Fanfiction Lounge

Act said:

And yet, there are fics worshiped that have no plot until the umpteenth chapter.

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Such as mine? *shrugs* I don't really think it falls under what Frostweaver was referring to, since my problem is not that the main plot takes a while to be revealed but rather that I'm stubbornly trying to make a decent fic out of a random collection of everything my eleven-year-old mind could think of. Of course, that doesn't make it any less overrated... *glances at Serebiiforums fanfic awards and shoves them into the nearest drawer with a cough*

::shrug:: I've never read yours entirely, it's not my place to say. In general: it's a big problem in our fandom, particularly on ffNET. People start somewhere boring, and stay there.

Personally, I'm guilty of slow starts myself.

But either way, I don't think it's like one of the seven deadly sins.

Your fic... I really liked the prolougue, I just sort of got the impression by the eighth chapter that you weren't sure where to go with it. If you love it, keep trying. I just have this awful attention span sometimes. I tend to quit fics after the first sentence if they don't catch my intrest enough.

People should try to make every chapter of their fic have meaning and a purpose. I really really dislike the term "filler chapter". It's cheating out your audience that you update a fic just to have it be a "filler". Even if a chapter isn't going to have much of an impact on the story as a whole, atleast make it enjoyable to read. Myself (here I go again, talkiing about a fic that hasn't been updated in over a year), I treat my chapters like episodes, mini-movies. It's a continuing story but each chapter has its own miniature plot. It's hard to explain.

That's true: A chapter in itself should have rise and fall of action. I try my best to do the same, in whatever form (whether it's one battle, or a bigger occuurence). I don't really mind fillers, though. Sometimes nothing happens. That's life. Action after action after action takes on a boredom of its own, I think. Granted, though, these chapters should be well into the fic after something significant develops.

Sometimes nothing happens. That's life. Action after action after action takes on a boredom of its own, I think. Granted, though, these chapters should be well into the fic after something significant develops.

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Very true. Sometimes setup is necessary before a lot of action takes place. I still think f.w. has a point, though; each chapter should have something to offer. Enough to make it entertaining, but, like Act said, fillers don't bother me.

I'm pretty sure that there's absolutely no action in Ionem's fanfic so far, yet both chapters are very important, and nor are they ever boring.

Physical action? Not necessary...
Plot movement? Definitely necessary!

It maybe surprising for some people, but the plot can move and advance without any form of action =P

I'm pretty sure that there's absolutely no action in Ionem's fanfic so far, yet both chapters are very important, and nor are they ever boring.

Physical action? Not necessary...
Plot movement? Definitely necessary!

It maybe surprising for some people, but the plot can move and advance without any form of action =P

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I think Ionem's gone and earned himself a groupie :P xD

That's true, but shoving the plot forward every five seconds just doesn't appeal to me. There's plent other things that can happen in a chapter that are totally irrelevant to the plot, but necessary to the fic such as introspection, narrative, character building, and tone enhancing. Poor plot ;.; Don't drag it forward by a leash.

A good plot alone a fic does not make.

frostweaver said:

No such thing should even exist in your fanfic, period. There is no excuse for something like this.

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It's true. Like everyone's been saying, action's not always necessary to advance the plot forward. Some chapters may have less action, some chapters may seem less exciting than others in the author's personal opinion, but for the author to outright say a chapter's boring shows that the work seems like something to be looked down upon. Several storylines have a slow start to the action, but in the mean time, they work on other important aspects of the plot, such as characterization, something to make such early chapters seem worthwhile.

For an example of this, I've seen several people bash the anime .hack//SIGN for having a number of episodes in which the characters seem to do nothing more than stand around and talk. But the thing is, in case no one's noticed, characterization seems to be the strongest point of the entire .hack franchise, so to have these moments where the characters interact with eachother or take a moment to reflect on themselves, such scenes end up being a crucial factor towards their development in the long run.

That's what I said. If it's enjoyable, then it's worth it, even if nothing happens. That's why I hate it so much where a story begins with a character waking up, brushing their teeth, and eating breakfast. Unless you write it well, it's boring and pointless, and may as well be skipped.

Yamato-san said:

It's true. Like everyone's been saying, action's not always necessary to advance the plot forward. Some chapters may have less action, some chapters may seem less exciting than others in the author's personal opinion, but for the author to outright say a chapter's boring shows that the work seems like something to be looked down upon. Several storylines have a slow start to the action, but in the mean time, they work on other important aspects of the plot, such as characterization, something to make such early chapters seem worthwhile.

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What I meant by "boring" was the lack of action. I didn't think about it from that dimension. I'm also pretty hard on my own work...kind of disappointed that Frosty quit right before the good part started. Meh, it's to be expected.

On a real novel, how long should chapters be? Words? Double-spaced pages? I know there isn't a definitive "chapter length" but what is a good length?

I kinda need to know >___________>; "Siren Town" my first novel is being written, and I'd like to gauge it.

RaikouRider243 said:

What I meant by "boring" was the lack of action. I didn't think about it from that dimension. I'm also pretty hard on my own work...kind of disappointed that Frosty quit right before the good part started. Meh, it's to be expected.

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I don't think you're getting it... try to read over all the different writers' response about "good parts of a fanfic" and see what is the universal opinion about this matter.

In fact, I personally favor dramatic scenes more than action scenes. I favor word play more than battles. It's just more exciting for me to see how two people fight each other to the death through words and hidden meanings/mockery in their conversation, rather than fist to fist.

Good parts exist even if there is a lack of action.

