Thread: Fic of the Month - Monsters and Men-Quirky Circuit

Originally Posted by LightningTopaz

To be honest, I had low expectations going in, but once I saw the detail of his world and his characters, I knew he was worthy for the award.

I don't blame you. I just about always have low expectations when I start reading a fic posted on a forum. It's because most of what I've found was mediocre or just plain terrible. xP

This is one reason I started writing. So I could put out some more good fan fiction out there. It pleases me to know that I've received much more praise than negative feedback so far. I'd like to publish original work someday too.

But I've only won a writing award once. xP

I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more from Llama_Guy in the future

Know the feeling about low expectations. As I mentioned earlier, I've done a fair bit of reviewing, and trust me, most of my reviews have been for horribly written stories that never ventured beyond the first chapter, if it could even be called a chapter

And I do hope y'all will see more of me in the future, I most certainly plan to stick around :P

wow, i've actually never heard of this story! xD. i may go and read it because of the award it got now. it sounds really interesting and creative!

also i've been wondering... to get into the hall of fame, does your story HAVE to be a pokemon fan-fiction, or can it be of another fandom/an original story? just curious. it's probably an obvious answer xD.

anyway, i hope i'll be featured in here sometime soon, and congrats to the people who already have!

^It's brand-new.

And no, non-Pokémon fics are eligible as well, if past winners are anything to go by.

Mmh, I'm sorry if I'm disappointing anyone, but I might discontinue the fic. Not because I have a writer's block or anything - on the contrary, I have a ton of great ideas for the fic, and its universe. But I guess, in the end, when it comes to pokemon, I want to write something a bit more... pokemon-y. Pokemon battles, a modern era, beautiful nature and the experience of adventure... stuff like that. Stuff I cant' portray so well in the story I was writing.

If you liked it, then a small remedy may be that I'm looking into adopting it into an original story, because, as I said, I really liked it and have tons of ideas of what I want to do with it.

Also, I'm immediately starting work on a new fic. It'll be set in a more contemporary pokemon setting, and will, in its own way, deal more with the traditional pokemon adventure, pokemon battling and all that. Still with a twist though, as the main character is not a pokemon trainer per se... ;P and it'll still be more mature than the pokemon franchise at large. I'll leave it at that, and hope you'll wish to read this new story instead - one I'm much more motivated for and inclined to actually write! The result might just turn out for the better as well, quality-wise.

And. Yeah. Long post. I'll leave it at that.

Our Fic of the Month this month is harryheart's Max's Hoenn Journey!

What made you decide to write a story about Max?

My initial inspiration came solely from the AG era and the fact I disliked some of the writer's decisions involving Max's plot, or lack of. I knew before I began writing it that I wanted to do a Pokemon fanfic of some sorts, and it just made sense to fit Max into that story because, at the time, there appeared to be few to no stories based on him and I wanted to do his character justice. Once the decision was made it was a pretty straight forward job in creating a story based on him, and looking back at it I'm glad I chose to go with an established character as well because I had something to base my story off. Although, with an original character you do have the option of creating their entire history, but I felt I could relate to Max (which I must admit was another compelling factor to write about him) and therefore do him justice.

How did you plan his journey?

Being honest, when I first sat down to write his journey there was no plan at all, or a very basic structure at the most. I knew I wanted to give him Charmander and try and create an interesting 'evil' team, and also do justice to Team Rocket, but besides that I didn't have any other plan. It was only when the first chapter was written that the first arc set in Oldale appeared and then things developed from there and I had an ongoing plot created around the 'evil' team (reason for not stating their name is that it's yet to be revealed in the story on BMGF) and eventually other things fitted into place.

Originally, from this point onwards, the plan was to do something similar to the anime and do a 'different Pokemon appears in each episode' sort of thing, but it was obvious from the word go that this idea was never going to work because a story is a lot different to a weekly show!

So once I discarded that, I just tried a few simplistic ideas and the initial chapter came together (in planning stage at least). Once I had all that created, however, I began to form an actual plot as I realised that having just a basic and almost non existant plot wasn't going to work well. And almost a month after I started writing it back in 2008 I had the first 50 odd chapters created and it was a solid basis to what I have now. From there things developed as I wrote, so I could see how characters interacted and could plan accordingly, I could evolve new storylines related to what had appeared on tv etc. And now, almost 4 years on, I have 120 chapters planned, one chapter off planning completion, and a lot of long running plot devices, mini arcs and the potential to develop characters and plots further, which is quite nice actually as I do still have overall creative control. And I guess, in some respects, it also leaves the door open to potential futher stories...

