Mad Rainin' Sakura Breeze

Divide Between Character and Writing

2009-09-20T09:37:00.001-07:00

One of the fics I keep track of, Inter Nos, has finally updated. I figure now and for the last time, to tackle a subject that niggles me every time I read it.

The general insistence on the perfection of the central protagonist (AU Fujino Shizuru).

More than once have I been greeted by other cast characters feeling some innate sense that Shizuru can do no wrong, and is flawlessly perfect. She's been likened to a Roman goddess, more than once (Justified by the setting). It's true for the most part. This Shizuru I read seems to always be one step ahead of a game in any topic that might be related to her. Finances, War Tactics, Politics... Shizuru does no wrong. She is always superior to her all of her peers or any foe she comes across.

Does this mean this story is terrible, and I'm reading a Mary Sue?

Now, that's the part I've been thinking about. Because if you've read earlier posts, Inter Nos is actually written very well. The author doesn't go out of his or her way of directly narrating the perfection of Shizuru, or get trapped by the usual pitfalls of poor characterization. Shizuru is actually, very well developed. The reader can get intimate with the personality and understand her, for the most part. Shizuru still seems human.

She just happens to be able to do no wrong. Then again, she doesn't always get her way either, since forces about her recently put a major wrench into her ambitions. But if I hear one more character expressing how innately, gut-feelingly Shizuru is lead to greatness...

(And I just remembered. Let's not get into the times characters describe Shizuru physically...)

So where's the boundary? Can good writing excuse a perfect character? Where does it count for a character to be considered "flawed realistically"? Which actions can never fail, and which actions, no matter how small, can fail, and still convince the reader the protagonist isn't perfect?

There have been works of fiction that have characters that work similarly, too, in past and present. For such characters, it wasn't on our part to worry too much for his health, but be entertained by him or her being awesome and getting out of binds awesomely.

On a specific level, I think of Donnie Yen's "Ip Man" that was recently made, which the hero's fist fights are never any trouble, he always wins. As I put it, then the fight is his field of prowess, but the villains then circumvent the hero's skill to drag him through the mud. Here, the World War 2 Imperial Japanese, by force of GUNS AND BOOLETS, confiscate everything, and rule with an iron fist that the protagonist is tolerant enough to withstand, humiliations aside.

So for the audience, even if Ip Man is unbeatable in a fight, he still won't kick his way out of a jail cell and beat people up, even though we feel it's what he deserves. Thus, when he actually gets into a fight with the villains, and wins awesomely, we actually enjoy it, because it's the hero getting what he deserves, and using skills he's familiar with, after being mocked in other ways.

That's how a "flawless character" may work. As for Inter Nos, I'm still very confused, but I had to note it somewhere. I can't consider it a problem enough to bring it up in a real review, since... it's too multi-faceted to simply berate the author. It's still great writing, after all.

Personal Profiles

2009-08-29T06:26:00.000-07:00

Making my 11th post for what should have just been a little school project. But I figured, I have this, so I might as well run with it a little more, while taking my lessons to heart.

Dunno what else I'll be sharing in the future, but this time, I'm gonna talk about something important:

How to present your Author's Page. Again, I assume we're using the basis of fanfiction.net. How one write's one's personal profile, while not directly related to writing well, tells a reader about your general writing capability. In ways, it's like a pitch, but instead of a single story, you're going to be pitching your general attitude towards stories.

It's of course, situational, given a person has to willfully access one's Author's Profile to begin with, but you'd have to agree that probably happens a lot, already.

So, to get to the gist of things. I believe the most important part of writing a Profile is that it's short and concise. A profile is only accessory to the stories you write, and only because it's another way of organizing stories. It's only by the general grace of the Admin that they decided to give you a little spot to blurb about yourself. This should not be abused.

We come a website like fanfiction.net to read about... fanfiction. Not about your personal life. There are authors profiles on the site that sometimes are miles long. They include things like their favorite pairings, anime, TV shows, opinions, quotes, daily life, games, Bios for Original Characters, etc.

And that's just horrible. I have to scroll through all that stuff I could care less about. Maybe I care about the notices about the future proposistions of your fiction, your progress, and even maybe how your life at home is, but only because it all relates to your level of writing progress. Cold, maybe, but it's consumerism like anything else. If we don't see your face, it does get harder for us to care.

That aside, it's not like it's not allowed for you to write your likes and dislikes, but if I have to scroll through more of your personal info than I do for your archive of stories, then I'm having to commit to scrolling through more than I asked for, clicking on your profile/archive. Why do I care about what music or games you like? Pairings, maybe, but that can just be easily said in an individual story's summary. There are things worth sharing, and things you need to consider, "Why would I share these types of interests to a buncha faceless people on the internet, who's gonna be around for maybe 5 seconds on my Author's Page?"

I hate to say this too, but sometimes, when I read an absurdly long author's profile, it gives me the mental age of the writer too, who's somewhere between 13-14, and absurdly absorbed in his own ego.

Long Story Short: If your personal information is even 50-50 to the length of your archives, you need to trim it down. Good Author's keep it short.

