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The Fan Fiction Mafia

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Sike Saner

Peace to the Mountain
How do you handle Legendary Pokémon in your story?

On an individual basis, more or less. Some are legendary because they're more powerful than the average pogey, some are legendary because they're more rare/elusive, some are both, some are neither. Some are unique and always have been, some are the last of their kind, some are members of a still-extant species. Some of them you could pal around with, whereas with others it'd be like trying to hold a conversation with an entire frickin galaxy.

That said, I've only really written about two of them (for now) and hinted at a third, and one of the former is a fakemon.

Is there a specific trope that pops up in a majority of your writing projects either intentionally or subconsciously?

plop plop, fizz fizz
 

Sid87

I love shiny pokemon
Which genre do you think would be hardest for you, personally, to write? Why?

Comedy.

I can't for the life of me write "funny on purpose" funny without it being... terrible. Legitimately funny pure comedy stories are some of the hardest things there are to write (in my opinion). Handled even somewhat not well, they tend towards being grating and annoying. And I'm not exactly a sharp wit.
 

Bay

YEAHHHHHHH
How do you handle Legendary Pokémon in your story?

The only time I had a legendary Pokemon featured in a role was a Lugia for a parody fic of mine in which they try to find the "Chosen One." Otherwise, if I were to use another legendary most likely I would have them as very powerful. Will depend which legendary, though.
 

DarkerShining

Well-Known Member
How do you handle Legendary Pokémon in your story?

Well, in Reflecting Balance, no legendary Pokémon will actually be showing up in-person. A few of them are mentioned, but mostly for world building purposes. If I write more PMD fics, I may have legendaries appear. Maybe.

My personal headcanon is that legendary Pokémon would normally not interfere unless it was absolutely necessary to protect their world. If a problem can be solved without them, they'll just leave it to whoever is trying to sort things out. Even so, some legendary Pokémon are a bit more willing to help out even if they're not supposed to interfere. At least I think that's how I may write them should I have them appear in one of my next stories.
 

Umbramatic

The Ghost Lord
OK, this is becoming less and less of a real hiatus and more "I'm just calling it a hiatus because Archive Panic is in full effect regarding all the fics I wanna catch up and review" but whatever the case, I peeked in here, saw it's been kinda slow, and decided to answer a few bold topics that tickled my fancy.

Have any of your characters written themselves?

Pretty much any character that gets sufficiently three-dimensional and/or entrenched in my imagination -whether they be an original fiction character, OC, or even canon character - has this happen in much the way Dragonfree described. (Speaking of which, Dragonfree, if you read this I'll be going into what you said about the topic and my own thoughts in more detail in one of those PMs I'm planning on sending you because I could go for paragraphs and paragraphs about it but would rather not make a wall of text here. :p)

As your stories get longer, do you ever start finding it hard to keep track of everything? Do you have any methods for keeping track of things?

I have a good enough memory of my own stories to keep track of things pretty well, but even so these days for almost every fic project I write at least a basic outline of the plot with various story/character notes and often far more, all for the sake of having something at least resembling a coherent plan for the whole thing - which historically has increased my chances of success.

Have you ever written 2 or more stories at once and enjoyed doing it? If so, how did you go about doing it? Meaning, how did you divide up your time to write both stories?

I'm actually doing that right now and actually succeeding - I'm working on my Criminal Intent entry alongside an outside project I've been trying to get wrapped up and finished for oer a year now, mostly working on the contest entry during daytime hours and the other thing later in the evening. Given the rapidly-approaching deadline for the former though I'm definitely considering shifting much more of my focus to it until the first draft is done at least.

Which genre do you think would be hardest for you, personally, to write? Why?

Well, in general I don't really like writing anything that doesn't have sufficient elements of fantasy, science fiction, or both, since I'm a fantasy writer at heart who also loves sci-fi and any attempts to write anything more "mundane" utterly bores me.

When it comes to other speculative fiction genres, however... While I feel I don't have too much problem pulling of horror elements in my stories or just creepy/disturbing/terrifying/gory/overall dark scenes when the story calls for it, an Old Shame of mine's pretty much convinced me I can't write actual horror stories competently at all and... I'll just leave it at that.

Is there a specific trope that pops up in a majority of your writing projects either intentionally or subconsciously?

I've got a whole list I'm continually adding to (on my actual TVTropes userpage, even) but tropes related to deities, Eldritch Abominations, angels, demons, and other such powerful supernatural beings tend to crop up a lot.

