General Fan Fiction Discussion

Your own tale of two mecha.
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Tgjanlee
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General Fan Fiction Discussion

Ok, not sure why one of these doesn't exist. But i think it'd be nice to have somewhere we can gather and talk about "fanfictioning" in general and not just you know, stick to our own threads (which is like pulling teeth getting people to read XD). Trade writing tips, character arch types, etc, those sort of things

Anyway, i mean, lets pose a question to start

What do you like to do more? Start from scratch and create your own mecha series? Rewrite an already made story? Yuri? or you know...chicks with thier scary scary yaoi >_>;;
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TheLegendkiller
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Hahah I do it the real way from scratch....I can't write for already made people's characters haha makes me feel hollow inside.

I like script form too I can't stand writing in book form it just angers me so much haha. Like I figure script form is easier to read and understand. You know talking is...

Joker- You wanna know how I got these scars?

Action is...

(Bobby gets kicked in the nuts.)
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Tgjanlee
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well yeah, i got the script style form you ha ha. I personally like it more too, cause it really just allows me to split dialogue and action affectively. I mean me, i think it out as if it really was an anime or a manga being played out, not as a kind of formal read. I mean initial reactions i get is that people can easily visualize how i write. I mean jeez, of course i have a long long way to go.

Plus who wants to read book style on a comp screen ha ha. If this were print material, things would be different.

I also dont like to use premade characters, because i feel the story just isn't as pure. But it also makes things easier for the reader to visualize and connect with the story because they already know these characters so i can see why people would prefer it. If your not looking to go hardcore with it, that way is definitely suitable. From pure story style though, i like to start from scratch. I'm open to inspiration of course, so it's not like my ideas are 100% all me, but no one's is ha ha.
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Wingnut
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Define pre-made characters exactly. From the way you worded that, it sounds like you don't like writing fan fiction at all as every character aside from any OCs is pre-made and not your own.
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TheLegendkiller
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I think he means pre-made as in Heero Yuy, Amuro Ray, Haman Kahn, just like already established people from somewhere.
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Wingnut
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Then it's not fan fiction at all unless he only uses his own characters in an already existing universe.
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Tgjanlee
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- Using Kira Yamato as a character in your custom story is one example.

- Using all the characters form Seed and writing say a new chapter to the story could be another.

- Rewrites, where you just rewrite a story how you want to see it.

- Or maybe you just want to have your to favorite lezbots going at it (mecha humor, come on now...you should snicker at least)

I mean that is FAN fiction. I'm not putting it down or anything. There are a buncha different levels to it. Basically, use of characters that are not your own is what im referring to when i mean by pre-made.
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Kenji
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Script was a good tool to learn dialogue, but it was ultimately holding me back so I abandoned it. It got to a ridiculous point where the parenthetical stage directions were basically paragraphs of narration anyway (see Maher Al-Samkari's Evangelion R), so it was clear that it was as far as I could go in that style.

Really, when you're putting anything other than physical action into a stage direction, you either don't understand script or desperately need to look at another style.

Three years of criticism and practice later, I think I'm finally getting somewhere.

Then again, I think I'm aiming a lot higher than most fanfiction writers: I'm using it as a springboard to improve my style and basically treating it as if it were an original story I'd be getting paid for (hence the long waits between chapters and constant revisions), instead of just throwing together some scene I wanted to see or write myself into a plot I like, and befriend the characters that I would want to befriend... y'know, fan-wanking (no offense, but it is fan-wanking to various degrees).

In my case, I walk the line between reusing characters and creating my own, since I've been reconstructing the personalities of the Gundam SEED cast to fit my story, to the extent that I forget that the anime has them either with a different personality, or a rather shallow personality (Fllay).
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Kenji wrote:Script was a good tool to learn dialogue, but it was ultimately holding me back so I abandoned it. It got to a ridiculous point where the parenthetical stage directions were basically paragraphs of narration anyway (see Maher Al-Samkari's Evangelion R), so it was clear that it was as far as I could go in that style.

