Contemplating Clouds.

One of the best fan fiction has to offer and sums up everything about good fan fiction; interesting, funny, supremely better written than canon and different enough to be worth reading.

 

^^^I second that. Easily a fun read without anything too far from canon, gives some great romance and also leaves the reader hanging(that's a hint, btw) so they'll seek other outlets.

Also, has anyone else been ruined for H/L fics because of how good Contemplating Clouds is*? I keep finding myself wanting every other fic I read to be as good as it. (Fuck you, Tehan.)

*Nmb's sig aside, since I've yet to take a crack at that.

 

'Make a Wish' Maybe,

'Black comedy' was mentioned,

Something relatively light and humorous to start out with.

Then move them on to (And you're going to skin me for saying it) Bobmin or Jeconious, Most of the writers at FFA.net are engaging. Even if I don't particularly care for some of them, I can't deny they're good at what they do.

Gives me a nice Tie-in for Jbern, and from there the rest of this... occasionally questionable site.

 

Jeconais and some of his stuff comes to mind, solely on his writing ability. His fluff does make me upset. Anything by nonjon and Jbern. If the reader is mature I'd suggest Wastelands of Time. Sadly some friends of mine have been lost in that story.

 

Definitely Make a Wish or Let's do Time Warp Again. It needs to be a story that sucks you in before you have a chance to hate it, and within three chapters or so those two have you about to die from laughter.

If the person you're introducing to fanfic is a picky (formalist) reader, probably something by jbern or another with OCD editing and proofing skills. Inner Eye of Harry Potter is pretty hilarious, enjoyable, well-written, even if it's not done yet.

 

Interesting choice for your first post...

While jbern is a great author, I wouldn't say that he has "OCD editing and proofing skills." Have you ever read "To Fight The Coming Darkness"? To be fair, it's one of his first fics, but still, I actually had to go through and proof my copy of it before I could stand it. He still makes a fair number of errors now.

To add to the thread:
I think most of it would depend on your friend's preference in regular reading material. If they like humorous novels, go for something like "Black Comedy" or maybe "Make a Wish" or "Where in the World is Harry Potter?" If they' prefer more serious novels, then something like Barb's "Psychic Serpent" series might be a good start. I know that a lot of people on this site got their start there. I'm not sure I'm qualified to recommend any good shorter fics since I tend to stay away from them.

 

I finally converted my little brother to reading fanfiction, and I did it with Harry F***ing Potter! Also caught him reading The Secret Diary of Fleur Delacour aged 16 3/4 earlier, which means he's going through the library on this site.

Guess leaving my bookmarks on my old/his new laptop proved useful after all.

 

If I was going to 'pop' someone's cherry, I'd probably have them read Happy Red Prince. It might be unfinished, but I fail to see how that even remotely impacts how awesome that fic is. I mean if you can't enjoy Happy Red Prince, I don't see you ever enjoying fanfiction.

Plus, it shows both the good and bad parts of fanfiction. You get original spin on canon events and the best characterization of Harry Potter ever counterbalanced by the author abandoning it. It also clearly shows that the creator of Naruto clearly isn't satisfied with ruining his own series. He also has to ruin fanfiction by dragging perfectly awesome authors over to the dark side.

 

Cherries popped by The Wastelands thus far: 2

Still working on it...

 

As people have said, depends on the person.

If they didn't seem that interested at all, I'd give them vlad's "Harry F***ing Potter" as it's short, but well-written and hilarious. That would act as a nice hook, I think.

If they were averagely nerdy but not particularly an HP nut, I'd give them A Black Comedy, or something by Melindaleo if they're more fluff oriented (i.e. are female and prone to fangirl tendencies).

If they were pretty hot on HP I'd lead them more towards AU and timetravel. Wastelands of Time, In Light of Silver Memories, The Skitterleap, Harry Potter and the Boy Who Lived, What Lies Beneath.

If they were a literature student and pretty picky about their reading I'd give them something a bit more sophisticated, a bit less action/plot oriented and more character based. Tinn's Song of the Trees would be good for this purpose, I think, as would Soul Play by Snapesforte.