Super Skinny Profile

Average Profile

Getting a Bit Chubby Profile

"CAPTAIN! SHE'S CAPSIZING ON US!"

Epilogue?

2009-03-11T18:08:00.000-07:00

Well, pretty much the last assigned post for this torrid series of posts, and I've pretty much imparted all my core knowledge for searching for a good story on fanfiction.net. I'll have to take a break for now, so I can recollect any new ideas I can sagely espouse in the future.

For the rest, it really requires the general love of reading, and reading enough of this stuff to eventually work out your own tastes and instinct for being able to tell what is good and what you're willing to read.

Writing as well, if you really want to write well, also requires a lot of practice. I myself, in the very beginning, wrote terribly, and pretty much broke all the rules I've set forth in the previous posts. So yeh, it's been many long years of writing crappily, copying writing styles, and eventually adding enough of myself into it that what I've ended up with is now different from what I started with.

I hope you enjoy the stories I sent to you over the course of these posts. I wanted to do my best to especially show potential readers there are things out there that are very good, and not to buy into the idea that quality exists only in certain sanctioned places. Reading and entertainment's other function beyond education is simply escapism and enjoyment. There are things out there that may not constantly measure up to the pantheon of "intellectual maturity", but as long as you genuinely enjoy it, what's the problem?

We're not here to read a deep treatise on philosophy of the human boundary. We're here to have a good time.

Reviews

2009-03-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

I touched upon the subject in previous posts about community, but I decided to spent a short bit of extra time talking about the reviews itself.

Like I said before, being able to get a lot of reviews is the reward all authors would like to get with their stories. Merely getting hits isn't as good, because it's just numbers, many of which may be just a browsing going in, and then leaving. But a review, that shows that the reader liked your story enough to actually congratulate you for the job well done.

Since it feels so good, the natural conclusion is that the more reviews you get, the better.

The writing style of the reviews in themselves, though, surprisingly can be used to tell a bit about the quality of the story they're commenting on. Technically, that is the function of the review, anyways, but since reviews often are so vague in an of themselves, it's simply to just read the tide by reading the writing style.

In general, the maturity and general intelligence infused in each review also reflects on the quality of the story in question as well, "Birds of a feather flock together". Reviews tend to come in about three flavors.

Overly Excited and Mediocre: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh omigodomgigod *Squeals and dies happily*, plz, plz update soon!", "lolz, funny", "love it! Update now!" Yeah. If there's a story that collects a lot of reviews that tend to come up with responses like that, first, it doesn't tell me much, second, it makes me wonder what kind of story it is that panders to this level of denomination. Naturally, I don't trust it much, and assume it's not very good.
Average, Readable: "Good stuff. (Commentary on current chapter here), well, I hope for the next update". This is the general threshold that a story should have to convince me that I should try reading it. The guys are smart enough to spell properly and all that.
Huge Essay Format: By which I mean, the moment the story has a review that's comprised of several paragraphs, that's a very good sign that the story has a lot of depth to it. While depth may mean "high quality", it can also mean "pretty damn long, to the point it warrants an unusually long review".

As usual, it's usually better for the quality of the writing to be more towards the higher-grade. Since you're glancing through reviews, it actually shouldn't be a problem if you get the aforementioned huge essays. Though you should keep in mind, again, what kind of reading you have in mind, length and otherwise.

Reviews, though, being opinionated and finicky, aren't as reliable as reading the tide via summaries and word/chapter count, though it makes a good supplement for a second opinion. There are loopholes, though.

Stories that are for certain questionable, are multi-chaptered, yet it seems all the reviews are all by one person, with one or two lines. That's not a very good sign for me to try reading it. If a story has a few dedicated readers that review per chapter, that's at least more believable.

Likewise, more reviews doesn't mean the story is better. It simply means it has more attention from the adoring masses. A story with a few reviews or even none might be good, too, but likewise, it's careful to wonder the quality of a story that has little to none in reviews, too. Either it's not popular, or it's not popular because it's not good.

In the end, reviews should be used in conjunction with all the previously mentioned techniques to gauge a story.

Romance.

2009-03-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

Ah, Romance. Romantic Liasons. Pairings, couplings, slash, the works.

If it's true that the large portion of fan fiction writers are pre-teen girls working out their fantastic pairings, then obviously, many fics we'll come across in reading will have some romantic bent in some way.

However, I feel I should talk more about homosexual romance, which is something that fan fiction tends to be stereotyped about.

Thanks to the modern innovations of modern Japanese, stories concerning homosexual love between males is called "Shonen-ai", or the more popularly (reviled) "Yaoi". For females, it comes as "Shoujo-ai" or "Yuri".

(To be thorough, on summaries, usually they forewarn the romantic pairing with the names joined with an "x", a "/", or for the more fangirlish, making some portmanteau of the two)

It's a stereotype that we have more shonen-ai than anything. Not entirely true, fanfiction.net at least gets healthy portions of match-making of every kind. Still, it's a curious phenomenon, as to why fan fiction gets much more of the homosexual treatment than regular fiction.

