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Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

I have interesting commentary! Let's bring out the big guns!

So, I was thinking . . . we have works like Frankenstein and The Wizard of Oz that are in the public domain. Deviations (i.e. movies, spinoffs, etc) are thereby allowed. So . . . what will happen to our fan fiction when/if Pokemon is released into the public domain? Can that even happen? Will we lose our rights to our work? Will we all be dead when/if it occurs? Will Bulbagarden (or the forum with the first post) get the publishing rights? Will there be hell to pay from Nintendo's lawyers, or a class-action suit on the forums? Would we have to publicly claim our work, thereby telling the world: I wrote Pokemon fan fiction!
 
@Arkadelphiak; What difference would Pokemon going into the public domain make? The only thing we'd have to do differently is rather than having some kind of disclaimer like "Pokemon owns all this stuff not me" we'd have one that says "I own this and no one else can steal my ideas." Creative Commons or something. Mel Brooks still owns Young Frankenstein, even if Frankenstein itself is public domain. The Prague Philharmonic can still charge obscene amounts of money for their rendition of Mozart's Requiem.

Seriously though, I've tried doing some writing at night when I have "some" time, only to realize how tired I am from the work day,and promptly fall asleep.

I've always found that my best work comes a paragraph at a time in those fifteen minute stretches between sitting down to write before bed and just deciding to give up and fall asleep.

Alternately I just poke around on the internet rather than do anything. Ahem.
 
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I imagine we're largely comprised of introverts. It happens. :p

Ironically, I'm rather social and I rarely find the motivation to post anything of substance. Not because I'm introverted, more because I'm lazy.
 
So, what's happened around here? It seems like chatter has pretty much died over the past month or so, compared to six or seven months ago. I want to start conversations, but I never have anything interesting to talk about, so I guess I'm contributing to that in some way.

I have noticed the same myself. It happens from time to time, but it has seemed longer than normal. I was hoping the idea of a monthly challenge thing would inspire some conversation, but people didn't seem very interested :p (if you are, please let me know cause I'm super keen!) I am thinking of ways to get people more active, but people just seem a bit absent.


With regards to the public domain discussion, it won't happen until about 50/75 years after Satoshi Tajiri dies, so it probably won't ever effect us. When it does go into public domain, it would just mean we get to make money off it without jumping through legal loop holes.
 
Okay, here's a topic we can discuss: Plans that never came to be. What plans for stories did you have that just didn't happen and probably never will? Let's hear it, see if we can inspire some writers here :L
 
Okay, here's a topic we can discuss: Plans that never came to be. What plans for stories did you have that just didn't happen and probably never will? Let's hear it, see if we can inspire some writers here :L
Oh my god, don't even get me started. For Storm Island:

  • Andrea's research project she was given at the start of the story in regards to her Furret was supposed to reveal he had a genetic anomaly that made him more resilient in battle. Dropped cause I have a different idea regarding that anomaly, and one that's significantly less plot-armor-y.
  • Andrea was intended to challenge and bulldoze all eight gyms on her first try (with the exception of one) because she thought outside of the box. Dropped to make the story a bit more unique, though she'll probably start taking them on.
  • The S.S. Beckinshire at the end of the first season was supposed to be boarded by pirates rather than Team Rocket.
  • The current storyline in Sakala was supposed to be a three chapter mini series where they were stranded on a deserted island. I kind of wish I went with this because I'm getting bored of the storyline.
  • Larson was supposed to join as a permanent member of the cast. This was dropped because honestly, there doesn't need to be another veteran trainer onboard the team.
  • Andrea and Larson were supposed to get together. Dropped because at the time, everything was going Andrea's way and I wanted to change something.
  • The Slate Valley incident originally didn't include Team Rocket and was instead Andrea attempting to locate a 'wild' Ursaring which had been attacking construction workers. Dropped cause boring.
  • The Blackwood Forest storyline didn't have kooky cultists in its first rendition, and was intended to have a storyline where their passage through the forest required putting to rest a Hoot Hoot's spirit, because it kept turning them in circles. Again, boring.
  • Team Rocket was supposed to attack the Storm Island broadcast tower in Azure Ridge. I'm not at the part where that was originally supposed to happen, but it felt too unoriginal. What I have planned to replace it is equally unoriginal, but something I can have a lot more fun with.

There's shit tons more but it all revolves around future plot points that I don't want to spoil, but have changed since the original outline of the story. I also had a few story ideas that never took off:

  • Star Trek Enterprise styled original sci-fi
  • Various fantasy stories
  • Various crime dramas
  • A story told entirely through diary entries
 
There probably aren't that many that I have dropped so far. Dawn of Darkness probably had the biggest change. Viktor was always going to touch the orbs, but it was going to happen during Volkner and Flint's battle and there wouldn't have been a big explosion. Instead, he would have snapped when they got home and a big argument would have caused him to runaway. It probably fitted the 'Slice of Life' style better, but it didn't match up with the Cyrus we see in Galactic, so I went for big instead. It worked for the story, characters and universe better though.