I think I'd avoid anything too old (i.e. the fics that got me into the fandom) as they're not great by modern standards. I'd also avoid handing out independant Harry fics, as they tend to be pretty badly written and are something of a niche taste (a large niche, to be sure, but still). I think love for independent Harry fics is something of a reaction from reading too much fluff and mostly canon compliant carry-on fics.

(P.S. That reminds me: does anyone remember what thread my "stages of fanfiction tastes" was in? I think it was an Intro thread, but I can't remember. I tried looking through my past posts but, well, there's a fair number of them and I can't even remember what year I wrote it.)

Edit: Found it. Thanks, Pers.

 

It was in the intro thread of a new user, Entop. (Don't ask my why I remember these things).

 

Though I agree with most of the post, I'll say that certain middle-aged fics might still work, depending on the person. Since they have no experience with reading fanfiction, they don't know that the fics of a few years back haven't "aged well" - some of those fics, while being quite tired in terms of plot devices et al., are still written well. I would avoid the fics that are positively ancient, though - those that date back to the turn of the century.

In the time travel genre, if you're dealing with a person who is likely to be resistant to something that deviates too far from canon, Wastelands is apt to be a bit of a shock (and even if not, almost all the rest of the time travel library will go downhill from there, which is kind of depressing when you think about it). Perspicacity had the right idea in this thread, IMO: Deadwoodpecker's Backward With Purpose, and even something as dated as Nightmares of Futures Past.

 

I wouldn't give out Nightmares in a hundred years.

It has an important place in the history of fanfic, in that it pioneered the re-do fic, but it's far from the best re-do fic out there. In fact, it's beyond terrible. It exemplifies everything bad about re-do fics. Average writing, awful characterisation, super!friends, disturbing paedophilic lust, complete canon rehash.

Deadwoodpecker's is infinitely better than Nightmares, but it's still not great. It still spends an inordinate amount of time on super!friends and canon rehash, ignoring the whole point of the re-do: to change things massively and as soon as possible. And by the end if I heard someone say "always and always" one more time I was willing to shoot someone.

In fact, I don't think any re-do fic is good enough to serve as an introduction to HP fanfic. Re-do fics are all the kind of fanfic that fanfic lovers appreciate. They don't have the tight plotting or amazing writing needed to hook a doubtful/reluctant first-time reader.

 

I feel like a child for doing it, but I lol'd.

 

....Jeconais is a bloke?

 

Don't be so quick to rule out "both". You're reading the wrong story, obviously. Go to fanficauthors.net or phoenixsong.net and read Jeconais's This Means War.

For your sake, I hope they aren't essay exams. Oh, and welcome to DLP.

 

Thank you, Pers.

Here's the link for your convenience. This Means War is a Harry/Ginny fic, but it was written over five years ago, back when a fully-realized long story with humor was a blessing. It's funny. It's accessible.

That's not to say that I haven't suggested almost as disturbing things in other threads. Just not this time.

 

First off, read the fucking rules. Namely, the very first one. I'll even quote it for you here (properly using the quote function too):

Secondly, you clearly missed the entire point of this thread. It is to discuss stories you would use to introduce people to fanfiction. These people are likely to be in Stage 1 of the Stages of Fanfiction (which you would know about if you had, y'know, actually read through this thread). Harry/Ginny and relatively canon compliant is probably ideal for such FF-virgins. Since you fail to recognize this, I can only assume you fail at life. I'll leave you with this gif, because it so articulately expresses my feelings on the subject.



Thirdly, I call bullshit on your claim of having lurked here for a few years. In fact, I seriously doubt you have lurked here for even one year. You joined today, and spent your first post trying (and failing) to shit on a member for a post 2 pages ago that was a rational and decent post (something you should aspire to do). You fail to follow any of our standards, such as reading the thread first, spell and grammar checking your posts, and posting intelligently. If you had been here for a few years, as you so claimed, you would have a greater feel for this site, and not be a gigantic fucking retard.