What is it about the fans that they romanticize this notion so easily? Is there something that heterosexual romance lacks? Is it too plain, too vanilla, too typical? Is homosexual romance purely for physical reasons? Are there similar justifications for shonen-ai as there is shoujo-ai, or do the reasons for each differ entirely?

I hardly know all the reasons myself, though I offer my hypotheses. I have a niggling suspicion that homosexual romance, at least in the overly idealized minds of fan fiction authors, believe that it's somehow more "pure" or romantic than regular heterosexual romance. There is a logic to it, though. What with all these past generations of gender division, heterosexual romances may be bogged by the expectations of the male and the female. At the most presumptory, the male is a chauvinistic "Get in the Kitchen Womaaan" type, or the female is a whiny bitch.

Pairing off a guy to a guy, or a girl to a girl, disregarding the obvious reason that two attractive figures to the opposite sex together is essentially exponential multiplication of Hawtness, in doing so, you may seperate the physical aspect of romance from the emotional aspect of it. You can get to the tender and cute bits of romance, since "their love is so pure and true, they don't need to get to any of the hot, horizontal action".

(Isn't this the logic of Feudal Samurai class, Spartans, and Romans? Old, grizzled soldier, and young, pretty squire, sort of business... yeah.)

Of course, since we are human, and hormonal, its inevitable that the "true" love at some point will get some ribbing from the fans to go get to it.

While this cheesy, cute romance may be fun to read, even fun to read repeatedly, it still doesn't mean its written well. Couplings of all kinds is a very fan-driven thing, and being the easily led masses we are, these pairings end up being driven by the "Cuteness" of it.

Sure, I can read cute things. I'm guilty of reading lots of well written, cute things, even (Not of the shonen-ai kind, though, that'd be disturbing). But the problem is since the focus of this romance is so idealized, it ends up being isolated from reality. It's just fluff, to whet the appetites of supporters of the coupling, because it's cute.

Does that mean that all homosexual romance is doomed to be a sort of "pop-culture" thing for fan fiction? Not necessarily, but it is romance that has been removed from reality to degrees, so we can focus on the tender feelings and how goddamn smokin' hot they are, times two. Like any good story, if we want the romance, it's going to have to be treated evenly, as a part of life.

When a story is just about the two of them getting together and being cute, then... it's just a guilty pleasure to read.

As a proof of the fact that such a thing can work, I present Irasshaimase, Welcome, by Shella. I didn't go into this story expecting a romance. Not at all. It had a premise of an alternate universe, and I followed the character, and then suddenly one chapter, he said it.

Yeah, he said "I love you" to another guy. But before that, either I was stupid, or I simply read all the previous clues in the fic as friendship. But then he said it.

I had no choice but to accept that this was really happening. I wasn't expecting a romance, but the characters evolved so wonderfully I just had to accept it. For something that was so masterful and natural with the notions of romance, I had to put it into my Favorites. I just think it's that good.

Stories of the Shoujo-ai bent are a bit trickier. I've seen many, many good stories that are written superbly, but they still tend to have this certain aura of idealism that still reminds me this is coming through the mouth of an author who's already rooting for the pair in the background. I suppose Shella's story simply is one of those one-in-a-million works that pull it of just right.

DezoPenguin's recent stories in Nanoha and GrimGrimoire both pretty much are nothing but well written shoujo-ai, but also deals with certain issues that come with the romance. On the other hand, the Author still pulls through with some happy endings, so while the topics are broached honestly and earnestly, they still have some patronage of the resident god-author to back them up.

Inter nos, by enthewinter is a story I keep track of (it gets a bit raunchy in some later chapters, but doesn't take over the story), that combines romance with entertaining politics, bloodshed, and the politics of bloodshed. Again, though, the rules of the world seems to give way rather easily to allow for homosexuality. I don't say it's not unrealistic, but... it's still "shoujo-ai" rather than romance, I think is the only way to put it. I still have to actively suspend my disbelief at times, but again, it's written so well, and the story very well mixed with other elements to keep it interesting.

There's no easy answer to love, I suppose, in and out of real life. But I feel that I should say that for good stories, that though I am very much a romantic, and like to believe in the power of love, "Cute" is not one of the words used to adequately describe anything in real life, unless it concerns small, fuzzy animals.

(Biased Post-Script: If the romance in question involves vampires and/or werewolves Alternate Universes in a series that traditionally lacks it, it's immediately bad. Believe me, fangirls moved from unicorns and ponies to "darker and edgier" vampires and werewolves for their fascinations, including those homo-erotic, and they're rarely, if ever well written or interesting.)

Let Me Hold Your Hand: Expectations of knowing Backstory beforehand

2009-03-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

Now when I read or write, there is a question that I ponder to myself at times.

Is the reader expected to have to learn everything about the original plot before reading? Or is it the author's responsibility to inform the reader while going through the story?

There are answers that go either way, though this depends again on whether the quality of fan fiction should be treated like any other story, or whether it should be treated separately, to different rules.

Most authors tend to take the stance that the reader should already know the backstory, or at least do his own homework. Understandable, fan fiction is fan fiction, after all, and it comes with a general conclusion that the person reading would be one who's already informed, after all, why would one read a story from a series they know nothing about? Thus, most stories are going to be written with little or to no attention given to background.

