Chareon
04-10-2005, 11:05 PM
***All aspiring authors and people who have never written fanfics***
__________________________________________________ _________
It has come to my attention that some of you have never written fanfics, or are fanfic writers, and usually have trouble with what to do. Please note, that this guide is for future member reference. No, I m not picking on you guys :)
Terms:
Prologue: An introductory section of a literary work. It often contains information establishing the situation of the characters or presents information about the setting, time period, or action.
Epilogue: A concluding statement or section of a literary work. In dramas, particularly those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the epilogue is a closing speech, often in Verse, delivered by an actor at the end of a play and spoken directly to the audience.
Plot: a diagram; making a schematic or technical outline that shows how things work or how they are constructed
Storyline:The setting for the story, including such things as an introduction to the characters, their location, and the reason they do what they do.
Here's the Basics
1) Planning.
Before you write a fic it is good to plan out what you will about. This is usually a prologue. Decide what kind of genre you want to go for. Action, adventure, drama, romance, or horror. If you pick action, then when brainstorming, you should always come up with more than one idea for a story. For example:
"The Legend of Kyogre"
"Ash's Final Battle"
"Go Zangoose Go!"
Come up with a few titles that you like(of course you may choose to change them as you are writing the story, but this is just a good start). Now divide your planning into sections: Characters, setting, time, mood.
-Characters
Come up with characters for your story. You do all of this before you write you story. Remember that this is basic brainstorming. What is our characters attitude? Background? How do they look? And how does your character affect people? You need to come up with these things before you choose to write your story, as it would be very hard to write your story without knowing your character inside and out.
Example:
Kenta
Age: 10
Looks: Kenta is short for his age, and his shirt sleeves go just beyond his wrists. Kenta has black hair, and where's a black cap to the side. His eyes are bashful blue, and he wears loose, blue shorts, accompanied by a belt. He wears plain blue, and black sneakers, with white socks.
Personality: Obnoxious, brave, and short tempered.
How does he affect the people he meet: At first Kenta seems to be arrogant about his battle skills, but he is actually a good person and a loyal friend when you get to know him.
background: Kenta comes from a middle-class family, in Little Root town. He has a history of getting into trouble.
^You don't include this in your story. This is just for you, to help you when writing. Put your characters on paper, before you put them into a story ^_^
-Setting
Where does the story begin? Where does the story takes place? Kanto, The Seafoam Islands, or in a dark alley, wherever you choose, just make sure that you know the setting. Are your characters in danger at the time? Or are they planning to make an attack on someone? You must come up with this before you begin writing. Of course the setting changes as the story moves along, but you should always find a start. Where do your characters start? And where do they finish?
-Mood
What is the mood. Is the mood of the story calm and smooth, giving the reader a feel a peace and serenity. Or is the story on-edge, making your reader sit on the edge of their computer chair, ready to burst with every other word? Give your story a mood, an aura that it can give off to the reader, so that they can instantly become interested as soon as they start reading.
Here's an example:
Kenta, Sapphire, and Blue are on a mission in the busy, energetic city of Petalbug, getting ready to aid Professor Oak in his search for the missing mew.(Bam! Right there the mood is set, an action-packed mystery)
-Time Period
At what time does all of this take place? Your reader needs to know the time setting for the story. What year does the story take place?(this is not manditory) What time does certain events happen? Night, Day, Noon, or evening. When you first begin writing your story, what time is it?
Examples:
It was Midnight, Kenta and friends were his friends were planning a stake out.
It was two o'clock exactly when Kenta decided that it was time to attack.
The event took place hours, before Kenta had expected.
You don't have to give the time for everything, just every now and then, so that your reader doesn't get confused. It is vital that you include the time period in your story.
