Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[FullMoon]

As someone who pretty much only listens to soundtrack stuff, I'm not really sure what to suggest as a theme for my story. Probably be easier if the story in question actually had a name. But anyway... Hmm... Nope, can't think of anything right now. Maybe an idea will occur to me later.

Back when I actually planned to upload my story, I'd been sort of wondering about setting up a competition of sorts for people to suggest music themes for each of the major characters. The plan was for the winners to be traded an attempt at recreating that character in-game. Sort of an advantage of having all pokemon characters. Not that it matters since I no longer plan to upload, but anyway, I thought it might be an interesting idea. Maybe someone else will get some use of it.

That's so easy for me to do, really =P

 

[Jersey Jimmy]

I think it'd make more sense (but be more time-consuming) if you just rewrote the story from scratch. That, or you could pull some kinda "And Then Jolteon Was a Chick" Rule 63 ray-gun shit.

 

[AetherX]

I've seriously considered writing themes of my own for my writing and others, but I didn't think anyone would really care. When I get to Unpredictable's sequel, I had the idea of "scoring" scenes before I write them, just as an exercise.

Would it be awkward if I suddenly decided to retroactively change the gender of one of the pokemon protagonists in my story? (Jolteon)The characterization up until now has been totally gender irrelevant, but going forward, my plans and character development would make more sense if Jolteon were a girl. Thoughts?

I don't think it would be weird at all. Like you said, it hasn't mattered before. I honestly don't think anyone would notice if you just went back and changed all of the pronouns.

BTW questions like these are best suited to the General Writing Questions thread. There are more threads in this section than just this one

 

[Arkadelphiak]

Would it be awkward if I suddenly decided to retroactively change the gender of one of the pokemon protagonists in my story? (Jolteon)The characterization up until now has been totally gender irrelevant, but going forward, my plans and character development would make more sense if Jolteon were a girl. Thoughts?

I don't think it would be too difficult to implement if it's that important to the plot. In conclusion: seems legal, go ahead.*

*Do not use this line of thought in questionable legal situations

 

[Tophat Dragoneye]

Out of curiosity, how do you guys choose which Pokémon your characters will get or already have and why do you give them the specific Pokémon? Is it because of they're fan favourites of yours, to help develop your characters or are they just random picks?

 

[Dieter]

Out of curiosity, how do you guys choose which Pokémon your characters will get or already have and why do you give them the specific Pokémon? Is it because of they're fan favourites of yours, to help develop your characters or are they just random picks?

well, I took inspiration from trainer classes for most of my characters, so that already somewhat dictates what kind of pokémon they have (though I can do whatever I want, and if I want one of my character's to have a pokémon that doesn't necessarily fit with the trainer class I based them on, who cares)

plus, that's only the basic concept, and with most of them, you'd have to pay fairly close attention to see what trainer class they are

but for example, Graham is based on the Psychic class and has a ralts (specifically a ralts, cause other psychic types fit his personality and hobbies less well)
Parker on the other hand is a ranger and has a lairon (which is not a very obvious choice, but aggron is said to fiercely protect its territory and takes care of it whenever it gets damaged by fire or floods)

and in most cases, they're also pokémon i quite like, though not necessarily favourites

and sometimes i just look at a pokémon and try to think of what kind of person would have that kind of pokémon

(these are all old RP characters btw)

 

[Jersey Jimmy]

Out of curiosity, how do you guys choose which Pokémon your characters will get or already have and why do you give them the specific Pokémon? Is it because of they're fan favourites of yours, to help develop your characters or are they just random picks?

I usually go by typing, but a lot of times, I specifically pick mons that stand out to me. For instance, in OBC, Jimmy's companion Pokemon is a Gengar because Gengar is my favorite (fun fact: this is also why he dyes his hair purple... sorta.)

 

[chaos_Leader]

Out of curiosity, how do you guys choose which Pokémon your characters will get or already have and why do you give them the specific Pokémon? Is it because of they're fan favourites of yours, to help develop your characters or are they just random picks?

Kind of an all of the above answer for me. Jolteon is a favoriteof mine, but it gets the lead in the story right off the top at least in part because the way the evolution transition happens provides excellent initial tension early on.