(Unless it's a story specifically about Alternate Universes or Time Travel. But it gets more complicated if we go in that direction.)

There are still some authors who do write with some detailing on previous events, but not very often. I suppose it takes time away from the main plot, and feels a bit redudnant, perhaps even pratronizng that the author is reiterating details like the readers are unaware. Though of course, there are readers who are going to be unaware.

So does that mean all fan fiction is impossible to read unless we force ourselves into devoting our time and money, playing the pre-requisite video games and watching the pre-requisite shows? Is it impossible to go into a fan fiction essentially "blind", and still get a good story out of it?

Well, yes, and no. It's actually quite possible to browse most sections with at least a passing knowledge of the series in question, but there has to be some. I believe the answer is not purely just knowledge of events, but also the emotional investment.

In today's online age, it's ridiculously easy to get a plot synopsis anywhere, if you have the patience to search for it. Wikipedia is full of plot synopsis for all kinds of series, and Youtube is crammed full of clips of shows and walkthroughs of entire games, so you can watch to your heart's delight. Not only do you learn of the plot, but you even get to immerse yourself into the "feel" of the series, and all this so easily.

But even if you watched the series in question, if you don't feel the investment in the world and characters enough to read more about them, then you're probably not going to feel a great urge to try and read.

Some shows, I felt were complete, and ended satisfactorily, and thus I couldn't bring myself to either read fan fiction continuing the plot or changing it, nor could I do it myself. Likewise, there are some series I've only learned through research, some of which included very good fan fiction, and in a perpetuating cycle, good fan fiction is what gets me interested in the series at all, and informs me on the happenings of the series. Irony, huh?

But the series I enjoy the most in looking at fan fiction still tend to be ones I have personally experienced for myself, and actively sought as a fan. I kinda get them in "phases". For a while, I get all crazy of this one series, and actively research every detail, and so I really get invested in the series for the time being, until my interest finally implodes on itself, and I move onto the next excellent thing. But that's how it works, I guess.

Perhaps I spoil myself in the process, but I guess I'm weird in the head. I'm very interested in reading good fan fiction. Fan fiction for its own sake, rather than the sake of the series.

Either way, I suppose it is the right of the author to reveal or not reveal as much as they like of back story, and it usually isn't very much. Thus, it will more often than not have to be up to the reader to learn these kinds of things his or herself. But in this online era, it's not required to have to be a crazy diehard fan to know enough to start reading a series enough to enjoy the related fan fiction.

The important thing is whether you'll care enough about the series.

Original Characters

2009-03-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

Admittedly, probably my favorite past time when it comes to fan fiction. Not only conceiving of plot threads, but also conceiving of completely new characters to participate in it. When I talk about these new characters, I don't just mean random extra doods used to populate the world and fill it out as secondaries, I mean actual OCs that are supposed the join the cast as part of the focus.

Original Characters is one of those things that's apparently even irksome among general fanfiction. Understandably, we're here to read about people we're already familiar with, not all these other doods.

Beyond that, if poorly applied, OCs tend to come of more as the Author's raging ego, as they intrude on even their own plot to show off. Sure, you get the horror stories of those infamous "Mary Sues", but that's probably most extreme cases. Otherwise, they're merely largely obnoxious characters that showboat flagrantly.

Bad OCs tend to come hand in hand with mediocre stories, too, so the bad characterization gets compounded with atrocious spelling and grammar, too. The thing ends up compounding each other, etc.

Bad OCs tend to also be often found or derivative of series or sections that tend to be full of rampant fanboyism or fangirlism. If there's some attractive character, you also find authors who are churning out the OCs to hook up with him/her. Otherwise, if there some "error", or even an open cast space, you'll find OCs there, ready to "fix the problem".

I've come across more bad male OCs in my time, so I'll share what I know about them. But typically, ridiculous powers aside, you can easily how "egotistical" an OC is from two things.

The name. I tend to read more in the anime or game sections. But if there's a series that has a lot of characters with Japanese names, you'd normally expect that the author would take the care to use the same nomenclature. But instead, more often than not, I find all these male OCs with Alex, or Luke, Zack, Ryan... or Alex. I come across alot of Alexes for some reason. English names, anyways. These really typical English names.
Description. There's description that's a fair amount, and description that's as obnoxious as the OC that's being used. It's alright to go in some detail about the clothes, but I sometimes end up reading some very random crap, like "the guy had red sneakers with blue soles on them, and he was wearing this red t-shirt with this black cross design on it", etc, etc. That's... kinda going a bit far.
(A minor third: Sometimes, if there's a story with some military elements in it, an OC of questionable quality tends to be some kind of US Marine. I don't know why, but it just happens. Some guy out of "Nam", or out of Iraq. Not only that, the American has to be unbearably holier-than-thou, and just becomes a mouthpiece for the Author himself. Ends up tasting a lot like AAAAH AMERICA POWAER, WE ARE SO SIVILIZED!)

