Fanfiction Lounge

[Buoysel]

Okay, I've got one more question; What's the minimum length for a prologue?

 

[Giratina ♀]

What's the minimum length for a prologue?

I don't think there is a minimum length. xD I tried for one ot two pages, but Metal Coat's ended up being three...

OH YEAH. I should introduce myself.
I'm The Unchosen One, but just call me Murky. It's easier. xD I am really quite new to Pokemon fanfics, and posted my first here a couple of days ago. I've been lurking around this thread a lot, reading, and now that I've officially posted MC I can finally post something. :3

 

[JX Valentine]

Huh, interesting. Guess that shows how little I know of, well, any of the different manga series.

It's not really your fault, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. The manga are hard to come by nowadays unless you know where to look, and even then, chances are, you'll have an easier time finding Special. Toshihiro Ono's series, however, I haven't seen around outside of Torrents in a long time, which is a shame because it's short and was fairly popular when it first got published. (I mean, seriously, the art is awesome. Every single character in that series is done to look like something out of quality anime.)

If you'd like, I did manage to get the first three chapters in a .zip file back when PC let people post scanlations. I could send it to you via e-mail if you're curious; it's at least got short explanations to how the trainer system works in that universe.

Interesting interpretation (regarding the islands and their cultures), by the way.

People who change the minimum age just because seem to forget that, instead just assuming that the kids in the Pokemon world must be exactly the same as kids in our world.

Exactly, which is part of the reason why I never take that as a valid excuse. The other reason is that it's perfectly possible for a kid to figure out how to take care of him or herself alone in the world. It's not particularly difficult, and we've got real-world examples of parents leaving a kid alone in a house for a long period of time (trusting them to cook for themselves) or kids who go off camping (either with friends or with a Boy or Girl Scout troupe). Point is, writers who think preteens can't potentially take care of themselves are really underestimating the abilities of a ten-year-old to figure out how to do things if, yeah, they're taught the basics.

That and they're overestimating the abilities of, say, a fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen-year-old. I mean, I don't know about the teens where these people come from, but the teens where I come from (and I'm American, mind you), frankly, were dumb ****s. I remember one girl I know had to call her mother to get instructions on how to cook rice. Rice. And the instructions were on the box. And she was fourteen. Not to mention the general immaturity of that age group as well. I'm pretty sure most teens (not all, mind you) regress to the mentality of six-year-olds until they leave high school. So, yeah, if you threw a ten-year-old and a fifteen-year-old out in the wild with only the bare essentials, my money's on the ten-year-old getting back with no problem.

Oh god, you don't know how hard that made me laugh.

*bows*

I should so do it. Seriously, I should.

Yes, you should. *totally not a bad influence*

...You guys don't believe me, do you?

Links or it's pr0n.

First, my mom really doesn't get that much love in Pokemon fan fiction, not even in my work. Then again, any fic with my mom would also have to have self insert me in it, and me running over cute wild Pokemon in a 3,500lb. LeSabre probably wouldn't set too well with many folks.

Depends on the Pokémon we're talking about here. I mean, if swarms of Togepi suddenly decided asphalt would be fun to play with, I'd hate you for not throwing it in reverse and running over them again.

Seriously, though, plot bunnies that should not be:

Both kid and his mother fall into the Pokémon world, only the mother turns into a Pokémon that ends up being the kid's starter.

Go, minions! I've infected you with plot ideas!

When writing in first person POV, does the character's speech need quotes around it if he is speaking to the reader?

Mmm. Breaking the fourth wall.

Confirming what Negrek said, and you may want to be careful about doing this. Not everyone enjoys having that fourth wall broken. The characters can see us through the screen after that. They're watching us.

Seriously, if it's a humor fic, go for it, but if you want us to take it seriously, it might be a bit harder to.

Likewise, unless we're actually characters in the fic, quotation marks aren't necessary.

Okay, I've got one more question; What's the minimum length for a prologue?

Quarter of a page.

No, seriously.

Basically, a prologue is a scene that's set before the main action of the story. It sets up the events that get the main plot rolling, and it helps introduce the reader to the style and world themselves. Therefore, a quarter of a page might be the very smallest you can have a scene before the main action. You can have both scene setting and character interaction -- as brief as it might be -- in that small amount of space. Of course, it's highly encouraged that you go for much longer, but if you can pull off a very short scene with high quality, we can't exactly fault you for it.

Anything shorter than that, however, probably means you haven't given enough information and/or are summarizing, rather than actually laying down a scene.

 

[Buoysel]

Mmm. Breaking the fourth wall.

Confirming what Negrek said, and you may want to be careful about doing this. Not everyone enjoys having that fourth wall broken. The characters can see us through the screen after that. They're watching us.

Seriously, if it's a humor fic, go for it, but if you want us to take it seriously, it might be a bit harder to.

Likewise, unless we're actually characters in the fic, quotation marks aren't necessary.

