POPULAR: Simple Questions, Simple Answers

[Elric von Bek]

I was thinking of how a party could draft policy with racist/sexist or what have you, undertones. Like, if you looked at it long enough, you should start to have some red flags popping up about what the party might be up to. But "fuel" sounds like a good choice as well.

 

[Plumbum]

So, I'm always wondering, kind of... how do write? Or rather, how do one plan to write? I know without at least a vague plan my writing is just going to sink like a motherfucker of a stone, but I'm kinda really bad at planning things through. I mean, as far as "planning" goes right now, I have solid plans for both the heroes and the bad guys and a good few locations that are pretty neat like the Power Plant (a literal electrical beanstalk), the Crystal Palace (A glaciertop palace as the name suggests, where some early plot occurs and then serves as a doomed hometown for Princess Glaceon).

But I really have no idea how to make it into a plan then into writing and it's bugging me.

 

[Dorothy]

I wonder how bigoted anger - presumably popular in nature - can be concealed by political upheaval. I would have thought that it would fuel political upheveal

It could work both ways. Political upheaval has the dubious benefit of kicking up dust in front of whatever the government is doing - a golden opportunity for bigots to enact legislation in their favor with nominal legitimacy.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Question mostly for the girls this time! Nobody who's read The Long Walk will be surprised to learn that parent-child relationships feature quite prominently in the ongoing story. Unfortunately the main reference I have for mother-daughter relationships is my sister. So, this is the question - when you come (or came) into conflict with your mother, how does it play out? What do you typically butt heads over?

Anecdotes are great, especially if they involve some sort of parental meddling, but I'll take anything

Thanks!

 

[Elric von Bek]

Re: Writer's Workshop General Chat Thread

I have some loose ideas for a fiction. A q and a would really help me shore up any holes.

It is set in Kanto, using game canon from generation one. The Pokémon League is in the process of being privatized by Silph Corporation. This means that league-sanctioned starter Pokémon must be obtained via a Pokémon professor working for Silph. Scientific integrity has led Professor Oak to cease his research; he does not believe in publishing findings that have been tampered with or misrepresented by his financers. Since Oak's Pokémon research ceased, southern Kanto has seen a drop in the tourism industry. The influx of new trainers was a massive source of income for Pallet Town and Viridian City. Saffron City is overflowing with people looking to work for Silph. There aren't enough jobs to go around. Thus southern Kanto sees a swelling in its homeless population. Throughout Kanto, there is simmering resentment between those who work for Silph and those who lost their jobs to Silph Corporation's industrial expansion.

Giovanni, an ex-member of Silph's Board of Trustees, is using the situation to take control of the corporation. He is gathering those turned destitute by Silph's privatization of the Pokémon league and building a new force of Rockets. These Rockets don't wear any uniforms or anything like that. It is their Pokémon selection that distinguish them as Rockets: either Hitmonchan, Scyther, Snorlax, Zapdos or Moltres. The legendary Pokémon, aren't really legendary in the sense of being unique. They're just seen as embodiments of the various elemental forces and thus were once worshipped as such. So they're only legendary or unique in some of the old books, cave paintings etc. My protagonist is a blacksmith from Cinnabar that joins up with the new branch of Team Rocket. I haven't gotten any further than that, as I was thinking mostly on how the idea of privatizing Pokémon training would affect Kanto.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Re: Writer's Workshop General Chat Thread

I like the idea of a more mafia-esque Team Rocket. In the anime and frankly the game canon their plans are too militant for my liking. Honestly though, my reservation looking at this summary as a reader would be that it's set in Kanto. Personally I've seen a lot of Kanto and I'd be looking for a change. Since your plot really doesn't allow you to go too far afield, I'd either think about setting it in Johto or expanding the geography of the games

 

[Dorothy]

Re: Writer's Workshop General Chat Thread

Setting a fic in Kanto demands originality, and this is quite an original idea. That said, a lot of it rings familiar. Like Pavell said, it might be best to set it in a different region.

 

[Flaze]

Re: Writer's Workshop General Chat Thread

You should set that fic in Hoenn, that hasn't seen much love.

