⋮ No. 17678 ► 
Since it seems like we need yet another one!
Previous one:
>>16035 I'm not sure why you'd want to see the ones before that one.
Don't be afraid to ask if you're unsure about something. There's nothing worse than making a stupid mistake because you didn't bother to ask about it.
⋮ No. 17680 >>17679 1) msward
2) tap key
3) ???
4) VOTES!
⋮ No. 17682 >>17679 Five elements of a story: Plot (What happens?), setting (Where/When does it happen?), characters (Who does it happen to?), tone (How does it happen?), and theme (Why does it happen?). Decide which you want to focus on and build a firm foundation with them before you even start writing. Without a foundation, how can a house stand in a storm?
Don't write to be popular, or to be loved. Popularity should be a side-effect of a good story, not a goal. Those who write only to be loved stop writing when they discover they are not. Write because you believe in writing. Write because you believe the words you are writing have meaning and value, either to you or to others. Don't write something that you would think is boring and stop reading if someone else wrote it.
Realize that anything you will write has been written before, in some form. Try to write something original, but realize you will likely fail. Instead, just have fun. Have fun writing how you think the story could have gone instead. Have fun making your voice heard. But never profess the quality of your voice; that is for others to judge.
⋮ No. 17684 >>17682 Agreed on pretty much all points, other than:
>never profess the quality of your voice I feel that you should always have a strong opinion on the quality of your work. If you're looking to improve, you need to know what you do well and what you do poorly, and you can only know that by comparing to the vast array of writings in existence.
However, don't get stuck on it. Don't feel the need to defend your work against others, or boast about how amazing you are. As long as you are happy with your work, then everything is good.
⋮ No. 17685 
>>17684 >Don't feel the need to defend your work against others This shit right here. You can’t imagine how hard your cred will fall if you start acting like someone’s criticism isn’t valid or doesn’t hold its water. It screams insecurity.
As someone with a keen interest in psychology, let me share with you something I’ve realised as a writer.
There is no such thing as good writing. No bad writing, either. As long as you stick to the technical rules (grammar, style, anything set in stone by rigid guidelines), you cannot truthfully say “My writing is bad” or “My writing sucks a swollen Tigrex screamer.” The truth is, there is no universally good or bad writing. There is writing that appeals to this man, and writing that appeals to another man. Someone might not like your writing, big fuckin’ deal; somewhere out there is someone who
would enjoy and deem it good – because writing is a medium infinitely dependant on the personal interpretation of the reader.
Now, that don’t mean your nigga ass can flomp down on the laurels and be a bitch ass mo’fo all day. The thing here is, you’re writing for a
set audience. For Tea Hat Party. Ten Humongous Patches. The Honed Patricians. Whatever. As the audience is set, you’re generally going to want to adjust to their feedback. That don’t mean in turn you should listen to every piece of whining you’ll inevitably get; but if that whining is chorused by the major part of your readerbase, well... You can do the math. And that’s the deal: you can write for THP, but you have to write
for it. If we don’t like it, that doesn’t mean you suck. It doesn’t mean our opinion of your writing is wrong (because in my view it literally cannot be wrong) and you have to correct it. It certainly doesn’t mean we’re looking to give your poor little ego a black eye. It only means our preferences
don’t align.
The problem is, if you want to maintain a functioning CYOA with us, they
have to.
Also, I know what you’re thinking. “But Yaffy, you whoring midget slav monster-hunting asshole, there are things that are universally bad! Twilight! Self-inserts! Clichés!” I hear you and I say “Fuck you.” There are things generally looked down upon in the current literary climate, yes. But they’re not universally bad. Because somewhere out there there
are people who enjoy it. It’s a problem if authors here use elements we find unacceptable, but outside of THP those elements may very well be embraced. And as much as I personally despise Twilight, so they have been.
⋮ No. 17686 
>>17685 Come to think of it this may be why I despise Bioshock Infinite and The Last of Us fans. Arguing that I didn’t like their stories because I just “don’t get it” is 100% retrograde bowel movement. If I “don’t get it,” it means the story failed to do its job, as a story is worth
only as much as the reader makes out of it. If your intended audience “fails” to grasp the points you wished to convey, you’re clearly tackling it from a wrong angle.
Have a Futo.
⋮ No. 17695 >>17694 Don't be explicit and let the reader draw his own image in his head. Use your vocubulary. Certain words just carry a stronger impact. This is a fight, right? Use impactful sentences and structure. Spice it with some exposition and detail. Make it serve more of a purpose than just a resolution to a fight.
Bad:
"Reimu swung her left fist at Marisa, trying to knock the witch off-balance with her hook. Marisa saw it coming. She countered by raising her off arm to block Reimu's fist and then raised her right leg to knee Reimu in the gut, before letting the shrine maiden keel to the floor."
Good
"Reimu swung a hook at Marisa, trying to push her rival off-balance, but the black-white witch blocked the incoming hit with her arm, grunting in pain from the shrine-maiden's haymaker, as she pulled the miko forward and drove her knee into Reimu's gut with a satisfying slam. The witch couldn't help but feel smug as the other girl keeled over, face first, to the wet grass."
⋮ No. 17714 >>17713 I know you're joking
I hope, but nevertheless I want to point out to the rest of writers here that this mentality is one of the main causes of many dropped stories all over the site. In case it wasn't clear enough.
That's it, Captain Obvious signing off.
⋮ No. 17747 Uhh, to people who are planning to write longer stories, try to present a variety of different tones. Some examples would be RaAN, A Fairy's Tale (Owen said this himself) or FoM (Lion used three distinct perspectives to reach many of these), and probably Being Meiling (only read the first 2 threads) for a slice of life example. As much as I squee over Gensokyoland Saga and Palingesia, I found myself bored in the back of my mind towards the latter 2/3rds because there was similiar situations, mindsets, and tones which the stories kept returning to. Spending a wall to paint an image that's already been painted, with only nominal plot advancement, is a waste of good effort and reader time. Keep parallel situations brief, and devote the bulk of words to show what's different this time and advance the story.
To
Ballista, Tainted Bonds is one of the longer ongoing stories, and there should be no shortage of fights scenes in the future. About that. While d&d is delicious, make sure you show why each fight is important somehow to the story. The implications of said fights will have a far longer lasting impact than the fights themselves.
>>17726 Begin with an end in mind. Always.
A random observation. While rereading Fragmentations of memories, I realized Sanae is an instant emotional hook at the beginning. She's introduced as a virtually undislikable character. What's interesting is that the emotion is based on d'awwwwwww'ing instead of tragedy or attraction based. She is a child that is mature for her age, but doesn't share any the usual anime loli traits (super intelligent, haughty/high class, have some super power and is "fighting", tsundere). It makes for a somber but sweet tone. Similar is the character of ASSM's Cirno. She's the adorable fairy that's trying to grow up. Both of these "cute" characters end up involved in the fighting (I believe), but because it only happens scarcely and it's obvious things are serious when that happens, the scene is not cheapened even though anime commonly use this trope to death.
⋮ No. 17765 
>>17726 I don't know about that. A good title can certainly be the capstone on a fine novel, but I think their importance is over-rated given the CYOA format and all the pitfalls and caveats of it. It
pales in comparison to the importance of the opening post - even the opening sentence. And it's significantly better then those anime-ish story names; "Psychedelic Tripping in Ballzang Phantasmgoria" and shit, which leaves you with
absolutely no fucking clue what's going on in the story. At least those "X in Gensokyo" titles are clear and to the point; they convey the basic story question, the premise, flat-out. And yes, this is a fucking touhou fanfiction site, a lot of these stories start out with no premise beyond "X in Gensokyo." God knows I didn't (and soon came to regret not finishing my plot
before I started writing.) From my own experience I can say its vital to get that first story done, even if its just "X in Gensokyo." The experience from that is vital to make the next story something really worth reading, and then the title will be more nuanced, naturally, because the writer is
thinking in more nuanced terms.
