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The Thinking Writer's Guide to Pokemon Fanfiction
“Story should be a descent -- the feeling that there is an intense gravity to the narrative that draws you down, down, down.” - Chuck Wendig. There, now we have the obligatory writing quote out of the way. But I do like quotes, so we’re going to be seeing more of those later.The Pokemon universe has expanded at a steady rate since it’s release, and even if you have been with us since the beginning, there’s still quite a bit to wade through to figure out how to write for the fandom. A genre unto itself, it has countless subgenres and niches inside those genres - canonized epics, journey fics, Mystery Dungeon, pokemorphs, rebirth, original region, and more. Since listing the entire spectrum would probably leave us with the biggest run-on sentence in history, I’ll be brief and cross that bridge when we get there. All the same, I’d like to make a distinction on how this guide may differ from other popular resources in the fandom. Fanfiction is a sandbox. I’m not going to police the fact that you might want to explore popular ideas, or that you might like a popular pokemon for your story. Fanfiction is a learning tool, a hobby, and sometimes just a creative outlet. We own nothing but what we put into the world, but without the setting, our fandom wouldn’t exist. Let your fellow writers grow. The only way you get better is to make mistakes, and those mistakes will be made regardless of how often people go for the jugular. Make your criticism constructive, and leave the dreaded cliche witch hunts in Europe. * * * * * 1. Writing Basics 1.1. Word Processors and Basic Resources 1.4.1. Numbers in Writing 2. Point of View2.1. Description 4. Setting, World Building 4.1. Culture: Japan 5.1. Titles 6.1. Mary Sue, the Phenomena 6.1.1. Underdeveloped Characters, Common Pitfalls 6.2. Protagonists6.3. Antagonists 6.3.1. Rivals 8. Pokemon (General) 8.1. Popular Pokemon 9.1. Abuse 11. Science and Technology 12. Fantasy and Magic (AUs) 13. Original Regions 14. Fandom-specific Genres 14.1. Journey Fics |
Word Processors and Basic Resources
“I then go miserably enough to the typewriter and I edit with tiny little pen scribbles until you can't read it anymore. And then, I put it into a word processor.” - Campell Geeslin At some point or another, all of us have realized that writing directly online (and not into a program like GoogleDocs) is a bad idea. Be it because your power went out and you lost your work, or simply because you realized that there was no efficient way to track what was going on in your projects, a different approach needed to be made.Because what works for one writer may not work for another, I’ve hunted down additional options outside of what I use. These will be categorized into sections (paid, free, online, and novelty), and I’ll post commentary on the ones I have used enough to be familiar with. If you’d like me to quote your experience with a program, I’ll be happy to edit it in if you contact me.
* * * * * Paid
- For those of you participating in NaNoWriMo, Scrivener also supports a sale every November. The normally hefty price ($40) is halved for winners, but anyone can get a free 30-day trial to see if the program works for you. The best thing about the trial is that it only counts the number of days you actually open the program, so you don’t waste time if you happen to get busy.
