Writers' Workshop General Chat Thread

[Dorothy]

With a novel it's more acceptable to be closer to 8k since people will generally be reading it more dedicatedly and not as casually (plus, hey, you've already got their money so there's not a damn thing they can do about it ;D), but fanfiction tends to be read more casually, so around 2-3k is better there.

 

[Flaze]

I've ended up writing over 8000 in my last few chapters, not cause I wanted to, rather cause for some reason I forgot how to be brief with what I write.

 

[System Error]

Am I the only weirdo who measures by KB rather than word count? I must be.

That said, my smallest is 25.2KB (though the next chapter may challenge that record) and my largest is 50.1KB.

 

[Garren]

How's the best way to write descriptions of clothing? Or is it better to usually just ignore it unless it becomes plot relevant.

Sort of interesting fashion choices are a big part of an upcoming project, but I wonder if that's better left to visual mediums and in writing instead giving less solid descriptions and letting the audience fill in the rest.

 

[Legacy]

I usually ignore it for the most part unless it's important. If anything, it's very very brief.

 

[AceTrainer14]

How's the best way to write descriptions of clothing? Or is it better to usually just ignore it unless it becomes plot relevant.

Sort of interesting fashion choices are a big part of an upcoming project, but I wonder if that's better left to visual mediums and in writing instead giving less solid descriptions and letting the audience fill in the rest.

Questions like that would be better served in the General Writing Questions.

Was anyone else disappointed by the lack of new footage the other day for OR/AS? I wasn't expecting a lot but I was hoping for something with a little bit more insight. I really wanna know if we are getting more Mega Evolutions...

 

[Beth Pavell]

To me, 3000 is a nice concise chapter, from both a writing and reading perspective. I've only written chapters over 8k twice. The first time I wasn't terribly happy with it but posted anyway and the second time (when it got up into the 13k range) I just split it up. The sweet spot varies from person to person, but it's important when trying to maintain readers.

tits are an unalterable constant in Pokemon X

I hear they're looking into this for Gen 7.

In that case it looks like Flaze will get his wish for accurately fine, foreign tits in Gen VII. Y'know, I think I've referred to tits more in the past few weeks than I have all year.

I favour between 3000 and 4000 words in a chapter of fanfiction. Even with scene breaks, more than that and you're asking your audience to really sit down and read, which I don't dare try yet. I'm just not that popular an author xD

 

[Kelleo]

To be honest, I don't care about OR/AS. I never liked gen 3 at all, so I currently have no plans to get either of these games. I'm waiting for an X/Y follow up instead. I could change my mind about OR/AS though, there's a small chance. But I doubt it will happen.

 

[Life]

I don't usually measure my chapters by length, instead I measure content. I have outlines for each chapter of what I'd like to have in them and go by that. Though I do have a minimum for chapters, only because I don't want it to be extremely short.

I wasn't super disappointed with OR/AS news. I wasn't expected much, so that kind of helped. All I really want is a few in-game screenshots and such.

 

[Legacy]

Length is secondary to content, IMO. You should end your chapter at a suitable place in terms of how the story is told, not be hung up on how long it is.

 

[Dorothy]

Length is secondary to content, IMO. You should end your chapter at a suitable place in terms of how the story is told, not be hung up on how long it is.

Length isn't something to get hung up on, but it is something to keep in mind. The writer's focus should be on finding the right balance between length and content.

 

[Garren]

Hmm, do you guys ever feel...a bit annoyed at how much fan-fiction seems to be wasted potential? I don't mean in terms of the writer's ability, but rather the subject matter...

I mean, fanfiction in itself I guess could be viewed as inherently inferior to original fiction, since you're already utilizing a previous author's setting and or/characters, and you can't (without going the Shades of Gray route) actually sell it due to legal issues, and more of a fun hobby in my opinion, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm disappointed how so many fanfictions concern themselves with simply taking pre-existing characters and writing about their love lives and other mundane adventures.

