> File : /Skunkworks Fan Fiction/Chain
> Reaction.doc
> Uploaded by : payne_brandon <payne_brandon_at_yahoo.ca>
> Description : After listening to their mother tell her
> story involving the entire football team, the Skunk Trio
> decide to outdo her.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SkunkworksAMA/files/Skunkworks%20Fan%20Fiction/Chain%20Reaction.doc
Woah, what a weekend! Not as action packed as the girls in
Brandon's latest story, but it was pretty full on. Back to
work for a rest!
Finally managed to read the story without falling asleep in
front of the computer (not a reflection on the story - I've
just been staying up too late recently!). As always,
fairly good ideas, Brandon. Pretty wild, per usual, but I
felt this story lacked character development. No
particularly 'incidental' descriptions come to mind for the
three 'rescuers' either, suggesting a bit more work is
required in this area.
Plot progression moves along well, but again incidental
descriptions would be of benefit for painting a better
image in the readers mind. Some of the expressions, though
comprehendable, are awkward. Generally the story would
benefit from someone proofing and editing it before you
post. Still a worthwhile read, for those who haven't done
so as yet.
I've posted the following points on gNAW's dojo, for those
already a member, but they are well worth reviewing if you
do any form of writing, furry or otherwise.
Figure out who and what are going to be in your story.
Will they add anything to the story, or do they just
complicate matters? Don't bring in a character simply
because you can. Writing in a big name character just to
try and increase your readership and not making full use of
the character tends to make fans dislike you as it is
usually easy to spot this type of writing. They hope for a
story about their favourite character and you give them a
chameo appearance. :-( If another existing character can
be used for the same task, it is often better to 'let them
do it'. Too many characters with intermittent appearances
makes it hard to follow what is going on (ever read Lord of
the Rings, for example, easier once you've seen the
movie!).
What is the basic premise for the story? Why are these
characters doing this? What is their motivations? If you
don't have this, there is no story, or not one worth
reading. "Some furs did some stuff and wandered around a
bit, yeah..." Doesn't make for rivetting reading. :-/
Hence why much porn is boring. Two people got together and
had sex. There we are; was that exciting? No. You need
to have a build up, a motivation for them wanting to. You
need to have some form of explanation in the form of the
way a character acts, says, etc to justify this. Writing
in an explanation of why someone is doing something is just
lame and very boring to read. A reader wants to learn
about a character incidentally as the plot unfolds and not
have to read a 'bio' to understand them. That's YOUR job
as an author.
Here is the one everyone seems to baulk at: Story Plans.
They are greatly undervalued and are NOT really that boring
to write. I quite like them as you can have an explosion
of ideas and rapidly work through a story, recording it all
quickly and briefly. Then you go back and fill in the
details. Story Plans are not a hard and fast rule that has
to be adhered to, in regard to just because you didn't put
it in the story plan, doesn't mean you can't use it. The
same goes for the reverse; you may decide to leave
something out.
So what is this Story Plan? It is a very brief outline of
what you want to happen in the story. About 15 to 20 lines
seems average for my story plans. Considering you
typically have around 4 to 14 words per line, this is not a
lot of writing. I used 18 lines for a quite detailed story
plan for my 2200 word story and 23 lines for my latest
19,900 word 'short story'.
The Story Plan prompts your memory on what is to happen
next. You don't want to accidentally skip a part that is
relevant later! It keeps things moving and gives direction
to the story. It also tells you when you're at the end.
Yes it is easy to tack on a bit more, then a little more,
until you end up with a long, rambling story that due to
its add-ons has lost much of its relevance to the original
premise of 'why are the protaganists doing this?'
But I can do this in my head! Well, maybe you can, but can
you remember 20 lines of details and recite them exactly
one week (or a month, or more!) from now exactly as you
first thought them out? No, didn't think so. Also good to
look back when you've finished the story and see what you
have changed and why.
Use descriptions. Lots of them. Unless you tell the
reader, how do they know what you want them to see? Use
them incidentally; don't write a whole paragraph describing
something! Especially important to describe the characters
for furry stories. Consider the following examples:
She stretched her toes. The sun felt good.
The reclining vixen stretched her clawed toes as she lay on
the well- maintained turf. The autumn afternoon was warm;
the sun felt pleasant on her luxurious red pelt.
Let's compare. From the first paragraph, we know that the
protaganist is a 'she', she stretched and the sun felt
good. Nothing wrong with this, but could be better.
Second paragraph we know what she is (fox), a little about
what she looks like (red fur, has clawed toes), where she
is (someone's lawn), when it was (late afternoon in autumn)
and what she was doing (lying down and stetching.) I think
you agree the second paragraph is far more interesting
without directly describing the situation?
Don't use big words just to be impressive. Conciseness is
good and avoids confusion. Use of slang is not recommended
and swearing, unless in dialogue,is generally totally
unacceptable. Use the correct names and descriptions for
things, varying the reference to avoid needless repetition;
it maintains interest and shows knowledge. An example:
she, her, female fox, vixen, anthro fox. They can all
describe the same character, but gives variation from using
the character's name all the time.
Get someone else to read over your work! It is amazing
what you miss due to familiarity and over reading! And
sometimes due to having a picture in your head, you don't
read what is there. It can turn out you haven't described
what is happening at all! So get someone to proof for you
- it gives a _lot_ better result.
Hope these help. Scrapper, Black Dragon.
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Received on Sun Jun 20 2004 - 19:41:17 CDT