Really, when you're putting anything other than physical action into a stage direction, you either don't understand script or desperately need to look at another style.

Three years of criticism and practice later, I think I'm finally getting somewhere.

Then again, I think I'm aiming a lot higher than most fanfiction writers: I'm using it as a springboard to improve my style and basically treating it as if it were an original story I'd be getting paid for (hence the long waits between chapters and constant revisions), instead of just throwing together some scene I wanted to see or write myself into a plot I like, and befriend the characters that I would want to befriend... y'know, fan-wanking (no offense, but it is fan-wanking to various degrees).

In my case, I walk the line between reusing characters and creating my own, since I've been reconstructing the personalities of the Gundam SEED cast to fit my story, to the extent that I forget that the anime has them either with a different personality, or a rather shallow personality (Fllay).
I am in total agreement with you man.
Since I am not English born, it hasn't been easy for me to write the way i use to in French, lot of practice trust me.
In my case I also use fanfiction to test my writting skill, even though writting in book form can be frustrating, this the format that everyone see when reading a book they like. Leave scripting for comic books or movies.

Putting that aside, I have been reading a lot of fics in this forum lately and almost everything is about Seed, not that I truly hate the serie, why are people so obsess with it? No offense I am just curious thats why I am asking; So far I am suprise by the originality people put in their writtings, it makes the stories enjoyable and i want to convey the same feeling but it will take time.
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CHASER
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Nagato21 wrote:Putting that aside, I have been reading a lot of fics in this forum lately and almost everything is about Seed, not that I truly hate the serie, why are people so obsess with it?
SEED and Destiny are the most recent Gundam series' that have been released in English, and generalizing, most fans of the franchise are familiar with it, so it's easy to write something and have others have a clue what's going on. A lot of people also think they can do better with the setting than the series director, and some seem to manage it quite well.

Personally I always stayed away from writing fiction in script form, since scripts are supposed to have only dialogue and basic directions for cast/camera. When people start to add so much detail into it you end up with what seems like a fractured halfbreed, and as with Kenji's example, at some point you might need to look at something else.

Although that's just my opinion, and I don't write Fan Fiction anymore.
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ShadowCell wrote:I'm skipping this one if it's in suppository form, though. Like, I like Gundam, but not that friggin' much.
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Tgjanlee
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discussion woots :D

Different methods trying to reach the same means. We're doing this to entertain no? Not just as some kind of self fulfillment (though finishing something DOES feel good ha ha). I write this way cause it's the easiest way portray how I work things work out in my mind. I never really regarded this style as a script style, but thats how people want to label it so im fine with it because i never really called it anything. It really is easy to get the hang of if you give it a chance ha ha
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Draco Starcloud
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The only fic I was ever able to finish was written in script format. I always feel awkward writing dialogue otherwise because I don't like having to come up with different words for said and just leaving out specifying who says what gets confusing after awhile.
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Yeah I suppose I am one of those writing a half-breed too; a script which reads like a novel with all the paragraphs (or just slabs of text) of explaining circumstances. I went for the script because it felt the most natural choice, but I'm still open to the idea of rewriting into a format resembling a novel more. That said, the entire story is still unfinished, much to my chagrin.
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Kenji
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I always feel awkward writing dialogue otherwise because I don't like having to come up with different words for said and just leaving out specifying who says what gets confusing after awhile.
This one took me until a year ago to learn properly, because it's counter-intuitive, but it's actually best to use "said" constantly, even if it sounds like you're repeating yourself.

Granted, it has to do with the style of presentation you're using, but a third-person narrative should be more concerned with visuals and basic actions, remaining descriptive but staying out of the realm of "intentions," except maybe for the main character (which is very difficult, btw).

