seeing both boys struggle more explicitly with their feelings, internal and external. Because they are older teens now, their more developed minds will start to face the logic of how they feel toward each other. Logic, feelings that get harder to ignore, especially when faced with the existential threats of Vecna, and either boy coming face to face with the risk of losing the other.

Ramble over!

Love a good ramble!! Hell yeah! 😁

The pacing and the meat of the show plot eluuuudes me and it's why I find it hard for myself to commit to theorizing. Because I can spin a chat about themes and allegories and character arcs all day... but what are they actually gonna do!?!? We have ideas but wildly unknown details. The details are going to be what really surprises us and we cannot predict that stuff. How do they get from point A to B to C - and we're only guessing the letters anyway. We might not be even using the right alphabet.

I'm with you and most I feel where Byler getting together too soon isn't exactly what I want, but the slowest burn isn't satisfying either. I said this previously and got absolutely blasted for saying it but I'm gonna stand firm and hold to my personal opinion - Will and Mike deserve better than that. Yes, deserve. Their characters deserve the longing and pining and relationship/friendship moments like Nancy and Jonathan and then a grand get together - but a get together that holds meaning within the still in process of the show. They deserve to get together before the climax, not after, not only in the epilogue. Can't we see how that's unfair if they're getting together at all?

Later in the season, but with the trajectory that we can see it might be headed there, oh gosh it's actually headed there, oh yesssss it's happening. Given time to build our investment, then payoff, then enjoyment. Maybe it's a class of interests, but personally I'm not one who enjoys the get together and the resolution is the whole thing. It's why I'll read them, but "get together" fics aren't my favorite because they end at the first kiss and then we leave. Seeing a little bit of the after and what that means is everything. And in the context of the show... to have Byler be the only one who had to wait until the very last moment to get together feels pointed and unsatisfying to be quite honest... but I don't think that'll happen. I'm not certain on when or how, but getting Will and Mike together before the climactic peak of the overall narrative only raises their personal stakes sky high and that's exactly what I'm invested in.

Several days later but hello! Good morning!!

[tsugarubecker]

So, I’ve mentioned that I think ST is about refuting “boy meets girl and romance ensues”, but I think it goes deeper than that. Or, put another way, they’re not just casually making that statement: I think that’s their giant, neon-lights thesis statement of the show.  I think that the show is 1 part sci-fi, 1 part social critique. I think that Karen, Nancy, Mike, and others are being used to show what it looks like when people simply follow along with society’s ideas of what we should do, who we should like, etc. Heteronormativity, in other words. Because heteronormativity includes being straight, cis, being romantically interested in the “opposite sex”  because they do basic tropes like look pretty or have a good job, getting married, having several kids, getting a house with a picket fence, etc. All of that is the overarching societal message of heteronormativity. And Karen, Nancy, and Mike are all in danger of listening to those societal messages - instead of listening to their own hearts. Sometimes, they are actively repressing and shouting down the voices in their hearts, which have different opinions than the “normal,” socially accepted ones. (In Karen’s case, it’s less that she’s in danger, more she already signed herself up for a life she didn’t truly want. And now maybe she will find her way out. I’m not the only person gently suggesting she get a divorce...) I mean, think about just how many couples there are in this sci-fi show. Almost seems a little excessive, doesn’t it? If the show was all about the sci-fi? But it’s not all about the plot. It’s a show that is also doing a bunch of character studies. And it has an overall theme to those character studies. Taken from a larger lens, it’s a study of romance/romantic relationships and how those happen in the context of our society. Therefore by necessity the show is critiquing heteronormativity.* I think the reason S3 was all brighty brighty and fakey fakey, and why it focused on the couples and on how-to-be-straight (thanks Lucas), and why it was called “the season of love,” is because S3 was set up to show how “let’s just follow the social norms” doesn’t work very well actually.  ( @kaypeace21 has written about that specific topic before, and other related ideas. If you look for this section of her pinned post, you’ll find some of her thoughts, although she has many more: s3 meta: about  lack of communication, the critique of commercialism, and the misinterpretation of s3′s plot/characters appearing ‘shallow’ ) Another related phrase for “the social norms” or “the social script” or heteronormativity is “the relationship escalator.” See this link. Polyamorous folks (which I am, sort of) talk about this concept a lot, because polyamorous relationships often do not follow the relationship escalator. The relationship escalator is one of the messages put upon all of us - it’s something we are supposed to pursue and we aren’t really supposed to question that - so, as such, it’s a part of heteronormativity.  I believe that this show is, again: 1 part sci-fi romp, 1 part critique of heteronormativity. And I think that it is deeply difficult for audiences to see that this show is one giant critique, because only people who have critiqued these structures themselves before could possibly notice it. To anyone who has never been bothered by these structures, from what they can see, the couples in this show are just doing normal stuff. How can the majority of the audience know what’s coming (subverting a lot of things having to do with heteronormativity - including the fruition of Byler) if they have never noticed the social structures happening around them? How can they see a critique of those structures if they aren’t aware the structures exist? (Now it’s like The Matrix... anyone know if The Matrix was cited as a film reference?) This show, if you ask me, in the end is going to make a whole generation (or, uh - several generations I suppose, since lots of age groups watch this show) realize that they have a choice. A choice to either go along with heteronormative social structures, or a choice to question just-falling-into-it with people and blindly riding the relationship escalator. They have a choice - they can step back and reflect and listen to their hearts and figure out what they really want out of a relationship. And then advocate for their wants, express them to others. They can really be intentional with their choice of partner, with what kind of a relationship they truly want to have. I’m not sure why this social critique is important to The Duffers, but it seems like it is, and I think they’re really trying to put this message our there to the masses. And I’m glad that that feels important to them. I think it would be a beautiful thing if more people reflect on the dangers and harms of heteronormativity, because if we have a world with less of those oppressive assumptions and structures, more people can be “queer” in the sense of creating their own path instead of just following one that’s set out for them. And I do feel like that will bring more acceptance of others’ choices for their own relationships, whatever those choices might look like (gay, straight, queer, poly, mono, kids, no kids, community-raising kids, etc etc etc).  *sidenote there’s a bunch in this show talking about parenting as well, and subverting tropes on that. And family love... in an even larger sense I think this show is about the nature of love/the many forms love can take. (KP21 has written good stuff on these topics, as well, so check out her posts for further reading)

