visual media is usually done in 3rd person. That said, my answer should be obvious.
Brand names are unneeded usually, since you could just say "He pulled a soda from his cooler" just as easily as "He pulled a Diet Coke from his Reeboks sports bag". Less distracting, less superfluous imagery.
in my case, however, description is pretty much eliminated, and with the visuals more easily accessed, I think such inserting such sight gags would be fun. The audience may find it amusing, as well.
I think that using stupid fakelabels (e.g., Burger Queen, 7 Down...) are completely redundant. I just use the real name like Burger King and 7 up, it's not like the founders are going to come here and get all sueing on us.
obviously, I'm heavily influenced by Japanese media. That said, I find it interesting what they'll do sometimes. Every now and again, they'll use an actual brand logo in the scenery, but will change a single letter or respell it as Engrish or something to avoid a lawsuit. Even though I'm planning to work on an doujinshi (which would be unlicensed anyway), I wouldn't mind using these altered logos myself, if only for amusement's sake.
EXAMPLES
SONT
GOP
Alternatively, I've seen Japanese fanworks mention a brandname in the character dialog, but censor out a single symbol in the name with a 〇 or X or something (in this
example, from the Pokemon gijinka web comic
Sato x Pika, you'll notice Satoshi's mom holding up a bottle of wine saying she mistook it for a bottle of Fanta. However, whereas Fanta should be ファンタ, it appears as ファン〇 here). Oddly enough, people will do the same thing when making a post on a message board (which shouldn't even have many legal complications). But personally, I'd wanna stray away from usage of these circles and such.
If you don't mind me drifting a bit off the original topic, I've also seen such censorship used to cover up the Japanese words for "penis" or "vagina" (and in hentai, of all things). I heard that hentai censorships laws have actually toned down in recent years, so going on this and all that I said before, I think the Japanese get a kick out of censorship nowadays just for the hell of it, or maybe for the sake of
parody in some cases (though, I honestly can't blame them if they enjoy censored hentai... in my years of viewing the stuff, I've gotten quite accustomed to censorship, if not a distinguishable trait of Japanese porn, and it's actually preferable when some artists can't draw whole genitalia worth crap. I'd say some of the Pokesho edits floating around image boards are a testament to this).
Do you like to keep your fics going with sequels and/or prequels?
I do have a sequel planned to accompany my first long-running series (I'm also thinking of a spin-off featuring one of the characters set in an alternate world.... I've really been thinking my doujinshi ahead ^^'). While I do intend to have the two series rely on one-another in some cases (ex. purposely leaving some loose ends at the end of the first one, maybe even some intentional usage of the Chekhov's Gun, and making several references to previous events in the sequel, not the least of which being the fact that I plan for it to star the main character's children), I am hoping for both of them to work well as their own storylines for the most part. Interestingly enough, I was just planning for the sequel to be a one-shot (or a one-volume manga with a small number of chapters) at first, just a light-hearted little misadventure featuring the main character's children (light-hearted being a bit of a break from what I usually see myself writing). But a few months ago, an idea suddenly hit me and I decided to give it a complex, long-running, darker storyline much in the same vein as its predecessor. Also, while they're not exactly sequels/prequels per se, I also have intentions to insert cameos between my own doujinshi. Most notably in my erogee, in which Fuutarou can encounter characters from my other doujinshi depending on the paths the player takes.
Hell yes. I hate the idea of endings so I do, although I haven't thought of any (save a spinoff-esque, thing)
you know, things have to end eventually. With that said, I think it's better if you give a proper conclusion to your story rather than eventually cutting it off mid-way (or worse, dragging it out to the point of redundancy). Even though I said I'd do both a sequel and a spin-off, I have no intentions in continuing my series beyond that (nor do I have intentions to cut it off, and hopefully I'll never rush the end just because I got bored with it. As it stands, even though I have yet to actually start it after all these years ^^', I still retain an interest in doing doujinshi on the side).
