You might think you've seen badfic before. This one is in the running to take the blue ribbon, and it's just a small sample.

A Trip to Gotham

I tried to find the actual story but failed. If you locate it, please let me know. I could use a belly laugh or two.

I didn't find that one either, so I'm guessing that the author removed it - or did a rewrite. There is a very similar story on fanfiction.net that has "Mary-Sue" all written over it. The English is a lot better, though. I didn't read all of it.

I can see why this would be considered badfic, actually there are several reasons this one would never win a Kerth, if it was about Superman and presented on these boards. Actually, fanfiction.net is full of Mary Sue-fics with poor English and incoherent plot lines.

But I think it's unfair to take such a fic and make fun of the author. Whoever wrote this had to sit down and type it, think of a plot and needed some courage to post it.

And while Mary-Sue fics are widely despised, it's just a convention. Maybe there are even readers who love them, like there obviously is an audience for all kinds of odd pairings, slash-fic and the likes. The high standard in these boards have resulted in a huge variety of simply awesome fics, but it's also somewhat discouraging to newbies.

Given the poor English I'd assume that the author of above mentioned fic is not a native speaker.

And I can tell you from first hand experience that writing in another language is not easy. I clearly remember how difficult it was to write my first fics here. And they were not all that great either. I can't bring myself to read them again. And even today, after almost fifteen years of writing fanfics, I still struggle for the right words and correct grammar. It's easier than it used to be, but some expressions in my head just won't translate.


So, I'm challenging you Terry, write a fanfic in German or Spanish or French or any other language you can form a sentence in and let us see if it's Kerth material. (Okay, I'm not serious about that one, though I'd actually love for someone to try. I'd even be volunteering as a beta for any daring person who'd try his or her hand at a German fic)

Just my two cents. I seriously hope that you take no offence. And of course people who can't write proper English could just keep their fics to themselves. Or we could just not read them

My experience in seeing really bad badfic - like this sample - comes from people who write down a storyline from their heads, which is fine, but then don't reread and self-edit the stream-of-consciousness infodump whether on paper or word processor. Nor do they allow beta readers to suggest changes (sometimes really drastic ones) to improve the narrative. I haven't read the whole story, of course, but judging from this fragment I don't know if it could be saved.

You do not fall - and never have fallen - in that category. You want to make your story plain to your readers irrespective of the plot's complexity. There are those who write it down and submit it and think, "Wow, the readers didn't like it? They're all idiots! I'm an undiscovered genius!" Those young writers don't understand that writing is a craft as well as a skill. Anyone who writes, whether for fun or profit or for his/her profession, can get better!

I reread my older stuff too, and I wince at some of the phrasing I used in places and the descriptions I dealt out. I can see now why no publisher wanted my work from three decades in the past. It's just not very good.

It doesn't have to be a Mary Sue (or a Marty Stu) to be bad. Nor need Mary Sues necessarily be badfic. I've read some self-referencing stories on this website that are excellent. Case in point: Yvonne Connell's The Ultimate Mary Sue. If you haven't read it, go devour this gem.

For the ultimate in bad fanfic, I refer you to My Immortal, a truly horrific story that will kill brain cells. You have been warned!

I couldn't bring myself to finish "A Trip to Gotham," but I had assumed that the author had intentionally written breathtakingly bad fiction in an attempt at humour. I had assumed that is was, in essence, a full-story version of a Bulwer-Lytton contest entry. If that is the case, the author probably delighted in the story being mocked.

Also, since we don't have the entire story at our disposal, we don't know the context. For all we know, this sample could be a story-within-a-story, similar to my piece The First Fanfic. In my story, we see a sampling of Lois's first attempt at writing fan fiction. We know from what bits we heard of her Wanda Detroit purple prose that she was hardly a polished author of fiction. I therefore made my story-within-a-story a deliberately bad Mary Sue. I won't say that the framing story I wrote was phenomenal -- I was very much a fledgling fiction author myself at the time-- but it was worlds better than Lois's. (At least, I sure hope it was.)

Joy,
Lynn

Oh my stars and garters. I hope with all my heart that this is someone's idea of a joke, otherwise... yikes!

Went looking through some of my original writing for another fandom. To be honest I was very young at the time and was just starting to get the hang of this writing thingamabob. Talk about cringeworthy.

Ah, it's been so long since we've had a Badfic challenge! I remember how fun it was to write Lois and CLark and There Children all those years ago. There is an art to being truly bad, of course: you have to know what the rules are so you can hunt them down with a sledgehammer.