Development issues.

[Seijiro Mafuné]

Yeah, I'm asking for help. Woo and stuff.

Does someone out there have any idea of how I can improve my story development overall? I'm trying my best, but my fics have this severe problem of lacking development, which causes them to take days and even months per chapter. Writing-wise, I can create a whole civilization out of sawdust, clay, and a dead toenail, yet I can't do much after the whole creation deal. This is a reason why it takes me so long to write a fic, even if I am in a moment of great inspiration.

Any ideas?

 

[Yami Ryu]

You mean; PLOT

Anyways, what you don't seem to be thinking of first, is the PLOT. What your story is about, why it's about that, etc etc. Or maybe this will help you, when writing something, remember this;

Where
Why
Who
What
When ( and maybe How too if it's a murder mystery XD)

Without that, as you say, a story falls flat on it's *** because you cared more about getting it churned out than making sure when you wrote it, there'd be something more substantial to it than just civilizations created from dust and what not.

 

[Pinecone Tortoise]

One way to do it might be to focus more on the characters. Develop their personality - construct their behaviour traits in greater detail, psychoanalyse them a bit and think about how they'd realistically interact with each other and their environment. Then plonk them in a realy JUICY situation and watch the scene develop. Perhaps you could add a catalyst to spice things up. Maybe capture a new pokemon or let one of the existing ones evolve. But don't leave it at that - investigate and explain how it upsets the balance among your characters - the new powerplays and tensions amongst them, the new problems and advantages, etc.

Having not read your fic, it's kinda hard for me to comment. But hopefully, you'll find these suggestions helpful.

 

[Seijiro Mafuné]

Renegade: . . .

Yanno, that is kinda basic. My problem isn't figuring the double-u's, it's more like taking the content of the double-u's and turning them into a shapely mass known as a fic.

Pinecone Tortoise: This so reminds me of my Pokémon fic. It's really full of stuff like that. But it's not exactly what I'm discussing. Since I feel like I have to explain it, I shall do so, therefore.

I'm gonna sorta take one of the ideas I had for a story as example. A knight who has a special amulet that allows him to control his armor to help him fight hordes of mysterious ghost-like deamons is heading towards the tower in the northern side of the continent to destroy a crystal that supposedly lets the deamons walk in sunlight. In his quest, however, he must defeat seven undead beasts created by a sorceress that is trying to destroy the overlords, all while the army he joined several years ago is struggling to push back a legion of deamons into a pit of doom and lava, without getting pushed into a marsh of destruction and chaos. And the gods are currently sealed into an inferno, trying to destroy the ultimate lord of the deamons, without getting crazy thanks to the bewitchments laid by the god-emperor to seal any creature living, non-living, half-living, and maybe-living. Also, there's a squire trying to head to the other side of the continent, which is infested with deamons, so that he can deliver messages of hope for the inhabitants of a village overrun by the deamons. And then there's the fear of airships that the common people of a kingdom share, which make it hard for them to be evacuated to safety before the deamons can try out their latest biological weapons on them. Let's not forget that the true main character is busy locked in a thousand-year duel with the ultimate deamon lord.

I just can't make everything fit in place.

 

[purple_drake]

It sounds like you've got an awful lot of stuff in there; if you're having trouble, perhaps you've got too much. You might need to sacrifice one subplot to keep from dragging down the others.

Or, if you mean it won't fit into place chronologically, have you tried writing out the plotline in dot points? That way you can figure out what goes where before you dive into the actual writing, and makes it easier to figure out which subplots clash with the others.

 

[Seijiro Mafuné]

That was an example of how easy I can create things. The main problem I have is getting from making them to finishing them.

 

[Caithyra]

I read somewhere that stories should follow a theme, which helps keeping the story on track and develop characters. A theme is usually a word describing something that is the result of actions/thoughts of the characters in the story, for example:

Trust, this could be in a story where the main character has trust issues, s/he could be put in several situations where they have to trust others. When they do start to trust others often enough, throw in a person who shouldn't be trusted to make the character go through an emotional journey, in the end they should have grown quite a bit.

You can also cut up the story in parts, addressing several themes. Another way to write characters is to think of Why they do it instead of What they have to do. Example:

Gwen goes into the cave because it's raining Meowths and Growlithes, she finds the Stone of Destiny/Jewel of Destiny etc. because she doesn't have any survival skills at all and doesn't know how to make a fire, and that she is bored (she kicks around the rocks on the floor and sees that one of them glitters). She keeps the Stone because it is pretty, and she likes pretty things. (That and wanting souvenirs, she is on a "vacation" after all.) Later on, another trainer seeks shelter in the cave and rescues her from freezing to death by actually knowing how to make a fire.

Instead of:

Gwen searches for the Stone without a reason, in fact, she doesn't know it exists she just goes into a cave (despite not liking damp and dark places) and looks through the dirty rocks and finds the Stone. She keeps it because it is needed plotwise.

I've found out that if I let myself get into the shoes of the characters, they usually carry me through the story. In order to make them go the way I want, I put a person or object in their way, and if their personalities suit the story, they should go in the general direction that I want. (i.e. While being a very important object, the Stone is also the reason why another character befriends Gwen, and why the bad guys first attacks her. Its removal from the cave is also the reason why another character enters the scene.)

Hopefully this will help you.

 

[Ledian_X]

Crystal Cat has a very good point and your story idea seems really good. Just curious though, is this person teamng up with the guy who found the amulet that controls matter? Just wondering because I replied to that thread too ^^;;. Still you got a decent story idea here and I hope you keep it up. You're pretty good with description from what I can see in that paragraph.

I have some ideas too but they'd really be for a non-pokemon fic and I'm not sure yet if that's what you're making. You can always improve development by adding tragedy, triumph, romance and action. If you use those, you can develop some cool characters. You can always have them react to their powers positively or negatively. Making them realistic enough should add to development.

LX

 

[Seijiro Mafuné]

Um... I don't want to write about that text because it's gonna take too long and I don't have that much time to spend. So I want other ideas.

As well as some help with my development.