As for subconscious stuff, some variation of the theme that no matter who or what we are we're all ultimately human for better and for worse has managed to worm its way to some degree into literally everything I've written... Including in conjunction with the above.

Which actually ties very nicely into this next topic...

How do you handle Legendary Pokémon in your stories?

Well, as for the headcanony stuff about them that defines them in the universe of my fics... The vast majority of Legendaries are outright deities, powerful spirits, or somewhere in between, the only three exceptions being what I refer to as the "cryptid trio": Mewtwo (Frankensteinian genetic modification of an existing Legendary) Genesect (Frankensteinian cybernetic modification of what was likely a normal fossilmon) and Diancie (A very rare and unusually powerful, but not unique or really unnatural mutation of Carbink). Genesect and Diancie would likely be considered unusually powerful "normal" mons under other circumstances; Mewtwo's more ambiguous/borderline due to sheer power level and being created from a more "bona fide" Legendary.

In addition, all the truly godlike ones are unique; the ones below that level mostly are too but there are a few exceptions I won't get into here since this is getting too damn long and one hints too much at something I'm planning a fair bit down the line I'd rather keep a surprise (Though the Latii are the obvious example and as mentioned earlier Diancie is one too).

As for how they're handled plot-and character-wise... Well, every Pokefic I've ever written has featured at least one Legendary, and the reasons can be summed up by the following.

1. I'm a fantasy writer at heart and thus just generally like playing up the more fantastical aspects of the Pokemon world.

2. As hinted above, I absolutely love writing characters that are deities or some other such beings for various reasons I won't disclose here, mainly again to avoid making this wall of text even longer (Though again Dragonfree if you're reading this you'll get the whole shebang in one of those PMs I'm sending you EVENTUALLY).

So Legendaries are ubiquitous in my fics and sometimes are even the protagonists, and despite alleged clicheness they'll continue to show up because they're just so freaking fun to explore as characters in their own right.

Now back to solitude and working on contest entry/that other thingy.
 
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How do you handle Legendary Pokémon in your stories?

I've only had to deal with one so far, that being Giratina in Convergence, so I can't say I'm the most experienced in that field. But I feel like the best way to treat legendaries of THAT caliber is as though they are Homeric gods: incredibly powerful, and sometimes incredibly arrogant due to their superiority, but with some human-like traits, like anger, pride, and jealousy.
 

Starlight Aurate

Just a fallen star
Has anyone else noticed the high viewcount the fanfic section has been getting recently? The past few times I've been on here it's been between 40-68. Not sure if this means anything, but it makes me giddy.

How do you handle Legendary Pokémon in your stories?
They are nigh-indestructible all-powerful demi-gods. Granted, I haven't written many stories, but in a one-shot that I haven't posted on here I had Groudon and Kyogre being gigantic creatures far more powerful than any other force present. I've always thought of legendaries as being 'special;' even when the anime would make mentions of multiple legendaries, it always bothered me, since I felt like there should just be one of each. But I digress.

Have you ever written 2 or more stories at once and enjoyed doing it? If so, how did you go about doing it? Meaning, how did you divide up your time to write both stories?
Ugh. I'm just about the worst person to ask about this. I do sometimes work on two projects at once, but usually it'll be a one-shot next to my main fic. And whenever I really get into my one-shot, it's when I'm taking a break from writing Drowning so I can spend more time on the current project without being too distracted by the other one.
 

DarkerShining

Well-Known Member
Have you ever written 2 or more stories at once and enjoyed doing it? If so, how did you go about doing it? Meaning, how did you divide up your time to write both stories?

Well, when I was younger and was just writing silly stories for my own amusement, I had no real difficulty with writing multiple stories at once. Now that I'm older, more serious and putting more effort into making sure everything in the story makes sense, things are a bit more difficult. I certainly want to work on more things, but so far, I haven't had much success. Maybe I just need to have more confidence in my own writing skills, or something. I don't know.
 

AmericanPi

Write on
Why you like fanfic/writing: My Author's Profile is here and in my signature, if anyone is interested. I would really appreciate it if you could check it out. :)

I dunno, writing is just really, really fun. I've been making my own stories since first grade, with varying degrees of success. When I first got onto the Internet at age thirteen (which was around 2010), I was really into Warrior Cats, a series by Erin Hunter. Being the eager writer that I was, I wrote some pretty lame stories - each chapter was, like, one paragraph long (the forum I went to had really loose Fan Fiction rules). When I got into Pokemon a few months later, I had an idea to write the story of one of the less popular members of Ash Ketchum's team, Pidgeot (have I mentioned that I've had a thing for birds since preschool?). I posted the first chapter of Broken Promise (it actually wasn't that hard to make it long enough for the Fan Fiction forum rules), and the rest is history.