So if I have story reasons for who gets what, that always takes priority, and I'll work around that choice. If I need to fill in a team for minor or supporting characters, I figure something out.

Another factor I take into account is the character's region of origin and mon availability. Where does this person come from? What would be available? What would they choose? How would they get a rare mon in their region if they did? It's not a be all end all, but if I can't think of what mon a character might have, it's a good starting point I like to use.

 

[jackatlasred]

Out of curiosity, how do you guys choose which Pokémon your characters will get or already have and why do you give them the specific Pokémon? Is it because of they're fan favourites of yours, to help develop your characters or are they just random picks?

I pick it based on the type of character that I want him to be. If he likes fast pokemon then give him fast versatile ones. Then I go by the region I'm writing about trying to represent the pokemon in that region. Migration does happen so I also take that into account. Then I just pick the pokemon that would my character the most through the region.

 

[Persephone]

Depends. I actually do part of mine by RNG since I've noticed that otherwise I end up with really, really common fan fiction Pokemon all of the time. I've often found that thinking from "how would this character interact with this Pokemon" can lead to better results than what I had been planning. But occasionally a character really just makes sense with a particular Pokemon and I go with it.

 

[jackatlasred]

I think I might be able to publish my new chapter tomorrow, Leon Vs Troy Hype

 

[FullMoon]

When I choose my character's Pokémon, since most of them have a themed team, I try to fit both some more rare Pokémon in fanfic with some common ones. I insert some of my favorites here and there, etc.

I try not to repeat Pokémon either, though my fanfic still ended up with multiple people having a Lucario.

 

[Misfit Angel]

I try to think of character growth while assembling a team. Coordinator who knows her stuff? Maybe a Milotic might work out. Up and coming trainer who's getting good at commanding powerful monsters? Maybe a Nidoking. I also try to think of what would be in the area I want them to make the capture in. If it's the jungle, they're not catching a Delibird, no matter how freaking awesome that would be.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Slightly different for me, because I don't have trainers and teams - I just have pokemon, but I guess it makes very little odds. Anyway, a number of the pokemon I use as my characters are based on or inspired by in-game pokemon I've used in the past. The majority of them though, I just pick a pokemon I think might be suitable for their role - I often go with one of the first pokemon which springs to mind, so in many cases they tend to be ones I like. I do get a few casting problems, however, due to certain things I saw as necessary to the story.

My protagonist is a small female umbreon by the name of Eclipse. She's based on an umbreon I used on one of my in-game teams. Umbreon's not my favourite pokemon, but I felt it would be workable and convenient as a protagonist. Most importantly, having an eeveelution protagonist allows her family, and certain other characters who need to be relatable, to all technically be different pokemon - while this does still lead to a bit of an overbalance of eeveelution characters, it allows a more varied cast than I could have otherwise. Then all that's left is to spice them up a bit - I'm of the opinion that what pokemon someone is should usually have minimal effect on their character, and certainly shouldn't dominate their personality. I like sometimes having personalities that seem to contrast a bit with the pokemon species, like my haxorus character who is actually very sweet, friendly and touchy-feely, despite also being accomplished in ninjutsu (don't ask).

There's a tournament, which is a pretty big focal point of the story, which requires a lot of incidental pokemon to be added. Most of them are picked based on what I thought might pose an interesting challenge to Maelstrom, a vaporeon who's the main character competing in the tournament (he's not protagonist, though, Eclipse is, but she's no good at fighting). Most of the pokemon he fights are intended to show different fighting styles and challenge him in different ways, including a megamium who causes him to suffer a hay fever reaction. Then there are also a few pokemon worked in to help show off the abilities of his main rivals and antagonists, to hype them up a bit before Maelstrom fights them. I'm not sure to what extent I've actually done a good job of this, but that's the principle, anyway.

It's just occurred to me I may have gone off topic a bit and started rambling a bit. My apologies.

 

[Jersey Jimmy]

Now that I have a monitor again and can use my full-size computer... I'm actually writing my chapters slower than when I used a laptop. Oh, sweet irony.

