My Failures ... Words of Wisdom to Those Starting a FanFic Series

[Major Mike David]

(To all visitors who view this thread: Please just take the time to read through my first posts before commenting, asking questions, or jumping to conclusions. Thanks.)

WARNING: The following content contains the usage of profanity and vulgarity. But is in accordance to the PG standards (Hopefully ). Read at your own discretion.

Hi there guys. I’m pretty sure a lot of people know me through my reputation of… I think the right word would be…“failure.” This thread is devoted to people starting a fan fiction series and my words of wisdom to you from someone who has failed, and failed miserably. This is also a thread to those that I have disappointed and have done a great disservice to throughout my time in the forums here on Gateworld, and I would like to apologize to you guys about it after I have discussed the important points about the creation of a fan fic series. And I also have an announcement to make to the general audience about SGE after all the other stuff I said I would talk about in the above.

I will discuss several major points concerning the creation of a fan fiction series.
First: Do not be overly ambitious with your idea of the way the series should be created.
Second: Think *small*, not BIG.
Third: If you plan on getting a group of people to help you out with this series, keep it limited between three to four people at the most. Five is the max (BUT NOT suggested).
Forth: Keep in regular contact with your members who are apart of your project.
Fifth: Do not spend too much time on details about characters/tech/etc. and/or on research that have/has nothing to relate to the overall story itself.
Sixth: Do not advertise your series until you’ve got several episodes written and edited. And also do not go about bragging about how awesome your series is to everyone. Just to give you a basic example of what I mean: “OMG MY SERIES IS DA BEST AND IT IS TOTALLY GONNA KICK ARSE AND IT IS SOMETHING YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE! OMG!”
Seventh: NEVER, NEVER LEAVE WITHOUT TELLING YOUR CREW WHERE YOU’RE GOING TO BE AT OR WHAT YOU WILL BE DOING OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS OR WHATEVER!
Eighth: Don’t be an Arsehole. (I stress this heavily, as it is very important.)
Ninth: Make friends on the forums. As many as you can. It will benefit you.

******

Now… let us begin…

FIRST off, if you plan on creating a fan fiction series, do NOT, whatever you do, DO NOT be to overly ambitious about your ideas for the series. The more ambitious you become, the worse you’re going to fail, and you’re going to fail miserably, like I have. I’m a living testament of probably of one of the worst failures on this forum. So I say again. DO not be too ambitious when starting a fanfic series.

When I began my series, I was really ambitious and I worked hard the first few months on the series, UNTIL I screwed up. Once you screw up, you better be prepared to face the consequences and not make the same mistake twice. People will look to you to correct your mistakes and to not expect it to happen again. Once you make a habit of it though, people will lose faith not only in YOU, but also in your series. And your ambition will be viewed as too much and they will think that you will need to tone your eagerness down a bit. A Wiseman once said “A real leader will listen to the concerns of those below him. A leader, who does not consider the words of those under him, is a fool.” Ambition can easily turn on you, and lead to your downfall. Now please do not misunderstand me. You can be ambitious, but my point is, is that you DO NOT want to be too ambitious because it is a very risky business and you’re not going to like the penalties if you make a mistake.

SECOND. Now that you know not to be excessively ambitious, you need to think small. This ties in directly with, guess what… AMBITION! If you THINK BIG, you are being too AMBITIOUS and that is not good one bit. Let your series be small. Start writing the stories once you have the ground work set and your plot written as early as possible. This will benefit you, trust me. Your series will start small, and that is good. It will grow over time, and will, hopefully, begin drawing attention from the residents of this forum. As people become tuned into your series and start to show interest and admiration for the stories you’ve written so far, you will, as writer and creator of your own series start to feel good about your accomplishments on these forums. And you will be glad that you did not start off as too ambitious.

THIRD major point: This is really important, so listen up. If you NEED HELP in creating your series, then you will need to go through, find someone who is talented, and ask if they are willing to help you. Don’t be disappointed if they say no. Find someone who will be willing to write episodes along with you, someone to edit your stories (WHO KNOWS what their doing), and one or two moderators who can also serve as your tech guys. If you get too many people working on the project alongside you, things will become hectic and very difficult. Things will not just become more harder to finish, but they will also take longer to finish because you have everyone giving their input concerning the way they think something should go as apposed to someone else’s opinion. Basically put, there winds up being a lot of competition, which is unhealthy for a new series.

