Fanfiction Lounge

Are you more likely to make your character love his/her Pokemon or to leave the whole bonding thing out of your work?

Seeing as it's a big theme/plot point in my fic I like to keep it in. Also, it gives me warm fuzzies to read/write about xD.

I'm bored, so I may as well post...

Just a few replies:

I'd rather leave it out personally, but then I'd be hounded by reviewers for not including Pokemon bonding, so in that sense I'm forced to include it.

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Weren't you against fan service?

Trying to play the devil's advocate?

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I do very well at it. No, seriously, I just thought it'd be a good question... Or topic... Or whatever.

What are your views on the people that only post in this thread to say that their next chapter is up or to ask for a review and never actually take part in the conversation?

Ok, I think we'll all agree that most of the people that do that don't have the best writing ability... I agree with Bay when she says that they're taking advantage of the lounge... It's pretty rude, if you ask me.

How do you figure out the gaps between a SPAM fic and a real fan fic with bad grammar ect?

I can't, really... I mean, if you look at 'The Piplup Ganstas' - I really wasn't sure if he was being serious or not... It really depends on the writer's past record within the forum, doesn't it? But myself and Jax are working on a project, and the example I'm using is a real fan fiction... When you see it you'll understand why it's hard for me to see the difference.

Do you always have the same amount of chapters in your fan fictions, or do you just go with the flow of the story?

Whatever goes with the story, really... I mean, why would you limit your story to a certain number of chapters? That will be boxing your story in and will only work if you have planned it chapter by chapter.

Are you more likely to make your character love his/her Pokemon or to leave the whole bonding thing out of your work?

I have it there discreetly for those that are smart enough to read between the lines.

What are your views on the people that only post in this thread to say that their next chapter is up or to ask for a review and never actually take part in the conversation?
They are the plague that's killing /b/.... er, Fanfic Lounge.

How do you figure out the gaps between a SPAM fic and a real fan fic with bad grammar ect?
pass.

Do you always have the same amount of chapters in your fan fictions, or do you just go with the flow of the story?
Why the hell would I give myself a set limit of chapters? Maybe if I was being published and needed to meet some kind of page criteria, or if I was directing an anime that was intended to have a set number (often one or two) cours, neither of which are extremely likely scenarios.

Oni Raichu said:

That will be boxing your story in and will only work if you have planned it chapter by chapter.

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Even if you planned out the events of the chapter, as I've discovered when working on my scripted revision (which was originally meant to just convert my narrative chapters into a different format), said events could end up looking a lot shorter or longer than intended once it's actually put down in writing. As of this point, I still haven't a clue how my work will flow as a manga, let alone how long it'd end up being. However, I would like to have my chapters be around 40-60 pages in length. It seems to be a standard for monthly manga publications (not that I plan to do chapters on a monthly basis), and probably a good enough length to carry out most events without having to cut it off. I get the feeling that if chapters were 15-20 pages (which is a standard for weekly publications, like Shounen Jump), it'd be a tad short. Hell, I plan to have some action sequences, and if Dragon Ball's any indication, it can be very easy to fill up these 15-20 pages just trying to display battle choreography in all the panels. But like I said, I won't really know how things will flow until I get into it.

Are you more likely to make your character love his/her Pokemon or to leave the whole bonding thing out of your work?
As mentioned, I'm trying to lower the over-emphasis on Pokemon that the franchise tends to display. However, I also mentioned that Pokemon would still be important (it's kinda hard to ignore when you've got super-powered animals being commonplace and entire cultures being built around this.... I'm just not having people go bat**** crazy every time the antagonist injures a Rattata, making light of the fact that there're far bigger issues at hand, namely the fact that the antagonist is causing catastrophic amounts of damage and putting fellow humans in danger). That said, I intend to have humans bond with their Pokemon, even give those Pokemon some decent amounts of spotlight (albeit, it's a little difficult given their lack of dialog). However, just as we may act in real life (unless you're one of those crazy-ass PETA members), humans WILL act biased towards their own kind. Even if they're real close to their Pokemon, the bonds with humans will often be greater, even if only slightly. Thus, as difficult as it is on the characters (and I do intend to portray this properly), they will have to choose to save their family members over their Pokemon partners now and again (given, this is kinda magnified by the fact that Pokemon are oftentimes capable of handling themselves far better than any human could, but there will be situations where both Pokemon and humans do end up in real danger).

