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POPULAR: Plot Bunny Zoo

@diamondpearl876 I was thinking of having Estelle become more cynical as the story goes on, and Torby coming across some bonflyers he knows and being forced to confront his past. Maybe he has to do something to redeem himself from... whatever?

The idea behind Estelle is that she's a cute 'n' marketable Pikaclone who is mischievous, not above trickery, and outsmarts enemies several times her size, but she also has a kind heart.
 
Simple spoiler free version is that a character needs to block a sonic blast attack and either i can tie in something from earlier in the story or I can use it to add in something intended for going forward.


The spoilerific version for Pokemon decolonized is EVERYTHING BELOW.

The MC Jaklo is battling a feral raging Exploud under the darkness of midnight woth light coming from his flashlight and the circling town spot lights. After unleashing a blast that has scattered Jaklo's team out into pitch darkness Jaklo stands alone having to stop the monster from reaching the towns gate which is largely unguarded because of a roamer attack drawing attention to a different side.

Jaklo has to call his pokemon with one of his signature whistles, but this also gains thr attention of the feral pokemon. The exploud unleashes a sonic blast attack with force like a bomb blast. This is where i have two options. Either Jaklo can employ the Rapid Application Intercepter Defense Shield that Isaac makes for him (its the folding riot shield his friend mentioned in chapter 3). Its a nice way to show how they help each other even if Isaac isnt a front line guy. It also means i get to have him show up earlier to give Jaklo the shield.

Option two is Jaklo accessing elemental powers and forming a wall of roots and earth. Hed find hes capable of using grass type powers and while he still has to develop the powers it has a bunch of new subtext with further spoilers that come up later.

Basically its wither a payoff or set up and i cant decide.
 
Simple spoiler free version is that a character needs to block a sonic blast attack and either i can tie in something from earlier in the story or I can use it to add in something intended for going forward.


The spoilerific version for Pokemon decolonized is EVERYTHING BELOW.

The MC Jaklo is battling a feral raging Exploud under the darkness of midnight woth light coming from his flashlight and the circling town spot lights. After unleashing a blast that has scattered Jaklo's team out into pitch darkness Jaklo stands alone having to stop the monster from reaching the towns gate which is largely unguarded because of a roamer attack drawing attention to a different side.

Jaklo has to call his pokemon with one of his signature whistles, but this also gains thr attention of the feral pokemon. The exploud unleashes a sonic blast attack with force like a bomb blast. This is where i have two options. Either Jaklo can employ the Rapid Application Intercepter Defense Shield that Isaac makes for him (its the folding riot shield his friend mentioned in chapter 3). Its a nice way to show how they help each other even if Isaac isnt a front line guy. It also means i get to have him show up earlier to give Jaklo the shield.

Option two is Jaklo accessing elemental powers and forming a wall of roots and earth. Hed find hes capable of using grass type powers and while he still has to develop the powers it has a bunch of new subtext with further spoilers that come up later.

Basically its wither a payoff or set up and i cant decide.

I'd suggest the Shield, if you already introduced it but haven't utilized it. Like you said, it gives Isaac a bit more use as a character, and best to expand on what you have before delving into new concepts. I guess you could always use the Shield, have it fail, then default to the latter option, too.
 
Question: I'm rewriting chapter 1 of Untitled and doing some more restructuring; originally the first few chapters were looking at what I thought a lot of journey fics ignore: leaving home. But then I kind of realized there might be a reason for that, because of how boring it can be to write the anxiety of a character that readers don't know yet. Either way it feels like I can't win, so I'm a bit confused if there's a better path to take here. If I go with the media res route I still want to put in what I've written in a flashback or something, but is that too annoyingly cliché?

Thoughts? Thanks!!
 
Question: I'm rewriting chapter 1 of Untitled and doing some more restructuring; originally the first few chapters were looking at what I thought a lot of journey fics ignore: leaving home. But then I kind of realized there might be a reason for that, because of how boring it can be to write the anxiety of a character that readers don't know yet. Either way it feels like I can't win, so I'm a bit confused if there's a better path to take here. If I go with the media res route I still want to put in what I've written in a flashback or something, but is that too annoyingly cliché?

