Describing. One of the most important parts of writing. Describing is fundamental in the process of writing your story, fanfiction or not. Writers describe numerous things, from places to weapons, and without describing, stories would be bland.

(This is one of my general tips for writing. That means it is not just for fanfiction, and you can use it for most writing.)

These are encountered a lot writing PJO fanfics. It helps a lot to list out your characters weapons/skills before writing. It stops you from making mistakes, like leaving something out that could change the course of the battle.

A fight scene should be written so it's understandable, yet action packed. Use actual weapon moves/fighting techniques when writing these scenes. It's all in the vocab and how well you can write it.

Examples: Jab, parry, slice, slash, punch, roundhouse kick, sweep legs out from under opponents feet, knee ( as in knee someone in the stomach), slap, grab, choke, claw, thrust sword into {insert body part}, to name a few.

Percy parried with Riptide, nimbly dodging the enemies kick. sounds better than, Percy used the sword to deflect the attack, and dodged, right?

Describing inanimate objects is fairly easy. Always take in the weight, size, color, and how it feels to the touch when you describe him.

Example: Samantha grabbed the blade by the leather handle. It was weighted perfectly for her, the gold glowing slightly. She got a good grip on the sword, and sliced the air in front of her. It was about four feet, nowhere near as long as a pilum, the standard Roman weapon, but she liked this.

Etched into the bottom of the blade was some small Latin letters. She concentrated, and they rearranged themselves, turning into the word Razer. She smiled. It was time for Reyna to be knocked off her golden pedestal. Well, imperial golden.

With that description, I have a pretty good idea of what it looks like. You might be describing something a little harder, like a leaf. Google a picture of one, and write what you observe. For example, the color. You might write It had a tinge of brown, but the red overpowered it, or it was a light yellow that you normally wouldn't expect on a leaf. Find everything, the size, color, and weight are always a good place to start from.

First, let me get this straight. When you describe a skin color, you're usually not being offensive. For somebody like Nico di Angelo, you might say, Nico had skin as pale as snow. For somebody like Hazel, you might want to say She was a dark chestnut brown that reminded Percy of Christmas and sitting by an open fire.

Generally, when I write a skin color, I compare it to some object instead of a color. (Example: Cocoa skin, Sand colored skin, Cappuccino skin, skin as pale as snow.) But you can always compare it to a natural color. (Example: Light brown, Cocoa Brown, Fair skin, Olive skin, Tawny skin.)

People will usually not take offense when you describe a skin tone. You can always just be simple, and say they had a lighter skin tone, or a darker skin tone.

But I don't focus on the skin tone too much. I focus on the eyes. Specify when you say a color. For example: Annabeth had stormy grey eyes that gleamed with knowledge and power. With a simple stare, she burned a hole straight through Leo. That was the last time he got in a staring contest with her,

Thalia and Luke both have blue eyes. So what's the difference? you might ask me.

I would reply Thalia has intense electric blue eyes, while Luke has carefree sky blue eyes. It's all in the description.

When describing a human, take these into account.

That's the absolute basic. You must never overload a person with too much info. Try to limit yourself to a paragraph when describing people

There are many ways to describe human feelings. You want to take it further than mad, sad, happy, and scared. You want to describe the face while these things are happening. While you might say John was mad. I might say John was seething with anger, his teeth grinding into each other. I could've sworn I saw steam coming from his ears, when he started to shout words that would've made a sailor proud.

You want color, not just some simple sentence that only gives me a fraction of the experience. And that ties into show, don't tell. See? I'm not just some crazy person who randomly comes up with these topics!

Now, here are a few phrases you can freely use.

Info overload usually happens when you're so caught up in the story that you forget that nobody wants to read a whole page about how good the pudding tasted. If there is an action that happens after the info overload, try to add it in front.

Example: Jack stared around in the mansion. The walls were an elegant gold and white. with intricate designs in the columns. The floor was lightly dusted with bronze, and the window panes were silver. The carpet had a display of royal people. The chair he was sitting on was platinum, with a wooden headrest and a cup holder. The room smelled like money. The table had several pots and cups. Teacups, tea spoons, cups, pots, sporks, forks, spoons, salad forks, salad sporks, foons, sporks, knives, table knives, and butter knives were all there. But the best thing was the food. Turkey, pudding, jam, chicken, peas, and green beans were good, but he was really waiting for the main dish. Pizza. Cheesy heaven and goodness on bread, was there ever something so good? Just as he was about to take a big bite, his father slumped into the meal.

"It's poisoned!" one of the maids said.

She slumped over and, so did the rest.

"Don't you dare eat that pizza!" his mother said, before falling unconsciousness.

Ugh, it was so horrible that a perfectly good slice had to be wasted. Suddenly, the windows broke. Men and women in black suits slid down grappling hooks, holstering guns on their belts. They looked surprised to see him awake.

"Don't you dare move any closer." Jack warned.

"Pipsqueak, you think you can scare us?"

Jack whipped out his dual katanas, and his navy blue and white domino mask was slapped onto his face. He jumped up, as they shot at him. He twisted in mid-air, slicing one bullet, and deflecting the rest. He jumped across the wall, and slammed the hilt of his blade on the leaders head. He kicked another, and jumped in mid air. The woman shot her comrade, and Jack roundhouse kicked her across the face.

Once he had defeated the rest, he picked up the business card tucked into one of their jackets. He read the name and ripped it.

"ROGUE is after me again." he said, putting his katanas back into his sheaths.

He pulled out his grappling hook and slammed out of the window, jumping to find his sister, Sarah, who was already kidnapped.

Perfectly good action at the end, but it was ruined by a huge paragraph of boring description. I'm not saying that description is bad, but too much of it can often throw your readers away.