General Fan Fiction Discussion

[Gone Astray]

Yeah but I took the name from a Christian novel I'm reading.

Does anyone know what the GN in GN Drive means?

The whole name conjures up images of massive battle, and mecha fans tend to be gung-ho about that sort of thing. But there's really no set formula for "cool"--either it happens, or it doesn't. TV executives have been trying to figure this thing out for years, and they still don't get that the popularity of a work is largely based upon luck.

Why are the Twilight novels so popular, for instance? They're not excellent literature, by any stretch of the imagination--but Stephenie Meyer was lucky enough to write something that appealed to a massive audience. Nobody knew that teenage human/vampire romances were big on that level, until those novels came along and filled that niche. Everything has an audience, it just needs to find that audience to be successful.

And why are you so obsessed with your work being popular? Just write it. Write for the sake of writing; if you're writing to please others, then you'll never be satisfied because everyone has differing tastes and views.

And apparently, according to the side stories, "GN" means "Gundam Nucleus," but I don't have a source on that.

[Arbiter GUNDAM]

Hmm, I always thought it meant Gravity Nullification but I guess not. Anyhow GX7, since your Edge of Apocalypse fic is so far removed from actual 00 Gundam, what the GN stands for doesn't really matter in your context.

And I cannot stress enough to take the advice that has already been given you. Write for writing's sake, not us or the rest of the "great unwashed masses." That said I would make some of the changes others have suggested to improve your fics. Me personally, I'd change the antagonists in your story.

Oh and the reason GN drives, true drives mind you, cannot be built in the Earthsphere is because the TD Blankets need to be manufactured at Jupiter IIRC and it takes a long ZOINKS time to do it.

[Big B]

I remember back in high school something about protagonists and antagonists. The thought was that the story's protagonist has something to overcome. Sometimes this is defeating the monster, while other times, it might be dealing with a personal issue. In Gundam Deus, yes, there are mecha battles Elena participates in, the underlying issue for her is grappling with femininity. She's the main protagonist, so, yes, she will be going up against the primary antagonist. But, her personal issue still needs to be resolved.

You don't know the whole story up front. Sometimes, sure, you need to disclose a large chunk, but you want to give people something to look forward to seeing. I don't know if you've seen Noir,

Spoiler

but they kept that carrot about Mirielle's family going for awhile.

You may not want to drag it out that long, but it's one example that really sticks out to me.

In Gundam, Amuro isn't gung-ho about war, but it's an issue he must deal with along with maturity throughout the series.

In SEED, Kira has to deal with his anti-war stance as well as being a Coordinator alongside his Natural friends.

The story needs to have characters, not just cool tech. It doesn't matter how bad-ass your mecha and other tech happens to be if the story and characters aren't compelling.

[tehprognoob]

looks like im the odd 1 out :S with my characters having no real problems to begin with and then turning into the problems themselves

[tehprognoob]

Just thought I'd ask, how's this for a bit of slaughter description?

Spoiler

“Stupid lab rats,” Lowes snarled, and fired both his beam rifles into the mass of vehicles, and turned away as burning bodies and scrap metal dropped like snow all around his machine. Three hissing claws snapped to life on each of the Gale Storm’s hands. A pair of casual swipes cut six angry, red gashes across a skyscraper. Screams tore from the burning wreckage, only to be silenced by a pair of iridescent bolts that sent the entire structure falling down onto a neighboring building. The second building creaked, and Lowes helped it along with several more shots. Like dominoes, one building fell upon another, stretching as far as the naked eye could see. Lowes laughed as he’d never laugh without the satisfaction of almost feeling the terror, hopelessness and pain of those unfortunate souls trapped within the collapsed buildings.

[Areku]

Grammatically, ", and" is something that shouldn't normally be used twice in the same sentence. "Stuffstuffstuff, and stuffstuffstuff, and stuffstuffstuff," is automatically a run-on sentence unless you're deliberately going for repetition. Find a way to add a little variety to your sentence structure.