Well, of course, this is just my personal experience with the thing. There's nothing saying that having an Alex is going to be instantly terrible, but making an OC requires a lot more forethought about how the world and series works. When it comes to making and OC, this is something I'd say do your homework on the series in question first.

There's no real exact science to making a good OC, though, other than treating them realistically and fairly.

Sometimes people insist, when creating a character, you have to fill out this chart detailing ALL this kinda crap about interests, or motives, or why they're here. Maybe that's important, but I've managed to go fine for the better part of 8 years not using it. I've pretty much had an interest in making OCs for every fic I practically write, so I guess I would know.

Developing a really well rounded character takes a while, sure, but creating one at all with a coherent backstory isn't as hard as you think.

Myself, perhaps very irreverantly, I admit that none of my characters are 100% original. I just make sure to watch lots of shows, and keep in mind of lots of neat designs or anything else. Eventually, all the ideas will end up being retooled, reworked, changed via puns or wordplay, all mashed together at points, perhaps consciously, perhaps unconsciously.

Am I a shameless thief? It depends. Nothing's new under the sun, after all, so the important thing is presentation. Things are borrowed after all, but for me, it's important that I feel the my design has now become my own, shamelessly based off and reworked, perhaps but not outright stolen.

Otherwise, that's like a crossover. Which I suppose I do as often, but I'm probably a bit more intentional on that part.

Being honest, I tend to build the character's abilities or appearance first, then ask myself "What's the backstory that results in or leads to this ability?", this in turn, tends to inform the kind of personality the character has. Or if the character already has a set personality in mind, it helps clarify exactly how the character will be lead to act.

It doesn't have to be too complicated. Some people's lives are simple, after all, and some are not.

It's important that they're not perfect. Some author's don't catch onto this very well, and their OCs "flaws" end up just shouting in caps and being irreverant, but not making a huge effect on the plot itself. Not sure if I've follow this, myself, but I think I try.

A sign of a good character perhaps may be that the actions the character takes can invoke as much disdain as it might sympathy. Such a character doesn't play to the crowds, but simply is itself.

Life Goes On, by Sheo Darren, part away into the story, start paying attention to the Rolito character. He's a likable fellow, with some flaws, with some talents, and surprisingly... human. Though the assigned antagonist, you follow his introspection enough that you find someone with a lot of depth.

Mai-HiME: Fresco, by Akuma-sama. The OC here is a police cop kinda character. He's more "traditional" I say, in that he's probably been developed in a method not like mine. He's got no powers, and he's not hugely quirky or anything like that. But he comes through with excellent all around writing, with a talented author that does all aspects well.

The Handsome Men, by Person With Many Aliases (Yours Truly). Essentially a series of individual character studies. Probably all of them save, the main antagonist, are all reworked personalities and concepts, and all with certain quirks. The question is whether they come off as copies or not. I believe not. The main antagonist is a bit more complicated, because I've had his design for a while and put him into a lot of stories. He's been slowly cultured, adjusted, and modified across time, so his origins are pretty mute by now, though they were there.

I probably haven't explained myself very well... but if you have any questions, I can always try to answer them in more depth. I hope I helped a little bit, at least.

Real Time Community Market.

2009-03-06T18:25:00.000-08:00

I'm probably stating the obvious in this post, but I suppose I'm just being thorough in the differences between fan fiction and a book.

Books sold in stores can survive without an active community, but fan fiction can only function with a community, and all fan works in general.

After all, a book is a book for its own sake, but fan fiction gains its value from being attached to some community. While it won't make money, commentary and reviews are what an author tends to preen for. In effect, fan fiction has a bit of a market in and of itself.

You can either write well, or you can write to the interests of the community and get popular like that.

Regular authors aren't free of this market either, of course, since they have to read the same market of fans that's going to be buying his or her product. An author of fan fiction, though, interacts much more directly with it.

I find it rare that an author will become really famous on account of just his name. That happens if his writing is really prolific, long lasting, or just that good. But on places like fanfiction.net, every little section for each series is practically representative of a minature community in and of itself, and these communities don't cross over too much. In these communities, when they're small enough, and the writer's constant enough, you'll have authors knowing each other, but otherwise, each story posted is going to be read on its singular merits each time, rather than the merits of the author, unless you know that author before hand.

A book is constant as well, it'll never change from beginning to end. Fan fiction, though, is done chapter by chapter. Maybe I'm exagerating the influence, but it still means a great deal in the fact that the story can potentially evolve different on a chapter by chapter basis, even while it's still being put up.

...

Friday's are terrible. Tomorrow, I promise something much more cohesive. And about a topic I'm personally invested in.

Story Density, Story Expectations

2009-03-04T16:04:00.000-08:00

Even when a story is constructed well, that is, with proper characterization, grammar, spelling, convention, pacing, etc, etc, it seems that there are two general styles of writing that seem to stand out.

Casual, and Epic.

One shouldn't judge the two styles by these arbitrary titles I have given them, they're just words that I feel best capture the "aura" that these two give off when read, but it doesn't necessarily place one as better or worse than the other.

What probably divides the two is the word density or general wordiness of a story.