An example of a prologue:
The year is 3025, the setting is a dark, creepy field. Zack and Bulbasaur are getting ready for their first gym battle. Zack is already nervous from a battle that he lost to Aoshi, a confident, cocky trainer who is always two steps ahead of him when it comes to Pokemon. As he and Bulbasaur continue to train into the early morning, Zack realizes that he may not ready. Will Zack be able to overcome his butterflies and pull together enough will power to earn his first badge?
or
It was a calm and peaceful night. Zack was preparing for his first pokemon battle, aided by his trusty Bulbasuar. Zack was already anxious from a battle with Aoshi, a cocky, and confident trainer, in which he claimed defeat. After hours of training, Zack, realizes that he may not be ready to battle. Can Zack overcome his nerves, and go for his first badge?
Make sure that when you go into your story from the prologue, that you flow. The prologue is just to give the readers a view of what is happening and introduce them to the story. Before a prologue you must decide what the story is supposed to be about.
2.) Detail
A good story must include good detail. Descride the places that your character visits, is the place exciting or boring? Is the place clean or eyecatching? What is some of the contents of this place?
An example of content:
Kenta entered a dimlit room at the end of the corridor. He struck a match to give him some light, only to find that the room was an undusted closet, filled with boxes of old newspapers and trophies, all piled up and crammed on small shelves.(Describe what is located in the room and where it is located)
Also describe your characters and tell what they look like. Give them emotions, breath life into them. Whenever a character is scared it is good to describe their feeling. "Kenta felt a cold chill go up his spine as the footsteps got closer" Don't just say "Kenta was happy" Describe what the feeling felt like.
You can give to to much detail. "The shaken Kenta catiously crept into the dark and lonely corridor looking, anxiously, around as a hungy hawk does for its mortified prey, for the coveted, eyecatching, and valuable Master ball, to quickly catch a high leveled, high risk Kyogre, which he unexpectedly heard about, from the incredulous Blue." To much description can cause confusion for your reader.
3.) Grammer/Spelling
A good story must have good grammer and spelling, in order to keep it flowing, help the reader, give clarity, and make you look like you know what you're doing. Note the following:
Noun- a person, place, thing, or idea.
-Person: Cody(proper noun)
-thing: dog
-Place: store
-idea: thought
^The last three are common nouns.
Proper nouns-a noun that denotes a particular thing; usually capitalized
-person: Steven
-thing: German Shepherd
-place: Japan
Verb: a content word that denotes an action or a state
Example: ran, bit, grew, fired, shot, said, shouted
Adverb:Describes the verb. Usually ends in ly
Example: I hardly touched him.
^Verb is underlined. Adverb is italicized.
Adjective: Describes or modifies the noun.
Example: The delicious strawberry pleased the hungry Houndoom.
Adjectives can be the color of something, or the size of something, it describes the noun.
Pronoun: Usually takes the place of a noun.
Example: Instead of saying Kenta, you would say he or him. "He took a bite of the apple"
Articles: Determiners; words in a grammatical class of noun modifiers that are not adjectives, such as the, a, an."The" "a" or "an"
Nonessential elements: They are things that are needed in a sentenc, but added anyways. They are usually seperate by a comma. That means that if you were to take the word out, the sentence would still flow.
Example:
Kenta, a very illustrious and strategic pokemon trainer, was about to make his move. "a very illustrious and strategic pokemon trainer" is the nonessential element. Now let's take it out.
Kenta was about to make his move.
^See? The sentence still flow smoothly
Sentence: A complete thought. Ends with a . ? or !
"Kenta wanted some candy" That is a complete thought.
Fragment:An incomplete sentence or thought. "Kent wanted some" He wanted some what? The thought is not complete.
Commas- , commas have many uses. The main use however is to seperate three or more items in a series. Ex: apples, oranges, peaches, and plums. The last word in the seires is seperated by 'and' or 'or'.
Other uses are:
-Indicating a short pause in a sentence. Ex: After school, we went to the store.
-Comes after "No" Or "Yes" at the beginning of a sentence.
Ex: No, you may not go outside.
-Used after said, say, or some other refference to speech, when a person is speaking at the moment. Ex: Kenta said, "I know what I am doing!"
