Writing Thread 2

Link to previous thread (no pics)
archive.is/OpOtF

Discuss writing here or give some advice to struggling writers.

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=bmKaQqinWKY
youtube.com/watch?v=3131tUSlaFQ
youtube.com/watch?v=1LNFlpO29QU
youtube.com/watch?v=S_YlIu-eJvU
youtube.com/watch?v=W5gGEWqO_Ag
raybradbury.ru/stuff/zen_in_the_art_of_writing.pdf
ivanbrave.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Kerouac_SPONTANEOUS_PROSE.pdf
dabhub.com/datas/media/The Hero with a Thousand Faces.pdf
members.upc.ie/innsmouth/Bibliography/EBOOK H.P.LOVECRAFT -SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE.PDF
api.ning.com/files/Y67OzRG71C3BQxspLUyGtPiKTlQl1oto0fc3XCN0I2SgfrhXpIfvldVHMARgrQMc3vJo0GnDqa3VcnBMaDfYWOXRvP8PDSiA/MoorcockWitandHumour1.pdf
uic.edu.hk/~amyzhang/teaching/COMP3050/readings/McCloud_Understanding_Comics.pdf
classes.soe.ucsc.edu/cmps025/Spring11/Draw-Comics-The-Marvel-Way.pdf
floobynooby.com/pdfs/Will_Eisner-Theory_of_Comics_and_Sequential_Art.pdf
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

Reposting this from the other thread. You guys should watch these on why Korra is such a bad piece of work and how you can avoid it.

youtube.com/watch?v=bmKaQqinWKY
youtube.com/watch?v=3131tUSlaFQ
youtube.com/watch?v=1LNFlpO29QU
youtube.com/watch?v=S_YlIu-eJvU
youtube.com/watch?v=W5gGEWqO_Ag

To elaborate, I meant by avoiding the same mistakes that it made (excessive pandering to shippers and SJWs being the most obvious one) when you're writing your own work.

The sound quality on this is a bit fucked, so you'll probably have to turn the volume up to hear it well. But it's Larry Hama at a con talking about the issue of G.I.Joe called Silent Interlude, a total rush job he had to finish in 2 weeks that had not words because lettering takes too long. And it's one of the most well remembered and beloved issues in his entire run, and is what a lot of people think of when they think of silent issues, because it's so well crafted. The entire video is interesting, if you want to know how he put together the book and why he framed it out panel to panel.

However focus on the 40 minute mark, if you want to just get to an important point, where he starts to talk about creating dossier for characters, and how important not violating the characters is. Because if people don't believe your characters, it doesn't matter how good your plot is. So, as I'm writing the story I'm on, I'm trying to detail each main character's life until that point, and if I nail that core concept of the character, I can have a better idea of how they'll react to different things throughout the story. Even if you are a writer who tends to think of plot first, you need to make sure the characters feel real, that they have reasons to do everything they do. For an exact quote from Larry Hama:

I think anyone reading the Civil War II threads knows how frustrating it is to see characters violated to fit along with the plot. It's just not a compelling way to write, as far as I can tell.

Wish someone gave him a mic, I love listening to Larry Hama talk about writing the Joe comics.

To be honest I haven't touched anything relating to Civil War II or most of Marvel these days besides one or two things. The last thing from them I enjoyed was the series where Sunspot took over AIM because it was written to be entertaining and action packed. What gets me a little annoyed recently is how people will flock to shit from marvel that is terrible just on 'it's so bad lets read it' level where the mistakes are obvious like Kate Leth's Hellcat.

You wanna know some shit? The recent Unbeatable Squirrel Girl issue actually had a new artist. People were commenting that the new artstyle made the comic more readable but it also highlighted how fucking terrible the writing is.

They hire a new artist, yet they still give Squirrel Girl a fuck ugly face.

As far as recent stuff, I've been enjoying Gwenpool, but it helps that she's a new character. Meaning, with only like one or two writers messing with her at all (and none of them being Bendis) they haven't fucked her up yet. If she does something odd, it's probably "in character" since she's still being developed. It feels different when I see, for example, the Sam Wilson Cap book and think "John Walker, okay, I know this guy. He'd do that, yea that too, BUT NOT THAT, WHAT THE FUCK!" where it feels like you get enough of the character for the writer to say "See, I read this stuff" and then they hammer the character into the plot like you won't notice. But you always notice.

We really only read this shit for the characters. I mean, there are plot arcs, but the characters are what keep us coming back. So if the characters fall flat or feel unimportant, we just stop buying Marvel books. The Rebirth stuff seems more focused on characters, at least in general, so I think it'll stomp the Marvel stuff until that changes.

That does look better, but HOLY SHIT this is some hardcore passive aggression.

This type of shit needs to stop, I hate this attitude of "It's okay to piss off our fanbase otherwise they will not buy our comics".

If your writing is good you will build a fanbase, if not they'll end up like this.

That was amazing! While some of the dialogue is cheesy by today standards, and the fight could have used more visuals, the narrative is indeed good. Do you have more examples user?

I have a special folder with comic book examples of good visuals, but since I speak spanish, I can't share most of the comics.

I can only share a small comic based on a scene from the Genocide Route of Undertale. I loved the way the artist treated the scene, and the visuals are really good…. however, I still don't have much experience with comics…

But I wish I had! I have a comic of Ghost Rider in phisical, and is one of my all-time favorites! Is about the second Ghost Rider saving a woman and a man, siblings, from their suicidal father ghost.

This is the problem with Marvel right now, they're hiring hipsters to write stories about superheroes and let's be honest here hipsters don't give two shits about writing stories about crime fighting or creating an arc that will define these characters for years to come, they just wanna write boring slice of life tripe but with superheros instead of their shitty self insert OC's.

