Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Daren]

Something I've wanted to write for a while is a story about a human who is transformed into a creature that's sapient, but nevertheless animalistic. Not only do they have to learn how to walk again, but they have to deal with new senses, instincts, diets, and (ahem) courtship. I want to use this concept for a Pokémon fanfiction, but I can't think of a premise that doesn't rely on my crutch of making it an MLP crossover. Any help?

You may well have considered this, but you could make it a Mystery Dungeon fic that goes more into the difficulty of adjusting to their new form.
If you'd prefer a normal Pokémon setting you could have someone who is affected by some sort of transporter accident like Bill in R/B/Y, or even a supernatural curse of some sort if you're willing to borrow concepts from the anime (since it's canon that version has magic, including human to Pokémon transformation).

 

[BackSet]

That's... not what I was asking for help about. I was having trouble coming up with an actual plot.

Sorry. That's just the first thing that came to mind.

Edit: Second question related to the first question: does the B-word (not Bastard, the other one) count as a slur? I've never been sure.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I came up with a concept that's basically a better take on the most disappointing fanfic I've ever read: characters from Franchise X are turning into Pokémon, and they have to find out why.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Edit: Second question related to the first question: does the B-word (not Bastard, the other one) count as a slur? I've never been sure.

We've never enforced either of them as slurs, so as a matter of consistency I'm going to say that neither of them are.

Our Ratings system is supposed to be flexible for context, so if, hypothetically, you had a misogynist character who really liked calling women 'bitch' as a slur, it could be Rated as such. It seems to me that this is going to be a fairly rare context, and in any case, I'd rather trust authors to apply their own common sense than try to legislate for every eventuality

 

[Greninjaman]

Of course, it would be a different story if there were slurs and swears in every other sentence.

 

[BackSet]

Of course, it would be a different story if there were slurs and swears in every other sentence.

Could it even be considered a story at that point?

 

[Greninjaman]

Could it even be considered a story at that point?

not sure.

 

[Rainfall]

Could it even be considered a story at that point?

XD
Someone somewhere is cracking their knuckles getting ready to write this : p

The situation that came to mind is the novel (Gadsby) that is written near-entirely absent the most common letter in the English language: "e". Pretty fun wikipedia pages.

Apparently the general concept is known as "constrained writing".

Gadsby (novel) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Constrained writing - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[canisaries]

Something I've wanted to write for a while is a story about a human who is transformed into a creature that's sapient, but nevertheless animalistic. Not only do they have to learn how to walk again, but they have to deal with new senses, instincts, diets, and (ahem) courtship. I want to use this concept for a Pokémon fanfiction, but I can't think of a premise that doesn't rely on my crutch of making it an MLP crossover. Any help?

i've seen you talk about being unable to come up with plots or directions to take your premises before, so i think i could try and help with that more generally. today i happened to read from a book online (that was about 3d animation of all things) about fundamentals of storytelling. i'm unsure if it's open access to all (i got to it via my uni account) but here's the link anyway. look for this section and the sections around it:

Character, Goal, and Conflict

A good story must have three basic elements:

• Characters
• A goal
• Conflict

Without all three elements, the story will not hold interest. A story could have all three elements and still be horrible, though, so practice with and a solid understanding of the elements are needed.

try thinking about the media you like and how they execute these concepts, then evaluate your own ideas according to them (or create the parts that may be missing and then do it).

 

[zoroarctic]

Hey, guys! It's been a long time since I last checked in, but I'm back seeking advice. I have a story in mind with multiple POV characters. How many is too many?

 

[BackSet]

Hey, guys! It's been a long time since I last checked in, but I'm back seeking advice. I have a story in mind with multiple POV characters. How many is too many?

The max number of POV characters I've ever seen in a book is four or five, not counting Third Person Omniscient books (of which I've only read, like, one). Are you going for third person or first person?

 

[Beth Pavell]

At more than about four, I'd start to ask myself whether I really needed that many to tell the story, or whether I'm just using it as a crutch

 

[Nitro Indigo]

I just got an idea for a fanfic about the various goings-on at an anime-esque Pokémon Center.

 

[Greninjaman]

I just got an idea for a fanfic about the various goings-on at an anime-esque Pokémon Center.

You could have Nurse Joy be the protagonist of the story.

 

[Nitro Indigo]

Sort of. I meant "anime-esque" in the sense that it's run like a hospital, but the nurses aren't all clones.

 

[canisaries]

one classic piece of finnish literature, Tuntematon Sotilas (Unknown Soldier) follows an entire regiment of men and has POVs of probably 15 different characters or more. they had distinct characters, though (and spoke with different dialects), so i don't remember ever getting confused. also helps that many of them die so you don't have to keep tabs on them anymore. then we also have our local @namohysip with his gazillion characters in Hands of Creation. they're most quite colorful and distinct as well.

one thing that these two stories have in common, though, is that they're quite long. that length means that we have more time to get to know characters and introduce them little by little rather than all at the same time. so if you're planning on having a lot of characters with a lot of them being important and having POVs, be sure to reserve space for fleshing them out and try to have them be distinct from each other.

then of course i also wrote Attack of The 50-Foot Brent, which is only around 11 000 words but has at least 6 different POV characters. that story was pretty light, though, and so the characters weren't very deeply explored.

 

[Greninjaman]

Sort of. I meant "anime-esque" in the sense that it's run like a hospital, but the nurses aren't all clones.

Of course. Still, you could have a character named Nurse Joy as the protagonist.

 

[namohysip]

Hello yes, some of my favorite stories ended up following multiple perspectives across the plot, sometimes from completely different locations, only for them to meet up near the END of the book when it all came together. Off the top of my head, Swan Song by Robert McCammon and One Door Away from Heaven by Dean Koontz were books that did something like this.

Both of these books are incredibly long. Swan Song was just under 300k words, and One Door Away from Heaven was 200k. I also preferred Swan Song if I had to pick, so it's pretty clear that I don't mind a story's overall length.

My own work is very long as well, and while part of that is because of the long and complex story, some of it also has to do with splitting perspective when the team splits up to handle different things at once and, near the middle of the story, when they're forcibly separated after a catastrophe. I took elements from Swan Song and so on when it came to this party-splitting trope.

But I absolutely agree that multiple perspectives is very difficult to do in a short story. I'd suggest no more than two, three is really pushing it, if you're going for something shorter than 100k. Death Is Lonely, my current four-part story, has two perspectives, for example. There's no way I can get a complex or sprawling story in something that's only 20k words long--and, therefore, I feel I might be spreading myself too thin if I added even more perspectives without bloating the word count.

 

[zoroarctic]

The max number of POV characters I've ever seen in a book is four or five, not counting Third Person Omniscient books (of which I've only read, like, one). Are you going for third person or first person?

It would be in third person.

At more than about four, I'd start to ask myself whether I really needed that many to tell the story, or whether I'm just using it as a crutch

I’ve got 4 in mind already, I think I might be able to handle 1 more.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

For what it's worth, I'm planning a fic that will probably top out at about 400,000 words or so, and I have four protagonists, but each one doesn't have equal billing with the others. I also have occasional one-off chapters planned where the POV will be from other, unusual characters. Close third person.