Or, to put it a different way: a good title can help, yes, but for a new writer it'll probably just be a fancier wrapper on the same shit (much like a Final Fantasy sequel.) If you want the newbies to aim higher from the get-go, (or the newbies themselves do, if they're reading this) then its best to tell them that "X in Gensokyo" as a premise is woefully insufficient for making a real good story. That's because you need a
character, not a cardboard cutout, to be thrust into Gensokyo to make it work. Like that story that just started up; "Gunslinger in Gensokyo." If it becomes "man with a gun in Gensokyo" it will fall flat on its face. There's nothing to explore there. But if its about a
gunslinger, the figure of mythic Westerns and all that implies, that's much, much different. It comes pre-packaged with themes and tones and implications - and you can take that classic example of Western mythos and fling it headlong at Gensokyo, which is distilled Eastern mythos and watch as the sparks fly; laugh at the clashes and develop the strong parallels (the Wandering Samurai and the Wandering Gunslinger are very similar archetypes with very similar themes, after all.) That's what you have to think about when you sit down to write a story - what do you want to evoke? Do you want a sweeping allegory for this or that? Do you want to explore the journey of one person from boyhood to manhood? Or is at about an experienced man struggling to save himself from his own past mistakes before its too late? These deeper themes
are the story. They
mean something. And if you've got them in mind, you can write multi-leveled fiction almost without trying - dumbass shenanigans in cutesy fantasy-land on the surface, but with serious themes running under the surface.
And with those in mind, your title almost writes itself. Suddenly you'll find yourself wanting a title speaking directly to what your story is
about, not the costume the lead wears. And if your story
is about everything that archetype symbolizes, then go for the "X in Gensokyo" title. The proof, after all, will be in the writing. And when people are browsing the story list years afterwards, its not the title that will attract or repel them, it'll be the
(finished) tag on the end.
⋮ No. 17769 >>17765 the title thing wouldn't be so problmatic if there wasn't 9,001 dead stories that are titled "_____ in gensokyo" made by newbies trying to copy the classics (and failing).
Though it pales compared to being in /th/ in terms of being a kiss of death as AWiY is an exception in the sea of mediocrity (if not worse). it's a fly trap from the absolutely least talented writers, most of which without a clue what to do with the freedom /th/ gives.
Back to the title thing, "A Wizard is you" says "Wizard in Gensokyo" but creatively done so, that combined with the first post does what many XiG wannabes cannot: attract readers.
⋮ No. 17770 >>17769 >the title thing wouldn't be so problmatic if there wasn't 9,001 dead stories that are titled "_____ in gensokyo" made by newbies trying to copy the classics (and failing). I think, and this could just be me, that this isn't nearly as problematic as you're trying to make it out to be. Yeah, sure, "_______ in Gensokyo" isn't exactly a creative title, but so what? Using the search function on the story list brings up only twenty-eight stories with a title like that, and of those there are seven that have had at least one completed run, and an additional two that are classified as shorts or one-shots. Considering this is from a list consisting of several hundred stories, at least, and spanning more than five years, I am really having troubling seeing how you can consider a dozen or so stories having similar and uninspired names to be anything close to an actual problem.
Besides that, using the same search function on the story list brings up about eighty stories with no title whatsoever. Eighty stories. Last time I checked, that is a bigger number than twenty-eight. Why are you not also complaining about that? No matter how boring a "Protagonist/Action/Reference in Gensokyo" title may be, at least it's more than
nothing.
⋮ No. 17798 >>17790 I'd prefer to write about:
Shou, Nue, Utsuho, Kokoro, Flandre, Remilia, Mima, Cirno, and Seiga. I really like most of them and feel I could write them well.
Mystia never gets any love, so there's that in addition to the previous reasons.
Most any character I end up writing gradually becomes one I love.
Sort of in the on the fence:
Nue is incredibly frustrating to pin down a personality for, but is highly enjoyable otherwise. Same for any character I can't get a clear picture in my head of.
I don't feel I could do Satori justice.
I'd prefer not to write about:
Any characters I strongly dislike. I worry my negative bias would compromise the character.
Sanae, Alice, or any similar character I worry the readers might be tempted to drop everything to waifu.
Moonsues and Eiki, both for reasons of personal taste and for their relative isolation from other characters. There are too many characters I'd like to writ to hamstring myself in this way.
⋮ No. 17832 
>>17825 Yeah no. Not even close.
>>17826 is dead on;
>>17827 is just arguing silly semantics.
>>17829 That's something, at least, but not enough.
>>17828 And you! Give a real answer!
⋮ No. 17866 >>17865 Ignore them and pretend they don't exist.
Take advantage of vague wordings to spin it in another direction.
Say "I fucked up" and retcon that shit like magic with the power of god.
⋮ No. 17869 
>>17865 Believe it or not, unless a detail is practically screaming its importance or it's a major plot point that needs changing, most readers won't notice the change. This is due to two things:
The first factor is reader awareness. Readers don't know everything the writer knows, so they tend not to always pick up on things. In some cases though, the readers don't really pay that much attention to what they're reading. They won't indicate that they've noticed a plot point, or a lot of the extra things you put in. They don't seem to notice things like the titles you give your images, references, or whatever little details you put in. Generally, there's nothing you can do about this factor.
The second factor could maybe be called the writer time/reader time disconnect. Essentially, you as the writer probably think about your story almost all of the time. Readers meanwhile, mostly think about it while reading and commenting. While you might perceive an event as having happened four days ago in story, a reader might not remember it, as it was four months ago outside the story. To combat this disconnect, you can try something like having recaps with all the important points at the start or end of each thread. Being prepared for your readers only remembering details that occurred one thread ago is probably good. If you go on a lengthy hiatus, you may want to give a recap when you return as well.
⋮ No. 17871 >>17870 Personally, I'm partial to the phrase "When we last left our intrepid heroes...".
But yeah, spinning them in a parody fashion could make recaps more interesting than simply adding to an ever expanding list of events.
Another good thing about recaps is that it refreshes the author's memory and helps to avoid contradicting oneself. Personally, I find myself checking back over my story with most updates, mostly to check which plot details have and have not been revealed.
⋮ No. 17891 If anyone would be so kind as to read through my writing and proofread it for me, since I have been told that I should get a proofreader for my stories.
http://pastebin.com/0N6fpnes General opinions and changes to writing style gladly accepted.
(I am not sure of the 'proper' way to ask for proofreading, so yeah. Pardon me if I asked for it in a wrong way.)
⋮ No. 17899 
>>17886 I suppose Sakuya would fit as a rival/mentor for Miss Lightning Bolt as far as showing her what it means to be a true
swordsman servant.
Then again,
>bringing knives to a swordfight ⋮ No. 17900 
>>17887 Ya gotta think fast and write faster.
When making time shifts you need to remember that its purpose is to allow the readers to make connections of causality and irony between widely separated events. You can touch on the events that happened during that span of time, but you'd do better plopping us in where the heart-throbbing adventures take place.
Fiction nowadays is given to 'naturalizing' operations of memory, either through a representation of a character's stream of consciousness or a reminiscence of a character-narrator. The former would have a character shifting in monologue from one phase of their life to another. I don't know which you're doing in your story so I can only jab at possible approaches. If you are shooting for the third person I'd recommend doing a back n' forth, where you move the reader through current and past events in a frequent time shift. what this accomplishes is calling attention to to the artificial construction fo the text instead of the temporal shift or the thoughts of the central character.
>>17891 Skimmed it but I can offer you this much: stay the hell away from to be verbs, those things are poison when you drop them in that much. Also, cut back on your sentence length, I'm catching a lot of phrase that can be pared to at least half their length. Brevity is good,is holiness, is our time spent reading what could've been said in fewer words. As for style, I think yaffers mentioned some good points on the unexpected in the last thread. Can't be bothered to link right now. Good style comes with time buddyboy, keep at it.
⋮ No. 17909 >>17898 http://pastebin.com/VRAh6aE8 There it is. I got lazy towards the end, but I think I got the worst of it and typos out at least. I was a little hesitant to rewrite too much.
For each line I copied the original line, rewrote it and added an observation.
I'd put a big disclaimer here about how I'm a bad writer, don't really know much and all that stuff, but I think we're all a little sick of writer self-flagellation. So instead I'll post with my name so you can go "Oh, it's
this ponce. I can ignore anything he says about writing since his story is shite." If that's how you feel.
⋮ No. 17919 >>17754 Oh hai, I just scrolled down.
>completely dropping phrases like "you think" or "you remember;" since such phrases are naturally absent in our own day-to-day self-narrations Which is exactly what you should be doing when “breaking the mould.” It’s a good method you suggest here: thinking of the most common phrases you’d use in communication (which is what you’re doing when telling a story to other people) and
not using them no matter what. These kinds of self-restriction will, hopefully, get your brain working on more creative (i.e. not already-registered and ready-made) phrasings, spicing up your narrative. It’s a simple, yet effective, way of putting it; I have no idea why I failed to summarise it as that in my long-arse wall of a post.
>After reading that bit in /shorts/, I really want to get back to experimenting with more novel syntax. >novel syntax I don’t know if you noticed, audience, but that was a
pune, or
play on words.
⋮ No. 17943 >>17942 Yes and No. For example, the faggot above you has an ego approximately three times the size of Kaiba Corps' blimp, yet manages to write excellent stories. Consistently hating your work and doubting yourself will make you hate writing itself until it becomes a chore, and that's when you'll quit.
