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[Jersey Jimmy]

Re: Writer's Workshop General Chat Thread

Alright, I wanna ask this again because I need some help figuring this out: in OBC, it's easy to see that Flannery is... not all there mentally. As in, she's kind of unhinged. I wanted to ask you guys if I should leave it in Ambiguous Disorder territory, or if it's close enough to a real mental disorder to address.

 

[Misfit Angel]

So, as part of my quest for extremely detail of little consequence, I'm making a passing reference to snake charming in the next chapter of Storm Island. I'm sure none of us are particularly knowledgeable about snake charming, so I looked up the name of the instrument typically used by such performers. In trying to break away from being a strict copy of Indian culture, I decided on a similar instrument from China, the hulusi.

Currently, I'm linking the reader to a wikipedia article about the hulusi, rather than explaining what it is (the paragraph is already running a bit long). My question is, is this too meta? It's a nice perk with online publication that I know I couldn't get away with in physical publication, and I'm wondering if it's too much.

I need to stop stressing out about this stupid shit.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Hmm. I'm all for being thorough in references like that, so as a general comment I'm in favour of it. I suppose a discreet link can't do any harm. I mean, I'd want to be sure that the reader gets a good idea of what the instrument is without the link. If it were me I think I'd try and find a way to refer to it as a hulusi in the story and let the reader look it up if they wanted to

 

[Misfit Angel]

Well, to spoil things, this is how I currently have it:

...and various individuals were performing folk music from around the continent. The one that had gathered the largest crowd was a young woman who seemed to be charming a small serpentine creature with a hand crafted hulusi.

The paragraph ends abruptly there, because it's already five lines of description in length, one of the longest in the entirety of Storm Island. It's such a minor detail that I don't want to dedicate an entire paragraph to it, either. It's just a street performer the characters pass by, who has no consequence on the plot and only serves to detail the culture of the area a bit.

 

[Drakon]

Well, to spoil things, this is how I currently have it:

...and various individuals were performing folk music from around the continent. The one that had gathered the largest crowd was a young woman who seemed to be charming a small serpentine creature with a hand crafted hulusi.

The paragraph ends abruptly there, because it's already five lines of description in length, one of the longest in the entirety of Storm Island. It's such a minor detail that I don't want to dedicate an entire paragraph to it, either. It's just a street performer the characters pass by, who has no consequence on the plot and only serves to detail the culture of the area a bit.

A sentence or two describing the general shape of the instrument wouldn't be too bad.

Personally, I try to describe things in the story instead of relying on outside resources.

 

[Life]

@Jimmy The Swood Guy;

From the story, it's clear to me that Flannery has pyromania. Whether or not you want to address it by name is up to you, but in my opinion, having the name there will not change anything plot/character wise, but may be helpful when describing her issues.

For character development, I'd say her issues should be addressed, but again, that's up to you and I also have no idea where you want her character to go.

 

[Jersey Jimmy]

@Life: The pyromania is clear. What I wanted to ask was whether she has anything like multiple personality disorder, or is simply bipolar.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

Re: Writer's Workshop General Chat Thread

Alright, I wanna ask this again because I need some help figuring this out: in OBC, it's easy to see that Flannery is... not all there mentally. As in, she's kind of unhinged. I wanted to ask you guys if I should leave it in Ambiguous Disorder territory, or if it's close enough to a real mental disorder to address.

With the reservation that I haven't read your story, I would be cautious about putting in 'real-life' named mental disorders for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it can be offensive to people, depending on how it is used. While I'm not of the opinion that writers have any sort of responsibilities about this sort of thing, it is best to still be conscious of it. Furthermore, if you tie yourself to a particular named disorder, you will need to know a lot about it before you try writing it - I'm not saying you wouldn't be able to, but they're definitely a difficult thing to write, and any mistakes or inconsistencies can offend people again. As you've already started your story, it may not be practical to research a particular condition now, and try to apply it retrospectively. You might have to edit some stuff in chapters you've already posted, which could cause plot inconsistencies with both what you have planned and with what your readers have already read.

I think Ambiguous Disorder territory is safest - I don't really see what there is to be gained by naming her condition, but there's a lot that can go wrong with it. The only exceptions that immediately spring to mind might be phobias, since they tend to be less ambiguous, but again, research is important.