-Used before 'but'
Semicolon:; a punctuation mark which indicates a pause longer than a comma, but shorter than a colon. A colon is like a period. The only time that a colon is needed is when you can remove it and add a period in its spot and the sentence still makes sense.
Kenta went to visit his grandmother; he intended to go the store next.
Now remove it and place a period.
Kenta went to visit his grandmother. He intended to go to the store next.
^See how it works? ^_^
period: placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations.
"Kenta went up the ladder."-Declarative sentence, maes a statement
D.A., Jr., or T.K.-abbrevations
Exclamation point: ! indicates excitement or action.
"He used stunspore!"
"Ouch! I hit my head!"
Questions mark: ? used when asking a question.
"Can I have some?"
"Could you look at this for me?"
Quotation marks: " " Quotation marks, also called quotes or inverted commas, are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark.
Kenta said, "That was something I didn't want to see."(note: punctuation goes inside the closing mark)
"You really need to train more," taunted Gary.
Other tips for Grammer:
-Always spellcheck before you post. If you're not sure if you spelled it right, don't put (sp?) check the word.
-Make sure that you use the right word for what you mean. But and butt are two different things.
-Always capitalize the first word of a sentence, and proper nouns.
-Do not use the word "very" to much. It gets annoying. Expand your vocabulary. Try others adjectives.
-Always capitalize the letter "I" when it is by itself.
4.) How to utilize your keyboard
Enter: Whenever you have finished with one idea and are ready to move on to the next paragraph. Use it when one person is done speaking, and another person is about to begin speaking.This makes it a lot easier for your readers to tell when someone else is speaking and when your paragraph ends.
Shift: Hold it down when typing the first letter of a sentence, the first letter of a name, or the letter 'I' when using it as a pronoun. Use it for capitalization.
Caps Lock: Usually used as a substitute for 'Shift'. Text should not be in all capital letters unless someone is SHOUTING! It capitalizes everything you type.
Spacebar: Hit it once after every word or comma, or end punctuation mark.
Tab: Used to indent a paragraph
Backspace: Erases the character to the left of the cursor.
Delete: Erases the character to the right of the cursor.
Insert: When ever you hit this key, while you are typing it will erase whatever was before what you are typing. Most people hit it accidently and erase most of their story.
Arrow Keys: Instead of clicking on every spot where you wish to type, or to move the cursor, use the arrow keys, to moe arround easier.
5.) Characters
Your characters should be real. Not real in real life, but believable. Give them personality and character. How they act and what they say should reflect on who they are. Don't make them bland and uninteresting. Don't make he/she an 'invincible' trainer, losing is apart of character development.
6.) Paragraphs
Use these as your basic unit of composition. Each paragraph should, at least, contain five to seven sentences. If a paragraph seems to long, it probably contains multiple ideas, and should be seperated for clarity. If it is too short, add on to the idea.
7.) Description
Make sure that your reader can visualize what is happening.
Don't just list attributes. Kenta doesn't just have blue eyes, make it interesting. Kenta has glowing, blue eyes, that make you melt when you look into them.
3) Plot
Try to be original. A ten year old, loudmouth, kid, who wants to be the world's greatest pokemon master, has already been done. Come up with your own ideas. Be reasonable, as well, most trainers don't capture a Groudon or Zapdos, or any other uber.
Tip: Try typing your program in a wordprocessing program like Microsoft Word, in order to check for spelling and grammer.
***Please note that this thread is based off of My oppinion and you can either accept it or refuse it****
Rukario's personal advice
-Be very descriptive in battles. Don't just say "Torchic used flamethower and totodile dodged." Try "Torchic emitted a scorching hot flamethower that heated up the whole stadium, but, luckily, totdile managed to dodge by swiftly aiming a watergun at the ground and blasting it at full power to propel it into the air." Make the battles easy to visualize and exciting.
-Give you pokemon a pesonality as well as the characters.