 

[Kelleo]

So... Wow. Apparently, I actually can't write to save my life. Sure, I won Best Non-Pokemon fic here twice, but that was with stories my co-author had a hand in. I couldn't take all the credit for that. He won the award as much as I did. I entered something I wrote on my own this time and it lost to an apple and rock story. A story about a freaking apple and a rock. That hurts a lot. My characters never appear to be that great either since they're rarely voted for in the awards (obviously, I'm the only person that nominates my stuff too) and people have pointed out flaws with them. This is telling me that the only time my work is any good is when my co-author is in on it. And I've been at this for many years, so it's not like I haven't had room to get better.

I'll complete what I have in progress so far, but after that, I don't want to write anymore. I can't be good at it. I'm sticking to drawing from then on. I'm sorry to the few people here that liked the stuff my co-author helped with.

 

[FullMoon]

So... Wow. Apparently, I actually can't write to save my life. Sure, I won Best Non-Pokemon fic here twice, but that was with stories my co-author had a hand in. I couldn't take all the credit for that. He won the award as much as I did. I entered something I wrote on my own this time and it lost to an apple and rock story. A story about a freaking apple and a rock. That hurts a lot. My characters never appear to be that great either since they're rarely voted for in the awards (obviously, I'm the only person that nominates my stuff too) and people have pointed out flaws with them. This is telling me that the only time my work is any good is when my co-author is in on it. And I've been at this for many years, so it's not like I haven't had room to get better.

I'll complete what I have in progress so far, but after that, I don't want to write anymore. I can't be good at it. I'm sticking to drawing from then on. I'm sorry to the few people here that liked the stuff my co-author helped with.

Um...

Just by reading the first post of A Chocolate Apple and a Rock you can clearly that it's not actually about an apple and a rock. It's just the title of the story. Lyrebird says right off the bat the title has nothing to do with the actual story in the second line of the first post.

I mean I guess I can understand why you wouldn't know it, you probably never bothered to check it, but that probably made the loss at the awards look worse than it really is.

I do wonder how a story about an apple and a rock would be though.

 

[Kelleo]

Um...

Just by reading the first post of A Chocolate Apple and a Rock you can clearly that it's not actually about an apple and a rock. It's just the title of the story. Lyrebird says right off the bat the title has nothing to do with the actual story in the second line of the first post.

I mean I guess I can understand why you wouldn't know it, you probably never bothered to check it, but that probably made the loss at the awards look worse than it really is.

I do wonder how a story about an apple and a rock would be though.

Then why is that the title if apples and rocks have nothing to do with the story? It's misleading. Yeah, I clicked the thread once and saw a bit of the first chapter, because I like to see what my competition is. Of course, this was before the results were shown. But it didn't catch my interest. No offense to the writer, of course. People have even told me that they didn't like one of my fics once. You can't please everyone...

So I guess I sort of expected to win and that's a big reason I'm disappointed. I know, that sounds like a bad attitude... I apologize for that. But I didn't want to win just to win, I wanted to see if I was a good author on my own. I don't want to rely on my co-author all the time. I won't show if I'm a good writer on my own that way. So far, all of the stories I've won an award with were fics that my co-author pretty much wrote 50% of. If something that's 100% my work could win, that would tell me that I'm good even without his help. But my fic lost and to a story that didn't catch my interest. So I'm no good...

You understand what I was trying to go for here?

EDIT: And now that I look at that thread again Lyrebird also said that he/she isn't a writer and basically has no experience. So this person writes something oh-so amazing just like that while I've taken at least six years to get to the point I am in writing? Not cool at all...

 

[Lugion]

Kelleo, trust me, we all work hard on our stories, and we'd all like to see them recognized. But there are so many different people from different walks of life in this forum and you can't judge what will and will not be recognized based on what catches your attention alone. Don't write just to be recognized as a good writer.. Write because you like to, and if you don't like to write, don't write. People who write for the purpose of being recognized as a good writer inevitably aren't.

 

[Kelleo]

@Lugion; Well, I didn't say that I only write to be recognized as good at it. I write to have fun too. But I also like letting others see what I've written, and if they don't enjoy it, that's not fun, is it? And maybe someday I'd like to write something to get published. If I can't write anything good enough, that won't happen. Or, if it DID get published, it may end up getting more bad reviews than good.