Of course, this is more of an example of visual storytelling… I'm sorry user. Please forgive me, teach me more.

It has a lot to do with Marvel specifically hiring people who don't work in comics, to try to get new fresh talent. Mostly because they'd screwed over or annoyed all the old writers. The problem is that they don't have enough talent to teach the newcomers anything important, the last writer they hired said something about "reading a book about comics that didn't help much". The simple fact is if your top writer is Bendis (who largely writes fuckers sitting around and quipping) and you have a huge influx of writers who have NEVER WRITTEN A COMIC BEFORE, you're going to end up with current Marvel. I mean, what's good write now from Marvel? Hasting's (Gwenpool) has a long history with comics, and Conway (Carnage) is another vet who is apparently doing a great job. Nearly every other book is done by a total fresh writer or Bendis, and it's a clusterfuck. Especially without any editorial direction to keep the books consistent in anyway.

It takes a while, and a lot of comics are about pacing and characterization. Like, I don't know Undertale very well, I own it but never actually played it. But I go online, I've seen basic stuff, I understand the basics of the characters. Because that's what people remember about most works. So yeah, even with just that base knowledge the stuff you show is interesting.

As you can tell from it, there is a lot to consider in a comic, from pacing, composition, when to use or not use dialog, angles that emphasis action, etc. I wrote a LOT about every page I posted of that X-Men story on >>>/comic/ in the thread on Pacing, if you want to really read me rant about it though.

And that's why modern Marvel is so shit, they don't have anyone to teach the newcomers how to write and you end up with disjointed pacing and agendas being shoved in there because these idiots are trying to treat these comics like their own personal soapbox.

They also rely too much on Bendis because Bendis is "safe" he writes the kinda crap that can easily be published in droves.

seeing this modern Marvel shit makes me miss the old comics with good writers and John Byrnes artwork.

I know that this is all a dream and all but the fact that most of these panels don't have backgrounds just annoys the shit out of me, you call tell North was too fucking lazy to write in background descriptions in his script so he just told the artist to the characters and forget about drawing anything else because it's a dream.

House style. That bronze age generation, like Byrne and Perez, were the last ones to have the old skills, like Will Eisner and Joe Kubert. These days if an artist can actually tell a story, chances are they learned it from reading manga.

How do you guys treat the villains in your work? Do you try to develop them as much as you do the protagonists, or do they exist solely to antagonize the protagonists?

A problem I've encountered is that my villain may be more developed and interesting than the main characters, and his motivation may be too strong, to the point where if the MC's try to stop him, people would see them as being in the wrong.

Is this a good thing? Should I dial everything about him back, or keep moving forward?

If the villain threatens to take over the story, just roll with it.
That's how Grendel got started, originally Argent was supposed to be the hero.

I like to treat villains on a case-by-case basis. While I try to develop them at least a little bit, I think "what kind of villain is he supposed to be?" If he's supposed to be sympathetic or even converted, I treat them like protagonists to an extent; show different sides to them, make their motivations/beliefs clear, stuff like that. Otherwise I'd only show what would give the readers an idea of him.

But like said, if the villain is going in a certain direction, take it. I have one that's supposed to be the scary, unsympathetic bad guy, exists solely to take and antagonize as you said, but he's mostly pure impulse. He's also very powerful compared to the other characters, so I'm trying to treat him almost like a force of nature. Not only does it suit him better, but he can also be scary or whatever with more depth, some extra "oomph."

There's an old saying you should keep in mind:

A hero is only as good as the villain he fights. In other words, never half-ass a villain.

So be it.

It sounds like your main characters aren't well-defined nor are they actual main characters if you're having problems giving them simple things like motivation and background.

True. While making character outlines for them, I've been mostly writing small snippets of histories, quirks, likes, dislikes, fears, flaws, strengths, and the like, some of which I've taken based off myself.

However, most of their motivations seem to be nothing more than just "Stop the bad guy. Why? Because we've got nothing better to do."

It's frustrating that my villain is a lot more rounded by comparison. I'm almost tempted to give up on the story, but something keeps bringing e back, and it's probably him.

Most villains are going to fall somewhere between these guys right here.

Magneto has a past of bigotry and hatred that drives him to have a certain worldview, and can be as much of a villain or hero as you like because that motivation (fear of another holocaust) is so strong that he uses it to justify his actions.

Red Skull is fucking evil and just likes being fucking evil. I mean, there is a little more to it, but not alot. I mean, he once had Captain America brought to his deathbed just so he could look him in the eyes and have enough HATRED to will himself to stay alive. You could write him performing any action imaginable to push an agenda of creating human misery.

And they both work, because one is so human you understand him and the other is so over the top evil that it's a simple joy to see him be the biggest piece of shit possible.

Write as much as you can about the character's life before the story starts. Just for yourself really, because the more real that character is to you, the more it makes sense. I mean, if the villain is killing people in droves or threatening loved ones, the hero doesn't need much motivation. What is the villain doing that makes him the antagonist? Remember, even Satan means "The Adversary", and that's really all you need to focus on. There is something about the motives or actions of the hero and villain that throw them into conflict. You need a hero and villain that have a difference in opinion that justifies the level of conflict you're going for. Assuming it's beating the shit out of eachother, it'll have to be pretty strong. Hell, the two I mention above have very compelling reasons to be in conflict, and they're both villains!

In all depends on what story you want to write, if you want to go for the morally grey area then sure a villain with sympathetic goals is pretty good for that type of story, however if you want your heroes to still be in the right at the end the day then you have to remind readers that your villain is still in the villain of the story.

