JX Valentine
Your aquatic overlord
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- Harassing Bill
- Seen Aug 19, 2020
There's really no difference in terms except one's a verb and the other's a noun. Additionally, yes, the style is slightly different to writing fanfiction because with RPing, you're writing quickly (at least, faster than you would with writing fiction) and open-ended because you constantly have in mind the fact that someone else is participating with you. As in, you need your poses to be out fairly quickly to keep the game going and/or to get in your pose before someone else changes the story too much for you, and you need your pose to be fairly open to take into consideration the interaction between your characters and someone else's. Koneko's probably used to this sort of environment as well as the tendency to clarify which character she's using (which is also an RP technique for players who have multiple puppets, typically with none of them being in the same location).
It's really just a habit Koneko needs to take the time to break, regardless of how dead-set she is in staying that way. She needs to remember that fanfiction =/= RPing, even if the two are still writing and that when people give her advice, it's a good idea to do her best and improve, rather than stay static simply because they're bad habits she keeps. Harsh as that sounds, all I'm saying is that it's great you realize you have problems with your writing, Koneko, but you really need to work on improving from there, rather than simply say they're bad habits.
Yes, the character labels are incredibly jarring, and they tend to be a bit distracting from the work. As in, they're not something you really want because it disrupts the flow of the story by smacking the reader in the face with who the story's focusing on at that particular moment. (That fact really should be obvious enough by the content of the scene.) It's okay with roleplaying to clarify that you're switching characters, but with fanfiction, it's unnecessary and even bad for your writing.
Also, I'd like to address a couple of things in the author's notes (aside from how jarring the character names are):
….
x_x
Okay, to be blunt, we're talking about Pokémon here. The main character's name is Ash Ketchum. Every single character (with the exception of a handful of characters-of-the-day, who really don't count anyway) have English names because it's a dub. This, meanwhile, is not an anime, and moreover, it's a fanfiction in a fandom that names its characters things like Misty and Brock anyway. I don't think it really matters whether or not it "looks good."
Not to mention:
1. To be honest, what's worse than a pun-tastic English name (of the sort the anime gives its canon characters) is a Japanese name derived from one of the basic words your average "I think I'm Japanese, but really, I barely studied the culture" kind of fan uses. These are names like Hikari, Usagi, and, of course, Sora. It shows a lack of effort to do the research, and it's basically a cliché with anime fanfiction.
2. What's also not a good thing is if you have Japanese names for your OCs and English names for the canon characters. You can find Japanese names for Ash (Satoshi), Gary (Shigeru), and the others very easily online. In any case, either go with Japanese names or English ones. Do not attempt to use a mix of both unless your character is Japanese (or their parents happen to like Japanese names). In other words, giving your OCs Japanese names because you think they look cool while you keep the English names for the canon characters really isn't a good reason to give a character a Japanese name.
3. And, finally, it's not particularly difficult to find lists of Japanese names on the internet. Heck, you can even find Japanese surnames.
So, in other words, this tends to be a bad sign right off the bat. Be consistent with choosing names, and on top of that, please do your research. I mean this as bluntly but honestly as possible. Naming your OCs after Kingdom Hearts characters will make them think this is a crossover, and doing so because you think it looks better but can't be arsed to find alternative Japanese names reflects badly on your work. I'd go into why, but that would be closer to insulting you.
That said…
Normally, I just skip over the author's notes at the beginning because they aren't really part of the story, but there's a lot here that needs to be said. Hence, that's getting taken care of first.
Who are, actually, two different characters with the same appearance. (Note that Leaf, which is the character's actual name, does not get kidnapped by a Ho-oh to be trained by Pryce.)
Actually, they do. Sakura has turned into a bit of a joke because it's one of the most overused character names in anime (and anime-based fanfiction). So, just because it's reused doesn't mean it's a good idea.
As I've said before, because you use Sora and Kairi close together, people will automatically think you're doing a Kingdom Hearts crossover. It's not, after all, like it's at all difficult to look up better names.
If you need to say that your fanfiction is not based on someone else's, chances are, you probably need to rethink the concept. Your audience won't really make a comparison between a specific author and your work, but if you feel like you're writing a fanfiction similar to someone else's, chances are, you're going down a rather generic pathway, if that makes sense.
Which one? I can never stand it when people think there's only one Pokémon manga. Special is the longest running, yes, but there's a lot of great ones out there, including The Electric Tale of Pikachu and Golden Boys.
That aside, so… we can expect Kairi to be kidnapped by a Ho-oh at some point? (Kidding, of course, but it's just a point to say that there's a lot to the manga storyline -- stuff that makes it completely different from the anime. If you're basing your story on both, it's something you really need to keep in mind.)
Also...
This is really the opposite of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" sort of philosophy. As in, if it ain't fixed, don't break it more.
What I mean is you realize you have problems with the story. Okay. But if you keep doing nothing to solve those problems, your story will really just get worse. Trust me. Especially with the beginning of the story, if you don't fix the problems you have with it, then the rest of your story will just build up and up from that problem, and you'll encounter more and more problems after that. The beginning's a foundation. If you don't like it, scrap it and rewrite it, even if it means editing the crap out of your story. Yes, your reader will be able to tell what problems you had, so you might as well just go and fix it.
In this case, what might be a good idea is to go all the way back to the prologue, outline what it is you want to do in your story, and rewrite the prologue over and over again until you're done. Yes, you're rewriting parts you've already posted, but that's perfectly fine. Sometimes, authors do that. I've done it to the point where the current prologue of Midsummer Knights is nothing like the original. (Neither is AEM's, although I never posted the original version.) Dragonfree's done it to the point where she's got a massive list of changes between the first version of her Quest fic and the current one. Revisions are perfectly cool, even if it means stopping the fic and restarting from scratch (or salvaging the good parts of the original and replacing the bad ones).
Basically, as far as I can tell, no one's really telling you to ditch your story altogether. Simply that it has problems as it is, but a rewrite -- as in, a serious rewrite -- might help you get over those problems.
Long story short, what I'm trying to say is that it's good that you realize you've got problems with your writing. Now, rather than say you acknowledge them but do nothing about it, you've got to take the next step and make an effort to change X, Y, or Z.
And, also, it would generally be a good idea to do research.
If you'd like a full review on the story, I could provide one later.