When developing the plot of the story and such, always keep your team informed of what the story is about, who is going to do what, who is going to die, who is going to blow the gou’uld’s mothership to smithereens, and so forth. If you fail to do this, your teammates involved in this project of yours, will slowly lose interest in the series because you are keeping them in the dark and they don’t know WHAT THE HELL is going on. You will make them feel as if they are there for your own convenience and as tools. Get your members involved! Make them feel like they are one with the story like you are. Don’t bullsh*t around with other people’s time. They are there to HELP YOU because you asked them to be, and if you’re going to disrespect them by not including them into what is going down in the story, than you might as well tell them to bugger off and to stop assisting you.

[Major Mike David]

FOUR. This connects to both the third and seventh points. This is quite possibly one of the most important things you can do if you have a team helping you create your series. ALWAYS, NO MATTER WHAT! Always keep your fellow project members updated on your whereabouts. If you have to leave for the weekend or for the whole week lets say, you better as sweet mother of John Adams let them know why the hell you’re not going to be in contact with them in the next few days. Inform them of what you will be doing during the weekend or the week, or however long you are going to be gone, because then that lets your team know that you have not abandoned them. I will emphasize this more heavily in the seventh tip.

FIVE. Now that you’ve got things rolling for the series and what not, you need to start focusing on writing your stories. But! You see that you can’t write a chapter in the episode because you need to be aware of the way a character acts in the story, or how a piece of technology works, or how you need to make a character blurt out a whole lot of techno-babble and you need to make sure you that what your making your character say is plausible and what have you. So! What you need to do is spend sometime creating simple details for a piece of tech or character that you’re developing. DO NOT CREATE HUGE CHARACTER OR TECH PROFILES! IT IS A WASTE OF TIME! Things will grow on their own in the series. Be aware that you are also going to have to do some research into whatever you are needed to create. And this is where a lot of writers become stuck or confused.

A writer can easily become lost in a sea of information that they may be developing for something in the series. You, as the writer of your series, need to decide what research is necessary and what too much research is. Writers become lost in the sea of research and they lose focus of the centralized point of their story. You need to be sure you know what you need to look up and how much time you’re going to spend looking up whatever you need. Because I myself made the mistake many times by conducting too much time on research or on developing something for the story, rather than spending actual time writing the damn series. You do not want to make this mistake. It will cause you a lot of trouble. So keep that in mind the next time you spend researching and such.

SIX. This is relatively self-explanatory, but I’m going to elaborate on this and give you a great example of how I screwed up and let you feed off of my experience on this matter. If you are going to advertise your story/series to the general public via creating a thread on these forums, you better as hell have at least most of the first season complete, AND EDITED. If there is one thing that I’ve learned about the fans of Stargate, is that they have a desire to consume stories, critique them, and spit them out once they’re finished. They will not have mercy on you. They WILL. DEMAND. FOR episodes. And you better as Saint John pay up mate. Because you will be on hot coals if you don’t and if you fail to cough up an episode or two in the first few weeks, everyone is going to think you are a fake and a waste of their time. It is a good way to become ostracized.

And secondly, whatever you do! DON’T be the idiot who goes about bragging about how your series is something “so totally original and something that no one has ever seen before in these forums.” That is quite possibly one of the most stupid things you can do, and trust me, knowing the wide-range of individuals who have read many stories and come from different backgrounds, I guarantee you, that there are at least one or more people here who have seen the sort of series you are writing. Maybe not written in the exact same way as the story that they read, but something similar to the effect.

To give you an example of the way I messed up, was that I was “once upon a time a screw up.” Now not anymore since I have very recently learned my lesson the hard way, and I now finally understand the full extent of what it means to be seen as a cheap-shot, wacko, and failure on these forums when you fail everyone more than once. When I started my series, I was overly ambitious, I thought big, I spent too much time on research rather then having spent time on writing the episodes, and I went about bragging about my series. I got EVERYBODYS hopes up and everybody (well… almost everybody) saw so much potential in the story. I felt like I was on top of the world for the first few months. Then things started to go down hill rapidly... ONE.AT.A.TIME.

If there is one thing that everyone hates, is that it is the person who goes about bragging. The second thing that I did wrong was that I began to advertise my series. It finally came down to a climatic scene when I created a thread for my series titled “Project SGE - Fan Fiction Series by Apex Prod. ”. Oh boy wasn’t I in a deep load of crap when I didn’t spit out a couple episodes the first week. Do not go about advertising your series UNTIL you have something to post; SUCH AS AN EPISODE. Also, if you’re planning on make a website to post your episodes, start it out small, and as time goes on, let it grow. Fanfiction.net is an excellent place to also post your stories as well, so you might want to check that website out.

