Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Ereshkigal]

I sometimes misspell names of people >.< It's irritating, and I don't always catch it beforehand.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Why is it nobody seems to be able to spell Johto on fanfiction.net? "Jotho" is a new one

When I was little, I though Johto was called Jonto.

Also, why is the clichés thread dead? I was the last one to post.

Also also, I came up with a challenge/prompt to encourage species diversity in Pokémon fanfiction.

 

[AceTrainer14]

800 pages! I can't believe it - and just over five years to get it here! I doubt that @Gama ever thought it would get this far. Keep on chatting people - let's see how long it takes to get another 800!

 

[Instrutilus]

800 pages! I can't believe it - and just over five years to get it here! I doubt that @Gama ever thought it would get this far. Keep on chatting people - let's see how long it takes to get another 800!

Alright members, to 1000 pages! -draws sword and raises- Charge!

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I'm watching a compilation of chuggaaconroy's Pokémon FireRed bios, and I came to the realisation that "legendary Pokémon" as we know them didn't exist in Gen 1, since there were plenty of Pokémon that were one per file. I'm also remembering several people saying that owning a legendary makes a character a Mary Sue - fair enough point, but someone said that about a character who was clearly made as a joke...

But I've already talked about legendaries enough on another thread.

Anyhow, in my first post on this thread, I mentioned that I didn't know of many works of fiction that aren't English or Japanese, and that I want to broaden my horizons. Any suggestions?

 

[Ereshkigal]

I wish I could advise any, but I don't speak other languages.

Do any of you have a story chapter go completely off the rails when you write it out, and find that despite delaying an important plot event for a chapter it manages to be far better?

I'm actually having to add two chapters just to account for the course correction.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

They don't even have to be in another language, they just need a decent English translation.

I haven't written for a while, and I've never written a chapter over 3,000 words. I don't recall anything I've written derailing.

Anyone want to help me brainstorm on the Six Pokémon Challenge thread? The only concrete idea I have is Cosmog + tranquility.

Also, in the comments of TheJWittz's recent Looker video, I commented this:

"Friendships can be dangerous in our line of work, Anabel."

...Which gave me a hilarious mental image of Anabel dragging Looker by his coat, trying to catch up to Celesteela.

 

[Ereshkigal]

I'll check to see what I can find.

And, be glad. I have a chapter weighing in at 13,540 words. A wee bit hefty.

After I've slept a bit, I'll check to see what I can add to your challenge.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I'm having a hard time deciding if the mascot of my (small) YouTube channel should be Piplup, Skitty, or Togetic. I have sentimental attachment to the first two, but I keep thinking that the latter just fits me, for some reason.

Oh, and if I had the means to make an interesting intro, And I Begin to Wonder from Klonoa: Door to Phantomile would be my intro theme.

 

[Instrutilus]

Why not all of them?

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Why not all of them?

Too much to handle. I want a character that people will one day look at and think: "that's Nitro Indigo."

 

[Instrutilus]

...wouldn't they take a look and think "Yeap, that's a Pokémon..."?

 

[AetherX]

I'm having a hard time deciding if the mascot of my (small) YouTube channel should be Piplup, Skitty, or Togetic. I have sentimental attachment to the first two, but I keep thinking that the latter just fits me, for some reason.

I think Skitty or Togetic would be best. Piplup's great, but there's already a lot of connotations with it branding-wise. I don't see Skitty or Togetic around much though, so one of those could work well.

 

[Flaze]

Can't go wrong with a metal fairy that came from an egg.

 

[diamondpearl876]

...wouldn't they take a look and think "Yeap, that's a Pokémon..."?

You could definitely make a symbol with just a pokemon, as long as it's got some creative element to it.

Skitty does remind me of the writer DigitalSkitty. Though I don't think she's really dabbling in pokemon fics anymore, I could recognize her posts in a heartbeat on any site because of her skitty icon.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Can't go wrong with a metal fairy that came from an egg.

That's Mawile or Klefki you're thinking of.

I guess Togetic would be fitting because my channel is mostly positive...?

 

[Jaye]

So I've discovered a strange affliction where I must plan out every detail of a long story before I write it, yet I also have a strange habit of getting bored of the planning process or daunted by the sheer scale of it.