Well, that's it. Feel free to add on your own suggestions, as well.
__________________________________________________ _________
It has come to my attention that some of you have never written fanfics, or are fanfic writers, and usually have trouble with what to do. Please note, that this guide is for future member reference. No, I m not picking on you guys :)
Terms:
Prologue: An introductory section of a literary work. It often contains information establishing the situation of the characters or presents information about the setting, time period, or action.
Epilogue: A concluding statement or section of a literary work. In dramas, particularly those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the epilogue is a closing speech, often in Verse, delivered by an actor at the end of a play and spoken directly to the audience.
Plot: a diagram; making a schematic or technical outline that shows how things work or how they are constructed
Storyline:The setting for the story, including such things as an introduction to the characters, their location, and the reason they do what they do.
Here's the Basics
1) Planning.
Before you write a fic it is good to plan out what you will about. This is usually a prologue. Decide what kind of genre you want to go for. Action, adventure, drama, romance, or horror. If you pick action, then when brainstorming, you should always come up with more than one idea for a story. For example:
"The Legend of Kyogre"
"Ash's Final Battle"
"Go Zangoose Go!"
Come up with a few titles that you like(of course you may choose to change them as you are writing the story, but this is just a good start). Now divide your planning into sections: Characters, setting, time, mood.
-Characters
Come up with characters for your story. You do all of this before you write you story. Remember that this is basic brainstorming. What is our characters attitude? Background? How do they look? And how does your character affect people? You need to come up with these things before you choose to write your story, as it would be very hard to write your story without knowing your character inside and out.
Example:
Kenta
Age: 10
Looks: Kenta is short for his age, and his shirt sleeves go just beyond his wrists. Kenta has black hair, and where's a black cap to the side. His eyes are bashful blue, and he wears loose, blue shorts, accompanied by a belt. He wears plain blue, and black sneakers, with white socks.
Personality: Obnoxious, brave, and short tempered.
How does he affect the people he meet: At first Kenta seems to be arrogant about his battle skills, but he is actually a good person and a loyal friend when you get to know him.
background: Kenta comes from a middle-class family, in Little Root town. He has a history of getting into trouble.
^You don't include this in your story. This is just for you, to help you when writing. Put your characters on paper, before you put them into a story ^_^
-Setting
Where does the story begin? Where does the story takes place? Kanto, The Seafoam Islands, or in a dark alley, wherever you choose, just make sure that you know the setting. Are your characters in danger at the time? Or are they planning to make an attack on someone? You must come up with this before you begin writing. Of course the setting changes as the story moves along, but you should always find a start. Where do your characters start? And where do they finish?
-Mood
What is the mood. Is the mood of the story calm and smooth, giving the reader a feel a peace and serenity. Or is the story on-edge, making your reader sit on the edge of their computer chair, ready to burst with every other word? Give your story a mood, an aura that it can give off to the reader, so that they can instantly become interested as soon as they start reading.
Here's an example:
Kenta, Sapphire, and Blue are on a mission in the busy, energetic city of Petalbug, getting ready to aid Professor Oak in his search for the missing mew.(Bam! Right there the mood is set, an action-packed mystery)
-Time Period
At what time does all of this take place? Your reader needs to know the time setting for the story. What year does the story take place?(this is not manditory) What time does certain events happen? Night, Day, Noon, or evening. When you first begin writing your story, what time is it?
Examples:
It was Midnight, Kenta and friends were his friends were planning a stake out.
It was two o'clock exactly when Kenta decided that it was time to attack.
The event took place hours, before Kenta had expected.
You don't have to give the time for everything, just every now and then, so that your reader doesn't get confused. It is vital that you include the time period in your story.