My last advice that I give concerning this subject is, is that you want to show humility. You want to be humble about your series, you don’t want to brag. Don’t go around talking to everyone about it. AND MOST especially don’t get everyone’s hopes up about it as well. If you do, you’ll regret it.

SEVEN. Where many of my mistakes all began were when I started to fade on and off the forums. Leaving for a few weeks at a time and then returning… then fading off for a month… then three months… until it got a lot worse. If you are working alongside a team who are devoted to helping you create your project series, you better as hell let them know what you are going to be up to when you don’t have the time to get on the forums.

Everyone hates it when the creator of the series abandons them and doesn’t let them know what his situation is in real life. And your members are not going to forgive you easily if you do it to them consistently. They might not at all forgive you period so you better not screw your friends over or else you’re really going to regret it. You are going to have piss-poor odds if you’re expecting them to forgive you right off the bat. Now the only exception to this is if you get ran over by a buss or get shot because you’re in the military and you die. If you survive then you’re one tough bas*ard, but it turns out you have some pretty bad injuries, then I think everyone might cut you some slack. But the probability of that occurring is not that likely (unless if your military). But the point is, is that you don’t want to LEAVE WITHOUT letting your friends know your whereabouts.

[Major Mike David]

EIGHT. Don’t be an arsehole. It is as simple as 1 2 3. Show everyone the respect they deserve, just the way you expect it in return. Show humility and deference toward the individuals who are critiquing your work. If you think they are being mean or rude to you in any way, privately speak to them and ask if they were intentionally be a jerk to you or not, or if that is the way they normally are when giving constructive criticism. Don’t jump to conclusions about the individual who criticized your work… to put it simply… don’t judge. There are going to be those that like your work and those that do not. It is apart of life, get over it.

I got frustrated with some people, most notably SBZ, and got a lil’snappy. Even though everything that she said had merit and most of it all I agreed with, it still didn’t give me, the creator, an excuse to go about being an arse to her. I admit right now that I didn’t show the respect that everyone deserved and in return some people believed that I was an arse, with some describing me with some other colorful words behind my back. I don’t blame them. I think of myself as arse too, .

So if you don’t want people to F with you, then show them respect. They’ll eventually show respect back to you, unless if they just don’t like you period. My inexperience with creating a series showed greatly when I failed to show the proper respect toward individuals, when I didn’t post some episodes, and when I demonstrated a lack of responsibility to my team. Oh AND which by the way my team as all pretty much abandoned me (in exception to *MAYBE* puddlejumperOz) because of the failures that occurred on my part throughout the growth of this series. AND BECAUSE I pretty much have done all the above points that I have discussed. Yea, talk about screwed. I was an arse to my team when I continued to fade on and off for long periods of time without letting my members know what I was up to in real life, and that showed my irresponsibility to the project and to my teammates.

Last but not least, point NINE. This is one of the most important pieces of advice I can probably give out to those starting a fan fic series. If you don’t want people to disrespect you, you want to have friends on these forums. If you want to be seen as reliable, then you better demonstrate it to the friends you are making in the forums. If you want people to show support toward your series once you publish the first episode, you want to have friends on here. As a Wiseman once said to me, “Lesson No101, making friends Mike, will be your key to success for the SGE, if you fail at that, the project will go belly up.”

The man that told me that was absolutely right, but it is somewhat too late for me as I had already F’ed up my series by the mistakes that I made, but hopefully I can rectify those faults by starting over from scratch on these forums and be given a second chance.

Finally… let people know that you care. Not only that… SHOW THEM, that you care. Demonstrate it to them and you might find yourself amongst friends, probably, if they like you enough, .

So THEN… chew on that for a few days before you start thinking about creating a fan fic series ladies and gentlemen (to those of you planning on starting one of course). Please note that this is all based off of my own experience and some of my own opinions that I strongly believe should be considered before starting a fanfic series.

People that I RECOMMEND HIGHLY for individuals to go and speak to first before you start thinking about creating a fan fic series are as followed:
SBZ, puddlejumperOz, Garrowan5th, Dragon_Heart, s09119, Aragon101, Amann, and good'ol Crazy Tom. Now these are individuals here, directly on the forums itself. If you wish to speak to other individuals who have experience in writing but that don’t post their stories on Gateworld, try looking through fanfiction.net. Skydiver, our resident moderator, knows a quite a bit about writing and I suggest people should also speak with her. Other individuals are Col.Foley and Padme18.

