How to Write a Fancy or Jancy if Your a Nancy

Okay, first off, the question that your probably asking yourself after reading the title: What the heck is a Fancy or Jancy?!?! Simply enough, Jancy is the term coined by my fellow HeR message board members G.G. (HorseWriter4GOD) and Katie (kw_drewfan), to mean "The world of Joe Hardy and Nancy Drew fans.". Basically, it's used for anything in which Nancy and Joe will be/are a couple. Then somebody else (sorry, I don't know your name!) come up with the term Francy or Fancy (the one I use) to mean anything in which Nancy and Frank will be/are a couple. And as for Ned (who's getting slightly, okay completely, enraged standing in the corner), if he's sticking around we'll just call it a Nancy. Which for Ned and Nancy fans like me, is proof that they belong together. Ha. ;)

Now, as I mentioned, I'm a Nancy fan. But I recently challenged myself to write a Fancy AE for the board. For  fun. *insert cut scene of Cou banging head against wall* With this in mind, I compiled a list of helpful hints for anyone who's insane as me and goes off trying to write a Fancy or Jancy if your a Nancy.

1. Ignore Ned completely. If he's not there, he can't be Nancy's boyfriend, right? No phone calls, emails, texts, random appearances, nothing. In other words, break the cardinal rule of writing a Nancy AE. Or, if you've scene Doctor Who, pretend Ned just fell through the crack in the wall in Pond's room. Ned who?

2. Meet your new best friend: amnesia. It makes it seem slightly okay when Nancy is crushing on Frank or Joe when she doesn't remember she has a boyfriend. Of course, Ned would probably find out she has amnesia and grab a airplane...

3. Okay, fine, at some point Ned will probably have to come into it. Labor over this part, though, make sure it's perfect. It also might help if you have it between the brother who's not crushing on Nance, so if it's a Fancy, have Joe talk to Ned. Even if it keeps coming out awkward, work with it, you can make the awkwardness fit into the situation.

4. Decide the max amount you can handle and work around it. If you can't stand something, don't do it. If you try to, it will just seem strange and out of place. So, say you can't stand the thought of Nancy saying "I love you" to Frank: don't have her. Or, do it off-page and have her thinking about it, or mention it to another character in a later chapter. This can help with other stuff too. Say you have a scene where they kiss, but your having trouble writing it. Easy: switch of to another character. You can have them walk in on the kiss, or just come back into the story post-kiss.

5. The same thing applies to the end. If you can't stand the thought of Nancy and a Hardy together long-term, don't write it that way. If you go with a amnesia type plot, it's easy to have her just regain her memory. If your working off of another idea, you can have them break-up, or just have Ned show up and Nancy remember how much she loves him.

6. Don't go overboard with editing. Make it sound right, and keep up proper spelling and grammar, but certain parts will still probably bother no matter what. Either find a way to except it as is, or get rid of it. It depends a lot on what kind of scene we're talking about and how vital it is to your plot, but I don't recommend re-writing it a million times to get it just so. This is one of the few cases where it will work against you.

Yeah... :)

Cou