An example of a prologue:
The year is 3025, the setting is a dark, creepy field. Zack and Bulbasaur are getting ready for their first gym battle. Zack is already nervous from a battle that he lost to Aoshi, a confident, cocky trainer who is always two steps ahead of him when it comes to Pokemon. As he and Bulbasaur continue to train into the early morning, Zack realizes that he may not ready. Will Zack be able to overcome his butterflies and pull together enough will power to earn his first badge?
or
It was a calm and peaceful night. Zack was preparing for his first pokemon battle, aided by his trusty Bulbasuar. Zack was already anxious from a battle with Aoshi, a cocky, and confident trainer, in which he claimed defeat. After hours of training, Zack, realizes that he may not be ready to battle. Can Zack overcome his nerves, and go for his first badge?
Make sure that when you go into your story from the prologue, that you flow. The prologue is just to give the readers a view of what is happening and introduce them to the story. Before a prologue you must decide what the story is supposed to be about.
2.) Detail
A good story must include good detail. Descride the places that your character visits, is the place exciting or boring? Is the place clean or eyecatching? What is some of the contents of this place?
An example of content:
Kenta entered a dimlit room at the end of the corridor. He struck a match to give him some light, only to find that the room was an undusted closet, filled with boxes of old newspapers and trophies, all piled up and crammed on small shelves.(Describe what is located in the room and where it is located)
Also describe your characters and tell what they look like. Give them emotions, breath life into them. Whenever a character is scared it is good to describe their feeling. "Kenta felt a cold chill go up his spine as the footsteps got closer" Don't just say "Kenta was happy" Describe what the feeling felt like.
You can give to to much detail. "The shaken Kenta catiously crept into the dark and lonely corridor looking, anxiously, around as a hungy hawk does for its mortified prey, for the coveted, eyecatching, and valuable Master ball, to quickly catch a high leveled, high risk Kyogre, which he unexpectedly heard about, from the incredulous Blue." To much description can cause confusion for your reader.
3.) Grammer/Spelling
A good story must have good grammer and spelling, in order to keep it flowing, help the reader, give clarity, and make you look like you know what you're doing. Note the following:
Noun- a person, place, thing, or idea.
-Person: Cody(proper noun)
-thing: dog
-Place: store
-idea: thought
^The last three are common nouns.
Proper nouns-a noun that denotes a particular thing; usually capitalized
-person: Steven
-thing: German Shepherd
-place: Japan
Verb: a content word that denotes an action or a state
Example: ran, bit, grew, fired, shot, said, shouted
Adverb:Describes the verb. Usually ends in ly
Example: I hardly touched him.
^Verb is underlined. Adverb is italicized.
Adjective: Describes or modifies the noun.
Example: The delicious strawberry pleased the hungry Houndoom.
Adjectives can be the color of something, or the size of something, it describes the noun.
Pronoun: Usually takes the place of a noun.
Example: Instead of saying Kenta, you would say he or him. "He took a bite of the apple"
Articles: Determiners; words in a grammatical class of noun modifiers that are not adjectives, such as the, a, an."The" "a" or "an"
Nonessential elements: They are things that are needed in a sentenc, but added anyways. They are usually seperate by a comma. That means that if you were to take the word out, the sentence would still flow.
Example:
Kenta, a very illustrious and strategic pokemon trainer, was about to make his move. "a very illustrious and strategic pokemon trainer" is the nonessential element. Now let's take it out.
Kenta was about to make his move.
^See? The sentence still flow smoothly
Sentence: A complete thought. Ends with a . ? or !
"Kenta wanted some candy" That is a complete thought.
Fragment:An incomplete sentence or thought. "Kent wanted some" He wanted some what? The thought is not complete.
Commas- , commas have many uses. The main use however is to seperate three or more items in a series. Ex: apples, oranges, peaches, and plums. The last word in the seires is seperated by 'and' or 'or'.
Other uses are:
-Indicating a short pause in a sentence. Ex: After school, we went to the store.
-Comes after "No" Or "Yes" at the beginning of a sentence.
Ex: No, you may not go outside.
-Used after said, say, or some other refference to speech, when a person is speaking at the moment. Ex: Kenta said, "I know what I am doing!"
