--- On Sat, 21/2/09, Kardas Fox <DarkFox3052_at_AIM.com> wrote:
> People tend to exaggerate when depicting themselves, even unconsciously, which is the problem with writing yourself into a story in general.
>
Plausibility adds credibility, which is why science fiction can sometime have the 'nerdy guy' doing an explanation to someone about a new bit of previously unexploited technology - it lets the reader buy into the idea.
> The biggest issue with writing yourself into fanfiction is that you don't exist in the same world as the characters -- putting yourself there immediately makes the story non-canonical.
>
Plausibility and credibility has a lot to do with this. You are unlikely to be a 'fundamental, central character', so best not to write yourself as such. Whenever Scrapper appears in a story, I use him as the 'fall guy' or as a 'random character with dialogue'. If he is interacting with the studio, he tends to have the role of 'delivery driver' - he appears, picks up or drops off (someone or something) then disappears again.
> Furthermore, 90% of fanfic writers add themselves to a story solely so >they can have sex with their favorite characters. Wild, insane, ego->stroking, plotless sex.
>
Usually trying to make up for their chronic lack of getting any in real life...
Similarly Scrapper never interacts with the girls in a sexual manner - he tends to view them from a fatherly role. This lets stories use the 'parental tension' as shown from a parent and child point of view, allowing the girls antics to try and "twist Scrapper's tail" to create interest. It tends to be a different spin than those used by others. I have written at least one sexual piece involving the sister (Shad's Visit) - a fellow group member dared me to write a better sexual piece as I frequently criticise the poor quality of 'ego stroking porn'. Subsequently I used their character for the encounter! :-D
I'm fairly sure I've posted these before, but they are well worth taking note of, for those wanting to write.
-=SCRAPPER’S WRITING TIPS=-
Writing can be fun, but like drawing, you need to put in a little effort in the right places, follow the ‘rules’ and learn to enjoy each aspect as opposed to just the thrill of ‘hammering out a story’.
> But yah I write some fan fiction too it's just plain fun!
> I never write short stories... My shortest is umm, 14 pages, and it’s not completed!
Hmmm, you sound to be suffering from what I call “writing self-gratification”. You’re writing for the hell of it, cos it’s fun... This unfortunately usually makes for bad reading. Especially when it isn’t finished!
The obvious but frequently overlooked point is starting out small. Do something that works and build up from there. It is pointless starting a huge saga only to peter out due to lack of interest or post a half completed, badly written work that turns readers off from ever wanting to read any future pieces you post. Tolkien didn’t start out with Lord Of The Rings!
You need to define a few basic ‘rules’ for how the story is going to be written. This keeps reader interest focussed on where you want it to go and limits your scope of writing to something manageable.
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 easy to spot this type of writing. They hope for a story about their favourite character and you give them a cameo 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 make it hard to follow what is going on. If you have ever read Lord of the Rings, for example, there are many characters who appear earlier in the story, disappear for a long time then reappear that can be confusing. (It is easier to follow once you’ve seen the movie!)
What is the basic premise for the story? Why are these characters doing this? What are 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 riveting 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.
It does pay to have references: pictures, bios and other officiated works. That way you can check what you are proposing against already ‘established facts’. It also assists being consistent.
Here is the one nearly everyone seems to baulk at: story plans. They are greatly undervalued and are NOT 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. It is fun to ‘race’ through the story, thinking of the big points and highlights you want to occur. 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 recent 20,100 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 punch and relevance to the original premise of ‘why are the protagonists doing this?’ I tend to record one idea per line. Next idea- next line. Keep it very short and concise; you are only recording the idea at this stage!
“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. It is also much easier to re-order or spot potential problems in the story progression at this stage than once you’ve umpteen pages of typed text.
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, else how do we know they aren’t just human? 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 protagonist 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 (afternoon in autumn) and what she was doing (lying down and stretching.) 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 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 vulpine. 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! When you think you have it perfect and there is nothing left to improve, then pass it on to someone to read for you. Do not expect them to find things that need fixing, though the result is there are usually several points that will need adjustment. It is amazing what you miss due to familiarity and over reading! 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 far better result. I know this is obvious, but use a spell checker, preferably a grammar checker as well - at least to fix the blatant mistakes!
