Zodiac of Chaos

[matsuda's being stupid again]

a brief overview of the fanfic i plan to write. tell me if you think i should go through with it.

characters:

The Pokesyncers

Steven- our leader, mine and nicks mentor

Erik (me)- 2nd in command

Nick- 2nd in command

Bill- Tech Specialist

Riley

Cheryl

Marley

Mira

Buck


Celestia Organization;

Selena, Leader
Daughter of Cyrus

The story takes place primarily in johto, but may move around at ceratin points.

The story occurs roughly two years after nick815s shadows of johto fic, thus making him and i 18 years old.

the Celestia organization is focused on restoring the "beauty of chaos" to the earth. they consist of selena, the leader, twelve admins based on the chinese zodiac*, and, of course, an enourmous mass of grunts who all look exactly the same.

the pokesyncers are deoted to stopping them, of course.

the celestia organization kidnapped bill in order to steal his new technology, a miniature version of his teleporter machine which would allow humans and pokemon to temporarily fuse into one being with a shared conciousness.

after being rescued (barely) by nick, erik, and riley, bill agrees to give us access to his technology in order to stop the celestia organization.

many characters will (probably) be making cameos throughout this fic. i will only use chars from the games, as the anime chars tend to be waaaaay too annoying.

should i do it?

*i will be posting the admin sprites asap.

 

[Astinus]

Moving this to the Writer's Lounge subforum where it belongs. There are a few things I could comment on to help you out, but right now I'm way too tired to be trusted.

 

[Yusshin]

Your name is Erik?

There are so many fanfictions that have a character named "Erik" (spelt the same way); I've seen at least two - not like it affects the quality of the work. I'm just saying.

Viewing your post now, I can say I hope you put a lot of time into your 'fic. You seem to have a few grammar issues; it's all right, though. The beta readers / the reviewers in general can help you out, and most likely will.

Story-wise, it sounds typical. The evil organization wanting to steal technology / pokemon / some random object (i.e. the meteorite in Ruby) in order to control the world / restore the world is a really common plot. Since you didn't add any events along the way in your story idea, it's hard to tell if this will just be "another fanfiction" or not. Try to brainstorm some ideas and share them with us so we can perhaps help you there. The events leading up to the story, the character development, and the setting are very important. Look at some of the comments I gave your friend, Nick815, and incorperate it into your fanfiction.

There's no details on characters either, so I can't comment. Perhaps add how they behave, what they like, a bit of their past... The topic is a little too brief :s and maybe that's because you haven't thought of anything yet; I can't say, since I'm not you.

But yeah, we definitely need to work on grammar, character development, and events leading up to the main plot.

A good way to go about it is writing down what will be in every chapter, and throwing in events that tie in. A real killer is if something obsolete makes a huge impact on the plot later on. Make sure to help us relate with your characters with similes and metaphors, and other details, of course. Something that will be difficult is retaining a "flow" in your story. Make sure nothing is too jumpy and awkward, and transition your paragraphs well - a bit like an essay, but not as professional.

Something I would consider bad is:

"Oh, goodie!" said Anne. "I love cookies. Are these for me?"
"Why, yes," replied Jay. "I made these cookies. They are for you."
"I'm so happy!" said Anne.
Jay kicked over a trash can.
"Why did you do that?" asked Anne.
"I didn't mean to," replied Jay.

That is absolutely terrible. We know nothing of the characters, except that Anne likes cookies, and Jay's personality isn't described well enough to comprehend the sudden kicking of the trash can. They're also extremely emotionless; there's absolutely no detail at all.

This would be more acceptable:

"Oh, goodie!" cried Anne, obviously excited. Her blonde hair bounced on her back as she moved gleefully. "Are these for me?"
"Why, yes," replied her friend, Jay, as he unwrapped the tray. "I made these cookies specifically for you."
"Oh, thank-you!" Anne was obviously very happy.
As Jay moved to hand the tray to the content girl, he accidentally knocked over the trash can beside the counter. His pant leg had caught itself on a loose nail and caused it to drag the bin to the floor, spilling out its contents.
"Why did you do that?" enquired Anne with confusion.
"I didn't mean to," the boy replied, frowning. He set the tray of cookies on the counter and began to pick up the trash.