Free
Online
Novelty (Not actual word processors)
* * * * * Utmost Basics: And now for the generalized resources:
Informative Blogs:
Pokemon-Specific Wikis: Ambient Noise: - Alternate options on site: Epic Music and Relaxing Chill |
Spoiler:
Quote:
- - - - - “English is the sort to mug other languages in dark alleys and sift through their pockets for loose grammar and vocabulary.” - James D. Nicoll (Paraphrased) Linguists and conlangers can appreciate the fact that language is an ever-evolving thing, but that doesn’t mean that we can ignore or massacre the basic rules of English. Fortunately for you, I absolutely loathe sentence diagramming, so I won’t be getting into that. What I will do is cover the elements of applied style, and how they might be altered without detracting from the flow of the story.- - - - - The basic components of grammar, both as review and for people using English as their second language. Nouns: We all know what these are, I hope. A word used to describe a person, place, thing, event, idea, and so on. Proper Nouns: The name of a unique person, place, or thing and always begin with a capital letter. Ex; Mary, Kanto, et cetera. (A point I will stress - ‘Pokemon Center’ will be capitalized as the name of a place, but ‘Pokemon’ will not be, by itself. Nor will the species names of pokemon - such as pikachu or mareep - unless the species is being treated as a name. Arceus will be capitalized if your POV regards it as a god, as no one would have the arrogance to give a god a name with more familiarity. Your partners, though? Most people would have the dignity to give them a name that offers distinction from the rest of their species.) Pronouns: Used to replace nouns in sentences and reduce the mechanical sound. She, he, it, they. (Grammar books will debate this, but agender people have claimed it and they as their singular pronouns. Respect that.) Alternatively for agender characters, you have ze/zir/zem or xe/xer/xem, or there are even those that still are willing to be addressed with gendered pronouns. It’s up to the individual. Adjective: A word that describes a noun. Ex; The forest is primeval. Article: The words a, an, and the are generally called articles and sometimes classed as a separate part of speech. In function, however, they can be grouped with the demonstrative adjectives that are used to point things out rather than describe them. Verb: Words that describe action. These come in two flavors, at least for what’s important to the guide. You have passive (Ex; I was being eaten by zombies) and active (Ex; The growlithe set the mailman on fire. Again). Actually, here’s a rule of thumb: If you can add “by zombies” onto the end of a sentence without it changing the mood or delivery, you have a passive voice. Adverb: Words used to modify verbs, adjectives, clauses, or another adverb. Or, simply, anything but nouns or pronouns, which are modified by adjectives. Three examples -
Verb. Fast modifies running. The above is also bad phrasing. It would read better as “The growlithe ran x-adjective or x-simile.” Or, better yet, replace “ran” with a more intense adjective.
Adjective. Heaping modifies potatoes.
Modifies the entire sentence. Also a note from editors or people who will be beta-reading for you: Adverbs often appear as -y or -ly words, and they will muck up your entire draft if you use them liberally. The best comparison I’ve heard is food-related. No one (usually) eats spices by the spoonful, you apply them as dressing. Adverbs are your spices, and editors will call it Adverb Hell if the story is riddled with them. Prepositions: Linking words that connect nouns and pronouns. The words linked together are called objects. (Ex; The meowth is under the table. Meowth is the noun, under is the preposition, and table is the object.)Conjunctions: A conjunction joins words or groups of words. It has two variants, coordinating (and, but, either, neither, nor, or) and subordinating (that, as, after, before, since, when, where, unless, if). Interjection: Derived from the Latin word ject, which means “to throw between”. (See, objection.) A word thrown into a sentence to express emotion. (Ex; “Goodness, how you’ve grown!”) Side Note: Punctuation will be addressed in another section to avoid overgrowing this one. - - - - - Other terms - Syntax: Although syntax is defined as “A study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language,” or “the study of the patterns of formation of sentences and phrases from words,” I’m going to refer to this in the practical use. Syntax is the flow of your writing, how easily it reads and how the sentence structures affect that. Morphology: In terms of language, morphology refers to patterns of word formation in a particular a language, including derivatives, inflection, and composition. This is an important concept when considering the cultural blending in the Pokemon world, and will be touched on in greater detail in the language chapter. Other topics - Can you start a sentence with “And” or “But”? The archaic grammar rule that denied this came from Latin, which didn’t have split infinitives. Now it’s perfectly respectable to use it here and there, when the words work better for your syntax than a formal presentation, as long as you don’t overdo it. Cannot or can not? Both forms are actually an accepted usage, although “cannot” dominates because of it’s place in the Merriam Webster dictionary. For the most part, though, “can not” as two words should be reserved for emphasis in a statement. Usually the “not” is italicized in that instance. It’s or its? One of the most common mistakes (and probably the easiest to gloss over - I reread drafts and find the misuse more than I’d like), but also one of the easiest ones to fix.
Alright or All right? The usage of “Alright” has become more prevalent in other types of media (mostly music titles), but “all right” is the accepted academic spelling and therefore should be your go-to. - - - - - Grammatical Resources: |
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