Act's Konnichiwa has good battle scenes, but they aren't the reason why I value this fanfic. They're just battles between the every day common Pokemon, using rather simple attacks in general, such as Tackle. What's good about these "common battles" is that underneath all of the battle dialogues (which are typically not viewed as the good part of a good Pokemon battle, as most people will look at the narration of the action, awaiting to see the outcome of the battle), Act uses her battles as a parody against typical fanfics that focus on superior or "cool" Pokemon. This trait is most obviously shown when the protagonist view Zigzagoon as the absolute obstacle to the road of success, and even fears it in battle. Obviously, this is a hidden mockery to all those common "I fear my rival's <insert name of the fully evolved form of one of the nine starters.>"

I don't think *any* of Lily's fanfic contain any action actually. All of her oneshots share the similiar basic framework that the fanfic talks of one certain defining moments, as each characters (or even just one character throughout the entire fanfic) share the immense amount of thoughts in this one certain defining moments. Hardly does the setting in Lily's fanfic take place for more than at most a couple of minutes. There's absolutely no physical action. If Lily's work is to be appreciated, then it has to be analyzed in order for anyone to see anything of substance.

My personal favorite works of Dragonfree also share the similiar structure. Sunset Beach, Chains and Shackles contain hardly any action. Sunset Beach has a minimal amount (and it is even described very briefly, as if insignificant to the story), while Chains and Shackles do not have any at all. Yet these three works illuminate the readers of any form of journey. There aren't any Pokemon trainers going off to battle for the league/world peace, but nevertheless, a journey takes place. Characters embark off of their own journey in the heart to find what it is that they want in their life.

Pocket Monster Chronicles is an OT fanfic, with a trainer eventually going off to his own journey. However, we see that Yamato-san doesn't take off for at least 10 chapters. If action is so important, then Yamato's fanfic is long time dead during these "inactive" 10 chapters. Though a physical journey takes place in PMC, the emotional journey takes place side by side along with the action.

Trials of Reluctance by Meitantei Isaac is exactly identical to PMC in this aspect. The physical journey takes place as soon as chapter 1, but the emotional journey starts also at chapter 1. Sometimes the physical journey comes to a complete halt, yet the emotional journey always keeps going. It is clear how the emotional journey is *always* the dominant and more important journey. The emotional journey affects how a character will think and behave, and the way of thinking for a character determines how this character will fight his/her battles, or why he/she is going to fight. The actions and the fighting are merely a by-product of what is being discovered at the emotional journey.

This is the reason why I keep telling you in your reviews to stress on details and on characters. Without character description, a fanfic is pretty dead even if you got awesome ideas and battle scenes. It makes the story feel dead and not alive. Readers can't get into the characters, failing to see the story from the POV of a character. If they can't get into a character, then it is too hard for readers to enjoy the story.

Yet in your fanfic, dialogues mean close to absolutely nothing, except retelling the prologue. That's probably the major problem. This part "seems bad" because the entire chapter 1 and 2 are almost completely unnecessary. Though a physical journey is taking place, the characters haven't embarked on their emotional journey yet. When the emotional journey doesn't start for each character

On top of these difficulties, you chose a very hard path for your fanfic to follow by going along with one of the more unoriginal story basics. Not only is this fanfic an OT, but it got legendary Pokemon saving the world on top of OT. This combination is by far the most stereotypical of all new fanfic writers, whose fanfics are rather uninteresting to the eye. Some are so terrible in comparison to what they claim to be that they're a pure mockery of any readers' intelligence.

With a fanfic idea that is completely going against the flow of the fall, you got yourself a huge disadvantage. This is an almighty gamble. It's very likely that your fanfic cannot succeed because there are too many fanfics with the exact idea ages ago, but if you do manage to stand out, then you will instantly earn yourself huge frame and great reputation as a Pokemon fanfic writer.

I agree that good fics are more than anything, carried on the backs of their characters. As I've read in so many books, the biggest part, or one of them anyway, of a story is answering the all mighty reader question of "So what?", "Why should I care about this character and what happens to them?"
The more 'real' you make a character, even one that lives in an un-earthly fantasy world, the more enjoyable a story will become...

Hey Frostweaver, do you do private reviews? I haven't released this fic yet, but I would like it to be good before I post it. Could I send you the prologue and chapter 1 via PM? And could you then PM me the things that need improvement? Thanks if you can, thanks for everything else you've done if you can't.

Casual Billy, out

I don't mind private reviews for fanfics that aren't published. Just send the fanfic within the PM, and I'll put it in waiting.

Okay, thank you, flrostweaver.

I agree that good fics are more than anything, carried on the backs of their characters.

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That's very true. Here's a question that I want to ask all of you: Where do you get inspiration for characters? I usually just center a character around one of my traits or tailor their attitude to fit the needs of the fic's action or plot. How do you all come up with your characters?

I base characters on little parts of myself, my family, people I grew up with, people I read about in history class, random people I see on the bus, etc. I really just take them from life overall, little parts of it that sneak up on me when I'm not looking.
I never write the characters to fit the story, rather, I write the story to go with the character. If I limit my character by things I've already set down for a story, rather than letting the character grow in my mind and then making a story, it ends in bad things most of the time..

I usually base my characters on either some of my traits or the traits of some anime or game characters.

I always name characters after people I know, butI let the characters make themselves. I didn't go into K'wa!/Miscon with any personailty whatsoever for Gina, but she's coming around for me. And I definitely didn't have the caterpie's feistiness or catiel's insecurity planned. These things just sort of came up. It's weird.

Where do you get inspiration for characters?

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Strange as it seems, usually it's out of the blue. Think of a name, or a trait, or an appearance, and just build off it. :\