My interest in fan fiction comes and goes, but writing always has a special place in my heart. I've been less inclined to read and review fics than to write them, but now that I'm doing The Sunday Review it's changing.

My current story for NaNoWriMo 2015 is The Multiversity, an original story featuring multiple universes, four main characters from different universes, and lots of lampshade hanging and TV Tropes. I also have three other chaptered fics in my head. I've written several one-shots, too.

And while I'm here, I'd kind of like to discuss the future of a publication I was quite fond of, the Fan Fiction Quarterly. I've PM'ed JX Valentine my ideas for a possible retool/reboot/revival, but I'd like to hear the fan fiction community's feelings about the Quarterly.
 

Creepychu

The horror
My feelings on the Quarterly? I like it, so it was unfortunate to hear about the issues with putting it together. Was particularly looking forward to more of the reviewer features since it's always interesting to learn more about the regulars around here and it's something we don't really have a substitute for elsewhere around the section. The writing challenges also gave me quite a bit of useful fanfic inspiration, even though I never could manage to get a satisfactory end product done on time.

That being said, I do understand the problem. The people in charge already have a lot of other things on their plates so finding interesting bits and getting it all put together into a neat format on schedule definitely takes some doing. For my part, I'd be interested in a revival. What kinds of retooling ideas are we talking here?
 

Starlight Aurate

Just a fallen star
I was also really upset when I saw that the Quarterly might be discontinued. There is hope, though! I asked Psychic about it and she said this:

At the moment the FFQ is delayed, with no clear time frame as to when it will be complete, but we're currently still aiming to complete it!

So it does look like it will continue to be alive, just currently delayed or it might be made with different time frames.

It is understandable, though. I've been busy and haven't kept up with my fic in months, and I can't imagine how stressful it would be to try to keep up with your daily life and try to complete this project every three months.
 

Spiteful Murkrow

Early Game Encounter
As your stories get longer, do you ever start finding it hard to keep track of everything? Do you have any methods for keeping track of things?

Moreso for minor flavor details that need to reappear than bigger events, but it's happened, yes. As for keeping track of things, going back and re-reading helps if you have the time (and it helps you spot overlooked errors in past writing). For more time-constrained situations, I either talk things over with someone else who's privy to the behind-the-scenes part of my writing, or do a search through some chat logs for rooms where I commonly hash out details.

Which genre do you think would be hardest for you, personally, to write? Why?

Poetry and songwriting. In poetry and songwriting, wordplay and getting the most out of a relatively constrained number of words are things that make or break the piece. Now, conciseness is already something that I have relative trouble grappling with, but getting stuff like rhyme and rhythm coming into play... eh...

It's not a bad genre / medium by any chance, just something that I can't see myself doing well in without a ton of time investment to practice.

Have any of your characters written themselves?

Barring more shallow minor or gag characters, no. A well-formed character is a lot like a person in the sense that while there might be an overarching trend to how they think and behave, there's a ton of nuance that gets involved in parsing how they'd react to events, especially ones that are well outside their comfort zone. Now, having a solid idea of what the character's like certainly helps speed things along, but I still find myself double-checking my dialogue to make sure that the thought process and language seems like something a given character would plausibly say or do in their current situation.

How do you handle Legendary Pokémon in your stories?

Depends on the story I want to tell, really. In my first couple of fics, Legendaries were basically just background fixtures that brushed up against the world of the protagonists indirectly and for fleeting moments, and might as well been overhyped pocket kaiju that are mundane beyond insane power and tons of attached folklore. For my current one, I went with a more mystical take since Legendaries feature just a little more prominently, and the overall atmosphere is supposed to be more "earthy" / "fairytale" than the ones in my earlier fics. While it admittedly might've lead to some potentially funny moments, depicting Legendaries as Toho mascot rejects there would've undercut the vibe I was going for.

So yeah, I don't really have a consistent depiction of Legendaries on my end. It all boils down to what I want to tell for a story and what set of "rules" works best for that particular end goal.

Have you ever written 2 or more stories at once and enjoyed doing it? If so, how did you go about doing it? Meaning, how did you divide up your time to write both stories?