-Used before 'but'
Semicolon:; a punctuation mark which indicates a pause longer than a comma, but shorter than a colon. A colon is like a period. The only time that a colon is needed is when you can remove it and add a period in its spot and the sentence still makes sense.
Kenta went to visit his grandmother; he intended to go the store next.
Now remove it and place a period.
Kenta went to visit his grandmother. He intended to go to the store next.
^See how it works? ^_^
period: placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations.
"Kenta went up the ladder."-Declarative sentence, maes a statement
D.A., Jr., or T.K.-abbrevations
Exclamation point: ! indicates excitement or action.
"He used stunspore!"
"Ouch! I hit my head!"
Questions mark: ? used when asking a question.
"Can I have some?"
"Could you look at this for me?"
Quotation marks: " " Quotation marks, also called quotes or inverted commas, are punctuation marks used in pairs to set off speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark.
Kenta said, "That was something I didn't want to see."(note: punctuation goes inside the closing mark)
"You really need to train more," taunted Gary.
Other tips for Grammer:
-Always spellcheck before you post. If you're not sure if you spelled it right, don't put (sp?) check the word.
-Make sure that you use the right word for what you mean. But and butt are two different things.
-Always capitalize the first word of a sentence, and proper nouns.
-Do not use the word "very" to much. It gets annoying. Expand your vocabulary. Try others adjectives.
-Always capitalize the letter "I" when it is by itself.
4.) How to utilize your keyboard
Enter: Whenever you have finished with one idea and are ready to move on to the next paragraph. Use it when one person is done speaking, and another person is about to begin speaking.This makes it a lot easier for your readers to tell when someone else is speaking and when your paragraph ends.
Shift: Hold it down when typing the first letter of a sentence, the first letter of a name, or the letter 'I' when using it as a pronoun. Use it for capitalization.
Caps Lock: Usually used as a substitute for 'Shift'. Text should not be in all capital letters unless someone is SHOUTING! It capitalizes everything you type.
Spacebar: Hit it once after every word or comma, or end punctuation mark.
Tab: Used to indent a paragraph
Backspace: Erases the character to the left of the cursor.
Delete: Erases the character to the right of the cursor.
Insert: When ever you hit this key, while you are typing it will erase whatever was before what you are typing. Most people hit it accidently and erase most of their story.
Arrow Keys: Instead of clicking on every spot where you wish to type, or to move the cursor, use the arrow keys, to moe arround easier.
5.) Characters
Your characters should be real. Not real in real life, but believable. Give them personality and character. How they act and what they say should reflect on who they are. Don't make them bland and uninteresting. Don't make he/she an 'invincible' trainer, losing is apart of character development.
6.) Paragraphs
Use these as your basic unit of composition. Each paragraph should, at least, contain five to seven sentences. If a paragraph seems to long, it probably contains multiple ideas, and should be seperated for clarity. If it is too short, add on to the idea.
7.) Description
Make sure that your reader can visualize what is happening.
Don't just list attributes. Kenta doesn't just have blue eyes, make it interesting. Kenta has glowing, blue eyes, that make you melt when you look into them.
3) Plot
Try to be original. A ten year old, loudmouth, kid, who wants to be the world's greatest pokemon master, has already been done. Come up with your own ideas. Be reasonable, as well, most trainers don't capture a Groudon or Zapdos, or any other uber.
Tip: Try typing your program in a wordprocessing program like Microsoft Word, in order to check for spelling and grammer.
***Please note that this thread is based off of My oppinion and you can either accept it or refuse it****
Rukario's personal advice
-Be very descriptive in battles. Don't just say "Torchic used flamethower and totodile dodged." Try "Torchic emitted a scorching hot flamethower that heated up the whole stadium, but, luckily, totdile managed to dodge by swiftly aiming a watergun at the ground and blasting it at full power to propel it into the air." Make the battles easy to visualize and exciting.
-Give you pokemon a pesonality as well as the characters.
Well, that's it. Feel free to add on your own suggestions, as well.