Requested by EmilieFolke and star--wars.

It's finally time. After four long years, I'm finally taking on my greatest fear: myself.

For those of you who have been living under a rock, I have a very special place in my heart for the next gen. My next gen, specifically. I have been writing the Star of Gryffindor series for four years now, to the point where I literally can't remember what's canon and what I made up. This is great for when I'm writing, because I am super invested in my world, characters, and story, and strive to create something good.

However, it's not so good when I try to tell you how to write a good next gen fic. Because I really like mine. A lot. And have a hard time reading other next gen fics because it's hard to transport myself from my AU to canon to another fic, instead of just from canon to a fic. I am so deeply invested in my story that it's hard to step back and see this genre as a whole.

I hate to disappoint, though, so I'm going to try, just for you guys.

Let me start with a list of cliches that I know I committed in my story, just so we're all on the same page and I can avoid hypocrisy.

1. Orphaned OC main character who lives with muggles who hate her.
For some reason, next gen fics feature a surprising amount of Harry Potter carbon copies. I know that this isn't just a next gen problem, but it seems incredibly prevalent in these stories. If the stories don't simply focus on Rose, Albus, and Scorpius, the main character is an orphan who lives with muggles who hate her.

I mean, come on, I made Astra live in a closet. What was I thinking?

2. Literally the MC is just Harry Potter 2.0.
She's a Seeker her first year. She's a Gryffindor. She lives with an awful family. She's at the center of the villain's plot for a reason that's entirely unexplained. She's impulsive and sassy and doesn't seem to care much for rules. She's got two plucky best friends, one who's very smart and one who will help her get adjusted to the wizarding world.

I'd like to think Astra has grown into more than this as the series has continued, but this is pretty accurate for the first book or two. Try to avoid this stuff...

3. [Spoilers] the Triwizard Tournament is reinstated and the underage OC protagonist gets put in as a fourth champion.
This is my most glaringly obvious problem, and I'm not sure if it's a cliche within this genre or within this fandom as a whole, but oh boy do I get comments on this. Most people will overlook everything else I'll mention here, but everyone comments on this one. It might be because I was self-aware enough to admit it was cliche at the time, and people felt comfortable enough with that to agree, but I get comments several times a month about how cringy this is.

However, I also get comments at the end of the fourth book that I pulled it off all right. The main things people say are that I created my own challenges. I spent a lot of time creating tasks that seemed about equal to the originals, testing the same skills. I followed a pattern I thought I saw in the original tournament, and out my own spin on it all.

Another thing that I did well was make entirely different subplots and character developments. Part of that was easy, considering the world I'd created, where Wren Predatel, daughter of international terrorists, had come back to Hogwarts and was trying to have a normal school year, leading me down the trail of everyone suspecting her, of her dealing with trauma, etc. Having a character who knew the Beauxbatons students (Colette) also opened up doors.

But I still had to work to come up with original subplots. Marcus could have veered dangerously into Cho Chang territory, and there was a time when I thought about killing off Faith Lindsey, the other Hogwarts champion, in a similar fashion as Cedric Diggory. I couldn't just make everyone react the same way they had to Harry.

I guess my point here is that you can do the giant cliche things everyone tells you not to do if you really feel like it's good for your story. You'll get called out on it, for sure. But you can do it, and pull it off. The key is taking a major, overarching idea or thing from the original series and putting your own details in.

Anyway, let's move on to some cliches I didn't use.

4. Making Rose and Albus (and sometimes Scorpius) carbon copies of their parents.

This seems to be a common thread running through a lot of stories. Albus Potter is just like his father, and Rose Weasley is just like her mother. I can kind of see where the Rose part comes from (I fell into that trap, too, though I'd like to argue that she's not present enough in my fanfiction for it to actually count, and she does end up being her own person, separate from her mum). I understand that we all heard that line from Ron about her being smart and ran with it. However, there are a million and one ways to be book smart, and who's to say Rose isn't like her dad, too? Or, better yet, a completely different person entirely? Children are very rarely that similar to their parents. 

What I don't understand is Albus. He's basically Harry Potter 2.0, only without the abuse and trauma as a child. It feels like he has very little personality other than "Harry's son," at times. I remember, back before Cursed Child when everyone put Albus in Gryffindor without a care in the world, he was literally just his dad all over again. At least Cursed Child made him canonically a Slytherin, though all that did was give him an excuse to be just as angsty as his dad was, too. 