My 2- cents. Don't worry about Anon, don't worry about how good it is. Just write it, and post it. And keep doing it, because you enjoy it, and because you're having fun. Interact with voters etc. but do it for yourself and no one else. That's what I believe made all the older stories you keep seeing referenced so successful. The authors weren't trying to write a serious novel, it was for fun, writing things and seeing Anon's react and talk about it. HLA comes to mind, if you've ever talked to him, you can tell Patch enjoys writing lewd things and routing towards lewd things.
Improvement? Good writing? It'll come with experience. YAF over there was a shitty writer when he started. "This Shrine" is archived proof. Except now he's gotten to the point where Deme of AWiY was fucking stunned and left wondering exactly when YAF's writing had changed.
<%Demetrious> this mofo, he's got voice
<%Demetrious> I loved hawthorne's imagery and shit. He just needed to be, you know, more concise with it
<%Demetrious> it felt like watching a beautiful ship trying to sail through molassas
Same thing goes for Teruyo. Deluge of Lunar Fantasy, especially the first few threads, was terrible.
DEFT was much better. Glass Half Empty was a great improvement in storytelling and pacing. Theater of Youth is the best work he's done and the only thing he's currently writing/hiatusing.
And for Deme as well. SWQ starts off much poorer than AWiY. Same thing for Winged Ikaros (he scrapped his story in /eientei/ and restarted it. It's much better this time), for FactorialSalsa (Thread 1 of Animating is much poorer than the current threads.), for Rabbit (His older detective story can't compare to Three Favors) and even Keymaster.
Guess this Demequoterious semi-quoting Card is the best advice:
<%Demetrious> Orson Scott Card himself said writers ahve to simultaniously believe their writing is great, and awful
Final thought. Abandon the story once you get bored with or just can't write anymore. I know Anon harps about stories dying, but if you as a writefag, just can't keep it up, cut the loss and move on to a new story. The only absolute is that you can't stop writing.
⋮ No. 17944 >>17942 >Also, is the attitude that 'I am always not good enough' good for a writer or not? Allow me to rephrase your questions. Will a nigga who hates his work have a high old time doing it? Will a nigga who hates a thing
engage willingly in the thing which he hates in his spare time? The answer is: “Aw, heeeeell, naw.” It’s both healthy and logical to like what you’re doing as a hobby; only an insane man does with his free time what he heartily despises. You
should like your writing. What’s more,
because you like it, you should be most interested in working to improve it. It’s not a matter of being bad and thinking you need to improve. It’s a matter of being good and wanting to be
even better. Look at me; many mistake my confidence for arrogance, but that’s not what it is. It is only that –
confidence. I know
exactly what kind of ground I’m standing on. I know what I can do well, and
more importantly, what I cannot. This allows me comfortable freedom when I am moving about in familiar environments, and to be carefully attentive when I’m treading on more shaky terrain. And to be a generally very happy and practical person, but that’s beside the point.
Also I read a lot of books.
The key, my honorary black gentleman person, is to know yourself and like what you do. You can’t expect me to like your work if you yourself despise it. Nor will any of your readers.
⋮ No. 17946 >>17945 There’ll be an update tonight, don’t you fret. I’d originally planned on posting the one from this morning yesterday night, but my wifi ran out of oxygen and exploded.
Anyway, here’s what I’m in the process of reading at the moment:
※
Merde Happens – which is part of a series about a Britishman’s mishaps in France and near. Cheap, light comedy with a whiff of autobiographic self-inserting from the author. Re-reading.
※
Fulgrim – UUUUUEAARRRUUUGGHHRRTFFFFF. Part of the Horus Heresy series that I’ve reached and have been stuck at for YEARS now. I’m wearing it down little by little.
WHY? ※
Metro 2033 – the English translation. Hilariously bad for western standards. The best part is I can see the typical themes and phrasings characteristic for Slav teenage fiction (that I used to read a lot when I was a wee-er kid), but translated so directly into English they become awkward instead of intriguing.
※
The Book Thief – a story of an adopted Jewish girl in the turmoils of World War II. Narrated by Death. Yes, that guy. It is from this book that I nicked the “narrator aside in quirky format” shtick that I used in the Gensokyo Delenda Est series of shorts.
※
Lord of the Rings series – re-reading. Will probably re-read Silmarillion again next. Or Hurin’s Children, that I bought thinking it was something more than just the appropriate chapters from Silmarillion re-released as a separate book.
※
A Dance with Dragons – re-reading.
※
How to Analyze People on Sight – psychology stuff.
※
What every BODY is Saying – more psych.
※
Perdido Street Station – HY recommended this to me and I’m trying it out again after getting turned off of it the first time.
Also I’m getting ready to tackle the Ciaphas Cain (
HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!) series. Of the recently finished things, I really, really liked the Black Magician/Traitor Queen trilogies by Trudi Canavan. That was some rather simple, but really engaging stuff.
⋮ No. 17950 >>17949 >You seem like a quick reader. Not entirely. I am a quick reader when I do read, but my problem is easily being distracted by other activities. Too many beautiful days I would rather spend on a bike than sit around reading books. That’s why I do most reading in winter, even though I am usually busy with work or school then. That’s why, despite reading fast, I don’t do, say, a book a week or something as impressive.
>Is that thing about cutting out subvocalization and just looking at the words without reading it really true? Absolutely. Actually, when I read, I really have to consciously and forcibly push my mind to “vocalize” the words (which I do when I encounter an unfamiliar or an interesting one); otherwise my eyes just slide along the lines and my mind constructs the meaning quite automatically. Then again, I
have been reading for 21 years now (as a child I picked up reading much sooner than my peers; I read a shitton of Donald Duck comics from magazines), so it might be just an experience thing.
>>17947 >I'm curious: by middle do you mean the story's climax? Yes and no. Of course, in the crawling stages of writing your story you will want to know what your story is progressing toward, meaning, in most cases, the climax, the prime twist, the reveal, etc. This is important, actually; your story will progress best when it is constantly going toward something. The way I’ve always dealt with that was deciding on a few scenes I wanted to write, then worked toward those while padding the rest with whatever came to my mind or was otherwise appropriate. I wasn’t
always going toward the great climax, but rather smaller, more numerous milestones. That way I was always motivated to write (because I wanted to get at the next milestone scene already), and knew where my story was going (toward that milestone scene, duh).
You ever done those skeletal plans of mandatory readings in school? What I mean is pointing out the main-est points the story was going through, then between those points writing out more specific events; I have no idea what you English-speaking peoples call it. Anyhow, it’s kind of like that. Work from point to point. You’ll always know where you’re going, and you’ll still have enough flexibility to squeeze whatever comes to your mind at the last minute in between.
⋮ No. 17953 How do you portray a clusterfuck discussion/debate between a large group of people while keeping it readable?
The only thing I can think of would be something similar to a chatlog:
<PersonA> Which would look something like this.
<PersonB> but doesnt this look a little bit unreadable lol?
<PersonD>
stpid chatter wud prubably b crosd out or spoilrd <PersonC> It looks
cancerous and is probably a
horrible idea.
.. But I can't really think of anything better that doesn't end up with an overflow of "___ said/says" [and whatever synonym fits the statements] which leads to a huge wordcount.
Thoughts?
⋮ No. 17954 >>17952 Suck it up and find happiness in those five voters and improving your own writing.
I'm only half-kidding, unfortunately. You can look around for all the discussions on raising story awareness and site awareness and blah blah that have been around, but in the end people read what they find interesting and don't what they don't.
If you desperately want more votes, advertising is the only way to go about it. It doesn't matter how many cool and awesome changes you make, if it's not in the OP, nobody skimming by for a new story will notice.
If you do start spamming a link on IRC, other sites, friends, wherever, be prepared for the results. You might miss the times you had five loyal, supportive voters.
⋮ No. 17960 >>17943 >>17944 Thanks gentlemen.
Up until now I did not realize that thinking that you are good is always better than thinking that you are bad.
I had always loved writing, but I can't seem to know what my mindset should be. Now I know. Thanks.
Time for some more action.
Writing now.
⋮ No. 17967 >>17966 I’d say it depends on how much time you pass.
Let’s say we skip a day.
They way I’d do it is simply end the day like a usually would, by either going to sleep or “fade out” from the scene. Then start up again after the time skip.
Depending on the situation the indication of how much time passed can be placed either before or after.
Like if you were waiting for a smith to finish some work, you can say it’ll take so long to finish, then skip to the point where it’s ready.
