Thread: Bulbagarden Writing Academy Discussion

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks to all of you for making this place truly awesome.

We've been discussing the return of the Bulbagarden Writing Academy in the coming weeks.

For those of you who don't know, the Academy was a project that was started a year or two ago. It was basically my attempt at a group thread that would help authors sharpen their skills and improve. Unfortunately, it sort of fizzled out because of my schedule.

This project is something that we want to really want to revisit and establish as a fixture here in the Workshop, a group effort to help each other improve as writers.

We think it's important because not only will this project help improve authors with the quality of their fics, but also, it could even help us all become better writers in our real lives (school, real world writing, etc.), which is something that is really cool when you think about it.

Now, don't take this to mean we think the quality of work we see from everyone here isn't excellent. Far from it. Again, there is no forum in the fandom that has a better collection of authors than we have. Period.

But even elite level authors can improve in some ways, and that's where the Academy comes in. Instead of one person running this project as was the case before, we are proposing that all of us work together to make this project great. We think a discussion based lesson plan is the best way to do this. After all, thoughtful discussion is a superior way of learning as opposed to lecturing.

What we want is for you to think about yourself as a writer and post what you think we should include as lessons in our academy.

What areas of writing do you feel you and/or others could improve upon? Is it learning good ways to start a fic? Is it character depth?

Please list any ideas you have for lessons and we can get this project underway soon.

And again, thanks for making this place great. Let's all work hard to make it even better!

Thanks, and sorry for the tl;dr.

Love you all.

I think this sounds like a wonderful idea. I know I've only gotten even slightly active in the workshop recently, but I'd love to help out with this. Forgive me if it's too forward, but I'd love to be one of the ones providing and giving lessons. I feel that my background as a formal student of Creative Writing at a UC university could be a big help in the more technical aspects of lessons and explanations (for example, plot vs. story, formal story structure, etc.) if they're needed.

Actually, formal story structure and plot vs. story might be good places to start with lessons. Keeping a plot in focus might also be helpful, as well as how to build a world and characters around a plot instead of building the plot around worlds or characters. Character construction and creation could be useful too.

Anyway, I can't wait to see where this goes. Hope it takes off.

--Aspects of worldbuilding--be this an alternate version of an existing world or a new world built from the ground up
--Names and culture

--How to use comedy effectively - A lot of authors, including myself on occasion, struggle with using comedy in a way that fits the situation they're writing - and that is actually funny. I'd love to see a lesson in the subtle art of comedy.

I personally think something on maintianing fluid action scenes would be awesome since I personally struggle with it

--How to successfully make a plot twist, and how to avoid plot holes.

Great ideas so far guys!

Keep em coming!

Hey, I remember that thread! The articles posted there helped me a ton when I first started writing (over a year and a half ago now, time really flies).

I'm going to have to agree with Jabber on comedy, that's always a good thing to have in a fic yet surprisingly difficult to pull off. Also: emotion, primarily sadness. Too many times I have read (and written) scenes where the reader is suppose to feel sad either out of empathy or sympathy for the character, but I personally can never seem to get it the way I want.

What a fantastic notion. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

In terms of my own writing, there is an aspect that needs some serious improvement, and possibly tutoring. Dialogue. It's the one crucial aspect of writing that my performance in is inadequate. Other staples such as descriptive prose, narrative style and good character psychology are not weaknesses of my own - or so I hope! - but I'd suggest adding them to the list of topics to tutor on.

If this is going to be at least moderately free of hierarchy, I would be delighted to contribute in some way. I don't have anything concrete other than my own writing to recommend me by, but by this summer I will be a student of creative writing in university; that should give you some idea of my commitment to writing in general. I feel I could be of some use.

I'd really like to contribute in some manner as well. I'm studying creative writing starting August, I might just be able to pick up a few lessons and important ideas ; )

As for what I need to work on? Filling out everything inbetween the important plot points. I have a very good outline of my stories and most major events, concepts and such, but when it comes to writing, I only get down the important scenes; the rest is hard for me to write (and motivate myself to write).

What's the status of the project right now? I haven't heard anything, I do hope it's still underway.

Originally Posted by unrepentantAuthor

What's the status of the project right now? I haven't heard anything, I do hope it's still underway.

It's still in the works. It will be launched after the current Awards season is over. One big event at a time :)

How to create superb characters.
How to properly depict cultures and religions different from your own
How to write superior short stories (plots, characters, overall structure)

I would absolutely love to write something on worldbuilding if needed, because... I currently have worldbuilder's disease like no other, and making all the little details of the cultures and history and infrastructure and economy... I find it amazing fun. And I do both in-depth worldbuilding and just general worldbuilding, though usually the former.

However, I would like to put forth that there should be an entire UNIT on characters.

Some ideas for said unit: backstory, motivation, symbolism, appearance (minor), development, perspective (quite a few AMAZING series I've read- Codex Alera and A Song of Ice and Fire come to mind- have multiple perspectives), and character interrelationships.