Don’t look at people telling you “that's wrong” as a personal attack. In the airbrush class I attend, we have a phrase “What do you see?” It is asking the other person not if they like the work, that isn’t relevant, but if they can spot things that need improvement. There is ALWAYS something that can be done better. You just have to draw the line about where to stop; are you really satisfied with your work or does the criticism have merit?
Persistence gives the results. You’ve got to take small steps and build. You can take note of my pointers or you can do as I did and try to figure it out on your own. Or you can choose like most people not to worry about it and throw it all in the trash. I've written tens of thousands of words and none yet would I say would compare well against the ‘greats of furry literature’ such as Chris Yost or James Bruner, etc. But I get people to read my work, to tell me what they see is wrong and I fix it for the next story. You’ve got to write the next story to fix the old mistakes and make the new ones so you can learn. Keeping in mind that most people disregard the rules and write whatever suits them; look at the rubbish that constitutes much of ‘fan-fiction’…
It pays to write for a target audience - something with defined rules so you know the boundaries of where you are writing. Hence the advantage of writing for a group with an established set of characters. Then you are also more likely to get an audience who will be receptive to your work, as they are at least interested in the characters you write about before you’ve even typed your first line.
Read through your story - watch out for homonym errors (words that sound the same and mean different - eg hour/our, there/their/they're) they require a person to proof read as computers often do not detect that sort of error.
Do your expressions seem a little awkward? Learn to use the punctuation properly; it will assist you! Avoid passive phrasing is also an easy way to clarify writing (using Word's Grammar Checker and play with sentences to learn how to avoid passive phrases). It is not always possible, but sentences can often be simplified or reduced.
Contractions and abbreviations: do not use either in general description. Standardised (or defined) abbreviations in technical writing are fine. Contractions can be used for an informal writing style; such as I’ve used here. For story telling, it is best to use formal styles; it reads better and gives a more professional image. You can use contractions in dialogue, but do not use them in general description prose. Always use a character's full name when not in dialogue. For Example:
"What do you want Zig?" Sabrina asked as the tiger-striped skunk approached her desk.
"Nothing Sabbers, just cruisin’," replied Zig Zag casually.
Sabrina is using an accepted abbreviation of Zig Zag's name in dialogue - this is okay. It would not be okay to have the remainder of the sentence 'Sab asked..."; the name needs to be used in full.
Same with the second sentence where Zig Zag familiarises Sabrina with a nickname in dialogue and uses the contracted slang “cruisin’”; though Zig Zag's name, in reference, is spelt out in full.
Use many incidental descriptions (like I used tiger-striped skunk in the above sentence) as the reader may not know what these characters look like from the information you have provided in the story. Never waste an opportunity to elicit a bit more! It could be this is the first time the reader has even encountered a character, irrespective of how popular they may be; paint them a good picture!
Ellipses. 99% of the time, do NOT use ellipses (the three dots ...). They always occur as three dots (if you use them), no exceptions. They are only used to indicate a missing part of a sentence, no other reason. Get used to commas to conclude dialogue as well. The sentence, unless it is a question or exclamation, generally includes the dialogue in the entire sentence structure. An example would be Zig Zag's reply in the above sentences. The sentence should still make sense even if you eliminate the quotation marks. Even interrupted speech can be indicated with a comma, especially if you then interlude with incidental description. For Example:
“I don't think that it would be a good idea,” Sabrina began, as she looked up from her screen.
“Nonsense!” Zig Zag interjected, cocking a thin black eyebrow at her employee.
If you were going to use ellipses, then the phrasing would be like:
Sabrina looked up from her screen. “I don’t think that it would be a good idea...”
“Nonsense!” Zig Zag interjected, cocking a thin black eyebrow at her employee.
In both examples you add the description of what Sabrina did (though you could use an adjective to describe the screen too) and how Zig Zag reacted.
Hope these help. Scrapper, Black Dragon.
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Received on Sun Feb 22 2009 - 21:53:33 CST