What are your views on the people that only post in this thread to say that their next chapter is up or to ask for a review and never actually take part in the conversation?

They don't really bother me, but I do wonder how they can do that without feeling terribly obvious. o.o; I know I'm not particularly comfortable with the idea of posting just to announce a new chapter or ask for a review... ^^;

How do you figure out the gaps between a SPAM fic and a real fan fic with bad grammar ect?

I'd pretty much call any fic whose author actually cares about it (even if the quality of it might lead some to believe otherwise) a real fic. Something just thrown out there with no care on the part of the "author" and no purpose except to increase postcount is the sort of thing I would consider a SPAM fic.

Do you always have the same amount of chapters in your fan fictions, or do you just go with the flow of the story?

I never have a pre-planned number of chapters. I just write as many as it takes to tell the story in its entirety. If two or more of my stories were to end up with the same number of chapters, it'd just be a coincidence. XP

Are you more likely to make your character love his/her Pokemon or to leave the whole bonding thing out of your work?

The former. I don't have many characters who have Pokémon, but those who do have them love them.

So much for getting a review by the week's end, eh Hanako?

Ahem, yes. Now that my obligatory jab (all in good fun, of course) at everyone's favorite fanfiction mod is out of the way I can get down to serious business.

What are your views on the people that only post in this thread to say that their next chapter is up or to ask for a review and never actually take part in the conversation?

I think that what they're doing is basically counterproductive, though I now understand what it feels like to wait for weeks with no reviews. *cries*

How do you figure out the gaps between a SPAM fic and a real fan fic with bad grammar ect?


"Pokemon goes to school"=Fic with bad grammar etc.

"Piplup Gangstas/Fat Tony"=Spam, and poorly written spam at that.

Do you always have the same amount of chapters in your fan fictions, or do you just go with the flow of the story?

Whatever it takes to get the story from beginning to end while working in all the characters or scenes I have planned. (Maybe I should explain that when I write a fic it's because I have an idea "What if Character X got into Situation Y resulting in Z?" The fic is basically transitions between the most important scenes. Thief in the Night is only an existing fic because I thought of a cool scene involving an escape from a giant tower after stealing a necklace.)

Are you more likely to make your character love his/her Pokemon or to leave the whole bonding thing out of your work?

Depends on the character. Gale has been with Augustus for a few years now, so they view each other as partners. Laertes and Aristo, on the other hand, think of him more as their boss and follow his orders because that's where the food and battle experience comes from. :3 Later characters will have bonding experiences with their Pokemon (with occasionally humorous results, such as the unrequitted Human x Pokemon love I warned you peoples about.) But really, bonding is present depending on the experience of the trainer. And there are more complex relationships then simply friends, the same way there are between people.

What are your views on the people that only post in this thread to say that their next chapter is up or to ask for a review and never actually take part in the conversation?

I'm mostly not fussed as long as it doesn't go overboard with people begging for reviews every page or something. Although I'm not entirely sure what the point is of saying that a new chapter is up... if the thread's at the top of the page then anyone who's reading the fic will be going in to check to see why people are posting in there anyway, so they'll see that there's a new chapter. And if they're away for so long that it gets bumped to the second page, then it's likely that they'll have missed the post in the Lounge too... well, unless the Lounge goes on a lull like it did over New Years'.


How do you figure out the gaps between a SPAM fic and a real fan fic with bad grammar ect?