There are other characters, but I figured that the first couple of paragraphs I could set up the scene by having the character explain things. like part of the first line is [FONT=&quot]

Well, first off I guess I should start off by introducing myself

[/FONT]

Quarter of a page.

No, seriously.

Basically, a prologue is a scene that's set before the main action of the story. It sets up the events that get the main plot rolling, and it helps introduce the reader to the style and world themselves. Therefore, a quarter of a page might be the very smallest you can have a scene before the main action. You can have both scene setting and character interaction -- as brief as it might be -- in that small amount of space. Of course, it's highly encouraged that you go for much longer, but if you can pull off a very short scene with high quality, we can't exactly fault you for it.

Anything shorter than that, however, probably means you haven't given enough information and/or are summarizing, rather than actually laying down a scene.

Good, so my half a page is okay then. XD, I guess it will be one of those prolouges that I post along with the first chapter.

 

[The Ebon Blade]

What's the minimum length for a prologue?

I would think it really wouldn't matter. I mean, you'll obviously need more then like a paragraph but I've seen good prologues that are less then a page and my prologue is four pages so... however long it takes you for the set up scene.

 

[Heart's Soul]

What's the minimum length for a prologue?

As my fan-fics may vary, it can be from 0 characters to several pages.

 

[txteclipse]

When writing in first person POV, does the character's speech need quotes around it if he is speaking to the reader?

Everything in Mastermind is in speech quotes, because it's a monologue spoken into an audio recorder. Now I'm questioning if I should be writing it that way...

 

[icomeanon6]

When writing in first person POV, does the character's speech need quotes around it if he is speaking to the reader?

Everything in Mastermind is in speech quotes, because it's a monologue spoken into an audio recorder. Now I'm questioning if I should be writing it that way...

I think you should keep it that way. If you were to remove the quotes, people might get the impression that Mewtwo actually sat down and typed up the story. If you're trying to convey that the story is an anecdote, and not first person narration, then you should definitely go with the quotes.

 

[Venia Silente]

Toshihiro Ono's Surf's Up, Pikachu...

Is it very difficult to find? Got me interested.

Why don't nidos get more love... ?

Because they're not as cute as Eevee, Dratini, Vulpix, Pikachu, Pachirisu, Buneary, your mom, or the legendaries. :<

ROFL! --- You read Pokémon-X's take on the Hoenn Trend and "Your Mom", right?
  The cause....
    and the effect.

Oh ROFL'ed for a couple of minutes with your answer. Although I differ with Buneaury... and why does Pikachu have to be everywhere!!!????!!11111


Refering to prologues, I *do* have a question:

How "connected" should/must the Prologue be to the story?

I'm trying to get up to speed with the writing process, and decided to give the final touch to the chapters of a new Pokémon story, the one I wanted to publish initially but went into a MAJOR revamp (as in, I took out part of it into a spin-off which I published as Elusive Goals). However I am having trouble picking the correct Prologue to write.

The thing is, the story is long (I write lo~ong). Not only in that it is multichaptered and stuff. :\ But also in that the story itself spans a good ten years period. As a moethod to better focus the direction of the plot, the first things I wrote were the first and final scenes, as well as a list of one hundred short sentences chronologically describing the story. But those are not good as prologue, so I am trying to write something anew.

So far I've got three potential prologues, which I think it's not a good sign:

One that is essentially a "Day One" from the POV of a specific character, it has the advantage of being well placed chronologically, and introduces both the "universe" and the setting, but it's difficult to write because of the mood required, gets a bit Garysueish on the character (even though it's only a secondary character) and may shed a wrong light on the overall tone of the story.
Another one that uses the "False Document" technique to explain in a very detached manner (as in, reading about the events from an encyclopedia) why things happened a certain way during the 10 years time lapse. It seems to be easiest to write, and goes along well with my writing style, but I don't like how it's turning out because it is emotionally detached from the story, and does nothing to actually introduce the setting. Besides, the first advice I got here (from An-chan and Xanthine) was to learn to write simple.
And a third one, an ultra-flashforward, that would chronologically take place near the end of the story, where the main characters gather together for a "final challenge". It's the one I like the more. It's relatively easy to write and introduces both the setting and the characters, but I fear that by portraying the lead characters's future so early, I may be actually restraining the characters' development, whereas if I try to describe them only vaguely that would confuse the reader on further chapters.

I wanted to ask for general opinions here, as prologues had already taken to the scene of conversation, instead of creating a new thread right away, so as to get a more general view on prologues too.

Maybe... after getting some answers (I want to hear Xanthine's :D), I will create a new thread specifically for the question on my prologue. After all I've just provided some basic info, maybe there I can provide samples and further explain what I want to achieve.

Thanks for any suggestions!

PS.: I'm getting tired of "he/she". What other pronoun(s) can I use? Please, no "it"...

 

[Elite Overlord LeSabre™]

How "connected" should/must the Prologue be to the story?
It should be a heavily disguised sales pitch for the Buick Regal *gets shot*

My prologue was chronologically in order with the rest of the fic, but it contained an action scene that didn't involve my main character at all, but did set up the circumstances for her getting a Pokemon. I've seen some where the prologue is a snippet of "TEH BIG IMPORTANT FINAL BATTLE AT TEH END OF TEH FIC™," which I personally don't care too much for.

