Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Misfit Angel]

I wouldn't say it's too much. You just have to use a location's gimmick to your advantage somehow. Maybe even take some major creative liberties, like turning Fortree City into something like an Ewok village on Endor. Or perhaps volcano town (name escapes me at the moment could look and function like something out James Bond. It's always possible to make something interesting.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

I wouldn't say it's too much. You just have to use a location's gimmick to your advantage somehow. Maybe even take some major creative liberties, like turning Fortree City into something like an Ewok village on Endor. Or perhaps volcano town (name escapes me at the moment could look and function like something out James Bond. It's always possible to make something interesting.

It's not really the gimmicky nature of the towns that make Hoenn boring to me - well, not just them, anyway. I just...find the region overall to be rather dull. Lavaridge Town is probably my favorite city there, and there's really not much to it beside the gym. Plus, the story of Hoenn has way too much going on overall. idk, it was always my least favorite region (despite having a couple pokémon that I really like), so I'm probably just biased, but needless to say, if I were to try and write another nuzlocke fic, I'm not terribly inclined to do it in Hoenn. The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking potentially doing it in Unova, but I don't know how I feel about having to potentially handle B2W2 as a sequel.

 

[AceTrainer14]

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking potentially doing it in Unova, but I don't know how I feel about having to potentially handle B2W2 as a sequel.

Though we are potentially getting into Plot Bunny territory, you don't have to do a sequel: you could always just do BW2 as your run and incorporate the events of the original into your story. Or find a way to merge the two together.

Has anyone ever complained to FanFiction.net about spam before? I've got a spam review on one of my stories and haven't heard back from the site despite complaining three times.

 

[diamondpearl876]

I suppose I'm not understanding the logic in saying there's "too much" to Hoenn, yet thinking it's "rather dull" - which implies there's not much to it... or that what's there is boring, ie. there's a volcano in Hoenn but it has absolute no depth or meaning behind its existence explained in-game. I would personally go to Kanto for that "not too much" complaint, but no one cares because nostalgia. My Hoenn fic in the works has actually been the easiest to do as far as worldbuilding goes because the basics are there to work with. The depth isn't there, like I said... but you can certainly add it yourself. If the issue is that there's a volcano in Hoenn, among other idiosyncrasies, but they have no place in your fic, then don't mention it, or don't make it seem to be important. Simple as that.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I think you hit the nail on the head with the fact there's not much depth to everything that's there. What I know from ORAS, it seems to expand on the world of Hoenn more, which is good because the original games just through all this weird stuff at you and you've got to roll with it. That's just my opinion, anyway. I'm sure if I sat down and spent a few hours/days/weeks planning my Hoenn story, I might feel differently.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

To each their own. I'm not saying that Hoenn is a bad region, just that I find it dull. The individual towns don't have much going on with them, and they all feel disjointed - hence, the region as a whole felt like it had too many things going on, and none of them were really explored very deeply, so it felt dull.

 

[Lugion]

Idk, I feel like that's an issue with the franchise at large. Kanto definitely did not have a natural flow, and there's so much weird backtracking going on once you get to central Kanto that it's very confusing trying to figure out what you're supposed to do and when. Johto did better in that regard, but the region as a whole suffered due to Game Freak's unwillingness to move on from Kanto (see; Whitney's Miltank being the first Johto Pokémon used by a Johto Gym Leader and the next one being Jasmine's Steelix). Now, I kinda get what you're saying about Hoenn, as there are a couple of extra towns that don't seem to have much to do with anything (Pacifidlog...), but I would have to disagree that it necessarily makes the region uninteresting. Hoenn isn't the only region with stuff that's just sorta there (for example, the Legendary Birds have no actual legend behind them; Cherrygrove City, Floaroma Town, and others exist for no real narrative purpose, etc.). I just think that, if a company more interested in making a deeper RPG experience handled the games, the worldbuilding would be much more interesting. But that's not really Game Freak's style.

 

[ShinyFlareon]

Like I said, it's just my personal feelings on the region. The narratives of Kanto and Johto, to me, felt more cohesive - but others might not feel the same, and that's cool. It just dissuades me from doing too much with Hoenn in my own writing.