I don't think about it, really. ^.^;; But people can post spam without meaning to or realizing that they are, so even if they intend for the fic to be taken seriously it could be considered spam anyway. I'd probably say a combination of being ridiculously short in length (as in, the story doesn't elaborate on important things nearly as much as it should, as opposed to having a deliberately short prologue or something), general bad grammar and ridiculous storylines (like the Piplup ones). And yeah, if it's clear that the author isn't taking the story seriously and is just posting for the hell of it.

...oh, and posting multiple chapters in one post can be an indication too...

Mostly I'd say to judge on an individual basis, though.


Do you always have the same amount of chapters in your fan fictions, or do you just go with the flow of the story?

Go with the flow of the story, definitely. :3 That's speaking in theory, though--that's what I would do when the time comes. I've only got one chaptered fic under my belt and I can only think of two others which I've actually planned out in enough detail to know how many chapters there are going to be, although if necessary to the story that would change.

Though, considering that one story has 7 chapters, one will have 15 and an epilogue, and the last has a planned 28 chapters, I think it's safe to say I'm going to vary a lot with future stories too. XD


Are you more likely to make your character love his/her Pokemon or to leave the whole bonding thing out of your work?

This question sounds like it's making an assumption that a trainer must eventually love their pokemon. A trainer can travel with their pokemon for a long time and bond without necessarily loving them--respecting them, certainly, or understanding them even--or without necessarily considering them to be equal to humans. Since pokemon should be considered as characters in their own right, and developing the relationship dynamics between characters is a part of telling the story itself, then I'm not entirely certain how it can be left out.

For my own stories, I don't actively think about it. Keegan does have a close relationship with her pokemon, so the 'bonding thing' goes in there. Tynan's a little harder to explain; he doesn't buddy buddy with them, but he's far from being an abusive trainer. I suppose you could say that he takes their presence for granted.

So for me, if there's going to be 'bonding stuff' it really depends on the character, because some are going to bond with their pokemon and some aren't.

Hmm... Apparently nobody had time to when I asked before, but could someone please review Biohazard's first chapter for me? I find it very unnerving having seen it gone days without a single response, and I'd really like to know if I'm doing something wrong with it or not...

さーっ、質問の時間だ！ Saa, shitsumon no jikan da!
(Alright, it's question time!)

How do you treat the subject of character death?
I say death in itself is a pretty sensitive subject, and one can expect the audience (as well as yourself) to get rather attached to some of your characters. However, by including death, it adds an extra sense of realism and danger, because common sense dictates that not just anybody could make it out of even a mere percentage of the type of grave situations commonly portrayed in media (let alone not suffering some severely debilitating injury or mental scars and otherwise getting through the entire ordeal completely fine and capable of resuming normal life as if nothing had happened), so not even the major mainstay protagonists should be 100% immune from it. By killing off a major character, it tells the audience that your story's not the type where everyone's going to get out of the situation safely and have a predictably typical happy ending (and in such stories, not even the main character is completely safe).

Of course, given what I just said, there are some authors who think that death and violence automatically makes a story dark and deep (or those who'll try to appeal to an audience that thinks that way), so they'll insert character death just to be gratuitous. In some cases, characters will get offed left and right, becoming forgotten immediately afterwards. It goes without saying that death probably shouldn't be handled in such a way. Not every story calls for death (especially ones that lack any action or other dangerous scenarios), and if a death is deemed necessary, it should be handled delicately. Any time a major character dies, especially one who had a highly prominent role throughout much of the storyline (whether as a protagonist or antagonist), their death should be treated as a big deal, and clearly something that should effect the story (particularly effecting those who were close to him/her). As for the matter of frequency, personally, I'd like to use (both major and minor) character death sparingly, but still include it nonetheless (though, I can see at least one of my stories ending with something of an apocalyptic scenario where several characters are offed at once.... in such a situation, giving each character focus in an on-screen death sequence, as opposed to leaving it all to implication, is the least I could do).