 

[Lazzamore]

So I'm writing a manga, and I wanted to make my interpretation of Pokemon a little closer to reality then I think the games or the anime are. One way I wanted to do it was giving the characters from regions based off Japan, Japanese names. My problem is If I use the Japanese versions of In-game characters names, rather then their English names (such as Kurt, or Norman), my English-speaking readers may not know each and every NPC's Japanese names and won't recognize the significance of those characters when I use their names. If I use their English names, it will look pretty weird used alongside the names of my main characters (Yoshimi, Daichi). Would it be a hindrance for me to use Japanese names, or do you guys think it would be a good idea?

 

[jackatlasred]

So I'm writing a manga, and I wanted to make my interpretation of Pokemon a little closer to reality then I think the games or the anime are. One way I wanted to do it was giving the characters from regions based off Japan, Japanese names. My problem is If I use the Japanese versions of In-game characters names, rather then their English names (such as Kurt, or Norman), my English-speaking readers may not know each and every NPC's Japanese names and won't recognize the significance of those characters when I use their names. If I use their English names, it will look pretty weird used alongside the names of my main characters (Yoshimi, Daichi). Would it be a hindrance for me to use Japanese names, or do you guys think it would be a good idea?

You could just write reference or what it means in some space.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

So I'm writing a manga, and I wanted to make my interpretation of Pokemon a little closer to reality then I think the games or the anime are. One way I wanted to do it was giving the characters from regions based off Japan, Japanese names. My problem is If I use the Japanese versions of In-game characters names, rather then their English names (such as Kurt, or Norman), my English-speaking readers may not know each and every NPC's Japanese names and won't recognize the significance of those characters when I use their names. If I use their English names, it will look pretty weird used alongside the names of my main characters (Yoshimi, Daichi). Would it be a hindrance for me to use Japanese names, or do you guys think it would be a good idea?

It depends how much value and significance you're putting into your readers instantly being able to recognise characters. Personally, I'd say using their Japanese names would be a good idea, to fit in with the rest of your Japanese characters, and to distinguish them from the foreign characters. To be honest, I'm not sure how much it really matters whether they can recognise them immediately - it'd just be like a new story when you hear a name and can't attribute any significance to it at first, but learn to quickly enough. For example, if a character talks about losing badly to someone, even if the reader doesn't recognise from their name that they're, say, a gym leader, they'll be able to tell whoever it is will probably be a strong trainer.

I personally would recommend not adding references, at least in the middle of the story. Pausing to look at a reference could potentially be a problem for immersion. You could add some name references in the start, in an introductory thing though, which might work better, although you wouldn't want people going back to check that from the middle of whatever they were reading.

So yeah, I'm all for using the Japanese names. I wouldn't personally think making them instantly recognisible is important - they'll get to know the characters in the context of your story, and that's what matters more. Plus there's more scope for freedom, flexibility and possible surprises, if your readers don't recognise a character.

 

[Lord Kyuubi]

So I'm writing a manga, and I wanted to make my interpretation of Pokemon a little closer to reality then I think the games or the anime are. One way I wanted to do it was giving the characters from regions based off Japan, Japanese names. My problem is If I use the Japanese versions of In-game characters names, rather then their English names (such as Kurt, or Norman), my English-speaking readers may not know each and every NPC's Japanese names and won't recognize the significance of those characters when I use their names. If I use their English names, it will look pretty weird used alongside the names of my main characters (Yoshimi, Daichi). Would it be a hindrance for me to use Japanese names, or do you guys think it would be a good idea?

It depends how much value and significance you're putting into your readers instantly being able to recognise characters. Personally, I'd say using their Japanese names would be a good idea, to fit in with the rest of your Japanese characters, and to distinguish them from the foreign characters. To be honest, I'm not sure how much it really matters whether they can recognise them immediately - it'd just be like a new story when you hear a name and can't attribute any significance to it at first, but learn to quickly enough. For example, if a character talks about losing badly to someone, even if the reader doesn't recognise from their name that they're, say, a gym leader, they'll be able to tell whoever it is will probably be a strong trainer.

I personally would recommend not adding references, at least in the middle of the story. Pausing to look at a reference could potentially be a problem for immersion. You could add some name references in the start, in an introductory thing though, which might work better, although you wouldn't want people going back to check that from the middle of whatever they were reading.

So yeah, I'm all for using the Japanese names. I wouldn't personally think making them instantly recognisible is important - they'll get to know the characters in the context of your story, and that's what matters more. Plus there's more scope for freedom, flexibility and possible surprises, if your readers don't recognise a character.