Or if you’re waiting for Patchouli to finish preparing a spell, you can simply refer to the time passed like “It took a few days.” Or “After a day’s preparation it’s finished.”
Now, let’s try with skipping a month.
Since no major event worth writing about is going to happen in that time frame, I’d prefer to treat it as an end of a chapter. Preferably the end up the current update as well.
Then once you start the next update of the story, look back at the events that happened before the time skip, and at how much time that passed, maybe give a quick briefing about what happened, but no longer than 1 or 2 sentences.
My bottom line is:
Treat a time skip as an ending and a beginning.
That’s what I do anyway. It might not fit your style ⋮ No. 17971 >>17966 Well how long of a time-skip are we talking about here?
Like
>>17900 mentioned it's more important to fill in the gaps piece by piece instead of just, like you said, blatantly pushing us so and so much time into the future and expecting our brains to understand the transition smoothly.
>>17967 Like he said, you'd do well treating those shifts as literary fade to blacks, makes it much easier on the reader and makes for more convenient scene-prepping.
⋮ No. 18013 >>18010 That's called a "tilde". In most other languages it's an accent mark placed above a letter, but in Japanese it can be used as a punctuation. The
formal use of a tilde is to indicate a range of things, like an en dash in English (4:00〜6:00 means "From 4:00 to 6:00"), or to separate a title and a subtitle, like a colon in English (Breakin' 2 〜Electric Boogaloo〜). The
informal use is to place it an the end of a sentence instead of a period, to denote a playful or sing-song voice ("Okay〜").
A tilde should
not be used in formal English writing, both because it is a "slang" punctuation and because it is a Japanese punctuation. However, stories on this board are not exactly "formal" per-se, so writers will still tend to use them, and readers won't tend to chew them out for it.
Side note: Technically speaking, the punctuation mark used by the Japanese is actually the "wave dash", which is "〜", but since that's not on an English keyboard, it's faster for people to just use the tilde, which is "~".
⋮ No. 18023 >>18021 Okay, here's a danmaku battle from the games: at the start they fly around taking potshots at each other until a spellcard is declared. The declarer then makes some pretty bullet patterns that you can't really describe well in writing while the other touhou continues shooting until you say "oh no they got hit". The end.
Oh yeah, sometimes there's multiple spellcards and the writer struggles once again to tell us why they look pretty.
The fighting games offer a much more versatile perspective of what fights in gensokyo would be like.
⋮ No. 18025 >>18023 YAF beat me to it.
If you were serious, and I'll tell you to give it a shot, go look up Deme's Strike Witches Quest for planes, guess cute girls really, dog fighting in close quarters. There's plenty of books around that have similar subject matter, but I guess starting with
Tom Clancy isn't a bad idea. Or watch Top Gun.
Summery:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOcMFeWUsuM ⋮ No. 18026 >>18025 I'm actually pretty okay on the whole reading books front. Hell the reason I brought the whole thing up is that I'm reading Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering right now.
That and seeing a bunch of movies involving Dogfights made me wonder if I could translate a Danmaku duels into something similar. I know their not exciting for some people put Touhou was built on the whole thing. I'd feel like I'd be doing the series a disservice if I didn't include them.
Read Strike Witches Quest (both of em).
⋮ No. 18028 
>>18024 Myself, I would say that you're misinterpreting the nature of "danmaku", and most likely confusing it with "spellcard duel", which seems to be pretty prevalent here. "Danmaku" literally means "curtain fire". It is by no means limited to spellcard duels, within and particularly outside Touhou. Lethality only makes a difference in spellcard duels, and it makes just as much of a difference in hand-to-hand spellcard duels as it does in danmaku spellcard duels and any other kind of hypothetical spellcard duel.
Some of the fights in (particularly recent parts of) Girl of Death might be called danmaku fights, as a matter of fact.
>>18026 Given that the majority of non-Touhou danmaku games are about fighter craft of some variety and in turn heavily inspired by airplane dogfights, I would say that that would probably be your best bet.
⋮ No. 18041 
>>18040 Later:
>Mokou: Ohhh man. >You're too strong... >Yukari: Wow, look, she's still alive. >She really can't die, huh? >Reimu: I'm seriously surprised. It looked like >she was about to die a bunch of times. >Mokou: Ow, ow! I won't die, but it still hurts~. It seems that lethal grade shot looks just like normal shot. Or possibly that's an abstraction for the sake of gameplay.
Can we stop discussing the particulars of spellcard duels and go back to talking about how to write them, though? This thread seems to be comparable to this train engine at the moment.
⋮ No. 18042 >>18041 > Off_the_Rails I don't mean to take away from the "how2writebulletduel" but...
on that note.
Railroading, why is it looked upon as a bad thing?
is there good railroading and bad railroading?
⋮ No. 18050 >>18042 Railroading is a rather divisive issue. With no railroading, you get pretty much a sandbox style story. Full railroading, you might as well not even be writing a CYOA. Your best bet is to find a balance.
Now, I'm sure there are people who will say all railroading is bad. The thing they don't realize is that pretty much
every story is railroaded to some extent. Even a story with a branching plot is designed by the writer. The writer gives the choices the readers can chose from (write ins are an exception).
The important thing is not being
blatant about it. The absolute worst thing you can do is give a choice where every option has the same result. You might be able to get away with it for good outcomes, but if every option seems to screw the readers over, the readers will be furious.
Additionally, you tend to get a pass if you write well enough. The really well liked writers tend to have a bit more leeway with what they can do before people complain.
Overall, the writer mostly writes what they want to, but if readers don't feel they have input, don't count on having them.
⋮ No. 18052 Mmmm hard to take the battle dialogue exactly seriously considering how the same game had Mystia supposedly eaten. That and actually killing someone would have a good deal more blood splatter than fancy magical effects.
Either that or Mokou intentionally forsake the protective effects somehow.
>>18050 exactly and some structure is needed lest anon drive the train off the bridge, which has happened at least once in the site's history.
⋮ No. 18054 >>18052 >That and actually killing someone would have a good deal more blood splatter than fancy magical effects. And Mario jumping on various enemies would as well, significantly more than magic bullet wounds. It's a video game, and a cute one at that. Blood would be off-key.
This also applies to writers. Suddenly adding graphic violence to something that is otherwise mostly a cute-type story has a strongly dissonant effect.
Mystia, meanwhile, was on a six-hour buffet table alongside a bug, a beast, a moonbird, and in FinalB, a dragon. Or rather, everything in that regard seems to have been part of an extended bout of Yuyuko-brand obfuscating silliness and metaphor. Reimu, however, had no such running gag, and seemed much more straightforward than Yuyuko about the whole thing.
⋮ No. 18062 >>18061 I appreciate the advice, thanks. Yeah, I'd engage in some hardcore editing and merging and all sorts of things to make it flow better.
The main reason I asked the question, though, is that the old ground comes to about
forty-four thousand words. Probably would have helped if I hadn't forgotten that in my first post, yeah.
⋮ No. 18067 >>18066 New stories get a lot of attention because anon isn't sure about where it's going to lead and whether it's going to hook them in. Eventually anon gets accustomed to its presence and you'll be left mainly with the voters who you hooked in from the start and the occasional passing new voter.
If you honestly like what your story is about, but you're contemplating dropping the story simply because you have fewer voters, consider this - how are you going to get better? (Well, unless you're deciding to wash your hands of writing completely, in which case we're sorry to see you go, but hey, maybe it's not for you.) You might step down thinking to try again later, but unless you can guarantee that you can improve sometime between now and later, your next work whether it's here or somewhere else will likely be of similar quality - and perhaps meet a similar fate. I'd personally suggest powering on while simultaneously studying how to generate attention: simple but divisive choices
(waifu wars), for example, are more likely to get you votes than seemingly unimportant ones.
However, it is possible your story just got off on the wrong foot. Maybe this story you started is a pile of random events and shenananaigans without any real unifying theme or thread, because you started off with a mere skeleton of an idea and started irreversibly posting up from that unsteady start. Now you want to write something with a more unified plot, theme, or characterization, and you can't really assemble anything on top of the jumble that's what you currently have. In that case, as much as I hate to see stories die, I'd advise announce the story's discontinuation in favor of your new one, and start writing your more planned out story.
⋮ No. 18069 >>18067 I see.
My case tips towards the later. And while I really don’t like admitting it, that’s basically how I started.
>>18068 I really don’t want to tell.
But I talked it over with my proofreader and the guy I usually talk things over with and we came up with some theories. And to sum it up:
>Don’t make yourself look like a weeaboo >Have a general idea before posting >Avoid making choice seem like they’re less than they actually are ⋮ No. 18070 >>18069 It's like putting down an old, cancer-pained dog. Sure, it had a good run, but it's become something that can't live healthily any more. A lot of stories start with the best of intentions but little expertise nor deep thought behind them, and then as time goes on their shaky foundations prove to be their undoing.