A more casual story tends to be paced faster and slimmer. Simpler sentences, description more on the minimal side, stuff like that.

Stories more on the epic side go the exact opposite by simply just being so large in scale. I'm not sure myself how it's done, but you can tell by how much time you spend reading a sentence. The attention to detail is also apparent. It doesn't have to be going into excess about the color and shape of everything in a hallway, but extra attention would be paid describing the layout.

Writing Casual or Epic have their advantages and disadvantages, related to speed, of course. If you go too casual, the reader won't be able to connect to the story. Too Epic, and it actually becomes exhausting for the reader to go through it all.

Action scenes, though, tend to work better when its denser.

When I read stuff like "He slashed", "He jumped", "He dodged", "He fired an ice spell"... you can see for yourself, it's not very involving. What's the slash like? Where did he jump to? Skimping on the details here detracts from the action. Hence, in places like these, it works better to be more thorough about every moment, and to be involved with every instant.

I myself, probably am more on the casual side of things. I prefer letting my readers build the image with their own imagination. I suspect most authors of fanfiction tend to write on the casual side. Some authors, though write very densely.

It may be stereotyping, but I have found that denser stories do tend to be better written. The question, though, is what do I expect when I go read fan fiction? Of course, I want to read a legible, and entertaining story, but should I compare the writing on fanfiction.net to the assumed writing level of an author who sells his books?

If a very dense story on ff.net reads like a professional novel, does it mean it's better? If a faster story doesn't read like a professional novel, does that mean it's inferior?

Why does one read? For entertainment? For amusement? For education? For enlightenment?

The expectations that you have when you go into reading will also follow into the expectations you'll have when you read fan fiction. But I believe that the wordiness does not determine quality, only readability.

Erico's stories, remain in my memory as the most dense stories I have ever read. While engrossing, I also came to the end of each chapter going. "Oh, shit, there's MORE of them!?"

As of this very moment I write this today, this story is on another of my tabs on my internet browser. Glancing over it, it looks readable, but also casual.

So the lesson here is moderation. Devote enough words, but don't devote too many words.

Comedy and Fan Fiction, or, a glorified Review.

2009-03-03T15:14:00.000-08:00

Forgive me, I'm not always brimming with essay length theses concerning the psycho-social function of fan fiction. Too many of those at once would probably be unhealthy anyways.

So I'll just share what I know about... comedy.

This probably speaks about comedy in general, but since this we're talking about fan fiction, I have to frame it that way.

There are a methods in fan fiction I've found to be re used a few times to varying success.

The biggest of these is that stories often reference internet memes or fan in-jokes into their narrative. Not only is it a sure way to show off how well researched you are into the series and the internet as a whole, but it also seems to be a sure fire way to ensure your fic is that much goofier.

Of course, if you go to far with it, sometimes it just feels like you're just relying on in-jokes for punch-lines. That breaks the fourth wall and the suspension of disbelief when taken too far, and then you just kinda reel back and realize you're just reading some funny lines.

The second thing is purposeful Author Insertion. A very sure fire way, that has the Author himself interact with the realization of how ludicrous and senseless the story itself is, with a kind of self-reflexivity. Done properly, you can think of it like Monty Python's General character, who comes in at the right time to push the joke a little bit further. Too much, and I've seen this sometimes, and we end up with an author who thinks his own insert running the show is funnier than the actual jokes.

Finally, Slapshtick and physical humor. Often, most authors try to rely on frantic, active comedy, with lots of shouting to get their jokes across. Personally, this is probably a crutch. I believe, honestly, that all things can be done properly and effectively, but I haven't seen this style done often, and it's overly relied on by amateur authors. Often, the characters we're familiar with are taken and used out of their familiar personality ("Out of Character") just to run them through a gamut of screaming hysterically. This is usually called "Crack" in a justification to be funny.

That's actually not very funny by itself. That's not comedy with character personalities, that's just watching a bunch of clowns, really.

A bunch of fellows bouncing around the room can be funny if there's a joke attached to it. By itself, well... it's not very intelligable.

I'm probably not saying this very well, so I'll just get on with it and round out my examples of good and bad, including two of my own stories, which I admit, shamelessly use elements of all the above, to varying degrees.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Stage of History, by GaggedCenobite. (Soul Calibur)

I can call this a "frantic" comedy, with lots and lots of references to pop culture. It's done actually pretty well, though, because it's neither all just running around, and the in-jokes are usually attached to character traits, or actually justified by the plot. So even if you don't entirely get everything said, the ways the characters play off each other works well enough.

And it's genuinely funny. Maybe I should leave it at that.

Shopping Mission, by Section-Eight. (Noir)

Now this story is probably among the best comedies I read on the site. I think the big part of it was that it came through with its own unique voice and jokes. Thinking about it, the force of one's personality and voice is probably a big factor between a story that's kinda silly, and a story that's hilarious.