Look at Mr Freeze from Batman TAS his heart is filled with good intent but at the end of the day he's still a bad guy because he's slowing losing his humanity and his empathy towards others in his quest to find a cure for his wife and when she finally dies, Freeze becomes nothing more than a shell of his former self.

It wasn't finding a cure that made Freeze dead to world. It was his need for revenge. His obsession with avenging his dead wife cost him his humanity.

They completely fucked that up when they brought her back in a tube, which is why they removed her in TNBA and made Freeze a spider. They basically had to hit the reset button on him.

Perhaps your over-investment in the villain is a symptom of a bigger problem; you're not giving your protags a stake in the story, thus they have no reason to be in opposition to anybody. Whether it's a loved one in danger, self-preservation, upholding an ideal/belief (protecting the innocent, etc.) or simply because the villain is standing between them and a goal. A lot of stories have this element to some extent. Sometimes they're little more than framing devices (Watchmen's murder mystery, for example) but they're there.

Regarding your second point, one of my protagonists does have a goal that conflicts with the villain's.

The two of them are from historically opposing species (the villain's an Elf and the other guy's a Wizard, which is considered a species, not an occupation in my story). Millennia before the story takes place, the villain's species was driven almost to extinction by the other guy's, and he wants to "rebuild" his species by absorbing the power of a sleeping god and rewriting history. The other guy (who's species are extensions of the deity's will) wants to stop this because it will cause reality to fall apart, but the villain doesn't believe him.

The villain's basically an Elf General Zod compared to the other guy's (kind of) Wizard Superman.

Sounds like a pretty standard tale of good vs evil, villain wants to bring back his dead race but can't because it will destroy all of reality and the heroes have to stop him from doing this.

I think you're right. The wizard guy I mentioned here also has a son (who has abandonment issues because his father wasn't around often). So the son, who is SUPPOSED to be the main character, seems to have more conflict with his dad than the villain.

That's a problem because for one, his dad seems to have a more significant bearing on the story, thus overshadowing his son, and two, like you said, he has no stakes involved with the villain. To get around this, I thought about making him and the villain reluctant friends, but he still feels like a dead weight.

As someone who wants to write a comic and wants to make one alongside a friend this summer I must ask:

1) What are the basics of writing in general ?
2) What differentiates a 3-dimensional character from a 2-dimesional character ?
3)How do you put your ideas together properly ?
4) How do I avoid spilling my spaghetti like Jeph Jaques or like every current Marvel writter ?

Develop them as much as the protagonists/minor/major characters. Yes, the villains are suppose to be the bad guys, but they can't be half-assed or the butt monkey all the time.

I share the same problem, and another thing that I worry deeply is making the supposed antagonist look like their the real hero (ex. Teagan babe and see you next tuesday Alto from Uncommon Time), when it's really the other way around. Is it possible to avoid this slip-up or is it inevitable?

Another thing that I'm curious is, how do you make a villain that's downright irredeemable like pic related, despite them having a few sympathetic traits without forcing it into the reader's throat?

raybradbury.ru/stuff/zen_in_the_art_of_writing.pdf

ivanbrave.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Kerouac_SPONTANEOUS_PROSE.pdf

dabhub.com/datas/media/The Hero with a Thousand Faces.pdf

members.upc.ie/innsmouth/Bibliography/EBOOK H.P.LOVECRAFT -SUPERNATURAL HORROR IN LITERATURE.PDF

api.ning.com/files/Y67OzRG71C3BQxspLUyGtPiKTlQl1oto0fc3XCN0I2SgfrhXpIfvldVHMARgrQMc3vJo0GnDqa3VcnBMaDfYWOXRvP8PDSiA/MoorcockWitandHumour1.pdf

Well, that's a start, anyway, if you must study the dogma.

I personally subscribe to Ernest Hemingway's theory of writing: "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

uic.edu.hk/~amyzhang/teaching/COMP3050/readings/McCloud_Understanding_Comics.pdf

classes.soe.ucsc.edu/cmps025/Spring11/Draw-Comics-The-Marvel-Way.pdf

floobynooby.com/pdfs/Will_Eisner-Theory_of_Comics_and_Sequential_Art.pdf

It's called virtue signalling, and if they don't convinced their miniscule audience of hipster cunts that they are good people because they blindly hate the SJW-approved targets that everyone on twitter and tumblr tell them to hate, that will mean they are actually bad people and they are using their platform inappropriately.

I wish I were being facetious, but I've argued with a few of these types in person, and the final argument they end up resting on in situations like these is that famous people, people with large followings, and people with access to any kind of mass media platform have a moral obligation to use their position to preach to society on how to act and think.

And, inversely, if you are guilty of wrongthink, then you deserve no popularity or following, because shitlords and wrongthinkers must suffer so their utopian society can be achieved.

Is that Frodo and Hermione?

Like other anons have told me, your villain may be too developed and your MC's not as much, causing them to be overshadowed. That isn't entirely bad, though, as some anons have said..

I can't think of too many irredeemable villains who have good traits, except for maybe Aku from Samurai Jack or Frieza from DBZ. I'm sure there's plenty in live action tv as well, like Walter White from Breaking Bad.

They're characters from a rpgmaker game made by a tumblr. The brown girl is named Teagan and she's a no-nonsense kind of gal who is saddled with crazy people on her quest to save the world and her best friend and the brunette is a lunatic called Alto who is an utter abusive cunt to Teagan but that's ok because she has a tragic past and is a mentally ill lesbian.

I've heard people say here, on 4chan's Holla Forums, and IRL that really good girl characters can attract a larger/more diverse/more loyal audience/fanbase for your work, and the more of them there are, the better.