But you're smarter now - you're more experienced, and now that you've found you enjoy writing and getting votes and essentially participating on THP, you find that you're unsatisfied with how you started, however bold and brave it was in the past.
Another analogy might be a D&D character. You started with some janky pile of classes and feats and good ideas that as you started adding on levels showed its lack of thought in the building process more and more. Now you think you can do better, but you'll have to start again from the ground up - but this time, with all your former experience and knowledge of how the writing process goes.
⋮ No. 18114 >>18113 Names give characters personality and individuality. A character with a name given by the author sets them apart from the self-insert "unnamed" protagonists. The fact that you're letting the readers pick their name implies you haven't given much thought about the protagonist's character in the first place. Mind you, that is
not a bad thing. If you want your readers to put themselves in the protagonist's boots, then allowing them to name him/her makes for a better immersion - but they tend to forget its name fast unless you're constantly using it. I'd even go as far as to
not name the character to allow the readers insert themselves in the story.
tl;dr It helps reader immersion, but difficults characterization.
⋮ No. 18123 >>18120 Enjoy yourself. I can't express this enough: if you don't even enjoy writing the thing you're writing, it will show in both your update frequency and quality. Make sure whatever you write, you like.
Make sure you plan a beginning, an ending, and a few "middle sequences." If you these planned, you have a general "skeleton" or direction that you can set towards. Just make sure you don't have these things so set-in-stone that Anon's votes would have little impact.
Good luck, and remember to have fun!
⋮ No. 18138 
>>18120 If you're planning on starting a CYOA, there are a few things you should know.
First of all, your first story is probably going to suck. I'm not just being mean here, most first stories aren't very good. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule like Keymaster, Flanders, and Fell, but in general, first stories tend to go poorly. But that's okay, you're new at this. You'll learn from your mistakes and improve.
Now, there are several things you can do to help avoid failure. These are things every writer should probably try to follow:
First is Planning: You should have you beginning, a few middle scenes, and an end planned out in advance. Of course, that probably won't be the ending your readers pursue or get, so it's wise to have a few directions for the story to potentially go.
Your opening post is one of the most important posts you'll write, possibly even more important than the ending. It's what draws in readers more than anything else. This ought to be the most polished post you write. After all, you've got an infinite amount of time to work on it before posting since no one is waiting on it.
Second is Direction: You should always, ALWAYS, have an idea where your story is going. Directionless romps are fun and all, but they're unsustainable. You should always be working toward that next plot point. Make sure your readers have a clear goal to accomplish, even if they don't know how to do it yet.
Third is Momentum: Once you start a story, you need to keep at it. Set update deadlines and try your damnedest to meet them. Try to avoid hiatuses. Once you slow down, it's hell trying to catch back up. Yes, life will get in the way in the most frustrating ways possible. At times it will become almost impossible to write, but you need to at least make an effort of it.
Fourth is Flexibility: Your readers are going to do unexpected things and pick choices no sane, rational person would think to try. As the writer, you're going to have to know when to call them out on their shit and when to roll with the punches, so to speak. Sometimes your plans for the story come crashing down because the readers did something unexpected and either cause or solve a problem they weren't supposed to yet. You have to be able to improvise.
Finally, get a proofreader. Having someone else to look over your updates for mistakes is invaluable to most writers. Some are fine without one, but it's better to have one you don't need than to not have one and need them.
Oh yeah, and be willing to accept constructive criticism. People telling you that your story sucks can be ignored, but if they actually explain
why, you might want to consider listening.
⋮ No. 18267 >>18222 >>18234 Well, my idea was an OC and Prismriver story. I just asked about the general to, well, get the general idea.
So the question is, any tips on writing harem?
Wait. Inb4 YAF
Any OTHER tips on writing harem than reading?
⋮ No. 18276 >>18267 Normal harems or special ones like the prismrivers?
If the latter, try to avoid favoring one over the other too much and consider how it'd affect their relationships.
If a more man-made one, perhaps consider a central girl that gets boosted a bit above the others just to provide structure.
⋮ No. 18283 >>18267 Well, my harem story is on /at/, but I might still be able to provide some insight.
Personally, I like to keep my characters dynamic. They won't stop growing once they join the harem, so it's good to always show how how they're reacting to the latest developments, and how they deal with each other in a variety of situations. Conflict within the harem can work well for this. If you can give all the characters legitimate character development, they'll seem like more than just notches on the MC's belt. Favoring a single one is probably a bad idea unless they've been routelocked.
If everyone lives together, it's also nice to focus on the little slice-of-life things. Who does the cooking, how they share the bathroom, conflicting sleep schedules, stuff like that. It makes the whole scenario seem more believable, and possibly more relatable as well.
Hope that helps.
⋮ No. 18368 >>18367 Unless you use alternative white space characters.
You
just
need
to
get
creative!
⋮ No. 18391 >>18390 >Is there anything I should keep in mind about that? Well the first thing that pops to my mind would be the fact that there will be multiple Main Characters (Don’t confuse with Protagonist).
The way I’d go about an idea like this would be to write the other MCs stories down as well. Depending on how you do things, it may either be in the story so we switch view, or in a separate document which you then could chose to post as a side story or keep to yourself and let anon figure out what the other parties did.
Another thing you should consider would be that each of their actions would affect the other more than a random no-name-NPC. This is why the above note seriously should be considered.
Imo. There hasn’t been a story like that because it’s more work than for the usual story.
⋮ No. 18392 >>18391 Er, that's not quite what I meant. I didn't mean that there would be two Outsiders persuing a Touhou, as much as...
Okay, for example: The main character is Hatate, and the story is about her newspaper and the slices of life that accompany the management.
The readers become romantically interested in Aya. Momiji is also interested in Aya.
Sparks begin to fly between Momiji and Hatate.
How would I write something like that, as opposed to two villagers/outsiders/random youkai falling in love with the same woman?
⋮ No. 18395 >>18392 >How would I write something like that, as opposed to two villagers/outsiders/random youkai falling in love with the same woman? I might just be narrow minded, but I don’t really see the difference other than the characters used.
But if I were to write a story like that, it’d go something like this:
Hatate have had a crush on Aya for some time now, and she’s decided to try and get closer to her to make a move.
She learns that Momiji is also trying to get closer to Aya, but she has the advantage since she’s closer with Aya.
Momiji then learns of Hatate and tries to prevent her from advancing.
The two of them gets more and bolder as they try to get closer to Aya while preventing the other from doing just that.
Aya of course had noticed it a while ago but kept silent.
All of the above while keeping
>>18391 and
>>18393 in mind.
Exactly what and how things happen is up to you.
If this wasn’t what you meant either, could you please explain it again a bit more clearly?
⋮ No. 18408 >>18406 More or less.
Let me make an example to clarify.
You guys know Phoenix Wright, right? Good. Each chapter is a story of their own, playing a part in the bigger story.
That’s kinda what I mean. Each chapter of this story would be a small story of their own. But they’ll all be a part of a bigger story.
>>18403 I do plan on making it a CYOA.
⋮ No. 18413 
>>18412 It really depends on how often you update too. If you update once a month with only 1,000 words, give or take a few hundred, then people won't be interested in checking back unless it's really good. BUT, if you update daily or every other day then people will check back and vote regularly.
Don't let the stigma of a board being "dead" stop you from writing there. If you update regularly then people will come to you to see what the hubbub is about!
For example, /shrine/ was fairly quiet when I started there. The only active story I can think of that was there at the time was MMMM (Marisa's Magically Magnificent Maktaba). I updated daily for almost two months straight and I got quite a few votes. Updates were usually short but were provided often enough for anon to start taking an interest in it. I can't say my story is any good, that's up to anon to decide.
As for pacing differences between THP and /tg/, I can't tell you anything because I don't go to 4chan.
My biggest advice is to just do it. Don't second guess yourself and just do it! The only way to improve is to read books and write. Practice what you read and adapt it into your own style of writing. If people don't like it, then you know you need to change something. Whether it be the concept, characters, or even the words you use. Remember, "Practice Makes Perfect".
⋮ No. 18414 
>>18412 Not Demmy or anybody notable, but I browser /tg/ occasionally, so I guess I can be qualified answer the second part of your question. Obviously, /THP/ is much slower than /tg/, you shouldn't be staring at your thread, spamming F5 to see the votes roll in.