Thoughts? Thanks!!

I don't think flashbacks are too cliche. As long as they're timed well and they have a purpose, that's okay. But as far as journey fic openers go, I'm a fan of making the mundane seem not so mundane at all. Most journey fic openers risk seeming "boring," sure, but there's definitely ways to make your readers care about the character before they set off. Explore that anxiety a bit. What is the character anxious about? Is it related at all to why they want to leave for a journey? Is it something completely unrelated to wanting to journey but is still something they'll be anxious about during the journey? I might be able to help more if I knew the character/context more.
 
Question: I'm rewriting chapter 1 of Untitled and doing some more restructuring; originally the first few chapters were looking at what I thought a lot of journey fics ignore: leaving home. But then I kind of realized there might be a reason for that, because of how boring it can be to write the anxiety of a character that readers don't know yet. Either way it feels like I can't win, so I'm a bit confused if there's a better path to take here. If I go with the media res route I still want to put in what I've written in a flashback or something, but is that too annoyingly cliché?

Thoughts? Thanks!!

A lot of recent-ish journey fics choose to skip the leaving home bit mostly because it's easy to fall into cliches, and like you said, it can be boring. I went with the flashback route myself. It worked out alright, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it if you can think of a way to make the beginning neither boring nor cliche. Some of my favorite journey fics actually have a few chapters before leaving home, allowing the reader to get to know the protagonist a bit. Go into why they're going on a journey in the first place, introduce friends and family, show the hometown (great worldbuilding opportunity), and establish exactly who the protagonist is before their journey. This provides a great first stepping stone towards development. As far as plot goes, I'm not sure if it's possible to add in some foreshadowing of the long term plot, but that's another thing you can do. To flesh all of this out, you might have to develop some kind of hometown based subplot, but I think it would be worth it.

The zone of comfort/status quo is an often skipped part of the hero's journey, but I think it's very important.
 
Alright, check this out:

I’m thinking about a story set in a region, probably hoenn, plagued by eternal rain. The main character had basically never seen the sun, and the world just barely manages to hang on. The main character goes on a journey to find Kyogre, the rumored source of this endless rain, and maybe try and catch kyogre to stop the rain.

A pretty basic story, but I wanted to write it as character and world focused rather than plot focused. It’d be very episodic and maybe even borderline slice-of-life-y, and focus more on individual stories within the main character’s journey rather than the overall plot. Thoughts?
 
@UselessBytes It's a start of a decent premise but it's missing something to make it stand out more, something to make it more than "character goes out to save the world". Finding this is hard and requires lots of thinking. A suitable theme may help you in this.

I don't understand what you mean in your second paragraph. Character arcs and world development are carried out through plot; the unfolding of your story through story events as the main character learns about his or her opponent.

Just my opinion, of course.
 
Character arcs and worldbuilding don't actually have to revolve around the plot, in fact, as long as you have an interesting set of characters and world you can go by with a story with no clear plot. Stories with simple plots work for character-driven stories since they put more emphasis on their lives. However, you still have to do something that drives this forward, while the characters don't have to revolve around the plot, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have one. Create a plot that revolves around the character, or explore what little plot you have through your characters eyes. Why do they want to save the world, what is it that drove them towards this? at the end of the day what'll make them grow doesn't even have to be the plot either but just what he goes through as he interacts with others and their lives.

That being said, if you do want to have an epic world-saving plot then I wouldn't push it to the background completely if I were you. It'd be pretty weird if your story spends most of its time meandering through episodic stories while there's a bigger plot in the background. I speak from experience as one of my fics was like that and while a lot of people like it, in retrospect I felt that it ended up spinning its gears a little too much.
 
That being said, if you do want to have an epic world-saving plot then I wouldn't push it to the background completely if I were you.

