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Hello and welcome back to How to Fanfiction, where we're about to have one of the most uncomfortable talks you've had since you were twelve. That's right, we're going into Shipping.

No getting out of this.

What is shipping?
That is a very, very good question.

Shipping, as in 'relationship', refers to the age old practice of reading or watching something fictional and shouting 'JUST KISS ALREADY'. This is a tradition that goes back to pre-Greco-Roman times, but was named by the fandom for the X-Files - fans of the Mulder/Scully pairing were referred to as 'relationshippers', which eventually became 'shippers'. The name caught on.

As I said, shipping is almost as ancient as Prince Phillip - half of what we now know as Arthurian legend was created by Franco-English authors shoving together Lancelot and Guinevere, which might well make that the earliest known fanon ship. There is also the well known 'Spirk' ship that has been going strong since the 1960s - which puts it in the strange and wonderful position of being a slash pairing that predates mainstream gay rights.

Shipping has sometimes entered the mainstream consensus - perhaps most notably in the aggressively annoying Edward/Jacob debate (I was Team P*** OFF) and with the endless Harry/Hermione VS Ron/Hermione debates that are over now please please don't bring that up in the comments IT'S BEEN DONE.

Just as there is porn of everything on the internet, everything has been shipped with everyone, regardless of sex, age, species, sentience or life. The DP fandom has even given them all funny names. Yes, they did literally called Danny/Walker 'Jail Bait'. I can't decide if that's terrible or hilarious. Also LOVE SUCKS OTP

Of course, I'm not here to talk about the culture of shipping - I'm here to talk about how to implement it in fanfiction. Let's begin.

Identifying Your Ship
The first thing you need to know is that shipping causes debate.

Pictured: debate.

It may seem like a silly thing to get angry over - because it is - but people tend to get very defensive over their choices of pairings. For example, the fighting between the Timmy/Trixie and Timmy/Tootie elements of the Fairly OddParents fandom could and still can get downright vicious - and that's downright tame compared to the warring of the Avatar fans, and the less said about the Harry Potter shippers the better.

What I'm basically saying here is that you must signpost your ships. You might think that sounds like inviting flames, but trust me, you'll be glad you did it. I got trolled (ineffectively) by someone on the mere suspicion that I'd done the 'wrong' pairing once - imagine the flames you'd have if that person had found out someone had 'done it wrong' halfway through reading the story. On another note, there is the possibility that someone might be uncomfortable with the pairing you're writing about - especially if it's something most would call unconventional. I'm not talking about homosexual pairings, I'm talking about things like pairings with very large age gaps or relationships played abusively (which is why I avoid Timmy/Vicky) or incest and things like that. I'm not saying you can't do it, I'm saying please warn us before you do.

How do you identify a pairing? Easy! Write it down in the summary. You can say something like 'contains Herp/Derp' or use whatever your fandom's pairing names are (Herpicus Derpington). If you're unsure whether or not it will be a thing, say it contains 'possible Herp/Derp.' I swear, 80% of all your angry flames will vanish if you do this. The other 20% are unavoidable, and we'll go into those later.

What Ships To Write And How
And here comes the fun part.

Pictured: fun.

First thing you need to work out is whether or not it's going to be a 'lemon' - read, will it or will it not have sex in it. If it is, I can't help you - this is a Guide, not The Talk, and I have never written a Lemon in my life. If you are doing lemon, keep it legal - if you write a lemon involving ten-year-olds, you will be arrested and you will deserve to be arrested. A good frame of reference for legality is to look up the age of consent in your area - over here in hedonistland (Australia) it's sixteen, but in the USA it can be anywhere between sixteen and eighteen - the division of state and federal law makes it a bit complicated, so check your state's laws. It's also sixteen in Great Britain. Denizens of other countries will have to look this up themselves, because this is becoming the most awkward series of Google searches I've ever done. TL;DR: if sex, make sure legal, or else jail.

Now, moving away from the lemon subject, how does one write ships? Well, I'm going to divvy them up by age groups and take you through them.

Zero to Seven Years: Not in any way.

Eight to Twelve Years: The best you can expect here is crushes or puppy love - just cute little things. Nobody falls in love at ten, so you're not going to pull any romantic dramas out of this.

Thirteen to Seventeen Years: Ugh. Teen romance. I dodged this completely and am completely happy about that. You can definitely run some real romantic tension here, but if you're going to get...ahem...raunchy, you're definitely going to want to aim for sixteen and seventeen. Just remember that teen romances rarely work out.

Eighteen Plus: If you want to go for 'true love', here's where you find it. After the long, terrible, sweaty teen years, most people generally get into the swing of things - getting a job, settling down with someone, paying taxes, having a midlife crisis... In any case, if you want something permanent, it's best to set it around this age range.