Mainly this frustration concerns series that open themselves up to tons of potential stories that could be written about the universe without so much as touching a pre-existing character. Like, I was browsing FanFiction's "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure" section. I mean, it's a series with tons of potential stories that could be written about unique Stands and adventures going on alongside the main story, but I only found three original stories, one of them was in Spanish, and one of them was virtually unreadable. Everything else was just about the manga characters fucking, etc.

I'm not bashing romance in itself, but it just seems funner to write your own characters and explore their romantic history as opposed to using pre-existing ones and re-writing them to fulfill your own sexual desires.

 

[Beth Pavell]

Broadly in agreement with your last point - I couldn't deal with writing romance using canon characters.

I tend to prefer original characters in fanfiction, particularly pokémon fanfiction. Pokémon is one of those worlds that's just made for expansion, in my opinion. And to be fair, I think it does partly depend on where you look. I read fanfiction here because there's a lot more imagination than on, say, Fanfiction.net, where it seems that at least half of the summaries are little more than lists of shippings. The setting tends to be pencil sketch, a lot of the plot appears to be filler around the shipping scenes and ironically I've read (Ok, skim-read) plenty of these stories where the canon characters are written out so generically I wonder what makes them canon characters at all.

I believe that Sturgeon's Law (Warning: Tv Tropes link) applies here

 

[AetherX]

I'm not bashing romance in itself, but it just seems funner to write your own characters and explore their romantic history as opposed to using pre-existing ones and re-writing them to fulfill your own sexual desires.

That's just it, though. Most fan fiction authors write for wish fulfillment (and that's where most of the readership is as well). Good fan fiction authors on the other hand almost always write because they enjoy writing. It's unfortunate, but that's what makes this particular community so cool.

Also I strongly agree with literally everything Pav said.

 

[Akari]

Fanfiction.net is an interesting place. I prefer the community here by leaps and bounds because I for on write fanfiction for enjoyment and to improve myself as a writer overall. The feedback and discussions we have here have helped me way more than anywhere else.

 

[Dorothy]

FF.net is... eh. Bulba has a much better writing community.

 

[Kelleo]

Okay, first thing. This is the Pokemon fandom you're saying this in. Shipping is a HUGE thing there. Fans even have a huge list of names for each existing ship. I've never seen this done in any other fandom, not even Fire Emblem where romance actually happens.

Second, not EVERYONE that writes romance between canon characters just writes to fulfill some "sexual desire." For one thing, I'm not even into sex and junk like that. I just find romance to be very sweet and exciting, whether it's between original characters I've created or canon characters from some other media. I do admit that I've written my romances because I wish for these characters to be together. Otherwise, I wouldn't have written them. It's common sense. Also, some of the pairings I used could actually occur in their respective games. Not all of them could, but they're not completely impossible either. And sometimes people like to write AU stories. I see nothing wrong with that. AU authors don't necessarily write AU fics because they wish for canon to be changed. They just wish to add an alternate canon that can exist beside the already established one. No harm done.

Sorry, but as a romance author for Fire Emblem and The Legend of Zelda, I felt offended. I enjoy writing just as much as I like a little wish fulfillment in my stories, if not more.

Third, one thing I do agree on is that a lot of fanfiction writers suck, staining the reputation of fanfiction. Many people stay away from it because of how bad some of the stories are. It's quite sad really. The few fics that are actually good get missed out on.

 

[Life]

The problem I have with the majority of shipping fics is that they only encompass one thing: shipping. There's not much plot in those stories besides the relationships and they can get boring fast.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against shipping in fan-ficition, as long as it's done right.

 

[Kelleo]

Romance can be difficult to write, that much is true. But that's why my lesson on that exists. I just wish more people had seen it.

I haven't posted any of my romance-only stories here, but the ones I did write are short, only three to four chapters. But FE: Dawn of Darkness, while there's romance in it, is WAY more than just that. Same with Zelda: The Ancient Power.

 

[Vivillon]

Many people stay away from it because of how bad some of the stories are. It's quite sad really. The few fics that are actually good get missed out on.

This was me before I came here and decided to read a fic. Thank you everybody for shedding light upon the art that is fanfiction.