That's the thing though, it's not exactly an epic world saving thing. I was gonna write the world as mostly adapted to the constant rain, able to survive in it, even if it takes some effort. The main character's goal wouldn't even be to stop the rain, he would just wonder why the sun never shines and would end up subtly guided to the source of it all. he would just be a dude who's curious by nature, a trying-to-find-his-place-in-the-world kinda guy. In hindsight, I didn't make that clear in the original post, but it's what I was imagining.
 
So here's a question: what's a good way to approach a plot that involves a good deal of excitement and danger, but still allows plenty of time to show the protagonist and his/her friends' personal lives? In specific, going to school, shopping at the mall, playing games at the apartment, etc. - all things that a real person, or in this case student, does.

I always feel that I have to make my plots overly heavy and all the characters have to be super stressed-out about this big, climatic event that's going to unfurl in the background, but that's no fun to write. I'm aiming for a lighter story, but it's still geared at 13+ in its level of danger/threat level/violence.

In my case, the protagonist in my book lives a dual life, one as a student, the second as a sort of special forces. I'm at an early point, Chapter 7, where a lot more characters, themes and such need introduction. I've kinda hit a brick wall in terms of the plot, and mostly that's because I have two separate groups of antagonists that are making things very complicated. I'm thinking of merging the second one with the first or eliminating them altogether.

Character arcs and worldbuilding don't actually have to revolve around the plot, in fact, as long as you have an interesting set of characters and world you can go by with a story with no clear plot. Stories with simple plots work for character-driven stories since they put more emphasis on their lives. However, you still have to do something that drives this forward, while the characters don't have to revolve around the plot, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't have one. Create a plot that revolves around the character, or explore what little plot you have through your characters eyes. Why do they want to save the world, what is it that drove them towards this? at the end of the day what'll make them grow doesn't even have to be the plot either but just what he goes through as he interacts with others and their lives.

That being said, if you do want to have an epic world-saving plot then I wouldn't push it to the background completely if I were you. It'd be pretty weird if your story spends most of its time meandering through episodic stories while there's a bigger plot in the background. I speak from experience as one of my fics was like that and while a lot of people like it, in retrospect I felt that it ended up spinning its gears a little too much.

I have to confess, I prefer stories that focus more on characters than plot. I'd rather have strong characters that really give your readers feels than a cookie cutter plot set around the end of the world, etc., etc..
 
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So here's a question: what's a good way to approach a plot that involves a good deal of excitement and danger, but still allows plenty of time to show the protagonist and his/her friends' personal lives? In specific, going to school, shopping at the mall, playing games at the apartment, etc. - all things that a real person, or in this case student, does.

I always feel that I have to make my plots overly heavy and all the characters have to be super stressed-out about this big, climatic event that's going to unfurl in the background, but that's no fun to write. I'm aiming for a lighter story, but it's still geared at 13+ in its level of danger/threat level/violence. There's a lot of comedy in it, too, so there's that.

In my case, the protagonist in my book lives a dual life, one as a student, the second as a sort of special forces. I'm at an early point, Chapter 7, where a lot more characters, themes and such need introduction. I've kinda hit a brickwall in terms of the plot, and mostly that's because I have two separate groups of antagonists that are making things very complicated. I'm thinking of merging the second one with the first or eliminating them altogether.

(My book is first-person, btw, so the narration is also a mix of light, casual commentary with natural poetic description.)



I have to confess, I prefer stories that focus more on characters than plot. I'd rather have strong characters that really give your readers feels than a cookie cutter plot set around the end of the world, etc., etc..
Personally I think a good way of doing that is just to alternate between what you show. Once they're done with a mission, just have a chapter or two of them just dicking around with their friends. It's not like they're always running around doing missions, so there should be spots inbetween where they're allowed to just be a kid/teenager/whatever.
Some good works I can think of that do this are Steven Universe and the webcomic El Goonish Shive. Some crazy things happen, but life outside of it keeps moving, so there's plenty of episodes and storylines of perfectly mundane things. It also gives a bit of a breather between the heavy parts.
 