I don't really get into the setting until the first chapter possible. My prologue serves as more of a teaser with lots of lab-invadin' action.

 

[JX Valentine]

Is it very difficult to find? Got me interested.

To be honest, I'm not sure. I haven't been able to find it in bookstores for years, and finding anything (aside from Special) online tends to be difficult.

ROFL! --- You read Pokémon-X's take on the Hoenn Trend and "Your Mom", right?

I haven't until now, but that's fantastic. XD If only one could do that in the actual games.

How "connected" should/must the Prologue be to the story?

Well, as I usually say, the entire point of a prologue is to set up for the main action of the story. As long as you eventually explain how it's relevant sooner or later, it should work.

So, in other words, don't write a prologue that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the story. As in, it's great that Suzie goes to school, but unless you're getting back to Suzie eventually, it probably shouldn't go in your story. However, if you eventually get back to Suzie going to school in chapter forty-three, that's a bit more forgivable. (Although, really, you'll want to be careful about putting the prologue's relevance so far into the story because of the danger that you'll never reach the point you were trying to make with it.)

This means, yeah, you can have a prologue set in the future, one in the distant past, or one that's five minutes before the main action. Anything, really, so long as it's relevant to the rest of the story.

In terms of mood, you could go with a uniform tone throughout your work, but it's also possible to, for example, have an extravagant beginning full of action and enough detail to get your point across (i.e., just enough without losing yourself or the reader to orbs of emerald, for example) that jumps back to a more down-to-earth tone. It's a way to contrast the extraordinary circumstances you're probably going to dump on your character with the character's ordinary life before anything happened. You just need to know how to manipulate mood in order to pull it off without jarring the reader too much or disappointing them with chapters of exposition.

PS.: I'm getting tired of "he/she". What other pronoun(s) can I use? Please, no "it"...

Xe. 8D (Although, personally, I'm kinda partial to ve myself.)

 

[The Ebon Blade]

Do the Pokemon you use in your fics have any meaning?

I'll tell you what I mean by answering the question.

In my fic, all of Kaleen's Pokemon (Scizor, Absol, Pidgeot, Luxray, Gardevoir, and Meganium) are some of my favorite Pokemon. Well except for Riolu and Lucario.

 

[txteclipse]

Do the Pokemon you use in your fics have any meaning?

You mean symbolically, or if they have meaning to us like a favorite?

 

[Heart's Soul]

Do the Pokemon you use in your fics have any meaning?

No, I just take some random GSC pokemon and I get something. And then come the legends... *sigh*

 

[The Ebon Blade]

You mean symbolically, or if they have meaning to us like a favorite?

either or. anyway u want to look at it

 

[JX Valentine]

Do the Pokemon you use in your fics have any meaning?

Well, you see, Viola's Haunter actually is a metaphor for her sexuality through death symbolism in that, like Haunter, her id desires the Freudian human cravings of sodomy latent deep within her psyche. Likewise, the fact that it's her father's Haunter implies a deep-seated Electra compl--

Okay, yeah, they just seemed like good choices for the storyline at the time. Also, usually, I gun for Pokémon no one else seems to bother with because giving my characters Pokémon like Eevee, Ninetales, or Pikachu tends to be boring for me to write.

(But this doesn't change the fact that Viola suffers from an Electra complex.)

 

[txteclipse]

Do the Pokemon you use in your fics have any meaning?

Kind of? I have some pokemon that act as symbols, as well as some that reflect certain elements in my life. They're more intended for my own understanding than anything, though.

 

[Editman]

Do the Pokemon you use in your fics have any meaning?

They Do. I Chose eevee to Represent the Innocence of My trainer.

I chose Spinarak Because a Bug Pokemon is characteristically weak, And when you think about them They are like Pushovers so I gave "Ace" a Spinarak one because it's a bug an it shows his Novice as a Trainer But it Also Shows him as being fierce since a great deal of people are scared of spiders LOL.

Last But not least is Hoothoot, Which is an Owl Pokemon and Owls are typically associated with being Wise, since this is a Young owl itshows "Ace's Maturity"

 

[Dagzar]

Do the Pokemon you use in your fics have any meaning?

Nope, not really. The Pokemon I choose for my trainers are mostly random or just happen to live in the area. I don't even use my trainer's Pokemon in the gameboy games! Well, I do sometimes use Sandshrew, but I usually ditch it later for something better.

 

[Elite Overlord LeSabre™]

Do the Pokemon you use in your fics have any meaning?
Persian's my favorite Pokemon, so my main character has one. As for the rest of her team, they're ones I've used in one game or another.

I'm not a fan of dogs and the anime has made me despise Pikachu with a passion, so the dog-like Pokemon usually go to the villains (Fred the Dog Master in particular). Quite a few of the villains, including the boss, also field Pikachu into battles.