I've thought about incorporating something like this in my story, but it sounds way too manipulative of the audience's emotions (and sex drive).

Any thoughts on this idea?

Wait, do you mean good girl as in "good character who is a girl" or like "good girl" type characters?

I'll be honest, I prefer drawing women. So I tend to put more female characters in my stuff. But I handled them just like the male characters, they need to have reasoning and motivations and be interesting. If you want to make some sort of harem type thing, think about the harem stuff that is out there.

The girls have to be interesting and distinct, you have to have a reason for the reader to say "Obviously this one is BEST GIRL", and the more characters you make, the more likely you are to hit that sweet spot with more readers. Your bland, inoffensive protag will meander around their affections, further frustrating and titillating your reader. But the key is making each girl interesting and appealing to some specific taste. You obviously want to think about things like:
etc.

If you're worried about being emotionally manipulative… you probably shouldn't create a harem anime type story. The entire point is controlled manipulation of your reader's emotions and sexual desires, which may also be true of most romance stories in general. But if you do have it in your heart, you just write the characters first, as usual, and let them guide the story into erotic misunderstanding after erotic misunderstanding.

I was thinking more of the first one.

Some examples I can think. based off what I gathered from those sites, would be stuff like Adventure Time, Wander over Yonder, Zootopia, Steven Universe, and some webcomic called Scalie Schoolie.

They're not harem based shows by design, but some of them do have the potential.

A non-Holla Forums related on would be Harry Potter.

Then, sure, why not? I mean, not even for potential romantic things or self inserts for girls, but if you're telling a story with normal people or wide cast of characters, there would normally be girls. They're half the species and all. Look at the upcoming FFXV, your party is all male, but there are still important female characters around them. The vast majority of men have women in their lives to some degree, as the vast majority of women have men in their lives. It really depends on the story you want to tell, but there are benefits to having a cast of diverse characters.

And honestly, if you don't have any women in your story, you're inviting gay shipping even more than usual

Thanks for the input, user. It was the perfect bit of insight I needed.

Adventure Time is an interesting case by all the wrong reasons, and for what you're trying to achieve it would be better to look it up as what to avoid and what you should not do, let me explain:

The female cast was for the most part nice, but as the show started to drop in it's quality and the writing became worse, the female cast began to become more unlikable, if not outright annoying, most notably Princess Bubblegum, who went from being the smart princess with a mad scientist side to a totalitarian cunt who cannot be proven wrong no matter what
It quickly went from a "who's the best girl" situation to "who's the lesser annoying cunt"

Can any anons provide some assistance when it comes to creating a name for a magical system for a fantasy story? Similar to how the Elder Scrolls has Magicka, and many other fantasy stories have "mana" as a title to describe that unique energy with magical properties, I was wondering if someone could lend a hand when coming up with a name for that.

Why can't you just call it mana like every other sensible person out there?

It sounds like you are talking about magical resource instead of a system.

All of these are more or less synonymous with mana in different cultures. Based off of the research I did for my project, magic and spirit or divine power were the most common names by far.
What kind of story are you making it for? Do you have a language or terminology used in your setting that you could use as a jumping-off point?

Ah fuck. I meant to post this image with that post.

Adding a little to this

And there's a few more, but these are just off the top of my head. These are also more alchemical than magical, but maybe one of them sounds good.

Different poster:

My problem is when I write my book, I stopped writing my Main Protagonist and instead it's mostly John Constantine in 1700's fantasy when it's suppose to be Shadowrun. Anyone else have that, finding themselves write characters of another work instead of their own?

I used to have a similar problem like this, whenever I came up with an idea it was always "It's Archer but with x" until I realized I should stop trying to be like other people and do my own thing.

There's prana, pneuma, chi, ki, qi, orgone, vril.

You could also research some of the extant magic systems instead of just ripping off D&D ripping off Jack Vance, which is what everyone else does.

There's Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons, Dion Fortune, Carlos Castaneda, Uri Geller, etc, they all set up systemic frameworks for their bullshit that would work in a fictional setting. Arguably they were writing fiction, too, but by trying to turn it into a religion, like Elron Hubbard did, they gave up the right to copyright it.

That's reassuring to hear, thanks for the reply. The villain that I'm currently writing up on is a NTR/cuckolding druggie chick..

They do look like them, don't they? Nah user, those two are Teagan and Alto from a rpgmaker game from some tumblr user. The game is rageworthy, and you're forced to play as the cunt, Alto (brown hair), who fucks up everything.

And I could just call the currency "Gold" too. The whole point of my question was to have a different word for mana just so it could have a flavor of variety, especially since most amateur writers like myself would use mana as their easy way out since it's the term used in most fantasy stories.

You are correct, I meant to say a magical resource that characters can channel for power. Also, thank you very much for the suggestions.

There aren't any ancient tongues or cryptic language used in my story, just plain English; however, I do enjoy taking small bits and pieces from different cultures to incorporate into the naming process when it comes to the creatures, the magic, locations, etc.

I will keep your suggestions written down, a lot of them do seem to really click in my mind when I read them. Thanks, user.

I will look into it, but to be honest, if I were to explain the actual premise and setting of the story, it might be a little more understandable why the magic system doesn't need to be very in-depth. I know that without context, it might just sound like me pulling an excuse out of my ass to not do my homework and read up on other interpretations of magic, but considering that the "fantasy" setting is a videogame, it might be a little more understandable if the magic doesn't need to be very complex.

How does one do a character introduction properly?

The concept of a "villain" is a bad one.

Instead of the hero/villain dichotomy, it's better to think in terms of protagonist, and antagonist. Either character can exhibit morals strengths and flaws.