"Almost feeling" should probably be "imagining," or something similar. There are several layers of thought going on in the first part of that sentence, several tiers of thinking about what he's laughing at (without the benefit of punctuation), and "almost feeling" is the straw that breaks the reader's attention. As it is, it almost requires the reader to reread the first part of that sentence, and that's distracting.

Otherwise, seemed workable enough to me. Nothing amazing, but also not bad or disengaging.

[tehprognoob]

problem is, he IS feeling (as in Newtype-ish feeling) emotions.

[Areku]

Then why say it that way? Seems like "almost" isn't just clutter, but wrong.

[tehprognoob]

I dont know...i just did; anyway, it was just an idea.
EDIT: Something like this?

Spoiler

“Stupid lab rats,” Lowes snarled, and fired both his beam rifles into the mass of vehicles, and turned away as burning bodies and scrap metal dropped like snow all around his machine. Three hissing claws snapped to life on each of the Gale Storm’s hands. A pair of casual swipes cut six angry, red gashes across a skyscraper. Screams tore from the burning wreckage, only to be silenced by a pair of iridescent bolts that sent the entire structure falling down onto a neighboring building. The second building creaked, and Lowes helped it along with several more shots. Like dominoes, one building fell upon another, stretching as far as the naked eye could see. Lowes laughed as he’d never laugh without the satisfaction of the terror, hopelessness and pain that he has caused.
‘There’s nothing like power over the masses to nourish the soul!’
He adjusted his mask, and then leapt off, jets flaring, to rejoin the main body of the slaughter. A machine gun chattered behind him, and Lowes felt the Gale Storm’s shoulder armor shredded by the burst.
“What the hell?” he snarled as he ducked behind a building. In a second, the Gale Storm’s tactical computer had the attacker’s full specs displayed.
“Police use Sentinel III Ground Type?” he mused aloud. “A heap of junk like that obsolete suit piloted by a total amateur policeman is trying to take on the Gale Storm?”
“P-Police!” a stuttering voice came over the open comm. line. “Lay down your weapons and exit your suit now!”
“Oh, Officer, I am so sorry. I will come out this very moment.”
“Y-your weapons; lay them on the ground and come out with your hands up!”
The gray mobile suit casually walked out of the building’s shadow and drew a two-handed molecular disruptor blade from behind it.
“Here you go!”
The Gale Storm disappeared in a blaze of fire. The startled policeman fell back, looking left and right. The alarm onboard the Sentinel screeched just as a shadow landed behind the suit.
“Your duty is finished, officer!”
The fifteen-meter long sword crashed down on the Sentinel’s head and, sparks flying, its smoking halves clanked to the ground, sputtering thick smoke. The Gale Storm replaced its sword and gave the Sentinel a pair of beam shots through the fuel tank.
“It’s time they gave you a vacation, isn’t it?”

[tehprognoob]

SInce it's been a while, I think I might double-post just to bring this thread back to life. I just finished ch.12 on my Eva fic. I'd like to ask your opinions on whether I should have a highly disturbing and angsty scene

(EXTREMELY NIGHTMARISH SCENE (IT IS A NIGHTMARE.) AND DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE TOO YOUNG OR GET DISTURBED BY GORINESS, VIOLENCE, OR EXTREME EMOTIONS. Try watching End of Evangelion for something like it. I don't take any responsibilities for this, et cetera.)