 

[Persephone]

Oh, boy, political stories. As a poli sci/econ student who puts waaaaaaaaaaaay to much time into world building, I might be able to help with this. A possible avenue for exploration is simply why the league would ever privatize. The Pokemon World, or at least the league, appears to have free health care and lodging for traveling trainers, as well as some public regulation of the practice. Additionally, Silph in Kanto (not so much in the other regions) appears to be more or less a Natural Monopoly that is allowed sole control over production of products by the League/Government, but kept within certain bounds as such. IRL these have often been subject to mafia control in more corrupt governments, but in the Game-verse at least it seems pretty opposed to the Rocket organization. I mean, Giovanni invaded the place and has been regularly viewed as a criminal. I'm not sure why he would legally be allowed on the board, game-verse. Anime-verse Giovanni might be. Either way, it's unclear how a probably well-regulated natural monopoly could somehow take over an important government function.

But, that has happened. The Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, modern Australia and England (to an extent), and particularly the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras in the Soviet Union/Russia are good examples of public functions suddenly thrust under private ownership to varying degrees of success. I would research at least one of those to learn more about political circumstances that could give rise to your setup.

I would also make a plot. In general when creating world-building heavy stories with realistic political leagues it helps to come up with an outline for your main character and a basic plot for them first. Then you can let the world-building influence your story. But if you try to just come up with a plot inside your already built world, it can be much harder, unless the plot is clearly meant to be secondary.

Other than that, I've never really been a fan of commonplace legends as they aren't a thing in any verse at all. Legends are most common in anime-verse and even then only a handful of trainers have ever used them, and certainly not common syndicate grunts. So unless something has really changed, it would be basically impossible.

In response to the slew of anti-Kanto criticism: yeah, it's done a lot. But if you can't think of something equally or more compelling for another region, just don't do it. If you want to do a mafia-esque organization in particular, really only Rocket, later Plasma, or the Orre villains really fit the bill. The Hoenn teams and Galactic are more like Utopian Revolutionaries than anything else and Kalos is almost as overused as Kanto now so that wouldn't help much. What I'm trying to say is do what you've got to do to make the story best. Just be aware that setting it in Kanto does mean that you are now opening yourself up to comparison with a much larger pool of writers and stories, whether or not the comparison is intentional.

 

[matt0044]

With Team Plasma, I intend to write the grunts as clearly hypocritical yet like any other person who just happened to be suckered in by Ghetsis's way with words. It's to sorta show the consequences straw men fallacies and groupthink can have. I wondering what I else can do with it.

 

[SobriquetP]

Hmm... I am having story-flow problems. I am working on a non-Pokemon fanfic and am not sure how to proceed.
At the end I am planning on following a canon psuedo-tragedy where one character gets "killed" off and the girl he had just married hears about it and withdraws in herself and will not talk to anyone.
Now in canon, he reappears immediately afterwards and the emotional turmoil is forgotten immediately afterwards amongst comedy-relief. This unacceptable for me, as I feel the angst level needs to be increased at least 4 levels and needs more tragedy.

My fic takes place in a ethereal dreamlike state where a third unrelated character is finding out about all of this after it has happened. Now here's where I hit a snag. I have a series of past events that show how utterly terrible the main girl's life(twisting canon a tad) was until meeting her husband and how she gains more self-confidence.

I guess what I am trying to say is this story is focused on the random third person in a life-or-death fight in this dream realm where the story of the main girl's tragedy is told. Now I have three ideas about how to go about this, but I do not want to break the flow of the story too much.
1. My original idea was to just have other-worldly dialogue during the the fighting depicting the past events. The obvious problem here is that the flow will be broken up between Fighting/Dialogue/Fighting/Dialogue and be hard to follow, even with italics.
2. I then thought about having the events depicted before the fighting occurs happen in a hallway with faceless marionettes or shadows acting out the girls life off to the side. My fear here is that it will slow down the story too much and ruin the other-worldly atmosphere of the dream or make the reader lose interest.
3. I thought about separating the fighting and the events completely. The fighting will still have references and the death of the husband heavily affecting the dream-world, but instead of having the marionettes act it out the events mid-story I would have the fighter pass the marrionettes that were not moving. In another chapter or after the main plot I would redirect the attention to the now-forgotten marrionettes that would slowly come to live and act out the tragedy of the girl that the realm is based on. My fear here is that it will lessen the impact, or confuse readers.