There have been smaller changes to Eight Easy Steps: only in the last few arcs have I really diverged from my original notes. Mostly around the Celadon Arc this began, which is the point where I think the story gets quite good, so maybe going off notes is actually better for me :p
- Mitchell was going to appear more often and have more of a role. He was going to be related to the Athlews and that's why Alaska and Sandy stay with them.
- Darwin wasn't going to be sent away, and Nadia was going to be a Nidoqueen by this point in order to win the gym badge.
- The Sandy arc was going to involve more of the reality stars and Alaska/Sandy quizzing them and researching Amanda. Sandy's backstory exposition isn't in my original notes.
- In the lastc arc, Looker and Sandy would have lent Alaska Pokemon in order to defeat Sabrina, and after winning, Looker would have whisked the two away alongside Steven Stone (for some reason). Then the Cycling Road was going to get destroyed after they fight a cycling gang, naturally, and Looker and Steven disappear when they crash into the waves. The other changes mostly came through coming up with new ideas and changing the plot: the CRoad not blowing up happened largely because of the complaints around all the explosions, so I had to come up with a different way to end that arc. The same thing happened with the last chapter of Galactic: Draco was going to show up, he and Vanessa would have fought and blown up the kitchen. Since people complained, and that novella chapter was a slower pace anyway, toning it down worked better.
 
Well, I've had a rather productive holiday. At long last, Chapter 31 is done. That certainly took me a while - I've been on this chapter since June, and then when I finally got down to it, I finished in in two nights. I do hope I actually get work done at least reasonably well on the next chapter, and manage to do so without neglecting the beta reading I'm supposed to have done for FullMoon.

On topic, the plotline between my (partially) rewritten story and the original is mostly different, to be honest. I realised that not much had really happened at all in the original, until suddenly everything happened at once near the end, so I added a tournament as a plot point to give the characters something important to do. Long story short, the tournament basically took over as pretty much the main focus of the plot, with most of the original being dropped in favour of it. So yeah, that was a pretty major change. Then of course, that changes the character focus as well, with a ninetales who wasn't in the original at all being the main antagonist, while the original antagonist, a leafeon, isn't even a villain anymore. I guess I didn't drop him completely, but he's certainly a much more minor character, and isn't an antagonist anymore, so that's something.

And as if this wasn't enough, I already know the version I'm working on now won't be the final one. There won't be nearly as many major changes as from the first to second draft, but I'm bound not to keep everything. It's probably more a reorganisation than a rewrite, which is probably fortunate as there's only so many years I can justify devoting to this, I guess. Hmm, I guess one could call into question what purpose it serves anyway, but I'd rather not try thinking about that. Better to just write, I guess.
 
Then the Cycling Road was going to get destroyed after they fight a cycling gang, naturally, and Looker and Steven disappear when they crash into the waves.
I'm curious. Why was it going to blow up? Like, did the bicycle gang (which I imagine is a bunch of nerds with flags on their backs and cards in their spokes) start planting explosives or something? It seems like such an odd thing to have go up in smoke.
 
Well, I have dropped almost every single piece of work that I've made an effort to write that is beyond a thousand words. I have also dropped a few topics of poetry that I may eventually get back to if I ever think of how to shape them:

-Fire (kind of generic, but yeah)
-Getting up (Not waking up)
-A couple of others that I can't remember
 
Okay, here's a topic we can discuss: Plans that never came to be. What plans for stories did you have that just didn't happen and probably never will? Let's hear it, see if we can inspire some writers here :L

Well, I strongly suspect that a Long Walk sequel won't happen. Within The Long Walk I had a couple of ideas early on that got scrapped. Josh was originally going to be a Coordinator (Scrapped for obviousness) and I thought about a Team Rocket subplot (Scrapped because I couldn't think of anything interesting to do with it)
 
Okay, here's a topic we can discuss: Plans that never came to be. What plans for stories did you have that just didn't happen and probably never will? Let's hear it, see if we can inspire some writers here :L

I don't know about a completely scrapped idea, but I mentioned once before about a kind of Orpheus/Euridice style dead lover resurrection plot. It involves Xerneas as a pivotal figure, and not in an unambiguously good light either. If you're familiar with the myth of Orpheus and Euridice, you might know what I mean.
 
Then the Cycling Road was going to get destroyed after they fight a cycling gang, naturally, and Looker and Steven disappear when they crash into the waves.
I'm curious. Why was it going to blow up? Like, did the bicycle gang (which I imagine is a bunch of nerds with flags on their backs and cards in their spokes) start planting explosives or something? It seems like such an odd thing to have go up in smoke.

By 'cycling gang', I actually meant biker gang and just didn't think as I was typing :p I believe it was going to be a combination of destruction caused by Pokemon and several trucks on the road underneath blowing up, but the silliness of it also contributed to canning that aspect.
 