If you are someone planning on starting a virtual fleet, and you ended up on this side of the forums and stumbled upon this thread, then I suggest you to speak to the great Immhotep, Buba uognarf, db-2007, and Lt. Col. Mcoy.

Now that I’ve given the advice that I can to the people that the above ministers to, I will now address a more important matter. Public apology to everyone involved, or more correctly, were involved, in Project SGE, to the people that I got your hopes up, to the people that I disrespected, and to my friends at Gateworld Virtual Fleet 3.0-4.0. And I also have a public announcement to make concerning SGE.

Here goes one of the hardest things I have ever done on a forum…

I, Major Mike David, apologize for screwing up and for screwing everyone else over. I apologize to my former staff of members who helped me out a lot on Project SGE. I’m sorry for the way that I abandoned you guys the way I did, the way that I showed irresponsibility, and for not communicating to you guys in the ways that I should have in the very beginning. It was wrong of me to have done so. This also goes out to the members of GWVF3.0-4.0, you guys were my buddies and I was apart of the team but I abandoned you guys as well and so and so forth. Nothing can change the fact that I screwed up. But I’m sorry. That’s all I can say.

I am sorry to everyone that I got your hopes up about the series and that it didn’t pull through the way that I said it would, and as a result, it has led to this creation of this very thread. I apologize to everyone for being an arse and for being disrespectful. It was wrong.

For those of you that are not aware of my past negligence and irresponsibility toward my teammates, then I suggest that you go and talk to them about it.

I would like to resolve my mistakes on these forums by starting over if you will. Hopefully, everyone will give me a chance for redemption. I would like to start over with my friendships with everyone that I know and hopefully make some new friends also.

This thread may sound as if I’m simply trying to gain attention, but IT IS NOT. To tell you the truth, this whole public apology on the forums sounds absolutely stupid and it seems as if it is something that a celebrity would do on national television (Not that I’m a celebrity or anything like that. Especially not on here, .) For those of you who think that I’m totally stupid/idiot/retard for making this apologize, read my letters… I. DON’T.CARE. I’m doing this for the people that I F’ed over. Don’t give me your BS, whatever you do. I have enough on my mind trying to repair my damaged reputation among everyone here as it is.

[Major Mike David]

Well, I hope that pretty much covers everything…

Now for the public statement about SGE…

Several changes have been instigated as of today.
With the shred of respect and dignity that I have left on these forums, I will not be discussing the making and/or progress of this series on any public threads or on these forums period. In the exception of course for the group page that I made for the series, which will remain and will be from time to time be used. I will take on the development of the series on my own for the most part and be working on establishing it the way that I promised I would to everyone else. It will take sometime until individuals here on the forums of Gateworld will have the chance to read the premier episode of SGE.

For everyone involved in the series, you may return if you wish, but know that you do not have to whatsoever. If you want to at least help out a little bit, just let me know via PM. The thread that I created concerning Project SGE titled “Project SGE - Fan Fiction Series by Apex Prod.” http://forum.gateworld.net/threads/7...s-by-Apex-Prod, will remain as a testament of my failure. I am not going to ask for it to be removed. If Skydiver feels that it needs to be removed, then so be it, but I’m not going to ask her to delete it. I want for the people who are planning on making a fan fiction series to see something that will give them a good idea of “WHAT NOT” to do. I want the new guys to see my failure so that it gives them an incentive to do better and not to screw up in the way that I did with my series.

I am leaving in thirteen days for my military training. I will be gone for 19 weeks, being trained to become an MP, and will return sometime in mid or late November. School starts back up in the spring for me, so I will be attending. Hopefully my time in training will give me a good mindset of responsibility and getting things done quickly rather then later.

The good news is, is that when I get back, I’ll have the necessary time to work on my series. I will take the time practicing my writing and editing like crazy while working on the episodes of SGE. When I said I wanted this to be a great series, I meant it. And I’m going to finish it one way or another the way I said I would, it is just going to take longer now then I ever expected it to, and you’ll just have to sit and wait (for those of you who still might hold faith in me still). I already have all the ground work set, all that needs to be done is to write the episodes. I want to be able to write the stories where they will be able to read like a book, so that everyone can enjoy them and know that I took the time to perfect the merchandise as best as I could until I released it to the general public.