Any thoughts? Does any of this even make sense? I am stumped. [emoji21]

 

[Sweet Veil]

So, I had a couple of ideas. One I had rolling around my head after a while.

As a young kid Serena is given a Froakie from a Pokemon professor with her father explaining she’s very lucky to have received a Froakie from this professor because Pokemon like Chespin, Froakie and Fennekin are rare and he had to pull strings to get her such a great Pokemon. *Keep in mind, unlike in the anime, in the games and PokeSpe starters are rare and only given to special trainers and treated as having above average potential in fighting prowess and growth compared to regular Pokemon.*

Every girl in Kalos(Paris) is walking around with their stylish Pokemon like Spritzee and Vulpix and Serena has a frog. She gets made fun of for having such an “unfashionable” Pokemon but Serena explains she loves Froakie despite that. The bullying leads to her develop mild social anxiety, in order to prove herself she decides to set out on her own journey to help overcome her issue alongside Froakie.

I wouldn’t want to go so far as Greninja becoming a prince, but Greninja being a heroic Pokemon Serena loves and treats like a prince and Serena often doing typical little girl things like playing princess and dress-up with it as a young child and making it wear a crown while she wears a tiara and Froakie being her best friend. Her mother makes Froakie a small crown to wear before she sets off on her journey.

Giving the frog a small peck on the face at times that makes him blush and him getting jealous when Serena is around certain people and him(Actually maybe the Froakie can be a girl?) being protective of her and growing into a fierce fighter.

This Serena in this fic. would really make use of the customization feature, her hair would be in a ponytail most of the time, her hair would be yellow-blond I think and the Pokemon-amie concept would be expanded upon in battle and how it effects her Pokemon as well as the concept of Kalos and its more vain qualities in-regards to Pokemon and beauty.

Loose inspiration for the story is somewhat taken from the Frog Princess.

Story idea #2

A story of a boy living in Johto/Kalos, he has continuous turmoil and strife with his parents. His father is a deadbeat and his mother, vitriolic, after getting sick of being treated so terribly he decides to set off basically. Choosing to set out on a journey after having a run with a Psychic-type Pokemon that has an empathetic connection to others. He's the type of guy who isn't 100% good or 100% bad, three-dimensional.

I don't want to give away too much about his personality and morals. But something I've noticed about people in the Pokemon fanfiction world is they seem to like to portray their characters as being one absolute, the male action hero who gets the girl who is full of incorruptible goodness is so tired. I want to show a MC with a bit more of a different outlook on certain aspects and ways of doing things. I wouldn't really call this a deconstruction of the usual shounen genre tropes, but I don't want this super cool suave badass 100% of the time or this goody-two-shoes boy going by the book or this hopeless loser who somehow overcomes all issues with the power of friendship or something. Something different, I want him to feel like a person.

I don't want to go for the all so same-y, same badge quest because they are a dime a dozen unfortunately and do come off as cliche, though I enjoy them I can admit the majority do come off as cliche. Which is why I figured I could incorporate some other aspect of the game to really showcase battling in this fic. Plus the XY games introduced so many interesting aspects to work with like Super Training, Pokemon-Amie, Battle Maison, Mega Evolution, Sky Battles, Battle Cafes, etc. I feel like if I'm creative enough I can do something different aside from the usual fundamental badge collection quest scenario. The idea is to focus on the human characters' lives while they set out for one reason or another. Of course I have an idea for some villains in-mind, no not a hive mind same-dressed crime syndicate members, but antagonist. Ones who readers can really get into outside of just hating them because they're generic jerks or something.

Just wanted hear some thoughts and opinions, if possible, even if the second idea was a bit more vague.

 

[Dark Victini]

How would you write a cannon character in an emotion that they have never really been seen in?

 

[Srebak]

As an imaginative person with goals of becoming a writer, i've often experimented with certain concepts and ideas. One of which is the concept of the main characters having a large carnivorous animal acting as their friend and staunch protector, an idea that has been used several times before.

In one scenario, said carnivore is a mutated Timber wolf, in another, it's a male lion and i'm considering changing the latter to a wolf as well, since a lion would seem too overpowered. The problem is, i just looked up how to handle a pet wolf and according to the info i found, and a related topic, one should never treat a wolf like a dog, which i can understand, since, connection through species aside, they are two different creatures. However, i think part of the basis for my "animal protector" idea is that the wolf mascots would act like dogs.