Spoiler

Shinji’s face moved down, slowly, inexorably, towards Asuka’s trembling lapel. She whispered something that he could not hear, and so he ignored it. She kept repeating the same words. He continued to ignore her. Urgently, he fumbled with her blouse, trying to unbutton it, but, as if alive, the buttons eluded him.
Asuka’s words became louder.
Shinji ignored her and kept trying to undress her.
Her words became pleading.
“Don’t ignore me! Help me! Somebody, please…”
Shinji looked up. Suddenly, her left eye was a gaping hole, and blood mixed with jelly gurgled from it, trickling down a hanging, bisected eyeball. In horror, he lifted his hands from her breasts, to find them covered in gore. Her chest had been slashed open, and her right arm split in halves. Asuka was screaming now, and the entire universe was bloodstained.
“You killed me. You ignored me when I needed you the most, and in doing so, you killed me.”
“No! I’m sorry! I-”
“’Sorry’ can’t bring me back to life.” She accused.
“But, you’re alive! I saw you just now!” he protested.
“Am I really alive?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m dead. My heart is dead. I’m dead, and I’m going to be dead, until somebody warms me up. Until somebody decides that they want me.”
“But, I want you! I care!”
“Really now? What do you want?”
The bleeding phantom of Asuka ripped away her clothes. She stood now, naked, exposing every inch of the countless lacerations across her body. She leaned in, kissed him on the lips, and lay on top of Shinji, smearing crushed intestines all over him.
“This, Shinji Ikari, is what you want. You don’t care about me at all. You want my body, and that’s all. Do you really care about me? You must’ve been really happy when I came back unblemished. Did you take the time to soothe the scars in my soul? Did you even care? Or were you just happy that I had a perfect body that you can have your way with?”
“THAT”S NOT TRUE! I TRIED TO HELP YOU! I TRIED TO MAKE YOU HAPPY! I TRIED TO HELP YOU HEAL! WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT?”
His words echoed across the empty graveyard. Confused, he looked about. In front of him was a gravestone. It was broken, cracked and neglected, lying in a forgotten corner of the forgotten field, slowly being destroyed by time.
Asuka Langley Soryu
December 4th, 2001-January 1st, 2016
Let whoever cared about her grieve.
“I died out there, that day. Mama made good on her promise to take me to heaven with her.” She whispered. “Where were you?”
Shinji sank down and frantically dug at the earth. A thin layer of yellow dirt revealed a cheap, plastic coffin that broke easily. In it was a ghastly, torn skeleton, whose mouth was twisted in an eternal scream of agony. A tattered Plug Suit wrapped the fragile bones, unable to protect its wearer, even in the very end.
“On that day, I found out that even you didn’t want me.” Asuka’s ghost purred. “So I guess this is where I belong; lost, forgotten, uncared-for, and never at rest…”
“YOU did this to me.”
Shinji screamed, Asuka’s ghost cackled mournfully.
“Come to heaven with me, Shinji, darling; come to your castaway Asuka. C’mon, idiot, COME JOIN ME IN THIS HELL YOU’VE LEFT ME IN!”

suddenly replaced by a very funny one.

Okay. Just seriously inappropriate; that's it. Standard anime WTF-ness

Spoiler

‘You can’t kill him for being an idiot, Asuka; you can’t kill him for being an idiot…’
She grabbed her pillow and quickly snatched up her sheets to cover her breasts.
“Stop being such a moron, Shinji,” Asuka told him. “I couldn’t care less what you did before anymore-”
She lifted the pillow.
“So-”
She brought it down hard over Shinji’s head with a solid crack.
“Stop-”
The pillow snapped Shinji’s head back as it hit him under the chin.
“Having these-”
Asuka balled her fist inside the pillow and punched Shinji in the nose, knocking him off the chair.
“Stupid-”
She raised her pillow back over her head.
“Nightmares, because you’re-”
Shinji’s knocked-out mind strained to understand that she was about to deliver the final coup de grace.
“DISTURBING MY SLEEP!” Asuka roared. Her pillow-encased fist hissed as it blasted through the air and thundered into Shinji’s solar plexus. The boy folded in two, and his head banged against Asuka’s arm. With a groan, he lay back, his eyes unfocused and his body limp.
Asuka looked at him, surprised.
“Did I overdo it?”
“What’s the matter?” someone outside yelled. Asuka could hear footsteps rapidly approaching.
“Oh, it’s nothing!” Asuka called back. Quickly, she drew Shinji onto the chair and propped him up as best she could, but his unconscious body simply fell into her lap. Hurriedly, she tried to lift him again, but only succeeded in turning his cheek onto her bare legs before Touji slid open the door and stepped in.
“Wha’ the-oh, sorry, did I intrude?” he asked, grinning evilly.
“GET OUT!” Asuka screamed. Shinji stirred on her lap, and reached up a hand, groping around for support. By sheer coincidence, the hand landed on Asuka’s breasts and grabbed the sheet off of Asuka’s torso, showing both of its glories to the cool morning air. Touji jumped.
“Holy-crap! D’ya always sleep naked, or was it just for last night with ‘im?”