As a final side note on this one, when Unova was introduced I did make a little bit of reshuffling to try and work around it, and I feel that it has added something to the story that potentially lacked in the original plan, and will help my characters deal with many new situations I hope.

Is there anything you wish you could've done differently? If so, what?

Yes! I really wish I could've stuck to a writing schedule and have been able to be half way through the bulk of 121 chapters, but that's not that crucial to the overall plot I suppose.

Regarding the plot, the only change I probably would make would be the development of Max as a character and try and make less foolish mistakes in the first few chapters. I'd also really like to make the first 10 chapters a higher quality, and also make a few plot tweeks which I can't really do now due to them being well established. Saying that, I have made a few little changes such as the development of the Pendant plot, which I'm really really excited about, and so I had to go back to the early chapters and edit in accordance to what happened in Chapter 12.

Another slight change, although not really a huge difference, would be the cradting of the chapters and the way they were written. I feel I could do a better job on them now, but nevertheless they're still a part of me now and a part of where the story is so I feel quite nostalgic about them.

Were you pleasantly surprised at how a chapter came out?

I'm always pleasantly surprised at how a chapter comes together and is eventually completed. Often, it feels as if it develops before me and I'm a lucky viewer that gets a sneaky peak before everyone else. The characters definitely have a life of their own, and that's what I love about them, so sometimes they do things which really surprise me but are just natural developments of who they are. I love Harriet solely for this reason, she's always doing unexpeted things for me, especially considering she was never going to be a main character but made such a crucial decision that she eventually became Max's travelling companion and replaced the part time Roxanne (who was always going to be that way). I wonder whether anyone that's read it can tell who the original choice of a travelling companion was going to be before Harriet made her fateful decision?

One thing I love with the recent chapters is how the writing style brings the chapter together. I really feel that over the course of these 3 1/2 years my writing style has improved and the way I convey ideas has done so as well, so I really am loving my present writing as it feels like an accomplishment and a culmination of all these years of work, and it does surpirse me because I never believed I could write some of the things I do.

How did you design Max's party?

I knew what the core memberswould be since the first chapter, bar a last minute change to one of his later captures.

Because I felt I could relate to him and that we were similar (back then at least), I felt that the Pokemon with which I could relate to, he could relate to as well. So it seemed very simple to match them together, which was inevitably the reason why I needed to introduce Max to a Charmander from the first chapter. There's also been an arc with Shuppet, which is why I love using Max's history so much because it can influence the way I write, and rest assured, another iconic Max Pokemon does appear!

With the introduction of Unova, I was able to make some fitting changes to some other characters party's, but I knew that with Max I didn't want to make any changes as it seemed like it was forced to me, so it was obvious how the reader's would perceive the decision. However, saying that, I could see a very big plot point that I could use if I tried something out, so there may be a few surpirses later on in the story that will help Max grow! Inevitably, it's always to help the plot develop, thicken and deepen and to help the characters grow.

Any advice for new writers?

Oh yes... Don't ever be put off by other writers! We're all different and it can often take time to develop plots, characters and even writing styles, so we often may have to go through many a draft, many different stories, to get to a certain place. That's what happened with me and I'm glad I didn't give up or scrap the story like some people suggested, if I did I wouldn't be where I am today.

On a writing note, however, do listen to experienced writers... and read!!! Firstly, experienced writers are often experienced because they had to overcome their own mistakes and really deal with some hard craft issues, so they have numerous helpful tips that can make starting out an easier task than it may seem. And secondly using the age old saying: 'reading never hurts anyone!' That's so true, it doesn't. In fact, for a writer it's more of a help than a hinderance as your own ideas, plots, characters and craft can subtly grow without much effort on your part because you're absorbing so much from just reading a few crafted sentences that someone else has written.

There are probably a lot more technical things to write here, but I'm not really one for all of that, so I think I'll end it here with just a few helpful pointers that will hopefully help anyone venturing into writing - oh, and one final tip. Try it!

You forgot to change the thread title. xP

I'm about to do that

Congrats harryheart!!

Originally Posted by Prodigy

Congrats harryheart!!

Thank you very much. I was very honoured to receive this and very pleased that it's allowed to be showcased.