How do you treat the subject of character death?
I make death a big deal in my fic. So far I've only had a very near death-experience (and a poor Wurmple who was Daedalus's breakfast. :P )

In all honesty, I'm not sure if I can bring myself to kill off any characters or not...even the villains.. But when/if I do have to, I plan to make it realistic and tasteful (so no blood and intestines flying every which way).

How do you treat the subject of character death?
I'm a bit of a wimp towards character death. Major, minor, heck even people in the background and villains who really deserve it I have no problem bringing injury (massive or minor) their way but I don't have the guts in me to bring them death.

I can make exceptions though but in that case its for two things: character back stories (only if really needed) or for character development. Even then I'm shaking doing that out in the open.

As a whole, character death is something I like to avoid so I use it only when its necessary.

How do you treat the subject of character death?

Hm... To me, a character dying is all about the reaction from the other characters. When I kill off characters, I do so realistically, and when they die, it's the consequences of that death and the reactions that I'm interested in.

It's not to be played around with or to be used as a:

'Oh, my fic isn't doing well, I better kill off a character!'

How do you treat the subject of character death?

Well, on "Nothing, Everything"...



Yeah, bascially I treat character deaths that would like led to consequences and character development. I never really killed off a main character yet, but it's because I don't think it's needed and would make it as if I'm trying too hard to make the story too dramatic. For supporting characters and minor characters, I do deaths a couple of times as I feel it flows the story and would actually make a more lasting impact, would make character development, fits the theme well, etc.

How do you treat the subject of character death?

To me, when it comes to killing off characters, I normally try not to overplay it and make the reactions to it as realistic as possible. That is, unless it's some type of comical death (basically something you'd expect to be in something like Scary Movie or some other parody), then I try and make it really unbelievable or just plain rediculous.

I love killing characters, but not death for death's sake; what I find interesting about death is the psychology associated with it. The Fall of a Leader, for example, largely revolves around the Scyther society's perception of death and there are quite a few character deaths in it; all of those are there because they serve a major purpose in the character development of the story (aside from the random prey, of course, but I don't really count them as characters).

Character death is a tough subject, and there's some good and bad examples in many different works.



Now: there are also some character deaths that make me groan. If a bad guy is killed as a result of a monologue, I groan. If a good guy is getting his butt kicked and then suddenly gets super-awesome for no reason and kills a bad guy, I groan. If a good guy dies just to say something epic, or to look "heroic", I groan. If a good guy dies to save a bunch of people, takes a bad guy out in the process, and still gets to do a heroic monologue, I practically want to claw my eyes out. Some of these have been implemented to good effect in the past, but that's only on an extremely rare occasion. Mostly, these types of "Mary Sue" deaths just annoy me.

My take on character death is that it should be used to seriously develop other characters and/or create a serious change of tone and/or change of plot.

txteclipse said:

Now: there are also some character deaths that make me groan. If a bad guy is killed as a result of a monologue, I groan. If a good guy is getting his butt kicked and then suddenly gets super-awesome for no reason and kills a bad guy, I groan. If a good guy dies just to say something epic, or to look "heroic", I groan. If a good guy dies to save a bunch of people, takes a bad guy out in the process, and still gets to do a heroic monologue, I practically want to claw my eyes out. Some of these have been implemented to good effect in the past, but that's only on an extremely rare occasion. Mostly, these types of "Mary Sue" deaths just annoy me.

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you might need to be more specific, because the way I see it, it's not completely unrealistic for a character to act sacrificial, like for instance, giving their allies a chance to run away fully knowing there's a good chance the character him/herself won't survive holding off against an antagonist. However, such a thing sorta sounds like one of these "heroic" deaths you don't like.

Like I said, there are both good and bad examples. Well, maybe I shouldn't say bad. Maybe I should say "mediocre" or "unimpactful." It's not that the death usually ruins the story, it's just that it doesn't seem to have the effect it should or that you can't really "feel" for the character. If the character goes "out of character", so to speak, when they die, it just isn't believable for me and doesn't do anything for me.