[ShadowCell]

please tell me you're kidding

[Heretic]

Time Travel is an extremely difficult sub genre of Sci-fi to pull off. When Star Trek did episodes or movies about time travel, more often than not it was just a gimmick to allow the characters make social commentary on the present day. When they weren’t going to the present day (at the time of the episode or movie release) they were fighting the Nazis or in their fictional past which is still our future. In a lot of cases though, they were sub par episodes and movies, with the exception of “City on the Edge of Forever” and “Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home”

Other examples of time travel done right would be Dr. Who, which is successful only because of the brilliant idea of making everything either silly or completely impossible. Creating a feel of wonder and adventure that supersedes the inherent implausibility of time travel.

I don’t think mixing time travel into gundam is a good idea. I really don’t think you can pull it off and before you get bent out of shape about that, there are fantastic published science fiction authors who can’t handle writing about time travel. I honestly don’t think that I could do it. It’s really hard to do.

[Antares]

Shadowcell said:

please tell me you're kidding

What he said.

And if you're setting up the Gundams suddenly fighting, like Heretic mentioned, against the Nazis, then... well. Just don't do it, for all our sakes.

[Big B]

Okay I'm in the works of my revision of the original Edge of Apocalypse story. I am doing what Gundam should have done, time travel. So it'll be interesting to see how this stoyr ends up.

There's a line between creative liberty and going off base with an idea. If Gundam was a super robot show, this would probably be acceptable, but since it's real robot, that's too far out.

[tehprognoob]

*points to my question*
Let's change the subject now.

[ShadowCell]

so you don't have Gundams fighting Nazis

you have Gundams fighting Saddam Hussein instead

[tehprognoob]

um...where does saddam tie in with this?

[ShadowCell]

go read his latest fanfic

seriously, GX7, you need to actually sit down and honestly think about these ideas first and whether or not they come off as utterly ridiculous and stupid.

[ShadowCell]

GX7, if your only goal with these fanfics is to push political or religious opinions (and I more than suspect that is the case at this point), then I'm going to have to ask you to stop posting them here.

[Gone Astray]

No they're fighting the Megiddo Demonic Empire. The Gundam pilots are only captured BY Suddam Hussein. Suddam probably figures the Gundams will give Iraq the victory against the United States. So Ira doesn't care if the entire country is literally vaporized clean off the map. They just want to chase of the Americans, so their president can continue to be a total dick.

I would strongly, strongly advise against that sort of scenario. The conflicts in the Middle East, following the advent of Western involvement (beginning with France and Britain's involvement in the 19th century), are extremely complicated due to a combination of social, economic, religious, nationalistic, ethnic/tribal, and political feelings and reasonings. Reducing Saddam Hussein's actions and motivations to a very generic "he hates America and just wants to be a bad person!" is not a good idea, especially since his specter is floating over the current conflict in Iraq.

It might work if you were writing completely outlandish satire or parody, but from what I've read of your work, that doesn't seem to be the case. Remember, people can accept the fantastic in a story, but they can't accept things that are unreal. People accept monsters and magic in stories, but they don't accept people not acting like people. A villain is more effective if their motives and reasons for their actions are developed beyond a vague handwave of "they're just bad people," which I think would very much help your stories. Make your villains into characters, not plot devices.