I actually toyed around with this a bit for making a ficlet back when the "no dialogue" challenge was going on in FFQ, but things unfortunately didn't get past the outlining phase. (I might choose to revisit that ficlet sometime down the road, since the premise, while admittedly a little "fun and dumb", was something that I liked a bit.) The main killers, I've found are a mix of time management, being able to channel creativity down multiple rabbit holes, and project bloat. The natural tendency for humans in project planning is to underestimate the amount of effort things will require, which is manageable to an extent if you're doing one project and don't underestimate that badly. Once multiple projects come into play, things tend to bog down really fast.

I dunno, can't really give any advice here since successful concurrent fic-writing's a bit of a mystery to me, but I suspect that one would have more luck if the stories that are being written concurrently are either relatively short or interconnected by design (i.e. the shtick that diamondpearl876 uses for her present writing).

re: Fan Fiction Quarterly

It's a bit disappointing, yeah. But not really sure what can be done about it given that in its present form the quarterly is written by mods and there's only so many mods and so much mod time to work with, which to my understanding is the present issue going on with new releases.

With that in mind, it's pretty much impossible to get around the problem without changing one of two things:

- The amount of time writing the issues
- The amount of time needed to write the issues

Which basically leads down the same rabbit hole of "changing the format" as before unless the Mod Team somehow scrounges together more writers that have the time to help.

That said, I do hope that whatever the reworked issue format is still has distinct Editor's Choice and Blast From the Past segments. That way, doing an editorial choice for a fic to highlight the issue wouldn't be a choice between revisiting a good, but completed part of SPP's fic corpus (important) and giving an up-and-comer some attention (also important).
 

AmericanPi

Write on
Fan Fiction Quarterly: The Reboot/Retool/Revival

I'm glad that there's quite a bit of interest in reviving the FFQ. :) Currently Spiteful Murkrow, starliteevee, Creepychu, and Negrek have expressed interest in a retool/reboot/revival, and that's great! A few days ago I've PM'ed JX Valentine my ideas on a possible revival, but she hasn't responded yet. Negrek suggested that I wait a few more days (I'm going to wait until Monday), and if she hasn't responded by then I can PM the other Fan Fiction mods about rebooting the FFQ. In the meantime, I might as well post the ideas for an FFQ revival here.

The Fan Fiction Quarterly can be a periodical posted four times a year in the Fan Fiction and Shipping Fics forums (or maybe just in the Fan Fiction forum. I just personally would think it would be cooler if it got posted in both forums.).

A new issue of the FFQ can be released on four specific dates spaced throughout the year: February 1, May 1, August 1, and November 1.

Every section can be between half a page and one page long on Google Docs (11-point Arial font, 1.15 line spacing). This is the length of the sections as they stand.

Originally I intended there to be eight sections so that it's easier to split up the work between the mods. However, I'm under the impression that the main reason why the FFQ was discontinued in its current format is that the mods are busy enough as they are to write the FFQ (which is understandable, considering all the good work they're doing for the site.). I've put my original ideas of divvying up the sections under a spoiler.

There are four possible ways to put together the FFQ's eight sections (I'm not sure which way will work best; all I know is that I hope the FFQ comes back. :p):

Each of the four Fan Fiction mods (bobandbill, Dragonfree, JX Valentine, Psychic) writes two sections.
Each of the eight Fan Fiction and Shipping Fics mods (bobandbill, Dragonfree, JX Valentine, Psychic, Tiffany, Sushi, Meowth City, xEryChan) writes one section.
A team of eight people (anyone who wants to contribute, mods or non-mods) writes the FFQ, with one person writing one section. There will be a sign-up form for potential contributors.
I, American--Pi, can attempt to write the whole thing. :p I'll see how it goes.

Sections (* indicates a new section not found in any of the previous two Quarterlies, or a modified section)
  • Editor's Choice
  • New and Noteworthy*
  • Blast From the Past
  • Reviewers' Feature
  • Advice for Aspiring Authors*
  • Events
  • Quarterly Challenge*
  • FFQ Answers*

The New Sections Explained

New and Noteworthy: This section, which is similar to "Editor's Choice" and "Blast From the Past", can be several paragraphs recommending a good, noteworthy chaptered fic (from Fan Fiction or Shipping Fics) that began on SPPf after the previous Quarterly and before the current Quarterly. The new fic must have at least two chapters to qualify.

Advice for Aspiring Authors: Several paragraphs giving, you guessed it, advice for aspiring authors. Each FFQ issue will have advice covering a different topic. For the first issue I'd like to give advice on how to get your fic noticed and commented on (Reviewers and Reviewees: A Guide).

