Fan fiction can be just "missing moments" from the canon plot with canon characters, with nothing at all contradicting the canon events. It can be a good read even if you know who lives and who dies. The story can describe events that happened before, during, and after the canon events.

The popular "what if" scenarios can be played with while keeping everyone in character and changing some event, leading to a "For Want of a Nail" story.
Fan fiction does not have to turn anyone into a slut (ruins all stories) or make anyone competent at what he does (ruins all stories set in the Potterverse).

 

True, I should have specified that I was talking about in author's notes. Obviously the characterization and reasoning should be in the actual story and not "A/N - lolz my characters are OOC because X Y and Z".

 

An example of this - http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7438403/1/Not_a_child

 

What's with all the noble titles and what not introduced out of no where? Lord Malfoy, the Longbottom of Longbottom, etc? Almost as ridiculous as the billions of gold coins in the bank.

 

Noble titles can be well used (think Circular Reasoning or Dagger and Rose) but stories where Harry is suddenly the lord of two dozen different houses that makes him the most powerful person in the Wizengamot are just plain bad.

 

One of my pet peeves is reading warnings about "spankings" in a summary. Does this warning make any sense? Does the writer want to warn the reader that this story is about some kind of spanking fetish? Or is this some kind of code I'm not familiar with?

 

I prize spanking warnings: The people who bother to warn about spanking or 'CP' (corporal punishment) are usually fetishists or soap box supporters of issues. And I don't want to read someone's soap box fix on the benefits (or lack there of) or corporal punishment for young children, teenagers, or whatever demographic they've chosen.

 

Actually not just spanking.There usually are more than that.

I think they should just write slash and leave it at that. I don't need to know what positions they do it in, just because of a cursory glance of the summary.

 

My current pet peeve is when authors are to lazy to explain why something happens or just wants to leave it to the mysteries of magic.

I was just reading a time travel story where Harry was in a duel and ended up being sent back in time to his fourth year, and then the author decided to randomly send back the other three triwizard tournament participants, even when it makes no sence why the other three are back in time to.

I decided to help him and have him explain WHY in the story and his response was...

 

That's what separates trash authors from the good ones.

 

Pretty awesome answer though.

 

No, it's dimwitted and he's to lazy to explain how things happen. Suspence of disbelief can carry a story only for so long.

He goes on to say that he doesn't care about specifics and he only writes to express himself. I hate it when people come up with retarded excuses to respond to criticism that they don't like, i just wish those people would just leave the fanon all-together.

 

Ah, good ol'e self expression, the catch-all excuse for why-I-didn't-bother-learning-or-conforming-to-the-rules-of-good-writing.

Note: as the old saying goes, you must first learn the rules and ways of the trade before you can break them in clever ways that still yield good writing (or art of any kind). This separates Kandinski from some 3-year-old and e. e. cummings's poems from My Immortal.

 

Pet Peeve: Authors making Dawlish hopelessly incompetent because he got his arse handed to him by Dumbledore a couple of times.

 

Well he did have his arse handed to him by Augusta Longbottom, too.
And Drik Cresswell, who was wandless at the time.
And was there anyone else? The witch or wizard who might've Confounded Dawlish, for instance.

 

He was still Confunded when Dirk Cresswell beat him. Also, it's amazing what an advantage surprise can give in a fight - I doubt he was expecting resistance from Augusta Longbottom.

 

We never get a clue to the extent of Augusta Longbottom's abilities but, considering her son seems to have been a good wizard, its not unreasonable to assume that she's got a fair bit of skill and power of her own.

 

These are all good, however I still think the worse(and i know its already been mentioned) its harry is a lord a million times over, has more gold than midas, and owns everything. Not just houses, the business, the land, and the people. My main nitpick for this is, If i owned everything within my society, why would i be going to school longer than i have to? I don't need to work, and working at most places would just be working for myself. It just paints a very(hmm whats the best comparison) bruce wayne scenario. Harry would just be a business tycon, and playboy. he could sleep 20 hours of the day and still be loved or needed by everyone.

 

I have a somewhat irrational pet peeve in that it bothers me when Harry's wand is changed for whatever reason(exception being that he is using the Elder wand). For some reason I just consider his Holly, Phoenix feather wand to be an intrinsic part of his character. To me it's like changing his eye and/or hair color.