Episodic Fanfiction?

[Ivysaur]

I've been planning on writing a real Pokemon story (not that "How I was Banned" crap, lol) for a while now, and while compiling my ideas in my dandy Microsoft Word documents, I've come to the conclusion I'd like to try out an episodic sort of story. More specifically, it'd feature a group of characters that would expand and shrink, with characters added and removed over time. It would focus primarily on these characters and their various experiences in the Pokemon World, while featuring and/or focusing on more minor characters throughout the story. All the different plots or events would be independent for the most, but strung together, and each one would help build up the story and lead to the final climax. Needless to say, such a story would be a long one.

My Questions:

For those of you who have written a story like this:

• Did you find it difficult? More difficult than writing a regular story?
• Do you feel that this helped keep readers interested?

For those of you have read a story like this:

• Do you feel that this method of writing a story overall helped it or hindered it?
• Did this method make the story feel unfocused?

For those of you who haven't either read or written a story like this:

• Would you be interested in reading one?
• Does the overall prospect of it sound like it'd work well?

And a question for everyone: what is your overall opinion on the idea of an episodic fanfic?

Thank you, everyone!

 

[AetherX]

Sort of like a written TV show? It definitely sounds interesting, although I'd imagine writing it would be more trouble than its worth. You'd have to come up with a bunch of different mini-plots. But if you've already got a few of those planned out then that shouldn't matter. It would eliminate cliffhangers for the most part, which could be considered both good and bad.

I'd probably enjoy reading something like that, yeah. But then again, I enjoy reading the nutrition facts on my cereal box so maybe I'm not a very good judge.

 

[Gama]

This sounds vaguely similar to an idea that I wanted to try out - a story where the individual events aren't so heavily strung together as my previous ones are. Arcs, if you will.

I think sounds like a great idea - you should definitely go for it.

 

[RobMysterio]

Longs its well written an interesting to read
I'm not to bothered how its layed out tbh
Only thing i do know is that some of the episodes could end up being extremely long

 

[Ivysaur]

A bit of a late response, but anyway... I have another question; should the first episode introduce the entire cast? Or should the cast be introduced throughout the first few episodes?

 

[Kyuuketsuki]

Depends on their relationship. If they all live in the same area and possibly know each other before hand, then yes. But if one lives far away from the rest, then no.

 

[The Dude]

Oh, man, this sounds like a terrific idea. I had a similar idea for a series of "episodes" of a crime procedural set in the Pokemon world, but gave up the idea as too ambitious for the time being. I think you should set up the premise in the first episode. Watch a couple pilot episodes of TV shows, see how they handle it, and take the best approach you see. Don't worry about making more than one or two of the characters very complex in the beginning. Most of all, show very, very little backstory for any of the characters. People don't just monologue to others their life story, so any exposition you do should be organic; that is, it should come out because it would make sense in that situation for that character to talk about it. Even in a non-mystery based TV show, a lot of the drama (or comedy as the case may be) comes from finding out surprising things about the characters. I'm not necessarily saying the characters should all have DARK SECRETS. A lot of this should just be stuff that all of the characters known, but the readers don't. It gives the impression that these characters had lives before the story started, the author is just choosing to show us the most interesting period of their lives.
Oh, and I suggest introducing some, but not all of the characters. Ease readers into the world, and expand it gradually. But all of the main cast should be introduced by about episode five, I think.

 

[Zekurom]

A bit of a late response, but anyway... I have another question; should the first episode introduce the entire cast? Or should the cast be introduced throughout the first few episodes?

I personally feel that introducing the entire cast in the first episode makes the story seem too constructed, like an academic essay.

It's probably better to introduce them when they're needed.

 

[Aladar]

I think I can help with this one, given that my curren project- Crossroads of Infinity- is precisely modeled into different Arcs.

First of all, there is no need to introduce everyone right off the bat. You can, say, introduce only the major characters of their respective arcs and then with each new one introduce the secondary characters, whether they are important for the current arc or just 'passer-bys' in the narrative. For example, the main secondary character in the second arc was introduced way back in the very first chapter as an ordinary girl late for school who ends up crashing into a transfer student- who happens to be the main character of Arc 2 and didn't even know the protagonist of Arc 1 back then. As for inspirations on the crisscrossing narrative, I suggest you watch Baccano! Any fic writer able to pull off the same mish-mash of actions that starts to makes sense only after 4-5 eps and is interesting even before that, without 3 month prep time, is a genius.

Also, keep some of the other main characters around during the current arc. Protagonist 1 may be the one having adventures or something similar at the time but that doesn't mean the rest of the cast just sits around and does nothing. Show parts of their daily life or jsut flesh them out on a basic level during their interactions with Protagonist 1. And then when their arc rools around, you can do a complete U-turn by showing how the previous interactions with Protagonist 1 were jsut a mask because they were shy around him/don't like/are in love with him/were lying to him/a whole lottta other things. Also, IMO the separation of the arc would be better if you write it from the current protagonist's POV. Not neccessarily first-person, jsut narrow the narrative to only thing sthey can percieve when using third-person.

And lastly, keep in mind how the characters themselves would perceive their interactions and, for the lack of better word, 'place in life'. For example, in Protagnist 1's eyes two of the otehr main character are just Those Two Guys. But in, say, Protagonist 3's opinion, Protagonist 1 and his best friend are Those Two Guys. Get wut I'm sayin'? Cause it really got kinda jumbled up... anyway, hope I helped a bit.