For instance: if the character has been a goof-off for the entire story, and then they suddenly get really serious and start saying really serious things before they die, it's like you aren't reading about the same character. The death doesn't feel right because the character is different. Or if the character is a bad guy, and then they suddenly see the error of their ways and sacrifice themselves to correct whatever they have done, it feels fake. The character has obviously been bad for some time, and it's almost impossible for someone to just suddenly be good to the extent that they would give themselves up to save other people.

There have also been good heroic deaths, like when someone knowingly sacrifices themself to save other people. These are actually usually quite impactful, although many seem to take on a "cookie cutter" feel, if that makes any sense. It's like some authors make it a point to have at least one person die knowingly as a result of trying to save other people. The author usually has a brief period of mourning, and then the character is forgotten even if they have been an integral part of the story. That just isn't realistic to me.

That's a lot of writing, but I hope you understand where I'm coming from.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, what I described is the "for the sake of someone dying" thing. If the character really doesn't have to die, and it has little to no impact on the story or characters, then I usually find myself cringing.

EDIT EDIT: Wow I think to much. My main problem may be that I've seen certain character deaths that literally tear me apart, or otherwise affect me exactly like the author wants them to. If you've seen Das Boot, among other things, you may know what I mean.

Anyways, it may be that other character deaths aren't necesarilly "bad", but they just aren't as potent as things I've seen. I may be a little biased against character deaths that aren't utterly emotionally wrenching, but I guess that's a little unfair on my part. Character deaths can be as serious or unserious as the author wants, and it's pretty much up to them to decide. Not all stories are meant to be heavy or overly deep.

What are your views on the people that only post in this thread to say that their next chapter is up or to ask for a review and never actually take part in the conversation?
:< They annoy me. I don't mind if there's more substance to their posts, or if at other times they take part in the conversation. But when the only appearance by them is just to say that a new chapter is up, I wish for nothing more than to...I dunno. Do something to them.

How do you figure out the gaps between a SPAM fic and a real fan fic with bad grammar ect?
I flip a coin.

Do you always have the same amount of chapters in your fan fictions, or do you just go with the flow of the story?
Flow where I want to. Flow around the world.

Are you more likely to make your character love his/her Pokemon or to leave the whole bonding thing out of your work?
Wouldn't it be kind of difficult to leave the bond out of the story, unless you want your Pokemon to not be well-rounded characters? I mean, bond or not, they still develop some sort of feelings towards their trainers. For some, it wouldn't go as far as undying devotion, as in the case of anime Ash and Pikachu. For some, it just might mean respect on both sides, where they are friends. And then there are those who view their Pokemon as some sort of status symbol, which is how my trainer starts out her relationship with her Pokemon.

How do you treat the subject of character death?
If it's needed, fine. For instance, in a different fic that I have a few one-liners written about from three years ago, the plan was to have a character die to spur on the team to finish the good fight. I would never include a death to try and gain popularity.

And ACC? Bugger off. :<

Hanako Tabris said:

And ACC? Bugger off. :<

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Cruel words. My heart bleeds in agony. XD

Anyway, point taken. I don't mean to harass for reviews, it's just that I'm paranoid about posting anything else until I get feedback. If there's a problem in the first chapter, I want it to be one that doesn't affect the rest of the fic.


As for the subject of character death... well, my characters may or may not die at any given point. If there's a part of the story where I feel a death is necessary and will add poignance, effect the plot, make the fic better, etc. I will not hesitate to have the character die (in a self-sacrificial manner or otherwise). Gratuitous death for the purpose of pleasing the fans isn't something I feel inclined to do, especially since I hold a little bit of personal affection for all my characters. I mean, if I killed one off for no good reason I'd be thinking "Hold on, I just spent most of my free time daydreaming about this character's traits, struggling to make them human and believable, giving them an appearance that fits the setting and adds to the story, AND developing them as a person only to kill them off? And what did that accomplish?" If they die, they'll do it only when the death is meaningful. (By 'meaningful' I mean in the sense that other characters and the plot are affected majorly).