Isn't that much better? Now that we've expanded, we now know:

- Anne loves cookies
- Anne has blonde hair
- Anne is polite, having thanked Jay for the gift
- Anne acts more childish than Jay, and is probably younger
- Jay is considerate
- Jay is kind
- Jay is a neat person
- Jay can bake cookies
- Jay may be a little bit of a klutz
- Jay was wearing pants that day
- Jay acts more mature and speaks with refinement
- There's a trash can in the room

That's a lot more than we knew before!

Character development is very important, but make sure you implement it and keep the written piece's flow at the same time.

It's late now, so I can't offer anything else :s but I hope I've shown you the key points of fanfiction writing, and some things we need to develop on, mainly:

- Grammar
- Events
- Character Development

Hopefully you can come up with ideas and present them so we can expand on them!

 

[matsuda's being stupid again]

Uhm... Thanks... I guess. Thing is, im already aware of all of this. My actual writing technique is quite good. I just dont use it in such things as the brief overview. My character development is in progress, as i am making notes in a word proocessor program which is not compatible with the forum. I may use multiple brief prologue chapters to intro the characters. An unfortunate aspect of my creative mind is that i tend to come up with various events that happen all across the storyline, which i then have to link together. Nick815 has offered to make the admin sprites for me, so i have to give credit where credit is due. I thank u for ur criticisms, even if a good portion of it wasnt necessary. And i do realize this is one huge paragraph, but i am typing on my phone. Also, my name is indeed erik. Theres three of us in my grade, and about a dozen of us in my school, so i am aware of how common my name is.

 

[Yusshin]

Yeah, I like the sprite recolours :]

As said, you need to plot this out instead of jumping into it. Since it's such a typical storyline, if you don't come up with twists and turns, it'll get boring and become "just another 'fic in the FF section".

We don't want that xD

What kind of character would Erik be, for example? Is he a portrayal of yourself, or is he different? Did the head of the organization, this "Selene", have a crippling past that brought her to be so strong and hateful? Did she have family issues, or did something happen in her youth, such as being bullied for having weak or weird Pokemon, that caused her to become so evil? Is she really "evil" or is it just because of something else, like revenge?

enourmous mass of grunts who all look exactly the same.

I suggest you don't do that in a book :s that's okay for a game, because it's the same type of trainer, but you need to make them have different hair, different personalities, etc. in a fanfiction. They're not all clones. Their uniform may be the same, and perhaps a bit different pending gender, but I suggest looking at them in variety and not as copies.

Do you have any ideas of how events are going to play out? The "in-betweens"? I'm not a specialist in brainstorming :s I'm a grammar person, but I'm tryin' xD

 

[matsuda's being stupid again]

well, taking the previous suggestion character development, i am planning out individual prologues for erik, nick, and steven (who will share one chapter), and each other pokesyncer will have another prologue of their own. selena will also have an episode of her own, which will look into her past. her "evil" nature stems heavily from the fact that cyrus is her father, both in the fact that he influences her with his own ideals, and that his inherent apathy causes sever problems for her interactive skils.

i am considering many other heavy plot points to add to selena's prologue, as she is a unique character who the readers will know nothing about. a very big point will be her mother, whom i have already planned...

also, the grunts arent going to look and be EXACTLY alike. however they arent going to be developed very far, as they are not going to be very important to the story. the admins will be far more important than the grunts, and will probably appear more commonly as active antagonists than selena herself.

 

[Yusshin]

That's definitely a start. I think you should post the first chapter so people can read it and give you feedback on characters, the plot, grammar, etc. It seems you've already got a decent grasp on what's going on after all.

You can make a new topic for the chapter in the Fanfiction forum, or if you don't want it to be "released" yet, post it here so we can look over it :]