Whereas hero/villain seems to lock you into this cultural paradigm, where the "villain" character has to conform to a type. Not to say you can't have a morally righteous character face off against a morally depraved; but not every protagonist is going to be wholly righteous, or every antagonist depraved, even if the antagonist's actions are morally questionable; and the protagonist's actions can be morally questionable, too.

For example, your problem with your "villain" is only a problem if you're thinking of him as the "villain". Think of him as the antagonist, to the MC's protagonist.

So your readers end up sympathizing with the antagonist's goals more than the protagonist. Most readers seem to like their protagonist to be someone they can sympathize with, in my experience. You could reverse the way the story is told: make the "villain" character the protagonist, tell the story from his perspective, have the current MC become the antagonist.

Or you could keep things the way they are, but go the extra mile in making the protagonist seem sympathetic. Show why he continues to oppose the antagonist. Give him a good reason, one people can identify with. It could be a personal motivation: maybe the antagonist killed someone who was dear to him. It could be that the protagonist has been lied to about what the antagonist seeks to accomplish. It could be that the protagonist doesn't think the antagonist's goals will result in the good the antagonists thinks they'll result in.

The protagonist could come to see things from the antagonist's point of view. He could deliberate over it, agonize over whether what he's doing is right or not. He might convert, or might continue to oppose the antagonist.

That would be harder to pull off, but I think it might be more satisfying.

once I get a few character sheets together I'm finally going to start a webcomic. Sort of related to the thread, but more about art… how do I avoid anthro characters coming across as furry?

You don't. You just suck it up and deal with it, try not to think about it at all. Because it really doesn't matter what you create, there is someone out there who would totally fuck it.

that's true, mind you I don't hate furries, I don't hate anyone. I just don't my work to inspire that sort of stuff, but it really is out of my hands there.

I think [email protected]/* */ has me a bit paranoid.

user who cares really? It gets popular then it gets popular and if you get autistic fans then try to get money out of them

That's true. I guess if I'm not intending it in that way than it can't really be helped. Suppose I'm off to study the stuff posted in this thread and try to get some work on the first page done tonight.

Well I recently got confirmed for a new job that will be paying me much higher than a shitty retail wage. With that money I can finally start up a comic. I've got ideas and outlines written out but I'm going to start with a throwaway idea to get started. A comic that I could have finished in like 30 pages.

The idea I had was called 'Fair Game' it's supposed to be about a deer that decides to fight back against humans when fully automatic high caliber weapons are made legal for hunting. He fights back when he finds a large cache of the weapons then sets out after the hunters. It's meant to be cartoony, violent and funny.

The only thing I'm trying to think of now is how the MC will be. I wanted to avoid making him the 'snarky, laughing at violence' psychopath type and some friends suggested I should make him more sociopathic instead. More that he's treating things like a regular occurrence, adapted to a new life of bloodshed pretty easily. I'm still looking for ideas.

Honestly, if I were to do it, his entire character would be "he's a deer". Just a blank eyed, silent deer. No moralization, no reasoning, just a deer loaded down with guns and traps. I mean, deers don't comprehend why we hunt them, so why would we understand one that hunted us?

But that's just how I'd do it, so it might be very different from what you have in mind. Maybe have him be very technical about it, talk more about the guns and traps being used than the gore he causes. Just make the whole thing as /k/ as possible with real and made up techno-gun babble.

"A shot this powerful would have no problem punching through a foot of concrete. Though a concrete wall would become a wall with a hole in it, and not a pink mist with some boots laying under it…"

The premise around this sounds like a cheeky version of Bugs Bunny and Elmore Fudd. Would love to read it.

It kinda sounds like that one episode of Courage the Cowardly dog where Eustache goes deer hunting.

I'd do something like said, except he's more "deer in headlights" than blank. In fact, if you're going the really cartoony route, I'd make it look like his eyes are always popping out of his head.

The stoic expressionless deer sounds like a very good idea, I'll roll with that since it's different from the usual 'I LOVE VIOLENCE AND LOOK HOW QUIRKY I AM' types for these stories. I was gonna throw in alot of real and fake guns for this story, some that are going on cartoon or video game tier or outlandishness.

I have some ideas for the comic. The intro is supposed to center on a squirrel in the middle of a field with exposition from the deer. He's talking about how you might think that this is the main character of the story but in actuality you're about to see what a .308 will do to a woodland creature. Cue him running past the squirrel who is obliderated by the gunfire from the hunters he's running from.

A later idea I had was near the end when the owner of the park gets fed up with how he's been killing off the hunters. So he hires a group known as the PRCs (Park Ranger Contractors) which are sent in to finally try and kill him. Just picture spec ops looking guys with park ranger stuff on them along with the gear. Just this /k/-tier looking guys that have one of those hats they wear on.

The second option sounds neat, but I'm not sure it would work in my story. I imagined the villain as the kind of mysterious panner/manipulator who hides in the shadows until his plans are about to come to fruition, and then he reveals himself. There would be the occasional scene where he interacts with his henchmen in "Human" ways (i.e., he jokes with them, plays games with them, gives them advice, comforts them, etc), but he'd hide from the protagonists until then.

How important is setting to determining how your heroes and villains act?

Well, you need to give a reason for your audience to care.

At the very least make them interesting, to see if they succeed in their goals.

As important as it is for you or I: very. But if you're throwing characters into new situations, outline what situations they've been in before, and what they know about their setting.

To use a bad example first, one of the big problems in Civil War 2 that a lot of people stuck on first was them having 3 hours of warning to ready an ambush for Thanos. They readied the ambush and a hero died. But why were people like Iron Man or Thor not there? It's never explained. It doesn't make sense within the SETTING that they would not call in more heavy hitters for a known cosmic threat. Failing to take the setting into account with the actions of the heroes makes the entire scenario less believable.