Personally I think a good way of doing that is just to alternate between what you show. Once they're done with a mission, just have a chapter or two of them just dicking around with their friends. It's not like they're always running around doing missions, so there should be spots inbetween where they're allowed to just be a kid/teenager/whatever.
Some good works I can think of that do this are Steven Universe and the webcomic El Goonish Shive. Some crazy things happen, but life outside of it keeps moving, so there's plenty of episodes and storylines of perfectly mundane things. It also gives a bit of a breather between the heavy parts.

That makes a lot of sense. I always feel that if I show the characters' personal lives too much, I'll bore the reader and they'll stop reading. I mean, my protagonist and his friends are both classmates in school and comrades in their missions, so it just seems wrong not to show them and what they do. Including himself, there's six of his friends in the group, plus his mentor. A huge prominent character is his childhood friend, as well, but he's not on the same team.

I'm taking this book chapter by chapter, by the way. In my last writes I tried planning it all out from end and back, and it snowballed.
 
I have to confess, I prefer stories that focus more on characters than plot. I'd rather have strong characters that really give your readers feels than a cookie cutter plot set around the end of the world, etc., etc..
You described what I'd like to see in the next Pokémon Mystery Dungeon game better than I ever could.

It's also why an original story idea I have is stuck: I don't want the world to be at stake, but I still want it to be an adventure story with a big scope.
 
That makes a lot of sense. I always feel that if I show the characters' personal lives too much, I'll bore the reader and they'll stop reading. I mean, my protagonist and his friends are both classmates in school and comrades in their missions, so it just seems wrong not to show them and what they do. Including himself, there's six of his friends in the group, plus his mentor. A huge prominent character is his childhood friend, as well, but he's not on the same team.

I'm taking this book chapter by chapter, by the way. In my last writes I tried planning it all out from end and back, and it snowballed.

I like @Lone_Garurumon's advice a lot. I can also see intertwining everyday kind of stuff with the missions - ie., if they've got an hour to kill before they can move on to the next part of the mission, have them sit at a café and reflect on things in a meaningful conversation or something like that.

I agree that without a connection to the characters, the actual plot part can lose its appeal because there are no stakes if we don't care what happens to the characters. Also, just as every writer has preferences, every reader will have preferences, you know? So while not everyone will like character driven fics, if that's what you wanna write, I say go for it anyway. There are definitely readers across the Pokémon fandom that prefer character driven fics, at any rate, including myself. :D It's fascinating to see how a writer can spin the everyday mundane sort of stuff and make it beautiful.
 
So here's a question: what's a good way to approach a plot that involves a good deal of excitement and danger, but still allows plenty of time to show the protagonist and his/her friends' personal lives? In specific, going to school, shopping at the mall, playing games at the apartment, etc. - all things that a real person, or in this case student, does.

I always feel that I have to make my plots overly heavy and all the characters have to be super stressed-out about this big, climatic event that's going to unfurl in the background, but that's no fun to write. I'm aiming for a lighter story, but it's still geared at 13+ in its level of danger/threat level/violence.

In my case, the protagonist in my book lives a dual life, one as a student, the second as a sort of special forces. I'm at an early point, Chapter 7, where a lot more characters, themes and such need introduction. I've kinda hit a brick wall in terms of the plot, and mostly that's because I have two separate groups of antagonists that are making things very complicated. I'm thinking of merging the second one with the first or eliminating them altogether.

I really want to make a custom Magic Eight Ball for writing-based questions where the only possible answer is "It depends."

So what does it depend on? In this case I think it depends on the threat/encroaching danger in question. If there's a zombie outbreak, or an alien invasion, or a giant skybeam over New York City, or all of the above, then yeah I don't think you're going to be able to get away with sending your characters off on a romantic date. If the threat is intermittent (for example, your characters dress up as superheroes every night to go out and fight crime), then absolutely you should intersperse the meat of the plot with bits of downtime. The pacing would be wonky as hell if you didn't. These kinds of scenes are necessary to contextualize the impact of the more climactic scenes.