I will be unable to post on the forums while I’m gone during the 19 weeks, but when I return, I’ll be active, but concentrating on school and on the series of course. I promise that I will remain humble about SGE and I will never go about bragging about the series ever again. I will only advertise it once I’ve actually finished a quite a bit of episodes. When the time is right, when I have returned, repaired my reputation, and developed the series the way that I planned for it to be in the beginning (but staying small), I will release the first season for everyone’s pleasure.

Without further ado, I’m turning the thread over to everyone’s questions and comments. Thanks for reading my long rant (and advice to those starting a fanfic series).

Sincerely,

-MMD

[puddlejumperOZ]

Humble......and damned long, lucky for you young Padawan I had my coffee this morning. So we'll see how this plays out. Word of advice, take a moment or two when you're away, to just pop in and say hi, it doesn't take a minute and even in basic training you'll get access to a computer....somewhere.

[Major Mike David]

Haha, my bad Boss.

Well, at Basic, our military DOES NOT allow the access or usage of computers. However at AIT, which is the last 9 weeks of my training for my job, we are allowed accesss, but I don't know if I'll have that much time because becoming an MP requires an arse load of studying, especially since we have to learn all these laws and stuff. The base that I'm going to is much more strict than many of the other forts across the States. However, I'll be sure to drop in a few posts WHEN I get the time (which should be during the weekends) if there are any laptops around. They don't have comps for soldiers to surf on, you have to get your own computer, haha.

[puddlejumperOZ]

My gods lad, you're in the wrong Army. At basic camps here there is a net cafe' within the recruits complex

[Major Mike David]

You want to know the secret to the US military and it's success? They train us soldiers to learn how to kill and fight, they don't give us sh*t to do. The U.S. Marines are bulldogs. The U.S. Army are rottweilers. Once in a while, they'll let us out to have fun. And then they cage us back in. It is why we're all so damn angry all the time, haha. And why we kill so well too to tell you the truth. It is because of this very reason we know how to do are jobs well, and of course... WITH STYLE (check it ):

[puddlejumperOZ]

The truth is, and this is from an Aussie, the British Army is the best in the world and well the USMC, meh, they're good at getting shot Nah they're ok, just not as good as they should be

[Major Mike David]

I think that is debatable, but both sides have their pros and cons. Lol, the Marines may be good at geting shot at, but you put a whole company together and throw them at the enemy, you might as well sign your death warrant. Just like the RMC, the USMC has no mercy. But, all in all, to tell you the truth, I could give a rat's arse who is the better army, haha. We are all warriors and if aliens invaded, we'd kick their arse.

[puddlejumperOZ]

And we can send these fella's in as well

[Amann]

I thank you about the kind words regarding myself, and I also think this thread was a good one in showcasing how the new blood wants to succeed. I also am willing to help any newcomers, although my time is fairly limited So we will see what happens, I might not reply right away, but I can probably give anyone a good response or idea.

I admit I do have a small team of highly trained monkeys to run my story.....although I do help with their stories too

Vexmaster- my RP specialist in chief and consultant on ChiYou and the clone armies in Golden Dawn story. A very highly trained monkey. He is not on Gateworld, but he is on my msn and also on FF.net as VexMaster.

Princess Awinita- My consultant on the Drow characters. I don't consult her AS much as Vex, but that is mainly because the Drow are not as big yet in the story I do however like her input on women characters too Also on my MSN and on FF.net as AutumnStarr

Alteran of Atlantis- A person who gives me good advice on stories as well. I also bounce ideas off her. FF.net is AutumnLeavesAreFalling

Col Foley- He has a fairly small role in my stories in that I bounce ideas off him and he gives me the best critiques for my story. FF.net name Col. Foley. I also plan to co-write a story with him in the future.

ALSO, I loled hard at the checkpoint video.... EPIC

[puddlejumperOZ]

^^^^ You forgot the endless streams of IM's and advice you got from a certain Naval Commander

[Amann]

^^^^ You forgot the endless streams of IM's and advice you got from a certain Naval Commander

well its hard to list every single freaking person on my list I was bound to miss someone....its kinda like the guest list....sometimes you forget to invite that one person......

[puddlejumperOZ]

well its hard to list every single freaking person on my list I was bound to miss someone....its kinda like the guest list....sometimes you forget to invite that one person......

Ah like the party list..."Oh sorry mum, I forgot to invite you"

"It's ok son, I know I won't be missed....at my own frekkin birthday!"