It's probably best to spend some time roleplaying characters to yourself, if you are unsure how they'll react. Imagine the setting, take on their posture and speech patterns, think about their past, just go nuts in the privacy of your work area. And if you were playing a character, with their past and abilities/skills, how would you react to different stimuli? See a fortified enemy base? Do you fly over it and move on, scale the walls and do recon, or smash the front gate and kill every mutha fucker inside? If you see the same fortress, but you know there are friendly troops camped nearby, or that an acid rainstorm is looming overhead, those things definitely will effect your choices.

If you mean how important it is to establish your setting, it depends how far removed from our world it is, but you should always establish a few norms. Unless characters are strangers to a land, they take a lot of things for granted, so just have things happen (such as regular body scans, herds of magical animals, a goat sacrifice every morning) with little discussion of the particulars, much like we wouldn't explain what a red light is or how money works to eachother. But make sure to show when characters are comfortable with a thing, and when it surprises them. If they see a mech and so "Here we go again…" it's very different from "By The Nine Gods Anuses, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BEAST?!", and tells a lot about what the characters expect. Of course, you may get to a point, or have characters experienced enough, where any fucking weird thing won't really phase them (think of Joanna Hex's reaction to the time traveling Justice League members in JLU). Those will be characters who see the larger picture of their setting, meaning they are still effected by things that exist around them, but they have a more aware perspective of what is and isn't possible.

I may be rambling, but I hope some of it helps

I put some litcrit and howto on the Holla Forums volafile.

Volafile?

It's literally the first post on the first thread that's always stickied at the top of the page.

Never even it noticed it

I'll check it out, user

Anyone?

You don't. You just accept that the furry fandom is going to like your work. The only real suggestion I have is: Avoid touching fetiches.

Probably very late but how long does a page of script usually occupies in average?
Convertion to comic pages or minutes.
I had this script wich was very long already around 90 pages and I was checking that I was making everything right.
But at one point I didn't liked it, I realized I didn't knew my characters and that in my search for not making mistakes I had made somehing extremely forced.
I relaxed, took a break to know my characters and now everything is just falling in it's place.

Think about the FIRST traits you want to highlight about that character, and focus on them. First impressions tell you most things you need to know about a character, or should. Are they smooth and controlling? Show them being smooth and in control. Are they an acrobatic sassmouth? Show them leaping between foes and making with the banter. If they're a romantic, show them swooning over someone or the idea of love itself. If they fulfill an archetype, they are doing something that archetype does: reporters are on a story, detectives are noticing small clues, lead singers are giving a performance. This is why some stories don't start at the "beginning", they start with the lead bleeding out in a gutter or on the run, because those situations draw you into the character and stick in your mind as you see them explain how they got there.

Think about the introductions to Indiana Jones. He's a fucking badass, and most of his intros are him being a fucking badass, or made badass by his earlier adventures and the reputation he brings with him. Think about the first time Godzilla appears in the original movie, just a bit of him is seen over the top of a mountain, he feels IMPOSSIBLY large, and he's built up rightfully as a force of nature. Think of each introduction to a character in the original Ghostbusters, and how much each character immediately clicked. So, as usual, design the characters as fully as possible, know them, breath them. And then you choose the moment in their life that the reader first gets to see them, a moment that explains the core of the character. It doesn't even have to be perfectly obvious, like some characters will be lying in their first scene or doing something out of character for a very in character purpose. Those times you want the reveal of the reasoning behind that introduction to be an intriguing revelation about the character.

Pic related. Remembering that every issue could be someone's first issue, what is the quickest way to tell them who Cobra Commander is? Well, you're looking at it.

ufff user, what you writting there?

I can't speak for comis, but I've heard one page in a script means one minute of film.

Azoth is another one you could use

For comics, that's really up to you. Ideally you're planning out the page breaks and influencing layout for pacing reasons. If you're just doing scripts and letting the artist handle layout and pacing, it depends how wordy you want things to be and your writing style. So if you're working with an artist, it really depends on their style, if you're doing it yourself, you have complete control.

Basic tips I'd give is that if a character gives a speech, if there is no other focus, you probably want the speech contained to one page. You might want to end pages on moments of peril or triumph, even very small ones within the context of an ongoing conflict (a solid hit in a fight, a good zinger in an argument, etc.). If you're making a physical book, you'll probably want shocking reveals to happen after a page turn.

Besides that, I wrote a crap ton of shit in the pacing and layout threads on >>>/comic/, which may or may not help.

Remember, with that page of Batgirl changing, this is what Bruce Timm originally wanted to do. But the editors kiboshed it and sent him back to the drawing board. The result was a great page that accurately showed the speed and tight spacing of changing in a dressing room that's better than his original idea.

Remember that limitations are at times a good thing.

I think they both work, but the dressing room means a cramped layout works well. In the original idea, the space around her never changes, so the layout preserves the uniformity of the chaos surrounding her. I don't think it's so much that limitations are good, it's simply that Timm is a master who adapt to make the most of a 2nd take at a project.

But both do illustrate that the original script was probably "Barbara changes into Batgirl (make it sexy)" and Timm knew he wanted to spend a page on it. Sometimes scripts are just that simple. Though of course, if your script says "they fight for 6 pages" it makes that fight seem pointless to the artist, and you leave all the storytelling up to them. You normally want to at least have important highlights of the fight or whatever listed, so that it has a structure to it and some moments that highlight the character's personalities and skills.