I used to look up synonyms for "said" entirely because I didn't want to be repeating myself, but the result ended up being a bit more awkward, so I ended up abandoning it. In my redone "Renascent Seed" chapter, I tend to have mostly two-person dialogues, but I've been doing my best to differentiate between the characters based on the content and speaking style (the difference between Kira and Freya, for instance, should be so easy to spot that I almost never need to tag who's saying what).
Putting that aside, I have been reading a lot of fics in this forum lately and almost everything is about Seed, not that I truly hate the serie, why are people so obsess with it?
As for my use of SEED, since I can't speak for others', it's based on two factors. The first is that I didn't like SEED very much and I had found through an attempt at a Zeta fanfiction (designed to be a sequel to Tomino's novels) that I do pretty poorly in rewriting a story that I enjoyed greatly, because I have a hard time cutting off the source material, if that makes any sense. Secondly, despite not being fond of SEED and its overly melodramatic presentation, shortcuts, and population of Mary Sues, I thought the story had great potential and brought up a great many plotpoints that were quite different from Gundam tradition, but were never fully utilized or taken advantage of because SEED, ultimately, was a 0079 remake.

You'll find that I've bumped Freya (Fllay) to the status of main character, alongside Kira and Aslan (Athrun). This isn't because I particularly like Fllay (I actually disliked her in the anime), but I found her character to have a lot of untapped potential, that and she was a great gateway to a story I've been wanting to tell for a couple of years (ulterior motives abound). Hopefully, I won't be seen as a KiraxFllay fanboy just because I place great emphasis on the development of their relationship, but I'm willing to take that risk for the sake of the story. :P
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Seraphic
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You know, I've been wanting to start a topic for general discussion here. I was just fretful that it'd go nowhere fast. (Or that shadowcell would eventually drive another steak through someone's heart.) =p

I only write in the narrative/novel format because that was the kind of fanfiction I read when I was younger. Scripts I find are better for humor works, but all the serious stuff I've read was in novel format. For instance, go read the things on Gundam Boys: Off Duty for some good humor stuff. (The "Trowa's Zone" thing was ridiculous.) That page has things in both formats. A long time ago I would visit the old Gundam Wing Analysis page, and read the fiction there, or chat with the webmaster Zapenstap when I could. She's actually a really amazing writer, and has helped me out some, but yeah, she's hard to keep in touch with. I'm excited about the final installations for Final Mission Status.

I try to help people with their writing also. I have a friend who tries to dabble in writing also, and he works in both formats. Of course, he's already run into problems with script format where he finds the detail he is trying to add becomes awkward.

About using the word "said," I somehow completely circumvent the use of the word. People will understand that there is dialogue if you've got double quotations, right? Of course, I don't have a lot of experience with dialogue, but if you're good enough, you can write your way around anything. You can format your text in a way so that your dialogue does not become confusing. Just because they teach you specific rules in school doesn't mean you have to follow them. I've always found the word "said" to be really bland and useless. If you're good enough you can even write your way around the fact that your character doesn't have a name. It just takes time and experimentation. But of course, even I don't know if I'm handling things properly. No one seems to be complaining though. =/

And I would really know about how many SEED fictions we have here since I compiled our library. (I guess I need to update it since we've had some new stuff in the past few months. But seriously, do you guys want me to post this thing? It took a long time to make.) The very large majority of them are actually rewrites of the two series. It was very interesting to see, to say the least. It makes me wonder how terrible your show has to be so that this many people feel a need to step in and fix it.

This is a problem for me, I guess, since I just dislike CE that much. I don't ever read the tech threads or fictions covering it. And that's terrible because it means I won't read the large majority of things in the fanfiction forum. I know the people posting are probably impressive writers, it's just I'm just not interested in the subject material. SEED cannot be redeemed, in my eyes.

So I've been going through reading the original works instead, and I've posted comments whenever I was finished. I'm knee deep into Epyon's "Infinite Energy" thinger right now, but it's rough to get through. He posts new chapters faster than I am able to read.