Quarterly Challenge: A prompt for writers to tackle. Every writer who tackles the prompt is guaranteed a review (at least four paragraphs long) from one of the FFQ contributors within a month of the prompt response being posted.

FFQ Answers: Several paragraphs answering the feedback and questions readers asked in the thread of the previous Quarterly.

The second post of the thread can be two lists: a list of previous Quarterlies and a list of completed Quarterly Challenges.

"Try This!" will be removed due to it being very difficult to write.

But since the mods have enough to do already, another idea can be that various contributors (including me) can write the sections. Negrek pitched the idea that we can start with a smaller number of sections and increase the number if interest in the Quarterly grows. I was thinking we could start with four sections:

Sections (* indicates a new section not found in any of the previous two Quarterlies, or a modified section)
  • Editor's Choice
  • Events
  • Quarterly Challenge*
  • A rotatable section: For the first year of the new FFQ, we can have New and Noteworthy* in February, Blast From the Past in May, Reviewers' Feature in August, and Advice for Aspiring Authors* in November.

Or, if there is enough contributor interest, we could put all seven sections (Editor's Choice, Events, Quarterly Challenge, New and Noteworthy, Blast From the Past, Reviewers' Feature, and Advice for Aspiring Authors) into every FFQ. (I know that's pretty ambitious, but I'm just throwing this out there because I'd like to know what you guys think.)

The New Sections Explained

New and Noteworthy: This section, which is similar to "Editor's Choice" and "Blast From the Past", can be several paragraphs recommending a good, noteworthy chaptered fic (from Fan Fiction or Shipping Fics) that began on SPPf after the previous "New and Noteworthy" feature and before the current Quarterly. The new fic must have at least two chapters to qualify.

Advice for Aspiring Authors: Several paragraphs giving, you guessed it, advice for aspiring authors. Each FFQ issue will have advice covering a different topic. I'd personally like to reserve the first Advice for Aspiring Authors section, because for a while I've been itching to write a guide on how to get your fic noticed and commented on (Reviewers and Reviewees: A Guide).

Quarterly Challenge: A prompt for writers to tackle. Every writer who tackles the prompt is guaranteed a review (at least four paragraphs long) from one of the FFQ contributors within a month of the prompt response being posted.

I was originally going to have an "FFQ Answers" section for answering questions and feedback on the Quarterly, but Negrek pointed out that it would be a lot easier if the contributors just answered feedback directly on the thread. Which makes a lot of sense. :p

The second post of the thread can be two lists: a list of previous Quarterlies and a list of completed Quarterly Challenges.

So yeah, those are my really complicated ideas on the revival of the FFQ, but I think if we have enough contributor and reader interest this can work out. What do you guys think?
 

DarkerShining

Well-Known Member
I really like the concept of the FFQ, and I'd like to see more of it, so I hope you guys are able to work something out.

... Not sure how else to contribute to this conversation at the moment.
 

bobandbill

Winning Smile
Staff member
Super Mod
Yo!

Jumping in to give an update. There's been some discussion behind the scenes about FFQ of late, so basically:

- We (the fic mods) are doing the next FFQ update. We don't have a date for it but we aim to get it done sooner rather than later. Let's unofficially say this year.
- Following that, we're on board to opening up the FFQ to be written by everyone in the fanfic section ala above planning.
- It would be useful to run it through a central FFQ Planning thread in Author's Cafe. The writing up of it can be done in a google document - viewing and commenting access given to everyone, but writing access to it would be given only writers for that particular issue. That makes it easier to see how people are going with updates
- Perhaps also have regular check-in sessions (e.g. require everyone to post every so often) to see how everyone is going with the part they are writing.

Meanwhile specific responses to American--Pi's post:

- Having optional sections seems sensible. Maybe we should aim to have them done if people are willing to, but if only the core sections are written up that's okay.
- Rotating one of these optional sections as a core section at least every issue seems fair
- We don't mind the Try This! section being dropped in the above planning
- We're strongly for retaining the Blast from the Past section however as a core section. I also feel that between all the members there ought to be enough people who have been around enough to recall enough old fics worth the revisit.

I'm also going to suggest you guys bring all your thoughts into the thread I just made in the Author's Cafe. We need to agree on how it'll be run, details and all, and it seems a bunch of you have had ideas, many behind the scenes, so let's get on the same page!
 
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