Everything was well, until

Fourteen is pretty much the manga equivalent of early 90s B movies. It has no subtlety, and it jumps from one crazy concept to the other. It has some internal logic, but said logic is often "and now this happens because I want", and the characters will outright state some things to prevent the reader from taking the clues. They are two of the very things this same guy is criticising just a few paragraphs above.

For example, at some point of the book Chicken Man wants to destroy mankind by deploying some genetically engineered parasites into the sea from his secret base in one of those floating garbage islands. The OTAN or something like that decides to attack before it's too late, and basically, all but one kid end up dying. When this kid finally gets to Chicken Man, he is in front of his computer, apparently shocked by something he just read. His comb has turned pale, and he tells the kid that he no longer wants to kill humanity because he has discovered something horrifying about them, and his rage is now unjustified. So horrifying, he outright states "it turned [his] cromb white. After some pages long cliffhanger trying to (failedly) hype up what's so horrifying, he states that "humanity will die at Fourteen", because apparently cell division has a hard limit shared between generations and the current generation of kids will die when they turn fourteen. Much later on, near the end of the manga, the kids are worried about this, and one says he heard that they will turn into dinosaurs when they become fourteen. America (the Mary Sue child of the President of the United States, who died but was rebuilt out of the cells of the body of the child of an underage mother because of reasons) says that's bullshit, and that they are just unfounded rumours. A few pages later, the kid who mentioned this turns into a dinosaur.

The main villain charge jumps all over the place as well. First, it's Chicken Man, then it's Gaia with its plagues, then a rapist (not even kidding) alien invasion, then the heat death of the Universe, then Chicken Man again despite turning both a hero and a retard at the same time by using a retard gun to slowly reduce his absurdly high IQ to that of a normal chicken.

These are just two examples of how fucking nonsensical Fourteen is. They are not even the most stupid examples, just the most appropriate for the topic at hand. Thing is, many people have described Fourteen as a manga in which the author decided to throw in whatever he felt was cool at the moment, and then proceeds to quickly forget about it. It's exactly the "authors make shit story just to draw whatever they feel like drawing at the moment" thing he mentions.

Now, it's indeed an original manga. You won't find something this fucking insane in a long time; Black Paradox, quite possibly the craziest Junji Ito story, makes infinitely more sense than this (not surprising, if you read the story carefully, you can see there was a lot of thought put into it), although I must admit I can't choose between Dark Paradox or Fourteen's body horror, since both are pretty balls to the wall with it.

What's Fourteen good for, then? The art is not bad, but it's far from perfect, and as I already said, the story is fucking stupid; however, ambientation is nice. It may be one of the best non-cyberpunk dark sci-fi ambientations I have seen in a while, and it helps that shitty gut feeling you have while reading it.

I would recommend it if you are looking for a wild ride and have some free time to read it (not exactly short, but it can be read in a single day if you spend your whole free time on it), but it's far from an example of anything but body horror or ambientation, much less an all time favourite.

You don't come across as furry by making the story about other things than them being animals.

almost ignore that fact alltogether. Furries can't get past that shit and sexualize the animalistic parts. As long as you don't do that it should be ok.

Think more like a /tg/ or Elder Scrolls race of people that are individuals and can do what they want instead of a /furry/ 'hurdurr all horses got big muscles and huge cocks' kinda way.

Hmm, cool. I never used the Volafile before, but I guess someone put all the Rom Spaceknight stuff on there. Now that is some interesting writing.

When making characters, how much thought do I need to put into naming them?

It depends. Name can be another useful too to further flesh out a character. Average Joe won't be called Sir Joran Fredrikson, and someone named Boris Vukovich will be more threatening than Willy Jonson. Not many people will imagine hot girl they hear Bertha, and they will think of a black girl from ghetto when hearing Laquisha.

Besides that, names can indicate ancestry, nationality, social standing, be used as a joke, and many other things. You will be fine if they are not out of place, unless you know what you are doing.

Well, you can give characters names that mismatch their personality and design, then give them titles or nicknames they use. I'm trying something in the way of run-of-the-mill professionals become these widely known heroes or terrors, and they take on a title to reflect their new reputation.

Really great tips being shared in this thread. I know we don't have many writing threads on Holla Forums but whenever we do, they're always golden.

Anyways, I noticed needed some help with naming their magic system for their story and I was wondering if someone could help me with an issue, and that would be a currency. I know it'd be very easy to just call my fictional money "gold" and call it a day, but I'd rather something a little more unique. If any anons could help me with naming a fictional currency, Any suggestions would be great.

Depends on your setting; fantasy or sci-fi?

Gil
Aur (latin for gold)
Or
Kish
Emas (indonesian for gold)
Crystals
Silver
Monne or Mon
Gems
Gula (hawaiian for gold)
Credits
Shekels

You could play it into the government you created for it.

I created a new Imperial Britannian Commonwealth bordered by magic using civilizations, and after a bit of history to make paper money useless, they started using gold coins called Sovereigns and silver and copper coins called Pence.

Realistically speaking, names have very little to do with the people they name. Parents just put those names in their children because they think they sound good or because maybe the name has a meaning and they project their wishes for their kids' future in that, but eventually, the children will do whatever with their attributes.

That said, we can get some hints about the character we are talking about just by their name, as mentioned; some derived from pure logic (if character has an Indian name, chances are their ancestry is from there), some derived by reader prejudice (Bertha sounds ugly, therefore the girl who has said name is probably ugly). Using the first type of "name preconceptions" is a must, whereas you shouldn't mind too much about the second one since it will vary from reader to reader; if you are going for a more idealized approach, it may be wise to take this advantage, but don't try to beat your head too much about this.