 

[AetherX]

So I'm writing a manga, and I wanted to make my interpretation of Pokemon a little closer to reality then I think the games or the anime are. One way I wanted to do it was giving the characters from regions based off Japan, Japanese names. My problem is If I use the Japanese versions of In-game characters names, rather then their English names (such as Kurt, or Norman), my English-speaking readers may not know each and every NPC's Japanese names and won't recognize the significance of those characters when I use their names. If I use their English names, it will look pretty weird used alongside the names of my main characters (Yoshimi, Daichi). Would it be a hindrance for me to use Japanese names, or do you guys think it would be a good idea?

I think between visual and context clues, people shouldn't have that hard of a time figuring it out. Not to mention, it should probably be written in such a way that even somebody who simply doesn't know who the NPCs are (having not played the games or whatever) wouldn't be left out in the cold. This is a issue that comes up in writing a lot. Two of the most common solutions are explanation through internal monologue, or the old radio show fallback of a sidekick: a character that is unfamiliar with the situation at hand, just like the audience, and has to have everything explained to them.

 

[The Dude]

Re: Writer's Workshop General Chat Thread

People probably don't remember, but last fall I tried to get a fic off the ground and failed. I received some really good criticism from the first chapter and prologue, and realized it wasn't working. I had some unusual elements I was refusing to explain from the beginning, assuming people would just roll with them and patiently wait for explanations. But that JJ Abrams puzzle box approach has severe limitations. Also, I was writing in the first person with an angsty, cynical teen protagonist, which has probably been done before. And my title sounded like the title of a horror film, which was inappropriate for a journey fic/bildungsroman. For those reasons, and also due to college, I decided to table that story until I could get a better handle on it. Which is a shame, since I have three more chapters of it in a binder in my room. However, those chapters have their own problem, which is that they veer deep into a plot that is mostly irrelevant and misleading (for example, those chapters ultimately have Team Galactic as the villains, but beyond the next chapter or two after that, they do not ever again recur in the story).

SO.
I have a much better idea for a story. This has PROBABLY been done before, but my idea is, rather than a typical journey fic, a story of a teen rock band's world tour, set in the Pokemon world. The protagonist would be their manager, who is the 15 years later, adult version of the angsty teenage character from the tabled fic. Because it's a Pokemon story, some of the band could be Pokemon. I just have this image of two Loudreds as sound engineers, roaring together in euphoria as they pump up the volume to 11.

Thoughts?

 

[Nereus]

Hello fellows, I'm currently planning a pokémon story set in the past (=think fantasy medieval pokémon world) and one thing I'm struggling to solve is the problem, how could people "store" their pokémon. Did pokéballs exist back then? If not, how did they keep their pokémon? One possibility would be having only one or two pokémon (not that it's a bad thing) per character and they would just follow them, but I find this rather inconvenient with bigger pokémon like Salamance. If any of you have written or read a pokémon story like this, how did you handle this? Many thanks, all the love. N

 

[Lugion]

Hello fellows, I'm currently planning a pokémon story set in the past (=think fantasy medieval pokémon world) and one thing I'm struggling to solve is the problem, how could people "store" their pokémon. Did pokéballs exist back then? If not, how did they keep their pokémon? One possibility would be having only one or two pokémon (not that it's a bad thing) per character and they would just follow them, but I find this rather inconvenient with bigger pokémon like Salamance. If any of you have written or read a pokémon story like this, how did you handle this? Many thanks, all the love. N

I stuck with one Pokémon per human character myself. Of course, it's not a story I finished by any means, but the idea is similar.

 

[VeniaSilente]

According to at least one canon, and in very generic terms, the modern Pokéball is a refinement (if anything probably for mass production) of an already existing, artisanal procedure which used hollow fruits as containers. We are not given any indication about how old the procedure is, but give that it's exercised by Kurt as handicraft and that at least one canon (anime) exhibits containers similar in both form and function being used in times described as basically ancient, I would suggest that for an equivalent of the Medieval Times for a Pokéverse, the process was probably extsting but not readily available.

So, apricorn balls or "balls" made of some other sort of container might as well have been a thing in the far past. I leave to you the thought of how to handle the mass-to-energy and "recall beam" aspects, though I think Movie 8 suggests the recall beam is not needed for the procedure of "catching" a Pokémon inside a ball, and might be perhaps a modern invention.

If you don't want to go that path, one option would be to have Trainers (of Back Then™) have highly specialized Jobs or Classes, which determines which mons would they train with them given factors such as availability (and size / resistance) of housing, distances traveled, etc.

There's also the more romantic perspective, that I'm working with for a fanfic I'm writing, that the concept of a "Trainer" as a person who permanently travels with a team of Pokémon caught and held by their side could just as well be a trend made possible by modern tech, whereas in times of old such matters were conducted in other ways.