[sevensided]

How do you think Stranger Things will end? How do you want it to end?

OH GOSH. What a question!! It’s a cop out to say that I want everyone to be happy and for their character arcs to come to a satisfying conclusion... but it’s also true. Mainly, I’d like:

Mike and Will to recognise their feelings for each other and subvert the expectations of genre and GET TOGETHER.

Eleven to find inner peace and forgive/reconcile her past with Papa in a way that makes sense to her (which is a plot arc already built up since she met Kali in S2, so it needs to be resolved, basically).

Karen to divorce Ted. Kidding! Or am I... No, really what I’d love is for Karen to become involved alongside Joyce and Hopper. I’ve spoken before about how a running theme in ST is maternal love. It makes sense for Karen to get involved as there’s always been an emphasis on the Wheeler/Byler families, and so far Mike has kept everything (more or less) from his family... so it could be interesting to bring Karen in and parallel this action with Mike opening up to his mum.

For Joyce to find happiness. All she wants is to smoke a cigarette in peace, lol. Whether that’s with Hopper is neither here nor there (although they will be endgame... like, anyone who thinks they won’t clearly doesn’t understand that their love story is a lynchpin of the series). I just really, really want her to feel SAFE. She hasn’t felt safe for so long.

In S1 they clearly showed the Party coming full circle and growing collectively and as individuals. I want that to happen on a bigger scale. They’re all going to grow up -- but they shouldn’t grow apart. Stephen King’s IT is often cited by the Duffers as a central inspiration for ST. One of the major tenets of that book is a group of children growing up but never away from each other, because they have been bound by a deeply unusual experience. That has to happen to the Party. It already has, but... I want more bonding, really.

In terms of general ending... this is so big. I’ve seen so many theories and read so many analyses. I think, for me personally, what I want most of all is closure. I like the idea of ST being a book that Mike writes. I think that gives it a little Hobbit wink that would be really sweet and smart. Actually, I almost definitely want that to be the case. I don’t even especially care if the fates of the Party are established (like some dorky kind of *here’s Dustin building a rocket* *this is Lucas as a quantum physicist* *here’s Mike and Will watering their plants and living a very wholesome gay life in New York*) -- I just want the story to come full circle and feel fulfilling. We can make up what happens next ;)

This is such a good question and this is just ramble! Thank you so much for asking me. I absolutely love thinking about this. Thank you.

[castlebyersafterdark]

i always remember finn saying that mike isnt the most complex character he's ever played. people don't talk about it much - he was referencing ziggy who he played in WYFSTW instead as the most complex, and maybe they think it's not good byler evidence, but i would argue its a nice way of saying that a guy going through comphet and being in love with his male bestie, masking and bearding with a girlfriend, isnt actually that uncommon an experience. ziggy character was bisexual (explicitly in the film) and also going through lots of psychological issues opposite his mother. the whole film was more subdued where ST is on the nose and brash in many ways.

idk, to me it just was like finn saying 'yeah, mike's gay, and it's no biggie'. obv its a big deal as rep for many people, but him being gay isnt the main plot twist of s5, you know? thats what i took from him saying that.

I agree with this one!! I think that's actually a positive for Byler, and Mike as well. And it's not to say that Mike isn't truly complex or compelling when you break him down into subtleties for those interested in engaging deep beyond what is directly happening on screen - however, Mike is very much also designed to be our relatable everyman. Which is fantastic, being that character and now his character arc has led him here. Great story telling for the average watcher. I know a lot of general fans "hate" Mike currently and I've seen a bunch of articles saying he need to be made more sympathetic. Well!! Here we are. If you actually want to engage with the themes of the show, eyes will be opened. It's a common experience but not one common in mainstream media. And it's actually not the main plot twist. I have to say it, I love saying it - the love story between two boys in the 1980s isn't the biggest twist, not presented as totally unbelievable. There are stranger thi- 😵🔫🔫🔫