Writer's Workshop General Chat Thread

[Red]

I've gotten used to the post/reply ratio thing too, it just pisses me off when I think about it.

[Selemena]

Sometimes you just have a drought, and you have to get over it. I posted something like twenty-seven chapters of my fic on FFN and only got like one review. At 34 chapters, I have 42 of them. At PC, I often go ten chapters or more without anyone replying (though that FF forum is kinda dead).

The bottom line is that sometimes it happens that you don't get many replies, if any at all, and the best thing you can do is keep writing and keep posting. (Oh, and review other people's fics. That usually helps, though it's not a tenet I've been sticking to as well as I could have lately.)

[Flaze]

Yeah but it still sucks I mean if people do read it then they should reply of course you don't know if they read or don't read. But droughts suck in the end. Actually I don't understand FF can you only get reviews once people see you're actually sticking to the story because I've put a lot of my early stories there and I only got like 2 or 3 reviews.

[ectoBiologist]

i usually review a lot to get views and comments on my story. it usually doesn't work, but sometimes it works miracles.

[Red]

Dude, it seems like every fic here has a drought. Even fics like essence of life and good ones like that have like 5,000 views and like a 100 replies. It makes you wonder doesn't it :/

[ectoBiologist]

yeah. i guess it's just double views for people who want to re-read, and go back a couple pages, stuff like that. most of the time, people come in, read the first sentence and then leave. or leave if it's too long, or whatever, which is a pretty big loss to a lot of the fics here. it's especially hard for original stories since this is a pokemon forum and people would come here for pokemon fan-fictions, not mario fan-fictions or original stories.

[Flaze]

i usually review a lot to get views and comments on my story. it usually doesn't work, but sometimes it works miracles.

I actually read the first few chapters but your story is a bit too gory for me xD I'll try to read it again though.

Sadly regardless of how you put it you'll always have more views than reviews :(

[ectoBiologist]

really? o_o the devil's gift wasn't that gory, imo, but razayka on the other hand... is, like, brains and guts and intestines all over the place kind of gore. wolves aren't necessarily the cleanest killers on the planet, heh heh.

[Flaze]

So here's something I've been meaning to ask. When you give your main character a love interest or something like that, is it better to wait till the end to resolve that love plotline or is it better to just settle it in general so as to focus on something else.

[ectoBiologist]

huh. i generally focus on it, and it's just another plotline that appears in the middle of the story. i think adding a love interest is a great way to flesh out how protective your character can be, and what he does to maintain love with this person.

[Flaze]

The one in my story is different xD the love interest actually looked over the main character at first and in changed gradually with time.

[The Jingster]

wow lots of activity

@moviesoundtrack thingy. I imagine mine as episodes and basically plan the end of each chapter so that a giant 'To be continued' sign could pop on screen and you simply hear the last words from a character leaving you a little uneasy as to what will happen next. One of my friends told me that cliff hangers are actually one of my stronger points XD

As for soundtrack, it would almost all be ocremixes, they have something for literally every emotion Battle :D

@view thingy. Yeah, not getting reviews does make it feel like you're blindly moving forwards trying to get better with no direction. That's why I actually listen closely to each review I get and see if I can use it to help (I've gotten betterish with paragraphing thanks to Legacy/Stellar and everyone else who reviewed)

@love interest thingy. Personally, I try to decide how important love is to the character. If they're just a kid with a crush, then I set it aside at times since its nothing more than a crush, but if the char is ligitimatly in love, then I make it influence some of their actions throughout the story. The moment the thing is resolved? I don't think it ever really is resolved, if they stay in love, then you still have to take it into account, same for heart breaks.

@everyone saying their secret projects. I have two one-shots in production. Something very light hearted and happy, and a dark one. Sadly due to finals/homework, I've had to set them aside for a bit ><

[Flaze]

Actually that heart break part of your chapter brings up another point. Switching love interests, like what if you have a character end up with his love interest and later on have him switch, like they break up and he falls in love with someone else; it keeps things a little more realistic at least.

[The Jingster]

It does, and it also gives a chance to see other sides of the characters the reader might not have known about, such as if the person gets jealous or not, whether they move on or not etc.

[Selemena]

How much your story focuses on the love interest depends entirely on how much the character focuses on their love interest. And this, of course, will depend on what kind of person your character is and how badly they've fallen. Sometimes a character will actually divert the plot to go chasing the girl; sometimes they'll carry on with the main storyline, but angst miserably about how she'll never know they exist; sometimes they'll just view it as something to come back to after they're done saving the world or whatever. So basically, think about how your character should react, and then you can devote a certain portion of the story to that.