In times of old there is the possibility of other schools of training, such as the "Trainer" usually has only one or two Pokémon with them at all times, and the others live out there and can be beckoned or summoned to help. I personally like that interpretation. Movie 8 gives a very small nod to this possible interpretation (Aaron's Pidgeot). This would work pretty well for mons like Salamence, who by virtue of being dragons would probably watch over idly but strictly over a vast territory and would ally when the Trainer when required as a means to support their putting their foot on any (sharedly) perceived threats to their territory.

And then you could even mix the two.

 

[Misfit Angel]

Arceus and the Jewel of Life touched on the subject when Ash, Dawn and Brock were sent back to "ancient times". I'm not sure if that would coincide with medieval times. However, they didn't keep their Pokemon in pokeballs (a prison guard was fascinated by the pokeballs that the characters held their pokemon in). It's been years since I've seen the movie, but I believe that Pokemon in those days were either partners or subjugated with magical shackles of some sort. There was no convenient way to transport them in a pocket.

 

[AceTrainer14]

People probably don't remember, but last fall I tried to get a fic off the ground and failed. I received some really good criticism from the first chapter and prologue, and realized it wasn't working. I had some unusual elements I was refusing to explain from the beginning, assuming people would just roll with them and patiently wait for explanations. But that JJ Abrams puzzle box approach has severe limitations. Also, I was writing in the first person with an angsty, cynical teen protagonist, which has probably been done before. And my title sounded like the title of a horror film, which was inappropriate for a journey fic/bildungsroman. For those reasons, and also due to college, I decided to table that story until I could get a better handle on it. Which is a shame, since I have three more chapters of it in a binder in my room. However, those chapters have their own problem, which is that they veer deep into a plot that is mostly irrelevant and misleading (for example, those chapters ultimately have Team Galactic as the villains, but beyond the next chapter or two after that, they do not ever again recur in the story).

SO.
I have a much better idea for a story. This has PROBABLY been done before, but my idea is, rather than a typical journey fic, a story of a teen rock band's world tour, set in the Pokemon world. The protagonist would be their manager, who is the 15 years later, adult version of the angsty teenage character from the tabled fic. Because it's a Pokemon story, some of the band could be Pokemon. I just have this image of two Loudreds as sound engineers, roaring together in euphoria as they pump up the volume to 11.

Thoughts?

The idea is not unheard of, and someone did a similar story on here about two years back but they stopped it after only a dozen chapters. You would have to give it more than just a rock band travelling storyline: the interaction between trainers and Pokemon in that sort of world (drugs, sex, alcohol) would be a fascinating tapestry to play with.

And yeah, if you throw too many mysteries into the air too soon, it doesn't really work, especially not in this age and it doesn't really work that well on here.

Hello fellows, I'm currently planning a pokémon story set in the past (=think fantasy medieval pokémon world) and one thing I'm struggling to solve is the problem, how could people "store" their pokémon. Did pokéballs exist back then? If not, how did they keep their pokémon? One possibility would be having only one or two pokémon (not that it's a bad thing) per character and they would just follow them, but I find this rather inconvenient with bigger pokémon like Salamance. If any of you have written or read a pokémon story like this, how did you handle this? Many thanks, all the love. N

Apricorn Balls would be the easiest solution, otherwise you would have to have the Pokemon follow them. some rise by sin covers this matter in a sense, so you could read that for ideas on whether you think its plausible or not

 

[The Dude]

The idea is not unheard of, and someone did a similar story on here about two years back but they stopped it after only a dozen chapters. You would have to give it more than just a rock band travelling storyline: the interaction between trainers and Pokemon in that sort of world (drugs, sex, alcohol) would be a fascinating tapestry to play with.

And yeah, if you throw too many mysteries into the air too soon, it doesn't really work, especially not in this age and it doesn't really work that well on here.

Yeah, the manager of the band has kind of a mother/child relationship with the band, and is constantly having to put out fires, but there's another conflict that gradually rises to the surface: she used to be kind of a hero, someone fighting the good fight against bad guys around the world, until she gave it up to become a business person. And old friends of hers pop up to remind her of her former commitment to justice and fighting for the world. Also there would be a lot of romantic drama, and one of the bandmates is trans, FtM, so there's that. I know that's rocky territory, but I don't think writers here often try to write in a trans character, so it's something different. Something of a challenge. Like how 90% of the ideas I have are for female protagonists because I don't just want to write what I know.
Also, since there are also Pokemon bandmates, they would receive significant character development as well, especially the two Loudreds that serve as sound engineers.
Sometimes I think I just want to do this to explain how much I love the whole Whismur family.