I Am Negima! ?, AND SO CAN YOU! Act I, by The Ansem Man (Mahou Sensei Negima)

One of the lesser examples, though not outright unreadable. I consider this a case of good ideas, but weak execution. The author had good characters and a good story framework to put the jokes into action, but it the writing lacked the same punch as the previous two, too many meme jokes were used, and some jokes were overused, ad nauseum. (Yes, I know that "O RLY?" is funny because of the owl, but used over five times, it's just bad spelling now.)

Code Geass: In the Middle of the Author Wars, by Keith Kurogane (Code Geass)

Admittedly, a rather egregrious example of poor writing in general, next to poor comedy. Besides that, the author used my name as insert rather intimately, implying I somehow knew him. It's a bit audacious. That aside, this is the kind of story I simply can't get past the first chapter or two. It's not really about jokes or the like, nor is it particularly subtle, It's just the author, saving himself the trouble of describing himself by identifying himself with game terminology instead, and his other insert buddies and him running amok.

Fate/iniative roll, by Person With Many Aliases, that is, myself (Fate/stay night)

Just to compare myself against the others, this is apparently my best comedy. It gets a bit dramatic near the end, by accident, but I think I manage to steer it back by the end. The basis of this story is that, many of the characters within the original plot material were appended with many statistics and grades, as if they were characters in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. So I took the idea and ran with it.

Code Geass 2008 Christmas Special, by myself again. (Code Geass)

My most recent comedy, and the largest. Once a year, I attempt to write and post an extremely large oneshot by the date of either Halloween or Christmas. The second one onward, they've been stories from movies that I've "recasted" to work out for the casts of the series. In this case, it's Code Geass with Mel Brook's "Space Balls". Of course, with the fact that much of the jokes are probably transplanted from Space Balls itself, I had to differentiate the details by using many in-jokes and memes. I try to keep the better jokes intact, though, since Mel's version was probably funnier. I also insert myself at the very end for fun, but it's more of a habit, and I purposely make sure that I don't lavish the story with my already unnecessary presence.

Of course, when I speak of these comedies, I wrote with the assumption that everyone's writing to be stand up riotous. Certain stories don't actually go that far, and characterize themselves with simpler, less ambitious desire to draw out mirth and amusement.

Sheo Darren and DezoPenguin, both whose stories I read, recently post such stories like these with skill, and don't compromise general writing sensebility to pass out their jokes. Thus you read something that's silly, but in a comprehensible manner.

Basics: Finding a Good Story.

2009-02-28T23:26:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of fan sites out there, dedicated to fan fiction in some way or another. Though, in my opinion, the best starting place and general all around great place to read it is at the aptly named fanfiction.net, which is essentially the largest single repository of fan fiction thus far. FF.net's not without it's problems of course. Sheer size makes it difficult to browse casually, given the sheer amount of links and potential stories you could go to. Also, since the this is the highest traffic for all fan fiction writers, the writing quality probably isn't has high as the more niche sites you'd see.

Still, I swear by this place. FF.net's dedicated to fan fiction in and of itself, meaning its archiving and tools have more versatility and accessbility than other sites, meaning that even if we do have to sift through more bad stories to find good ones, it's also a hella lot easier to do it.

That said, of the top of my head, these are a few ways to glance at and through a story and quickly determine if it's worth following. There are exceptions to all of these, sure, but it's still generally a good way to gauge readability.

Word Count: Believe it or not, it's actually possible to tell how good a story is on ff.net usually by the ratio of words to chapters used. In general, a good multi-chaptered story with about 7 chapters or more should have 10,000 words, minimum. Any shorter and the average chapter size is probably too short, which usually means the author is just glossing through his or her story without any real effort, meaning it's not a story really worth pursuing.

There's also stories, though, with over a hundred chapters, with word counts I can't even remember. Sometimes they really are that long. Unfortunately, sometimes, even if they pass my "requirements", all I really get is just some mediocre writer who simply had the determination and popularity to go ahead and actually write a hundred bad, short, chapters. So be careful. 10,000 word count minimum, but also be sure to check the number of chapters as well. There are few stories that require anything upwards of 50 chapters.

For smaller stories, such as one-shots, or multi chaptered stories under or around 5 chapters, the word requirments should be less stringent. There are one shots that can be surprisingly poignant in word counts of just hundreds. Though, if the reader is searching for a full-bodied short story, those usually tend to be about 1000 to 5000 words or more. In general, the more words the better. If there's a small multi chaptered story, of which the combined word count across its first three chapters is only at most, 500, then it's pretty safe to say that the author isn't writing something that'll be interesting to read.
Summary: You can also gauge a lot about the quality of the story in how the author will write his or her prologue. You can think of the summary as the author's sole ability to pitch towards the reader and try to get them to read his or her story. The "pitch" can be indicative of the general skill of the author.

If the author's summary looks juvenile, then it's a pretty good chance that the rest of the story reads at the same level as well. "Dis story is mah 1st time, plz r&r, okie thakz!"

If the author doesn't even try to write a summary, then I feel like the author doesn't care enough about his or her story to get people interested, so I shouldn't try myself, anyways. "Hey, I can't think of a summary right now, but please read my story."

A summary that goes "What if" or basically spells out the entire premise blandly, isn't irrevocably bad, but still, if a summary is posed like that, it take a large kick out of the pitch's attempt to garner interest.