As for boring your reader with too many tales of your characters' personal lives... you won't. Probably. Me and many other people love to read slice-of-life stuff. If you're in it for the characters, it's just as important as the actual plot.

By the way, this thread is generally for feedback on specific plot ideas, while your post is a bit more general and would have been fine as a brand new thread. I know you were pointed here and it's started a discussion, so I'm not going to discourage it too hard, but I thought I'd say something. If there's something confusing about where to post, feel free to talk to a WW mod about it.
 
I like @Lone_Garurumon's advice a lot. I can also see intertwining everyday kind of stuff with the missions - ie., if they've got an hour to kill before they can move on to the next part of the mission, have them sit at a café and reflect on things in a meaningful conversation or something like that.

I agree that without a connection to the characters, the actual plot part can lose its appeal because there are no stakes if we don't care what happens to the characters. Also, just as every writer has preferences, every reader will have preferences, you know? So while not everyone will like character driven fics, if that's what you wanna write, I say go for it anyway. There are definitely readers across the Pokémon fandom that prefer character driven fics, at any rate, including myself. :D It's fascinating to see how a writer can spin the everyday mundane sort of stuff and make it beautiful.

It's funny. I spent months and months dreaming up my plot, and certain events that would unfold, but that's not it. I was thinking of my characters all that time, which was good in the sense that they were so thought out, but bad in that I had nothing in the world to drive them on. It'll be tough, but I know I can do it.

I'm not writing a fan fic btw. This is my own book. ^^

I really want to make a custom Magic Eight Ball for writing-based questions where the only possible answer is "It depends."

So what does it depend on? In this case I think it depends on the threat/encroaching danger in question. If there's a zombie outbreak, or an alien invasion, or a giant skybeam over New York City, or all of the above, then yeah I don't think you're going to be able to get away with sending your characters off on a romantic date. If the threat is intermittent (for example, your characters dress up as superheroes every night to go out and fight crime), then absolutely you should intersperse the meat of the plot with bits of downtime. The pacing would be wonky as hell if you didn't. These kinds of scenes are necessary to contextualize the impact of the more climactic scenes.

As for boring your reader with too many tales of your characters' personal lives... you won't. Probably. Me and many other people love to read slice-of-life stuff. If you're in it for the characters, it's just as important as the actual plot.

By the way, this thread is generally for feedback on specific plot ideas, while your post is a bit more general and would have been fine as a brand new thread. I know you were pointed here and it's started a discussion, so I'm not going to discourage it too hard, but I thought I'd say something. If there's something confusing about where to post, feel free to talk to a WW mod about it.

But what if it's a date between an alien and a zombie? Definitely more of the latter. To be honest, my protagonist actually has superpowers, so that's cool of you to use it as an example. I often wonder if I should have made his friends have something akin to it, but the idea of a solo hero seems much more believable. And I haven't really worked out a system of what time the missions will occur - they're sporadic, I guess, and it's usually up to the cast to jump in on the action before innocents are involved.

Sorry. Maybe I misinterpreted the directions. It was late, and I was so desperate to have finally found this place that I just started to type. I may post a new thread about it, but then I don't know how much info to give out. I don't want my ideas stolen... they're all I have.
 
Hi there. I'm doing a rewrite of the Pokemon anime. I am on the second part (Cascade Badge). I want to get a Pikachu, but I'm not sure how to play it out. I was thinking an old power plant, or perhaps an old school that someone wants to renovate and reopen? Anyone got any advice?
 
Hi there. I'm doing a rewrite of the Pokemon anime. I am on the second part (Cascade Badge). I want to get a Pikachu, but I'm not sure how to play it out. I was thinking an old power plant, or perhaps an old school that someone wants to renovate and reopen? Anyone got any advice?
Pikachu's lore says that it lives in forests.
 
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