I've got this idea for one of those anime rewrite fics, with more emphasis on Ash growing up and formation relationships with the rest of the characters and less emphasis on him being OP and banging all the chicks. I got about a third of the way through planning the Kanto part of the journey (I had planned to go as far as Sinnoh) and thought "Damn, there's too much crap to keep track of!" and gave up. Like, I've got character arcs for Ash, Brock, Misty, Gary and Team Rocket, they've got x Pokemon each, and they're all in different locations at any given time doing their own things. Then I'm working out where tertiary characters might appear, and when certain story and emotional beats might happen, and so on.

I gave up. I kind of have a new found respect for people who pump out 50 chapter 300,00 epics like it's nothing.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I looks like a trap authors often fall into when trying to write some sort of anime fix-it-fic. If you're going to treat each protagonist as a main in their own right, and possibly try to make the pokémon supporting cast, then that's going to be something along the lines of between nine and twenty seven characters, before even looking at the rival and villain archetypes. It's just plain too many even for a serial anime, which can usually rely on stretching things out further than the average prose story can.

When you compare it to a story like - and this is the best example I can think of - A Song of Ice and Fire, you notice that a story with an apparently huge cast runs best on few protagonists and a supporting cast that's drawn in pencil strokes. George Martin tends to get away with it by playing with archetypes, and by having several stories running side-by-side that tend to intersect occasionally

 

[CrystaI]

Really, very few writers, whatever media the writer is working on, can pull out a well written story that has +20 protagonist-level main cast. I really admire any writer that can do so.

When a story that has such large amount of main characters, either the story focus were split and thus each characters suffered from not standing out enough, or that story went too long because writer trying to make everyone stands out enough.

The maximum amount of protagonist-level main characters I can write is merely 4. One of two current fanfic project I'm working on has 5, therefore one will suffered from lack of focus and become backseater. I'm sorry but I really have to admit that is just my writing limit. If I really need to improve my limit...... Well, I may as well just completely overhaul the entire story, for the 5th time!!!

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I once tried writing a story with nine main characters, but I gave up partially because I wasn't able to give them unique personalities. The main reason was because I couldn't get any feedback no matter how hard I tried.

Also, a while ago on Fimfiction, someone made a thread about video game localisation. Most of the responses were civil, but then one troll said that to expect anything more than a direct translation was stupid (I'm paraphrasing). Now I feel bad whenever I think about localisation. I can't believe it took me over a year to discover the angry side of Fimfiction. (Although there was one person who got mad at everyone who disagreed with her interpretation of a Pokémon fanfic that someone else wrote.)

Nah, you get moaning about not being direct translations all the freaking time. Like the outraged response to 'artistic license' in translation has seemingly gotten worse over time. It used to be that dubs tended to only get moaned about beyond 'I prefer the sub' level preferences when it was something like 4Kids trying to erase Japan from a dub they were doing ('jelly donuts') or turning a serious scene, or a quiet moment in a work, into an opportunity for godawful puns, with an acknowledgement that a well done sub is going to take liberties to make the phrasing more in keeping with english, replace Japanese puns with english language ones, etc.

Nowadays, it seems that someone will loudly moan unless we get the sort of godawful 'blind idiot' translation that used to be reserved for fansubs (Though with the more accessible, legal, streaming anime services, with typically higher quality dubs and subs and quicker turnarounds, that seems to have moved from being an anime thing to a games thing, though I just might no longer be hanging around the right parts of the internet to get the moaning for well done anime translations not being word for word with no acknowledgement that phrasings, idioms, and puns that are natural in Japanese are, at best, incredibly idiosyncratic in English)

After listening to the PokéRap GS in my head today, I decided to make Chinchou my mascot.
- My internet name is Nitro Indigo. Chinchou is blue.
- It's cute, but people aren't over-exposed to it.
- You could see it as a metaphor; my channel is about "shining a light" on things I don't want to feel alone in liking.
- Lanturn is one of my favourite Pokémon, because on my first ever (admittedly terrible, but we all have to start somewhere) competitive team, I had a Lanturn who was usually the last mon standing. That HP stat is INCREDIBLE. Shame Lanturn didn't get a buff to either of its special stats in Gen 7.
- Water is one of my favourite types.
- Gen 2 has my favourite Pokémon designs in general, along with Gen 3.