Now, a few FAQs before we move on;

- Is it okay to set a story in the future so that I can pair up Derp and Herp, even though they're kids at the moment?
Yes. In fact, I'd encourage it. Writing speculative fic about what happens in the future is older then dirt, and part of that is guessing who'll end up with who. Unlike reality, fiction has to make sense, so having an unseen character run in and marry an established character is a bit of a no-no (Newt Scamander's son my bum). Of course, I would stipulate that you have to actually play them older, not just keep them physically and mentally the exact same and saying 'BUT THEY'RE TWENTY FIVE NOW GUYS'.

- The characters I want to ship have an age gap between them. Is that bad?
Depends.

- On what?
Don't interrupt me.

I would be an absolute hypocrite to tell you you couldn't. There's a two year (biological) age gap between Timmy Turner and Dani Phantom, and yet I ship that. Ship older!Wendip too, for that matter. Similarly, there's an age gap between Aang and Katara in Avatar, and that's a canon pairing. So I'd say yes, an age gap is perfectly acceptable. On the other hand, there can be too much of an age gap. There's a reason a lot of people find pairing Danny Fenton (14) and Vlad Masters (40-something) creepy, and it's not just because that's illegal. If they're both of age, it's probably fine, but...look, let me be honest here, there's always going to be a lot of people who find sixty/seventy year olds dating twenty-thirty year olds kind of creepy. Just keep that in mind.

Who wants to bet this is what gets me flamed?

- What about non-humans?
Depends? Are they anthropomorphic? If so, that's fine. If not, are both parties animals? If so, that's fine. If not, congratulations! You've identified bestiality! Unfortunately, that's illegal in most countries.

- I dislike your pairing choices.
That's not a question, but I'll answer anyway. Let me make something clear - it's okay not to like a pairing. Nobody has a right to tell you you have to like, say, Spandy. That's not an excuse to hate or abuse a person, however. Dislike the ship and love the shipper, that's what I say. Or at least tolerate the shipper, because he probably isn't going away.

- There hasn't been much advise on writing romance in here. Why is that?
Because this is more about shipping and ships then it is about writing romantic stories. I'm probably not the right person to ask about that, but we may cover it later.

- I ship an unconventional pairing. How do I make that work?
Well, which pairing is it?

- Cream Soup.

Umm...I don't know. Next question please.

- I don't actually like shipping. Is that okay? And how do I avoid it?
That's absolutely fine and probably the sensible thing to do. Nobody can force you to ship anything. Avoiding shippers is going to be hard, though - but there's plenty of non-shipping fic to be found if you're willing to dig deep and hard. As for not being dragged into the shipping community...

Well, that's about it for the most awkward episode of How To Fanfiction yet. Join us next time as we go over the Rating System! MOST EXCITING CHAPTER YET!

Description

Hello and welcome back to How to Fanfiction, where we're about to have one of the most uncomfortable talks you've had since you were twelve. That's right, we're going into Shipping.

No getting out of this.

What is shipping?
That is a very, very good question.

Shipping, as in 'relationship', refers to the age old practice of reading or watching something fictional and shouting 'JUST KISS ALREADY'. This is a tradition that goes back to pre-Greco-Roman times, but was named by the fandom for the X-Files - fans of the Mulder/Scully pairing were referred to as 'relationshippers', which eventually became 'shippers'. The name caught on.

As I said, shipping is almost as ancient as Prince Phillip - half of what we now know as Arthurian legend was created by Franco-English authors shoving together Lancelot and Guinevere, which might well make that the earliest known fanon ship. There is also the well known 'Spirk' ship that has been going strong since the 1960s - which puts it in the strange and wonderful position of being a slash pairing that predates mainstream gay rights.

Shipping has sometimes entered the mainstream consensus - perhaps most notably in the aggressively annoying Edward/Jacob debate (I was Team P*** OFF) and with the endless Harry/Hermione VS Ron/Hermione debates that are over now please please don't bring that up in the comments IT'S BEEN DONE.

Just as there is porn of everything on the internet, everything has been shipped with everyone, regardless of sex, age, species, sentience or life. The DP fandom has even given them all funny names. Yes, they did literally called Danny/Walker 'Jail Bait'. I can't decide if that's terrible or hilarious. Also LOVE SUCKS OTP

Of course, I'm not here to talk about the culture of shipping - I'm here to talk about how to implement it in fanfiction. Let's begin.

Identifying Your Ship
The first thing you need to know is that shipping causes debate.

Pictured: debate.

It may seem like a silly thing to get angry over - because it is - but people tend to get very defensive over their choices of pairings. For example, the fighting between the Timmy/Trixie and Timmy/Tootie elements of the Fairly OddParents fandom could and still can get downright vicious - and that's downright tame compared to the warring of the Avatar fans, and the less said about the Harry Potter shippers the better.

What I'm basically saying here is that you must signpost your ships. You might think that sounds like inviting flames, but trust me, you'll be glad you did it. I got trolled (ineffectively) by someone on the mere suspicion that I'd done the 'wrong' pairing once - imagine the flames you'd have if that person had found out someone had 'done it wrong' halfway through reading the story. On another note, there is the possibility that someone might be uncomfortable with the pairing you're writing about - especially if it's something most would call unconventional. I'm not talking about homosexual pairings, I'm talking about things like pairings with very large age gaps or relationships played abusively (which is why I avoid Timmy/Vicky) or incest and things like that. I'm not saying you can't do it, I'm saying please warn us before you do.