Now, in the "Mutant wolf" scenario, that wouldn't be much of a problem, since any animal that's mutated would more than likely act differently from their usual behaviour. But in the other scenario, which is a fanon idea for a series that actually shows realistic animal behaviour, having a pet wolf or lion that acts like a dog or a house cat and would gladly act as the loyal friend and protector to a human would seem like a real stretch and a naive one to believe at that.

 

[Persephone]

...I can't tell what your question is since you seem to answer it.

The problem is that while some presently wild animals can be taken into a home and what not it is seldom advisable. Even lynxes and bobcats regularly mark their scent (urinate) and scratch up anything they can find. And even though they're barely larger than a house cat they can and do turn on humans and give a rather painful bite. Wolves are even worse in almost every way. Unless you're going for a fantasy setting of some sort or willing to introduce genetic engineering as an excuse to dismiss these concerns, having most dangerous wild animals as a companion is a bad idea.

And wolves are pretty overused in fiction, as are lions. There are other alpha predators out there.

 

[Srebak]

...I can't tell what your question is since you seem to answer it.

The problem is that while some presently wild animals can be taken into a home and what not it is seldom advisable. Even lynxes and bobcats regularly mark their scent (urinate) and scratch up anything they can find. And even though they're barely larger than a house cat they can and do turn on humans and give a rather painful bite. Wolves are even worse in almost every way. Unless you're going for a fantasy setting of some sort or willing to introduce genetic engineering as an excuse to dismiss these concerns, having most dangerous wild animals as a companion is a bad idea.

And wolves are pretty overused in fiction, as are lions. There are other alpha predators out there.

Well, in hopes of making my issue more clear, the show in question is "The Wild Thornberrys". In that show, the main protagonist, Eliza Thornberry, possesses the ability to talk to animals, including her best friend, Darwin the Chimpanzee. However, not all of the animals they interact with are friendly, and as per their natural behaviour, they usually try to eat our young protagonist or just attack her if she or Darwin are on their turf or something. My idea to give Eliza a lion or wolf as a second animal companion stems from me wanting to give her and Darwin an apex predator of their own to act as a safeguard against any aggressive animal they encounter. Naturally, a lion and/or a wolf won't be able to protect them from everything, but still (in fact, that's actually why i decided to switch from a lion to a wolf, since a lion would seem too powerful and make some of the issues Eliza deals with superfluous).

However, as i said earlier, this show prides itself on displaying realistic animal behaviour, hence why so many of the animals Eliza encounters are not as friendly as she expected. So, a wolf who acts like a loyal dog without any issues at all doesn't really work. In Darwin's case, it's more believable, since Chimps do seem relatively docile in real life. I don't know why i thought a lion would work (since every lion Eliza has met in the series has tried to attack her), but i guess the wolf idea stems from Eliza meeting one wolf pack in the series and hitting it off with them rather well, which is a bit odd since later in the series, she is almost attacked by another wolf pack. In both the Lion and Wolf scenarios, the idea is that Eliza adopts them when they're a cub/pup (through a legal way, of course) and they come to see her as a surrogate mother, hence their loyalty to her and fierce drive to protect her.

I want to believe that wolves, if trained in the proper way, came become as docile and loyal as dogs, but the information i found on wolves speaks to the contrary. I know that this is just a fanon idea, and one that i haven't even written down, but still, what can a guy do?

 

[Persephone]

Oh, I thought we were talking original fiction.

There are plenty of large non-predatory animals that are far less aggressive than Chimps, which are actually kind of nasty in captivity. I would stay away from Hippos and Cape Buffalo in terms of African herbivores, but most should be fine*. For example, not much really hunts giraffes because they can give a nasty kick. They also probably won't eat people. No real reason you would have to have an alpha predator for self-defense, right?

*I refuse to think of all large herbivores to find exceptions

 

[Lyrebird]

Could you change from 3rd person to 1st person in a story or would that be jarring? It is commonly accepted?