Some of us do it anyways. Don't try to plan sessions, plan updates. Most readers on /thp/ prefer quality over quantity. The traffic does pick up during the holidays, especially over summer break, but it's still nowhere comparable to 4chan's.
If you're going to write short but sweet updates, know that you'll still have to wait a day, or at least a couple hours before you get enough votes to continue. Unless you're Keymaster, you won't get a steady stream of votes, so don't get mad when you don't get any. Your story will have a ton of votes at first, people tend to vote during the first update to see what it's about, but it'll likely slow after that. If you're determined on daily updates, don't burn out or write yourself into a corner. And make sure that you planned out EVERYTHING, because you won't get the time to take a breather if you have a real life stuff to do. Remember to keep it simple, your options shouldn't be gear loadout, or "Write a speech." If it takes an hour for anon to vote, they won't bother, or they'll just vote for whatever the first option someone suggests.
Finally, like Bar said, just write it. Wrangle somebody on IRC to edit your stuff, or get a friend to help write with you if you don't feel confident. Your first story will always be shameful, so don't give up when you suddenly lose the motivation to write. Force yourself to update, waiting for inspiration will kill your story faster than anything else. Hell, THP is a lot nicer than it used to be, go browse the archive for newbie stories,
like the very first run of Restorer in Gensokyo. Look at her now. There was that guy who barely knew English who posted on /th/, and people didn't run him off the site. There's nothing wrong with being bad, as long as people enjoy your story.
⋮ No. 18426 
>>18425 Well, it depends on what kind of "fight" we're talking about.
That being said, I felt that reading R.A. Salvatore helped me write scenes about hand-to-hand combat. Say what you will about Drizzt and how his stories are just processed logs of his D&D table, but the scenes where Entreri fights blade-to-blade helped me gave me a good idea of how to pace and write.
I would say
DON'T study visual novels for fight scenes. I'll be the first to say that the fights in FSN, for example, were fun to "read", but they rely a lot on usage of sounds and, well,
visual effects to carry a lot of the oomph of a fight. Trying to translate that into pure text probably wouldn't end well.
I should know, I tried once already. ⋮ No. 18429 >>18425 I'd recommend reading up on different kinds of martial arts, watching some fight on YouTube; read some manga/watch some anime which focus on it.
I would recommend the Shijou Saikyou no Deshi Kenichi since it's focused on martial arts. Maybe browse through the category Martial Arts.
As for actually writing it. I would say make the description quick, short and precise while leaveing all of the unnecessary details to the readers mind.
This has been discussed earlier.
>>17695 ⋮ No. 18440 >>18425 If you want to write hand-to-hand combat, the advice of
>>18426 and
>>18429 is solid, but most battles in Gensokyo outside the fighting games are danmaku duels, which are more like aerial or space-based dogfights or attack runs, if shmup games as a whole are any indication. If you want to write danmaku duels, I'd suggest more reading up on dogfights and/or reading literature about them, rather than hand-to-hand combat. Unfortunately, the only example of such literature I can think of off the top of my head is the Star Wars: X-Wing series.
Also, remember that spellcard duels aren't the same thing as danmaku duels. Specifically, the fighting games depict non-danmaku spellcard duels, and the PC-98 games depict spellcard-free danmaku duels. Keep in mind what kind of duel you're writing: non-spellcard duels tend to be rougher and uglier than spellcard duels, since the latter have a lot of formality and an explicit focus on beautiful and reasoned attacks over brute power. The majority of fights inside Gensokyo have been spellcard duels ever since EoSD, but outside Gensokyo such duels are extremely rare, if they occur at all.
⋮ No. 18441 >>18440 For examples of dog fighting just look up pretty much any book or article on air combat ever written.
I have a few suggestions. I’ll start with what I consider hard mode first:
Fighter Combat, Tactics, and Manuevering by Robert L. Shaw
This is probably one of the best books written on aerial combat period. Shaw is an accomplished fighter pilot of the US Navy, if you’re worried about credentials. It goes through every conceivable trick and maneuver a fighter pilot can use and probably has, intersperced with words of wisdom and experiences from pilots of generations past.
I warn you now, the book assumes you have a fair sized idea on how to fly and airplane, plus math and physics.
If a paragraph like say:
“Pursuit Curves were discussed previously in relation to missile trajectories; they are equally relevant to fighter maneuvering. The three forms of pursuit – lead, pure, and lag – are technically defined by the orientation of the attacking aircraft’s velocity vector ahread of, directly toward or behind the target aircraft, respectively.” (Shaw, pg. 63)
scares you, the book may not be for you, because it only gets more complex from there.
Now for the easier stuff, pick up damn near any fighter pilot biography or memoir written. A lot of these guys weren’t half a cerebral as Shaw in their writing, lacking the education for starters, but Shaw still held them up as examples on how to fly and fight.
Here’s just a few I would recommend:
Thunderbolt! By Robert S. Johnson: This one in particular I would recommend. Johnson was an American Ace in World War II, you get a real feel on how to fly and fight using different aircraft.
Samurai! By Saburo Sakai and Martin Caiden
Fighter Pilot by Robin Olds
But sometimes the best thing in the world is to see it for yourself. For writing danmaku duels, there are a good handful of 3D animated duels on Youtube
Marisa vs Flandre
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unRPhNH-YWo There here is probably the best one I’ve seen. The speed, the expressions on their faces, the spellcards, all make for one exciting video. I highly recommend it.
Touhou Dogfight
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLTpJJAraG8 This is probably the most famous 3d Animated Touhou duel. The animation is not quite as good now. But back in the day oh man! The animator apparently took a few liberties with the spellcard rules, blood and all, but it’s still pretty damn sweet.
Sonic Spark!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSnq5YMJ5qE Another old favorite of mine. Marisa essentially charges up Youkai mountain and duels Aya and Momiji. Sadly no subtitles, which is a shame as I would love to know what Aya was saying to Marisa halfway through the video.
And finally my own personal advice: try to picture it in your mind. Neither opponent is flying still for very long, they are always in motion. In a way you can pretend the two duelists are two warbirds twisting and turning on the knife edge of endurance ( I got that line from Dogfights on the History Channel, I admit). A single mistake, a single improperly timed maneuver, a single lapse of attention, can spell defeat.
Hell you can bend canon and have the lasers and bullets do real harm on contact.
That’s my rambling two cents, at least.
⋮ No. 18443 >>18442 From Perfect Memento in Strict Sense (
http://en.touhouwiki.net/wiki/Perfect_Memento_in_Strict_Sense/Draft_of_Spell_Card_Rules):
Duel between youkai are cause for fear that the small land of Gensokyo may collapse. However, if youkai are unable to fight, their power will gradually vanish. Therefore, I propose the following contract to allow duels.
Concepts
- That youkai can easily cause disasters.
- That humans can easily resolve disasters.
- That deciding victors solely based on strength is unacceptable.
- That there is nothing superior to elegance and thought.
Law
- Give a name and a meaning to the elegance of each duel.
- The number of naming duels to be fought must be announced beforehand. Relying on stamina and repeating an attack is not allowed.
- Do not use meaningless attacks. Meaning is equivalent to power.
- If you are defeated in a naming duel, acknowledge the loss even if you have remaining strength.
- If victorious against a human, you may not kill them.
Write down the name of the duel on paper like a contract. With that, all of the aforementioned regulations become absolute. That paper will be called a "spell card." For more specific details on the duel process, discuss with the shrine maiden later. That said, you as an author have all the liberty in the world to modify them as much as you like, if it suits your setting.
⋮ No. 18448 
Is there ever a good way to describe a character's appearance without ruining fluidity?
Whenever a new character appears, many amateur writers (not necessarily on this site) often spend a paragraph or two digressing on the new character's appearance. This is usually something like describing clothing, hair, facial expression, etc in detail for each article on the character. I find that this ruins how fluid the passage reads and I usually just end up skipping over the descriptive paragraph entirely.
When writing my own works, I want to avoid this pitfall but also want to describe a character's appearance as well, does anyone have any experience with something like this? Is there a good way to do it or is it better to leave such imagery up to the reader's imagination?
Similarly, is it even right to dictate how a well-known character looks when a reader is probably just going to keep their own mental image instead?
Let's say for example that I'm writing a scene in which Youmu makes her first appearance in my story. Most Touhou fans can easily conjure up a mental image of what she looks like. However, as the writer, I want Youmu to use her Koumajou Densetsu getup instead. Assuming that I don't have the luxury of attaching an image to this particular chapter, should I even bother pointing out in-story her clothing? After all, I figure that most readers, when picturing any scene with her, will default to her typical appearance. Aside from how I think her KD outfit is cooler, it doesn't really impact anything else either.