 

[Lugion]

I getcha. My first Pokémon game was Ruby, followed a few months later by FireRed. I loved both of them. Still do. But I found Diamond to be rather disappointing, as it changed little from Ruby and Sapphire except the dressing, but then I loved Platinum, and then I found HeartGold and SoulSilver to be a bit of a step back in narrative terms. Then Black and White came along, and I quickly fell in love with the story and characters and everything, but felt a similar disappointment with Black 2 and White 2...

Anyway, to address your original question, I'd just say screw it and do what you want. You're not beholden to anyone or anything. You want to set your fic in Johto again? Do it. You want to set it in Unova? Do it, and damn B2W2.

 

[Misfit Angel]

So I spent the past week cram writing, working on three different projects, but alas, none of them made it to a presentable, publishable state. I was hoping to get at least one of them out, since I'm off to Vegas for the next week and a half. I won't be available on the slight offchance that anyone needs me.

Update your stories so I'm buried in (more) stuff to read when I come back!

I'm also planning on going to the Grand Canyon while I'm out there, so if you never hear from me again I've slipped and fell in.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

It's not really the gimmicky nature of the towns that make Hoenn boring to me - well, not just them, anyway. I just...find the region overall to be rather dull. Lavaridge Town is probably my favorite city there, and there's really not much to it beside the gym. Plus, the story of Hoenn has way too much going on overall. idk, it was always my least favorite region (despite having a couple pokémon that I really like), so I'm probably just biased, but needless to say, if I were to try and write another nuzlocke fic, I'm not terribly inclined to do it in Hoenn. The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking potentially doing it in Unova, but I don't know how I feel about having to potentially handle B2W2 as a sequel.

With the reservation I don't know what precisely you're planning, you could try to end it off in a way which doesn't leave the plot open for BW2. Just a thought, in case you wanted to clear any chance of that as a sequel.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Update your stories so I'm buried in (more) stuff to read when I come back!

Well, as far as I know you don't read The Long Walk, so I think I shall drag my heels on that one

 

[Stratelier]

Odd question - if Looker appeared in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon what Pokemon would he be?

 

[AceTrainer14]

What do people think is the single most difficult part of writing Pokemon fan fiction? Not writer's block or anything, but a certain aspect you always have trouble with when it comes to the actual writing.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Mostly I have trouble with writing well on a technical level. Put simply, my actual prose is just not good. Mostly it'll just take practice to improve this, I think - I'm certainly not as bad as I used to be, but gods, I've still got a long way to go. It's a rather frustrating thing to be bad at, really, since it's a problem all the time, writing anything.

To be more specific than essentially just saying everything's difficult, I guess descriptions are probably the thing I have most difficulty with. Mostly I just end up not really knowing what to say about whatever it is I'm describing, and ending up with something rather brief and bland. I guess I need to work on fleshing stuff out more, though I'm unsure of where to start working on that.

On a more specifically Pokemon-related note, I've had a few issues about making the story actually feel like a Pokemon story. A lot of it feels more like just some fantasy story with Pokemon as the characters - sure, it's technically Mystery Dungeon (I guess) so maybe that's just what I want it to be like, but it still doesn't quite feel right. Hmm.

Heh, sorry, I guess that wasn't exactly the single hardest thing.

 

[Beth Pavell]

I don't know about Pokémon fanfic specifically ... I suppose dealing with evil teams is a problem for me, which is one of the reasons they don't feature heavily in The Long Walk. The goofiness of the majority of them is hard to square with a story intended to have some maturity and/or grit to it

 

[CrystaI]

What do people think is the single most difficult part of writing Pokemon fan fiction? Not writer's block or anything, but a certain aspect you always have trouble with when it comes to the actual writing.

Personally I don't have any technical problem in story-writing. But on a more general note about fanfic in the Pokemon fandom, I personally would say the theme and atmosphere. Though, that has more to do with the nature of the fandom rather than the fanfic itself.