 

[Beth Pavell]

You could get away with it, though you'd have to be careful to make it very clear to the reader what was happening. In my opinion it would be done best after a screen break - or even with an entire chapter, come to think of it. Subtitling chapters after the name of the POV character is a good way to signal this

 

[Elric von Bek]

Oh, boy, political stories. As a poli sci/econ student who puts waaaaaaaaaaaay to much time into world building, I might be able to help with this. A possible avenue for exploration is simply why the league would ever privatize. The Pokemon World, or at least the league, appears to have free health care and lodging for traveling trainers, as well as some public regulation of the practice. Additionally, Silph in Kanto (not so much in the other regions) appears to be more or less a Natural Monopoly that is allowed sole control over production of products by the League/Government, but kept within certain bounds as such. IRL these have often been subject to mafia control in more corrupt governments, but in the Game-verse at least it seems pretty opposed to the Rocket organization. I mean, Giovanni invaded the place and has been regularly viewed as a criminal. I'm not sure why he would legally be allowed on the board, game-verse. Anime-verse Giovanni might be. Either way, it's unclear how a probably well-regulated natural monopoly could somehow take over an important government function.

But, that has happened. The Reagan Revolution of the 1980s, modern Australia and England (to an extent), and particularly the Gorbachev and Yeltsin eras in the Soviet Union/Russia are good examples of public functions suddenly thrust under private ownership to varying degrees of success. I would research at least one of those to learn more about political circumstances that could give rise to your setup.

I would also make a plot. In general when creating world-building heavy stories with realistic political leagues it helps to come up with an outline for your main character and a basic plot for them first. Then you can let the world-building influence your story. But if you try to just come up with a plot inside your already built world, it can be much harder, unless the plot is clearly meant to be secondary.

Other than that, I've never really been a fan of commonplace legends as they aren't a thing in any verse at all. Legends are most common in anime-verse and even then only a handful of trainers have ever used them, and certainly not common syndicate grunts. So unless something has really changed, it would be basically impossible.

In response to the slew of anti-Kanto criticism: yeah, it's done a lot. But if you can't think of something equally or more compelling for another region, just don't do it. If you want to do a mafia-esque organization in particular, really only Rocket, later Plasma, or the Orre villains really fit the bill. The Hoenn teams and Galactic are more like Utopian Revolutionaries than anything else and Kalos is almost as overused as Kanto now so that wouldn't help much. What I'm trying to say is do what you've got to do to make the story best. Just be aware that setting it in Kanto does mean that you are now opening yourself up to comparison with a much larger pool of writers and stories, whether or not the comparison is intentional.

Thank you for the link. My fan fiction is set in the WOTC era TCG universe. This universe is built from the scant bits of flavor that were given in the WOTC Pokémon TCG sets. Here, the Rockets seem to be semi-competent, as there's a Rocket's Scyther, Rocket's Hitmonchan, Rocket's Snorlax, Rocket's Zapdos, Rocket's Moltres and Rocket's Mewtwo. At the same time, Blaine also has a Moltres. Hence the idea that the Kanto legendary birds aren't really as rare as myth implies.

A set up for the Silph Takeover has been my chief focus. I don't want to do a Pokémon Wars scenario, as those are pretty commonplace in the fandom. Instead, I'm going to use Missingno and the Glitch Pokémon. One of the Glitch followers is an ex-Rocket that discovered the secret to creating Dark Pokémon. Not as in the type, but rather Dark counterparts to normal pokemon, as seen in the original Team Rocket TCG set. The presence of these Glitch and Dark Pokémon (which are simply more vicious variants of regular Pokémon) creates a schism in Kanto: how can we mount a humane response to the Dark Pokémon? Simple: Silph Co. Silph develops weapons that use Technical Machines are ammunition; projectile weapons that fire TM-enhanced projectiles. Rumors of weaponized Pokémon attacks inflame Pokémon Rights Activists (with legitimate grievances; no Plasma strawmen). The League is left scrambling to track down individuals associated with the Glitch Pokémon and deal with the extremist element among the PRA's. Funds run dry while the Dark Pokémon problem persists. A financially broke League turns to Silph and, in exchange for having a hand in the future direction of the Pokémon League, Silph provides the League's best with their TM-Slingers.

This is backstory, again, probably referenced a few times. It's intended to set up a Silph-controlled Pokémon League.