How do you identify a pairing? Easy! Write it down in the summary. You can say something like 'contains Herp/Derp' or use whatever your fandom's pairing names are (Herpicus Derpington). If you're unsure whether or not it will be a thing, say it contains 'possible Herp/Derp.' I swear, 80% of all your angry flames will vanish if you do this. The other 20% are unavoidable, and we'll go into those later.

What Ships To Write And How
And here comes the fun part.

Pictured: fun.

First thing you need to work out is whether or not it's going to be a 'lemon' - read, will it or will it not have sex in it. If it is, I can't help you - this is a Guide, not The Talk, and I have never written a Lemon in my life. If you are doing lemon, keep it legal - if you write a lemon involving ten-year-olds, you will be arrested and you will deserve to be arrested. A good frame of reference for legality is to look up the age of consent in your area - over here in hedonistland (Australia) it's sixteen, but in the USA it can be anywhere between sixteen and eighteen - the division of state and federal law makes it a bit complicated, so check your state's laws. It's also sixteen in Great Britain. Denizens of other countries will have to look this up themselves, because this is becoming the most awkward series of Google searches I've ever done. TL;DR: if sex, make sure legal, or else jail.

Now, moving away from the lemon subject, how does one write ships? Well, I'm going to divvy them up by age groups and take you through them.

Zero to Seven Years: Not in any way.

Eight to Twelve Years: The best you can expect here is crushes or puppy love - just cute little things. Nobody falls in love at ten, so you're not going to pull any romantic dramas out of this.

Thirteen to Seventeen Years: Ugh. Teen romance. I dodged this completely and am completely happy about that. You can definitely run some real romantic tension here, but if you're going to get...ahem...raunchy, you're definitely going to want to aim for sixteen and seventeen. Just remember that teen romances rarely work out.

Eighteen Plus: If you want to go for 'true love', here's where you find it. After the long, terrible, sweaty teen years, most people generally get into the swing of things - getting a job, settling down with someone, paying taxes, having a midlife crisis... In any case, if you want something permanent, it's best to set it around this age range.

Now, a few FAQs before we move on;

- Is it okay to set a story in the future so that I can pair up Derp and Herp, even though they're kids at the moment?
Yes. In fact, I'd encourage it. Writing speculative fic about what happens in the future is older then dirt, and part of that is guessing who'll end up with who. Unlike reality, fiction has to make sense, so having an unseen character run in and marry an established character is a bit of a no-no (Newt Scamander's son my bum). Of course, I would stipulate that you have to actually play them older, not just keep them physically and mentally the exact same and saying 'BUT THEY'RE TWENTY FIVE NOW GUYS'.

- The characters I want to ship have an age gap between them. Is that bad?
Depends.

- On what?
Don't interrupt me.

I would be an absolute hypocrite to tell you you couldn't. There's a two year (biological) age gap between Timmy Turner and Dani Phantom, and yet I ship that. Ship older!Wendip too, for that matter. Similarly, there's an age gap between Aang and Katara in Avatar, and that's a canon pairing. So I'd say yes, an age gap is perfectly acceptable. On the other hand, there can be too much of an age gap. There's a reason a lot of people find pairing Danny Fenton (14) and Vlad Masters (40-something) creepy, and it's not just because that's illegal. If they're both of age, it's probably fine, but...look, let me be honest here, there's always going to be a lot of people who find sixty/seventy year olds dating twenty-thirty year olds kind of creepy. Just keep that in mind.

Who wants to bet this is what gets me flamed?

- What about non-humans?
Depends? Are they anthropomorphic? If so, that's fine. If not, are both parties animals? If so, that's fine. If not, congratulations! You've identified bestiality! Unfortunately, that's illegal in most countries.

- I dislike your pairing choices.
That's not a question, but I'll answer anyway. Let me make something clear - it's okay not to like a pairing. Nobody has a right to tell you you have to like, say, Spandy. That's not an excuse to hate or abuse a person, however. Dislike the ship and love the shipper, that's what I say. Or at least tolerate the shipper, because he probably isn't going away.

- There hasn't been much advise on writing romance in here. Why is that?
Because this is more about shipping and ships then it is about writing romantic stories. I'm probably not the right person to ask about that, but we may cover it later.

- I ship an unconventional pairing. How do I make that work?
Well, which pairing is it?

- Cream Soup.

Umm...I don't know. Next question please.

- I don't actually like shipping. Is that okay? And how do I avoid it?
That's absolutely fine and probably the sensible thing to do. Nobody can force you to ship anything. Avoiding shippers is going to be hard, though - but there's plenty of non-shipping fic to be found if you're willing to dig deep and hard. As for not being dragged into the shipping community...

Well, that's about it for the most awkward episode of How To Fanfiction yet. Join us next time as we go over the Rating System! MOST EXCITING CHAPTER YET!