When it comes to writing story on papers, the presentation is different from anime/game/manga/other that relies on visuals and graphic. Novels relies on words and letters, therefore it must be written with enough details in order to arouse the imagination of the reader and let them engaged in the world inside the fic. However, there is a problem regarding on the Pokemon canon, is that it never ever had enough details that were set in stones, all it had is barebone, where that simpleness is what defined the Pokemon franchise.

Beth Pavell in some previous post on another thread of difference section quite hit the nail in the head, is that one shouldn't look at Pokemon Anime like a Japanese shounen anime, but rather look at it like a Western family/children cartoon. Therefore similarly, when it comes to writing textual story of Pokemon, one shouldn't try to write it like an novel to be read by older audience, but rather, more like a children story book. One should then see already the different mindset one is needed when it comes to writing Pokemon story.

Yeah, children story is different from novel story. They are much more simpler never meant to be complicated, there is no need to go deep into the background details and subconsciousness of characters and elaborate philosophy. Regardless of the quality of actual story itself, it is filled with children-friendly tropes. That's why so many of the children story books talks about good virtue and friendship, overall light-hearted tone and/or seriousness being drastically tone down, and a happy ending, never dig deep into the characters themselves, generally being plot-focused.

Lord Kyuubi also mentioned such aspect about his fic, where he felt his fic is more like a fantasy fiction with inclusion of Pokemon, rather than something specific to Pokemon fandom. IMO it is simply because the author himself had not catered his writing mindset to the general atmospheric norm of the franchise.


Talking about my fic, I was never ever trying to write a children story book. Right at the very beginning, I was trying to write a fantasy adventure novel with themes and intentions on exploring the sophisticated minds and emotions of characters engaging in aggressive combats which is deemed to the be norm of their 'normal' world. Therefore no matter how one reads it, my fic will never ever read like "another generic Pokemon fic".

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Yeah, children story is different from novel story. They are much more simpler never meant to be complicated, there is no need to go deep into the background details and subconsciousness of characters and elaborate philosophy. Regardless of the quality of actual story itself, it is filled with children-friendly tropes. That's why so many of the children story books talks about good virtue and friendship, overall light-hearted tone and/or seriousness being drastically tone down, and a happy ending, never dig deep into the characters themselves, generally being plot-focused.

Lord Kyuubi also mentioned such aspect about his fic, where he felt his fic is more like a fantasy fiction with inclusion of Pokemon, rather than something specific to Pokemon fandom. IMO it is simply because the author himself had not catered his writing mindset to the general atmospheric norm of the franchise.

Yeah, I can definitely second that, I may have had a fair few targets and that with my writing, but going for something along those lines has never really been one of them. Neither has necessarily being child-friendly at all, for that matter. I don't know, even when I try writing something light-hearted, it rarely stays that way. I guess sunshine and rainbows just isn't my style, heh.

It is interesting, though, when you list all those typical features of children's stories, to compare them with the sort of thing I'm aiming for. Mostly because I'm going for the exact opposite of most of them. I very much prefer character-focus to plot-focus, we were just discussing my habit of not being light-hearted, and while virtue and friendship have their place, so do their exact opposites. As for a happy ending, well, I make no promises. I don't know, that's sort of what I'm going for anyway, can't say much as to how well it works.

 

[AceTrainer14]

I thinking generally I have problems with trying to personalise the Pokemon and make them more interesting than just animal-soldiers to fight the battles. I definitely want to improve there in all of my stories, and have been looking recently at how to change up my planned line up for The First Warriors to make it more dynamic.

@クリスタルraised an interesting point though about visuals. I do struggle, especially with big battle scenes, around how much to put in. I regularly find myself having to tone down what I am planning because when it comes to writing it's all going to be utter gibberish. I imagine things being quite visual since the anime is very visual, but my imagination far outpaces realism.

 

[0bs1d1an_kn1ght]

Hey guys sorry for the long absence, I've been busy working. And it's probably gonna stay like that until I upload a new chapter to my story.

The good news is, I finally got a Wii-U. But no Pokken yet.