I've been thinking lately about why we write fiction and bother to post it up. For me, I've just got a lot of ideas and I want to see them all laid out. It's all for me. But eventually, there's a need to seek approval from others. I guess it's just a basic human need to share with others and see what they think of you. And know where you stand when you're all in the middle of it. What do you guys think of that?

But it's been hard on me since I don't really get comments, and that kinda bites when you work on something for six years. =p But I wanted to ask, do people really avoid something because it's Gundam Wing? My only comment so far literally told me no one likes Wing. And yeah, it is kind of obvious to me, seeing how the count for SEED is really high while Wing gets little love. That's kind of crappy, but at least I'm impressed by my own work.

And I'm one of those long-winded types. Sorry.

=o
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Wingnut
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Seraphic wrote:And I'm one of those long-winded types. Sorry.
Actually, when it comes to the narritive format, that can be a good thing as more detail gets put into the story, or at least I would think that's what would happen.
Zapenstap is a favorite writer of mine as well, and although hard to get in touch with, and updates to her stories are infrequent, they are well worth the wait.
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Kenji
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Actually, when it comes to the narritive format, that can be a good thing as more detail gets put into the story, or at least I would think that's what would happen.
Yes and no.

Obviously, it's great to have a lot to say, otherwise your story gets very short and nondescriptive, but control is required or you end up like the description of Tobli from FFX-2, "Somehow manages to use twice the words to say half as much." Ranting and storytelling aren't really compatible.

Anywho, the fact that SEED is current and not that well-liked (or rabidly defended) is probably the reason behind its abundance of fanfiction. Of course, back when W was airing on CN, there was probably a huge amount of fiction for it... and it still dominates in doujins and lemons, apparently (yay, fangirls). I have my own mixed feelings about W, but if I can keep this up, I do hope to do something with it in the future. It has more than its fair share of interesting concepts, especially in regards to Treize, the Zero System, and Epyon.

But really, that would be so far in the future that it's not even worth talking about right now. I do have a bad habit of planning much too far ahead...

Seraphic, you should check out some of the SEED fanfics, as some of them are pretty good, each of them with their own ideas about what to do with SEED. From keeping the basic structure plus a few characters (The Rewrite) to my own, more ambitious retooling of the characters, situation, and environs (shameless plug). :P

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ShadowCell
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Back when Wing was airing, there were Wing fanfics coming out the Internet's ass. The same was true to a lesser degree of magnitude with G. I imagine the same will be true as well once 00 is done.
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Heretic
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I find that I can slip into thinking in a third person narrative almost without trying, so that’s primarily what I write in. I also have the advantage of having a job where my hands are kept busy but my mind is more or less unoccupied, this leaves me free to compose narrative, run through possible dialog and banter, as well as do some in depth character thought.

I guess it helps to have a vivid imagination when it comes to description, the ability to see the setting in your mind and also take that image and put it into words. You don’t really have to get all the way down to the grains of sand though, if you provide enough of the important details, such as the things you’d notice first when entering a room, then the reader’s imagination can fill in the gaps.

A note on the word “said.” Kenji is right, you can stop worrying about how many times you use said when writing dialog, after all it’s the dialog itself that matters. Said is actually one of the more invisible words. You don’t really realize how often it’s used in fiction so long as the fictions content interesting enough on its own.

I rarely write Fan fiction any more since I’m trying (really, really hard) to get one of my original works finished so I can start sending it to potential publishers. My main problem is I’m too much of a perfectionist, I keep abandoning stories because I don’t think their good enough. Sure, there’s a lot of tripe that gets published that I know I can do better than, but if I don’t push myself to do my absolute best, what’s the point?
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Tgjanlee
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you'll never know until you try right? You'll learn alot about what you need if you get professional input maybe.

ha ha i beat ya to the thread XD, i just though having one makes common sense.

Ya, its just seems to be whatever is popular right now

you know how many naruto fanfics there are

approximately 3.68 millions fan fictions, half of which are like...naruto hearts sasuke yaoi blahness O____o;;

yuck...

moving on
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