As such, is it a bad thing for a writer to "enforce" what a character looks like? Should I, again, leave it up to reader interpretation?
⋮ No. 18449 >>18448 Well, you can assume the reader has an image of what the character already, being it is a fanwork of an existing series, so you don't have to spend time describing their usual outfits.
Otherwise, keep it simple and let the reader fill in the blank. Unless it's a specific element you plan to reuse later.
example, "Youmu swung her father's heavycloak around, letting it's embroidered sigls fall to rest on her vest."
I don't have to mention things like the cloak was wool, with a fine texture, and fancy butterfly motif embroidery woven in. The reader probably knows what a heavy cloak looks like and how it'd feel or look, as well as the minute variations. Unless its key to the work, why would it matter if it was leather or wool? Hell, I don't even need the bit about sigils but I left those in they could become a chekhov's gun.
tl;dr
Outfits really don't matter. We have a clue as to how your character looks and usually that's enough.
⋮ No. 18450 
>>18448 >Is there ever a good way to describe a character's appearance without ruining fluidity? Sure.
You just don’t do it. No, let me explain. The fact of the matter is, it
doesn’t matter what your character is wearing. Usually. Whenever you describe clothing, it should be with a clear purpose in mind. Your readers’ imagination can – and will – fill in the blanks on its own more than well. So don’t go on tirades about the cut of Youmu’s dress unless it is for a specific purpose.
An example. Clothing may be used to create a specific impression or sensation in your readers’ minds. “Youmu spun. The gold embroidery of her cloak flashed in the night. Long tails whipped, wing-like, in the wake of her advance.” This, while not
per se a description of her clothing, conjures a very specific image, which can be used in lieu of generic movement descriptions.
Also, I hope you noticed the alliteration in that short quotation, and that you know why such things should, generally, be avoided. Trust me, I’m a doctor. Another purpose for which clothing descriptions may be employed is conveying unspoken qualities of your characters. The golden rule is this:
show, don’t tell, which clothing descriptions do
wonderfully well. So rather than telling us that your character is a perky, mischievous, energetic one, show us that his/her clothes bear grass stains, and that the knee area on their pants has been nearly buffed through. Instead of telling us that the Sun was particularly unrelenting that day, show your characters reacting to it by undoing their buttons and wearing their clothes that way. And so on.
However, in most cases clothing simply doesn’t matter, as only people with incredibly detailed imagination will keep track of such minutiae. Moreover, by not outright detailing your character’s uniform (and thus their identity), you will keep your readers in suspense until that character is either named or names themselves. This is a good thing, making your story more engaging to read. The less you say, the more it will stimulate your readers’ brains.
So, to summarise. Unless: a) it is important for the plot, b) it serves to communicate something else, c) the narrator is someone who pays attention to such details (like this one overconfident blond fellow) – outside of these cases, descriptions of clothing tend to be unneeded and superfluous.
I’m wearing thermal underwear today.
⋮ No. 18453 >>18445 Ring, Ring. Aw…
Man, I hate sleep. Every time I went to sleep, it feels like only a moment before I need to wake up again. So, by that logic, I should never sleep ever again.
Nah. That’s silly. If I don’t sleep, I won’t be able to wake up, and I like being awake.
Ring, Ring. It is amazing how annoying a simple ring could be when you’re sleep deprived. I mean, it’s just a ring, but at this hour, I might as well listening to a vuvuzela blown by the explosion of mount Vesuvius mixed by a broken synthesizer with the orgasmic scream of satan.
So yeah, I’m not a morning person.
Ring, Ring. If only I have the ability to stop time, I would be able to sleep a bit more…yeah…just bend the law of nature a bit and let the whole world wait for your beauty nap. That would be perfect.
Ring, Ring. BANG! Yeah…screw the snooze button…I can always buy a new alarm clock…and more bullets.
Uggh…my head…maybe putting a gun under your pillow is not as good of an idea as those spy movies put it to be.
Anyways, off to work!
After throwing my 9mm away somewhere (after turning the safety on, of course. Don’t want anybody to get hurt.) I jumped off from my bed. I life in a condo, separated to my neighbors by a series of thin cement walls, tough I put sound proofing on the wall, so maybe they didn’t hear the gunshot.
The wall adjacent to my bed is painted red with no decoration whatsoever, except for a sheet of white paper containing my life’s motto:
“Stay alive. If anyone tries to stop you, immediately make them not alive.”
It’s a bit long, there’s probably a better way to put it, but hey, I’m no poet. Tough I haven’t had the chance to put this motto into practice lately. Hiding a dead body in this country is hard. This is why I love Canada so much. For such a big country their population is so scarce that you can just left your dead where they are and it’ll be gone in a day eaten by either maggots or bear.
The only reason I left such a lovely country is because the mounted police. Seriously man, don’t get tricked by those silly pants of theirs. Their legs have enough momentum to send your testicles to outer space.
Speaking of badasses with silly lower apparel, a bit of advice: Don’t. Mess. With a Scottish.
Ah, I’ve been rambling for long enough. I’m almost late!
Since my workplace doesn’t allow firearms of any kind, I kick my gun under the bed, fix the Batman motif bed sheet I have just bought recently, and since I’m not the kind of guy that sleeps naked, I remove my red-white polka dot PJ’s , rush into the bathroom naked, wash my face, brush my teeth, and quickly get into my working clothes. I’m one of those ‘office drone’, the lower class of white collar workers, though I’m lucky enough to have huge connection of friends to live comfortably. Also, my part time job ironically pays better than my lega…main job.
Ring, Ring. I was about to retrieve my gun again when I remembered that my alarm clock is dead. It was just my phone.
I retrieved my phone from the freezer. My pals at work always says that my phone is outdated and wasn’t cool enough. Though I wonder why I would need a cold phone. Well, they also said that a cool head is good, so maybe it’s that.
I press the answer button.
From the other side of the line, my boss at my part time job starts talking. He said to come quickly. Emergency situation.
I’m about to check my clock, but then I remember that I shot it. So I went back to the freezer, took out a wristwatch, remove the wrist, and wear the now second hand watch around my own wrist. I still have time before my main job. The place I need to go to was close, anyway.
So I pick up a briefcase, and filled it with pineapples. And I’m also taking my Swiss Army Knive with a built in USB flash drive. And then I jump through the window. My residence is on the second floor, so landing wasn’t much of a hassle. Then I run to my part time job.
It wasn’t far. About two minutes of travel if you have a car. By taking a French-style shortcut I manage to arrive in about…two minutes.
My part time job, for this week, is guarding a warehouse. I was located somewhere at the edge of the city, so not plenty of people coming every day.
This day it’s a bit noisy though.
BANG! RATTATA! BANG! …Or whatever onomatopoeia you would use for automatic weapons.
In front of my workplace there is a group of men, wearing suits and motorcycle helmets. Each carrying either a pistol or a museum piece (AK-47). They are firing wildly, and the workers, mostly couriers and operators, are helpless as they move a lot and lots of unlabeled box into a pick-up truck.
Though, they all stopped after they seen me.
And now I have five pieces of deadly weapon pointed at me. Most excellent!!
It appears that I am the only part timer available at this hour. So…what should I do?
[] Talk to them! (Gentlemen…)
[] Try to steal the truck!
[] Fragmentation grenades! (Also known as ‘Pineapples’ in some military services.)
⋮ No. 18454 >>18451 Well this is how I do it.
The first thing I’d be doing would be to find character who fit together with the MC, based on
what s/he is. (What race, occupation, outsider, abilities, skills, etc.)
The next thing would be to alter the MC. Not to make him into a new character entirely, but to play around and see how well different personalities fit together with the different characters. In my case I more often than naught decide upon a new character entirely, since
who s/he became simply would fit better with that character.
Then once I have the MC and his company made out, I start to imagine different scenarios about how they met, what they do together, etc. Try to imagine negative things as well, like if they start fighting each other (both verbally and physically),
how would it affect their relationship? Would it have potential to influence the story?
For coming up with the actual story I always think of the end first. What is the problem that needs to be fixed, or what is the goal that needs to be reached. Like, is the MC going to convince Akyuu’s father that he’s worthy of her. Is the MC going to sneak into the tengu village to steal something? How would he go about doing it? What problems would he encounter on the way? How did it start? What happened before it started?
Tl;dr
Keep asking yourself questions like:
who, what, where, when, why, how.
Think backwards.
Try out different things and methods until you find something that works for you.
⋮ No. 18465 >>18463 Almost anything I’ve written in the last 2 years; /shorts/ especially if you’re looking for something self-contained.
Or you could just
read a motherfucking book, hombre. What do you need to know, anyway?