Honking my own horn aside, I must say that it truly is an honour and I want to stress how thankful I am. I hope anyone that comes to read it really connects with the characters and the story, and I also hope *pray* that the first few chapters won't beat anyone down! They do improve... slightly... if people can get past them.

'grats HArryheart. I remember reading your fic awhile back, before my long hiatus from the WW. Imma definately go back and read everything i missed now! :)

Originally Posted by KantoMasta

'grats HArryheart. I remember reading your fic awhile back, before my long hiatus from the WW. Imma definately go back and read everything i missed now! :)

Thank you very much. I really appreicate your comments, it's lovely to hear that it was something enjoyable to you! I hope you like the rest as well!

Just a word of warning that there will be no FOTM for May due to the awards

June's FOTM is unrepentantAuthor's "Different Eyes"

Here's the interview:


Pokemorph fics have been done many times before--how do you think yours stands out?

I like to think that Different Eyes has a unique insight into the psychological and philosophical depth that demihuman hybrids are capable of giving to a story. To me, pokémorphs aren't a cool idea to be exploited for some badassery quota; they're a catalyst for an introspective story about the way we view our own humanity. Their familiar alienness fascinates me, but I can't recall seeing it explored in other fics, most of which treat morphs as superpowered humans without touching on the physical and emotional consequences of hybridisation. Different Eyes, however, explores the gap between humans and human-like creatures that do not share our worldview.

What inspired you to write the story?

Directly, I suppose it was exposure firstly to a great deal of excellent Mewtwo fanfiction that discussed his near-human nature - a theme central to Different Eyes - and secondly to other pokémorph fiction that did little more than grant teenage humans superpowers. I thought that combining my own thoughts on the meaningful ideas of the former with the as-yet-unexplored implications of pokémorphs could result in a more robust fic, without the limitation of having to use Mewtwo. That was roughly four years ago, now; it's taken this long for me to get where I needed to be to write this.

More indirectly, inspiration has come from my own experiences as an outsider to mainstream society. It's fair to say I've long been a social outcast - when I first had the ideas that would later become Different Eyes, it was so bad I was convinced I was somehow not human. That feeling of being alien, of being other, of being different, has stayed with me long after I learned how to make friends. It's a feeling I want to give catharsis to in my writing, and I like to think the effect it had on my psyche makes my work all the richer.

What were the inspirations for your characters?

I don't mind admitting that I draw some inspiration from the character of myself and others. Salem certainly isn't dissimilar to me - we're both extremely introverted, bookish, and pensive, after all. I think I also draw inspiration from ideas about worldview. Each character tends to - but not always! - represent an alternative view of things. Appropriate, given the title! Whereas Pyre sees another person as a threat, Dusk may simply see them as opportunities to have fun, and another character might view them as a tool to achieve their own goals. Seeing those views evolve and mature, and understanding the many ways in which it is possible to consider things, is something I want to make central to the fic.

Was there any particularly challenging scenes to write? Any particularly enjoyable scenes?

So far, the first sparring session between Salem and Dusk took the most revisions for me to be happy with it, but the hardest was probably the first scene. It did take four years to write, after all~ The scenes I've enjoyed writing the most so far have been Salem's interactions with Dusk; their dialogue is great fun to think up, and it's almost a game to me to see how many times I can get Dusk to make an innuendo that Salem completely fails to notice.

Do you have any future projects planned? Do you think you will write more about Salem and her friends?

I have a great many projects planned, most of which are original fiction rather than pokémon fanfiction. I've got plans for a series inspired by the X-Files, Torchwood, the SCP Foundation and others, about an organisation protecting Earth from extraordinary phenomena. I have ideas for a cyberpunk novel set on the moons of Jupiter. I have a concept for a low fantasy in which magic dies and steampunk dwarves come to power. My brain is teeming with stories, waiting to be written. Will I write more pokémorphs? It's possible. I'd honestly prefer Different Eyes to be a single project, sans sequels, but it will undoubtedly be long enough to satisfy fans after I'm done thoroughly picking apart my enormous list of ideas for it.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

Where to start? Practice writing, study theory, read obsessively! Carry a notebook wherever you go~ Make edits, get feedback, aspire to improve. Search for inspiration in all things! Neglect neither character, nor plot, not prose. Absorb the accumulated wisdom of great writers. Don't be afraid. Keep going, never stop, and love your writing.

And lastly... always be a little bit improbable~