Ok, so I have a quick question for everyone. My save file got corrupted and I lost everything I did in Alpha Sapphire since it was released. It was an accident, cause I'm clumsy (don't ask, it's almost embarrassing) Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would be have any use of transcripts of the game? Maybe not everything, as important NPC speeches have been recorded (such as Archie, Steven, Birch, etc) However, I haven't seen any records of normal NPC trainers, so I was wondering if anyone would be interested in something that mainly focussed on that?
 
Okay, here's a topic we can discuss: Plans that never came to be. What plans for stories did you have that just didn't happen and probably never will? Let's hear it, see if we can inspire some writers here :L

Let me think of things that were supposed to happen in OBC...

-Originally, the Illuminati were supposed to attack during the tournament Flannery was training for. This never happened because the tournament probably wouldn't be what Flannery was focusing on during the story's events.

-Roxie was supposed to be the fourth member of the main group instead of Wallace.

-Lou was never going to actually appear in the story at all.

-Dutch and Benny were originally going to show up alongside Revy and Rock in Chinatown, but I couldn't find a way to work them in.

-The collapsing staircase in the warehouse was originally supposed to kill Lou's Muk. I honestly can't remember why I didn't go through with it.

-Freddrick/Forenzik was never going to have a Heel-Face Turn originally, and he only would have realized what he had been doing his whole life before Flannery killed him at the farm (she was always his niece in the planning stages).

-On a related note, Johnny Gorgote was supposed to appear in Columbus. I wasn't able to find a way for the confrontation to make sense, so I dropped it.

-There were originally going to be more cuts to Giovanni talking to the Illuminati higher-ups, but I felt it disrupted the story's flow.

-Gengar was never going to be able to converse with anyone but Jimmy. I added that because I felt that restriction severely limited his charismatic personality. It works for Alakazam because him and Sabrina are supposed ​to be introverts.

-That "some Illuminati member running for president" plot that was teased at the very beginning? I didn't go through with it because it would make the story take too damn long in-universe. I guess you could say that thanks to the protagonist's meddling, they aborted that plan and came up with a more... direct one.
 
There's that All Hail Giovanni fic I started on back in high school and didn't even finish the first chapter lol. Basically the story of the Johto games, but in an AU where Giovanni defeated Red, captured Mewtwo, and became the dominant force in the Kanto and Johto regions. Then there was my Black and White sequel fic about the son of the male PC going on his journey (but probably never actually doing the gyms) and coming into conflict with a resurgent Team Plasma and dealing with Kyurem alongside his father and his father's companions and his kinda-sorta-estranged aunt (the female PC)... and then Black 2 and White 2 happened. Sigh.

A Pokémon Story, which was a very fantasy-based reimagining of the series at large. Not to mention all the Godzilla fan fiction I've ever wanted to write.

I've also lately wanted to write a Fantastic Four story, if only to give a big ol' middle finger to Fox.
 
Well I have yet to think of a work, since I haven't really though of anything.

Actually there is one that I'm working on now title is still undesided, but it's about 1 on 1 fighting tournaments.

Also anyone read The Regulator? I'm kinda stuck on the next chapter, I just wanted to see what was good or bad? I mean it's been so long since I wrote the last chapter.
 
Ok, so I have a quick question for everyone. My save file got corrupted and I lost everything I did in Alpha Sapphire since it was released. It was an accident, cause I'm clumsy (don't ask, it's almost embarrassing) Anyway, I was wondering if anyone would be have any use of transcripts of the game? Maybe not everything, as important NPC speeches have been recorded (such as Archie, Steven, Birch, etc) However, I haven't seen any records of normal NPC trainers, so I was wondering if anyone would be interested in something that mainly focussed on that?

I feel like some people have suggested/talked about this before but not sure where it went. I would double check first to see if there are any transcripts out there already, because it would be a waste of your time if there is. But it would be a great idea if there isn't.

Also anyone read The Regulator? I'm kinda stuck on the next chapter, I just wanted to see what was good or bad? I mean it's been so long since I wrote the last chapter.

If your struggling to get feedback, you can always try the Review Game and try for some response through there :)
 
I feel like some people have suggested/talked about this before but not sure where it went. I would double check first to see if there are any transcripts out there already, because it would be a waste of your time if there is. But it would be a great idea if there isn't.

I actually was looking for it myself a few weeks back and google was absolutely no help XD So it doesn't seem like there are any transcripts around (I did find however a shady page that supposedly contained a download link for AS) and lots of my search terms sent me to ORAS related pages (characters, locations, events) but no transcripts

But I indeed also remembered seeing some talk about it, so that's why I decided to check here first
 
So I had a bit of a silly thought in regards to super heroes, specifically ones that can stretch, like Mister Fantastic. Why do their clothes stretch with them? Mr. Fantastic had a special suit made that stretches with his body, okay I can buy that... but he also wears normal human clothes when not beating up bad guys. Why do they stretch with him? Shouldn't his cotton pants stay the same size when his legs stretch to freakishly long lengths?

I dunno, just a dumb thought.
 
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