⋮ No. 18474 >>18473 I think he's talking about the issue of putting the readers in the person's shoes. If you use second person you are identifying the reader as the protagonist and if you use first person the readers will identify themselves as the protagonist due to words like "I" and "me".
But the problem is that when you read a story in the third person, you, or at least this is how it is with me, aren't as immersed in the setting. Of course I may be reading too much into this and be
way off the mark here.
⋮ No. 18475 >>18474 That’s the silliest thing I’ve read this day, and let me tell you, I’ve been catching up on my Japanese animes today.
Identification and
empathy are the key words here, I think. Of course if you want your CYOA to star the “reader” as the protagonist, you’d do well to go with the SPP narrative. That would enable the readers to
identify with the protagonist. There is nothing wrong with having a protagonist be a person of their own. In this case you’d want your readers to
empathise with him/her.
May be I am wrong, but it seems to me some people are stuck in the “CYOA protagonists must be reflections/inserts of the readers” mindset. Which isn’t entirely right, as evidenced by the many CYOAs on this site with protagonists who possess their own personalities. Are they less immersive than “classic” You-Are-the-Protagonist CYOAs? Beats me. But I don’t believe TPP narration takes away from the experience.
⋮ No. 18476 >>18475 I wasn't saying I want the readers to
be the protagonist. I want them to
think like him/her. It's, in my own opinion, an easy way to immerse the readers in the story. If they are thinking like the character, they will hopefully grow to care about him/her and keep coming back to see what happens next. Of course that's pointless if you can't write a compelling story or if it's just mechanically awful.
This is just my opinion though. I have been told, quite a few times, that it's wrong but I don't get a good reason as to
why it's wrong.
It could just be him insulting your writing, this just occurred to me. ⋮ No. 18477 >>18476 I’ll have a blast. Because sympathising with a character just because you think like them (or vice versa) is shallow and, in extreme cases, might be considered pandering.
Nevertheless it is still possible to empathise with characters who do not resemble your own self, and if a writer succeeds in making you do just that, well... Although I would argue empathy is not a 100% necessary element of good writing; I, for one, did not sympathise with Cersei one bit whilst reading the GoT books, but her chapters were regardless a very good read. I did not agree with her, did not approve of her actions, certainly did not think like her – but still she was an intriguing character to observe. Similarly, I doubt anyone identified with
any of my protagonists (especially that one starchy blond fellow), but from the response my stories got,
some of them – perhaps not all – were all the same interesting to follow. Not because the readers identified with them or shared in their mental processes, not because they
were the readers – but because they were interesting characters.
So yes, eliciting commitment from your readers via similarities between them and your character is one way of keeping them engaged – but, for all its working, it is a cheap sort of bond, and, I dare say, a very fragile one at that. You’d do much better to simply
write a good story, rather than appealing to the “S/he’s just like you! Sympathise!” response.
“Simply write a good story,” heh. ⋮ No. 18478 Alright, so I initially came here a lurker, but didn't manage to catch on to either the manner in which one uses sage, or the thing about not using a username without having contributed something worthwhile.
I seek to remedy one of these at least by actually starting a relatively simple quest, nothing hugely deep or philosophical yet, but something that either will help me understand better how to write for the setting, or at least justify the couple of times I posted using a name.
So I figured irony was a good bet considering I was looking at what was getting old in the idea's thread, namely human outsider male OC being Mary Sue's endearing themselves to all the characters, and someones unique snowflake OC youkai doing stupid things but being loved for it.
So I want to write an irritatingly self aggrandizing item spirit of a T-90 MBT. Specifically, I want 'her' to be blatantly irritating and vaguely irrational. I should not be alienating my readers as much as 'she' should the caste though, so I'm looking for any pointers. So far, nationalism is a point of focus I think I could use, as well as impulsive behavior and shoddy justification.
⋮ No. 18479 >>18477 I seem to be unable to put my thoughts into words properly. I'll try again, but I make no promises that this will sound coherent.
I want the readers to be able to understand the MC and be able to think like them, but
not be them. In other words, I want readers to think of what the character wants when they come to a vote, especially when write-ins are given. If they don't know I want them to be able to infer from previous updates. I want them to emphasize with the characters and grow to like them, but I also want to write a good story. I'm the kind of person who won't be able to read a book if I don't like most of the characters, no matter how interesting or well written the book in question may be.
>Not because the readers identified with them or shared in their mental processes, not because they were the readers – but because they were interesting characters. I find being in a characters head and being able to understand their thoughts, whether or not you agree with them, is what makes an "interesting" character. I want people to understand where the character is coming from and care about them, or want them dead in some cases. Third person just feels limited in what the reader is allowed to know. I know it's not really all that different than second person but it's just an awkward feel for me. Perhaps my own bias gets in the way there.
>You’d do much better to simply write a good story, rather than appealing to the “S/he’s just like you! Sympathise!” response. I've never purposefully used that type of appeal to draw people to my stories. Personally, I want my MC's to be "understandable yet still their own person". Does that make sense?
Does any of this make sense?
A lot of literature comes down to personal opinions. What the writer believes, what the writer actually writes, what the reader believes, what the reader interprets, and what the writer intended to portray. It's kinda like this discussion. I believe one thing, I write something in response to what you said in
>>18473, you believe another thing, you interpret what I say one way, I meant something similar but failed to properly convey it.
I'm not trying to come across as defensive because I agree with what you are saying. I just want to clarify my thoughts and hope you understand where I'm coming from.
I'm naive aren't I? ⋮ No. 18480 >>18479 The entire fulcrum of our miscommunication here was, I think, the word “identify.” My bad for understanding it literally, your bad for using it purposefully to deceive me and make me make a fool of myself in public. Shun!
Well at least we got that cleared up. Anyhow.
> Third person just feels limited in what the reader is allowed to know. I don’t see how. Third person omniscient narrator is the most versatile and universal of narrator types. A TPO narrator can freely access the protagonist’s mind, their thoughts and thought processes, physical motions – but also
all the other characters’. A TPO narrator can describe not only the inner world of the protagonist; he can access the other characters’ minds as well, and – perhaps most importantly – describe actions occurring
without the protagonist’s presence or attention. To top it off, third person narration gives you the widest berth when it comes to the use of pronouns, names and titles to spice up and vary your narrative. A protagonist in FPP (first person perspective) can only refer to themselves as “I;” SPP narrative designates the protagonist as “you,” whereas in third person you can
go mad. You can use their name, profession, gender, identifying features – the possibilities are endless (and will probably end up being more interesting than repeated “you”s or “I”s). Additionally, using different forms of address in respect to the protagonist (and other characters) may serve to build a particular impression of them in the readers’ minds or communicate a particular idea (or solidify the image of the protagonist as something, etc.). So yes.
As for the omniscience of the narrator, this also provides manoeuvring room for interesting writing. Take this classic Russian joke for instance:
>Stierlitz was sitting in his office. Suddenly he heard someone knocking on the door. “Probably Bormann,” thought Stierlitz. “Yes, it indeed is me!” thought Bormann. Cue clapping of thighs and cries for more vodka. Now, if the narrator of the joke wasn’t omniscient, its entire point would not be possible. This may also work for your story if you, say, switch your perspectives briefly to another place/character, or even have several protagonists. Of course, when telling from the perspective of one protagonist, you will probably want to abstain from simultaneously accessing other characters’ minds, but you probably figured this out by now.
At any rate. Third person narration. The most versatile, in both technical and subject matters, fun to play around with, and,
for a damn good reason, the most widely used type of perspective in books around the world.
And when a third person omniscient narrator turns out to be
unreliable, gods fucking help you. That’s a party in the making.
I should be called Wall-E.
⋮ No. 18481 >>18473 Same anon in
>>18472. Waymaker pretty much explained my problem with third-person perspective in
>>18474.
⋮ No. 18483 >>18482 I feel you. You could even say I
sympathise with you. I do agree it is the writer’s own prerogative to choose one type of narration over another. But, still, for pure technicalities’ sake, TPP offers the most mechanical freedoms. The freedom to switch at will, the freedom to provide insight into characters other than the protagonist, the freedom to make remarks or observations which would otherwise have never been made by the protagonist, the freedom to refer to Geralt as “the Witcher,” further cementing the subconscious idea of his professionalism and devotion to his job (and maybe even the quality of him being unique thanks to that “the”), the freedom to appear a smug-ass faux-expert on writing on the internet...
... Ahem. Yes. At any rate, there isn’t one universal agreement on which type of narrator is the best in
all situations, so your best bet would be to try out everything and decide which works the best for your particular circumstances. Experiment. Skill comes from experience – and the best sort comes from your own.
