Ahhh people recommending me. @-@ Don't listen to them! My main fic involves a kid who has a Dratini, an Eevee and a Gyarados within the first ten chapters and is then sent on a quest to save the world by capturing all the legendaries by a Mewtwo that can kill with its eyes and an Articuno/Zapdos/Moltres hybrid. Oh, and there's a Gym leader who trains legendary clones. Does that sound good to you?
Okay, I haven't been here for a while (or rather, I've been in the middle of writing a reply several times, but then I'm always at my boyfriend's place, and when I go back there he's closed the window and the post is gone). Let's see if I can't reply to some topics.
When you write something for the first time (slash, action, romance etc), how do you go about doing it? Do you spend a lot of time researching the subject, how other writers handle it, or do you just dive right in and give it a go?
Just dive in, pretty much. Of course, I haven't precisely done a lot of expanding my field since I started writing fanfiction. Recently I've been attempting to start two Phoenix Wright fanfics, but it feels really strange to me to write about canon characters since I've really never done that before (closest is writing about future-Ash, but he's changed so it feels more like writing an original character). I'd rather not try to be too influenced by how others write the characters, though. :/
In my first attempt at writing actual romance in the first half of The Fall of a Leader, I pretty much just tried to get it over with, since I didn't plan to do a lot more of it. Now I'm sort of attempting shipping (in one of the Phoenix Wright fics), which I never thought I would, and hopefully that turns out better, but the last place I'd look for inspiration for romance would be other fanfiction.
I highly doubt I will ever in my life write slash, but if I ever do, my research will consist of staying as far away from other slash fanfiction as possible. I don't think I have ever in my life read a slash fic that felt more than very remotely in-character. Or okay, one, but all that one did was take a canon epic!friendship and make one of the characters bi. That was perfectly in character. Except for the part where that one character was bi.
...yeah. I have no slashgoggles.
If your fanfiction would become a series or movie, would you change something?
I'd basically make all the changes that are going to be in the IALCOTN to make things more sensible - replacing Molzapart with Mementity, taking out Rainteicune, making Rick officially train Pokémon that evolve by evolution stones, making Mark get Dratini thanks to May's inside information about breeding projects, etc.
What do you hate most in fan-fictions?
Well.
1. Romance involving children. Prepubescent kids should be interested in all the exciting Pokémon battling they could be doing, not in kissing the token opposite sex traveling partner. You could say it's a squick.
2. Like Jax, it irritates me further when romance always automatically happens between the male and female leads. It's just so predictable and typical.
3. The whole love-hate relationship cliché. Look, you people: when two individuals are crushing on one another or in a romantic relationship, they generally do not show this by arguing and fighting constantly and pronouncing their hatred for one another every five minutes! I don't know about you, but I've actually had crushes on people, and that notably dulls my ability to be annoyed at them or disagree with them; in fact, my brain will be desperately making up justifications for everything they do that I don't like. And in established relationships, there is likely to be good-natured bickering exactly because they know they can voice their disagreement on things without ending up in a real argument, but that is a very, very different thing from actual arguing and fighting, when real, strong emotions and anger come into play. A real fight with somebody you love feels like crap. If you're in a relationship with somebody who regularly drives you to shouting and screaming, it's a bad relationship that should be broken up. It's not cute couple behavior to put in your fanfic to make the relationship between your prepubescent male and female leads more 'realistic'. Good fights between romantic partners can be very emotional and intense moments, but they both need to be about something that really warrants it and they should show their mark on the relationship - it can take days for the damage from a serious argument to heal even if they don't break up altogether.
4. What's with all trainer fics featuring the rash but compassionate main character, the opposite-gender love interest the main character constantly argues with, and the usually older male character who explains things to the other two?
5. To finally move completely away from romance, stupid villains. I'm not necessarily asking for anything profound, but if you want there to be any tension in the story, you have to make the villains competent enough to pose a serious threat. At least make them read the Evil Overlord List.
6. Pokémon with no personalities or ones whose entire characterization could be summed up in one phrase: "likes ice cream", "really hyper".
If something happens IRL to make you stop writing, how do you get back into it?
I wouldn't really know, since it's never happened to me - not that I remember, anyway. :/
Gasp! Plot bunnies are on the attack, but you've got a brainchild to save! How do you keep from wandering off onto those other stories and leaving a poor abandoned fanfiction neglected and in the cold?
I juggle fics, but I think I'm physically incapable of completely neglecting The Quest for the Legends; I love it too much. Generally it's the plotbunnies that end up in something that just fades away. My passion for things is in direct proportion to how much time I've spent on them already; once I've written more than three or four chapters of something, I automatically care enough to keep going no matter what might distract me.