In short, a summary is something an author should take seriously. It is the author's job, not the reader, to provide a summary that catches our attention, but doesn't give too much away. The more "professional" a summary is, the better chance it is that the author also writes the rest of the story with the same level of care.

Within a story, there are a few other things you can check quickly to see if it's worth reading.

Author's Notes: Or "A/N" as they're often called. It's probably common sense, but regardless, the author's duty is to the story, not his or her own notes. All stories on ff.net probably have a little header and footer on every chapter. That's fine. It only becomes a problem when these A/N start taking up larger bulks of the chapter, forcing you to scroll down past the Author responding to each and everyone of the reviewers, or explaining about the poor day they had before hand, etc, etc.

That aside, probably the more problematic usage of A/N would be the insertion of it in the middle of the narrative, in order to express some detail, like "Scrawlin in mah skin by 2U starts playing here".

Using A/N in such a manner breaks up the reader's concentration, and also shows a laziness on the part of the author. If the author can't find a way to include these details into the main narrative, he or she simply isn't trying. I personally tend to simply just leave the story the moment I see an A/N in the middle of the narrative.
Basic Format: The very simple stuff. Spelling, grammar, use of paragraph. Some authors seem to wholly forget this concept. Even then, there's also other formatting issues that authors insert, similar to A/N, which break concentration, too.

Things like, "Scene change", or "This Person's POV", or, again, "(Song Title here) starts playing", are all symptoms of bad writing, that demand the reader jump through these mental hoops, instead of the author helping them along.

Character Bios are also bad to have in the story, whether it's on the A/N at the header or footer, or even taking up an entire chapter of its own.

In short, a lot of these methods for "gauging" a story mainly has to do with checking for the amount of effort actually put into all aspects of a story. It would of course be too strict to come into this place with expectations to write like a New York Times Bestseller, but on the other hand, it's still no excuse to be sloppy about it.

The best method to initially survey, in my opinion, still remains checking the word count to chapter count ratio. Everybody has their own preferences for what is "readable", of course, but these guidelines should be helpful in beginning your search for good stories on fanfiction.net, especially with the categorizing and search tools they have presently.

Welcome to the Beginning, This is Where I Might Be Going

2009-02-24T16:15:00.000-08:00

My first blog, excellent.

Who am I?

Well, quite very simply, I am Person With Many Aliases.

Not "A", not "The".

My first name is Person, and my last name is With Many Aliases. Some people insist on simply calling me, "PWMA". I like to be called "Person WMA" at the least. Most people just get as far as "Person", and then they go "Who the hell came up with that name?"

Well, that's a really long story, from a long way back, so it's probably better you not know if you don't nearly care enough.

There is something I really do want to talk to you about, though, I mean, that's why I started up a blog, right?

Fan Fiction.

No, wait, don't press "Back" on your IE, Fire Fox, Opera, Netscape, or whatever else you're using, just... sit down for a moment and hear me out.

I've been in Fan Fiction for quite a while, now, I'm guessing 8 years now. I've read a lot, and I've written quite a bit to feel confident enough to feel like I know what I'm saying.

I've come to understand that there's a current... stigma to the admission of reading, writing, or even liking Fan Fiction. Some people might even have read some such Fan Fiction in the past and left disgusted, deciding that being staked to a cross is probably more preferable than reading "that drivel". Others might simply just have heard the rumors and rolled their eyes.

"The culmination of the efforts of 10 to 13 year old children, usually little brat girls, slamming on their keyboards, trying to compose their hormonal fantasies of other people's characters, usually butchering every concept, and insulting literature in general in their search for cheap self gratification."

Social stigma aside, there's also the "intellectual" stigma. I can bet so many times, people simply just scoffed off reading the stuff, simply because it's not a paperback found in Barnes and Nobles.

"Amateur story telling? Hah, why bother when I can go get my Stephen King, Micheal Crichton, J.K. Rowling, Mark Twain, Charlotte Bronte, Dante, Gary Paulsen, Alexandre Dumas, and know I will for certain, get a stimulating read that makes me look smart?

What mental fortitude could I gain from the likes of people called, "capnnerefir", or "Jedi Buttercup", or "jill112"? Hah! How absurd!"

Sorry, I tend to get a bit heated when I think of the assumptions.

Still, I won't pretend, or justify, or fannishly defend Fan Fiction. It is, after all, writing available to the general public. And like anything available to the general public, you'll get mostly bad stuff.

Most of the horror stories about the "10 to 13 year olds" are probably close to the truth. But what I want to show, is like anything covered in the rubble of bombings of derision and bad writing, if you dig in the right place, you'll find something genuinely good.

Hell, maybe something even might grow out of the wreckage, healthy. Sure did for me.

Hence, the next nine posts, and maybe even more, I'm going to share what I know, to show that there is good things in Fan Fiction, where to find it, the little intricacies, and what I think is good and not.

Granted, I'll say that I'm only one guy. I have opinions. I have biases. I can even be wrong about things.

But hey, I've been writing and reading for 8 years. I might know something.

It might even be useful.