Less common is Scorpius being just like his father; a lot of stories seem to focus on how he isn't like his father, and how Rose and Albus overcome some prejudices on their part to see him as a person instead of simply a Malfoy. That's a trope I can get behind!

I think it should also be mentioned here that James II is not Sirius Black reincarnated, and shouldn't be written as such! If you've read my chapter on the Female Marauder, you already know my thoughts about how Sirius is characterized in fanon, so I'm sure you can guess how I feel about it being duplicated here in James Potter. 

5. Why is it always the Potters and Malfoys?

I get it; they're the ones mentioned in the epilogue. Rose, Albus, and Scorpius are the obvious choice to write a next gen fic about. I know I can't talk, considering I took the bait, too, and am now nearly five years into a series focused around a girl whose closest friends include James and Albus Potter. But I have to wonder why those seem to be the only next gen kids that get written about. Other than the odd Teddy/Toire romance, that's all I see. 

Where are the children of other DA members, for example? Why can't the story be about Cho's daughter, or Parvati's son, or Seamus's kids? Heck even Neville or some of the other Weasleys would do. I can't remember reading any fanfiction ever where Rose, Albus, and Scorpius were only briefly mentioned in favor of any of the dozens of other possibilities. Ask yourself why the story you're trying to tell needs to be centered around those three? Honestly, I'd be willing to bet that's it not. 

6. Voldemort returns!

Here we go, my single biggest problem with all next gen fanfiction, part of the reason I decided to write my own in the first place. In the vast majority of these fics, the main plot is centered around Voldemort. It ends up being a lot of recycled storylines and goals, with recycled characters and contrived and confusing reasons for why this person didn't die and why this person is still around and how on earth Voldemort, who died, can come back again.

This one seems inexcusable to me, personally (and it pains me to no end that Cursed Child technically gave it some credence). If you want to write a story with Voldemort or one of his supporters as the villain, write a Golden Era story. Write a Marauder's Era story. Heck, write a post-war story if you want. But for the love of all that's good in the world, don't write a next gen story!

The thing about next gen stories is that they're the only time period where you have nearly complete freedom to do whatever you want. You can come up with any storyline. You can create your own villain, your own conflict, your own characters and plot twists and goals. Everything is fair game! Why would you go back to something as tired and overdone as Voldemort? 

I know that freedom like that can sound overwhelming and scary. The first time I was ever able to write consistently and finish a story was when writing fanfiction, partly because it wasn't all unknown and I had things to build off of. However, if that's where you're at right now, I'd caution you against leaping into a next gen fanfic. As I said, there are plenty of other time periods you could write about, and plenty of minor characters waiting to be fleshed out. 

But it's really not as scary as it seems. You're not going in totally blind. You understand the wizarding world, and with both Grindelwald and Voldemort as inspiration you know what type of people might try to cause trouble for the next generation. An original plot is something you should strive for in any story! I promise, you're more than capable of it. Just let yourself brainstorm. Let inspiration take you off on a wild run. It's terrifying, but so worth it in the end! And if you don't know where to start, you're actually reading a very helpful book right now that has several chapters about original plots and planning and many other useful things for this sort of endeavor!

I could go on for hours about that, and about the cliches of next gen fanfiction. There are literally hundreds of cliches in these stories, both bad and good, understandable and weird beyond all compare. Some are backed up by canon—Albus Severus is an angsty Slytherin, super nice Scorpius pining after super smart Rose, one of Voldemort's fanatics is the villain. Some are not—Scorbus, Voldemort himself comes back, Al, Scorp, and Rose are Gryffindor besties. Just remember to think about why you're wanting to write a particular trope, and be open-minded about other possibilities for your story!

~~~~

Hello, yes, I am aware that it's been over a year since I updated this story. COVID-19 has shut my city down, and I am slowly going crazy alone in my apartment, so my only solace is pumping out content for you guys, apparently. This chapter is long overdue, anyway.

Thank you for watching this episode of "Self Roast: How to Properly Drag Yourself" with your delightful host, me, Elli. I've gotten to the point where I've accepted my cliches that I can't change, and now strive to be better, so I don't have any problems telling you exactly what I did wrong. (If I missed something, by the way, please let me know in the funniest way possible.)

I must have done something right, too, though, because my series has performed far better than I ever thought it would, despite all the cliches and mistakes I made. I'm not sure what it was (probably flawed and relatable characters) but I consider it my best proof that you, as an author, can make any cliche work if you try hard enough.

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions! This was such a broad topic that I know I didn't cover enough about it! If you have any questions about it, or about my own series and any cliches I might have missed, let me know!

Ciao!

~Elli