However, nicknames may reflect how people actually are. They are names taken by the person itself or by their friends, based on who they are, to accurately refer to them. Therefore, nicknames should be descriptive, even if not immediately obvious (while "Aitaria" means nothing, we can deduce from its ending a that it may be a female nickname; it sounds soft due to all its As, so it may refer to a girl who is sweet and well mannered, or at least a girl who thinks about herself that way).

Depends a lot on your worldbulding and history. Look at real world coins, why are they named like that? The dollar is named like this because of some mutations to the name of an ancient coin called Joachimsthaler (Joachimsthaler -> thaler -> dollar), Euros are named like this because they are the currency of the European Union, Pounds are named like that because they are supposed to be worth one pound of silver, etc.

The best example I can think of of a coin with history is TES' Septims, named like that because of the monarchic dinasty/Tiber Septim. You could do something similar.

well, the setting includes a magitech, so you could say that it has a lot of elements of magic from fantasy alongside the technology of sci-fi.

Also, thanks for the suggestions, I'll jot them down.

Oy vey!

That sounds really interesting, it sounds like a currency that has a history towards it that would make sense in the real world as well. I will take that into consideration. Thanks!

I will do some research and look into the history behind some of the naming conventions for modern currency. I also do like TES' Septims, especially since it rolls off the tongue very well and is easy to remember.

Thank god. The ones on 4chan sucked so much when they just turned into a circlejerk without any progress reports and shit advice.

(Fictional setting name with nouns) Token
Skyloft Token's
Lumbridge Tokens
Kirkwall Tokens
Rivendell tokens
BigCity Token
Shiny Forest Tokens
Sigmarian Tokens
Imperial tokens
Republic Tokens

(setting with original name) Ri/En's/Ar/Ny
Example: Gondor
Gondori
Gonden
Gondari
Gondarr
Gondenny

I never thought of that, but I could possibly have different areas use different currencies with that naming convention. Very helpful, thank you!

I don't even remember cuckchan having write threads.

Another think about to keep in mind when talking about currency is slang used to call the money. In the U.S. "buck" is a common term, even though currency itself has nothing in common with actual bucks, but supposedly buck skins used to be a commonly traded item and name stuck. In The Elder Scrolls money is also called Drakes, due to Empire's seal of Akatosh on the reverse.

Going off of that, common folk might refer to money as shells if that used to be currency back in the day, or sticks, rods, rocks, or something like that. You can even use shape of coins as a jumping off point.

Coming back to real world names, ducat was a term for a specific type of coin, and name was around for close to 5 centuries. Using it in world based on Europe would not look out of place. Some other common names for variosu tyes and values of coins were Crowns/Coronas, Gros/Grosso/Groschen etc., and Mark. You can also go with something crazier, along the lines of Aztec cocoa bean as coins, their axe-head money, or Chinese currency knives.

Heh, I use Ducats but the nickname is tacks since I used the old rhyming from London

Slivers coins are just slivs
and coppers are pops

I thought it was clever for a bunch of fantasy inner-city fucks to say.

This is fantastic advice. I do love the concept of currencies having nicknames or other titles aside from their formal names. It really helps with fleshing out the history of a world and makes it feel a little more real when people have different names for the same item of monetary value. Thanks, user.

RANDOM WRITING LESSON I LEARNED TODAY AND THOUGHT I'D SHARE

Introducing characters is hard. It gets even harder when you have a large world with a lot of characters. Introducing too many new characters at once is pretty much ALWAYS a bad idea. The Chekhov's Gun principal applies as much to characters as it does to objects. But sometimes, a large number of characters being introduced at once is a necessary thing for the story to flow naturally, and some of those characters will be back, possibly playing more important roles. Here's the biggest, most important thing: do not load your audience down with too much too quickly. Work on developing a select few characters at once, and let their development happen slowly over time. Your audience does not need to know everything about a character from the first time they are introduced. Leave some mystery, and keep in mind that character development doesn't always mean the character has changed; perhaps their motivations are explored or their secrets are revealed. When introducing minor characters, start with archetypes and work your way up later.

Example:
First meeting of character: cheating trophy wife
Next encounter: she plays sociopolitical games with the nobility.
Next encounter: she cheats because she and her husband have an agreement. He's secretly gay, she knows, and anyone she propositions who refuses will be subsequently propositioned by the husband.
Next encounter: she's growing tired of the life she's leading and wants to do something more meaningful with the wealth and influence she wields.

Introduce all these elements at once, and you overwhelm the reader. Introduce them slowly and you not only surprise the reader, but also introduce character depth in a way that is easy to swallow but still intriguing. It's important to get the pacing right; introduce too much depth at once and people wonder why a minor character is getting so much consideration and detail. Don't introduce enough soon enough and people forget about the character entirely, and when they are next mentioned will not have any emotional connection to the character.

Is it possible to do visual comedy at all in book form, or can it only be done through film, cartoons, or comics?

Was writing an antagonist that was threatening to create global economic collapse by using their metal creation abilities to flood the markets.

Realized: How do I actually have them stopped short of killing/depowering them or Deus Ex Machina?

If you have a drawing of the joke on the opposite page.

Brain damage and Lobotomy if you're going the cruel mercy route.

Samefag here.
This is my history.
Emerick and his friend Michelle volunteer for the army, the space exploration and defense division many years into the future.

Michelle has seen some shit in her life which prompt her to escape from said life at the first chance she got going into the army. As a result from the restart she acts very childish from the childhood she never got and to go along with it she pretends to be way less jaded than she actually is.
She's extremely competent on combat like nearly supersoldier shit.

Emerick was given to a catholic orphanage as a baby and was never adopted but grew in a home full of love.
Stoic and kinda snarky, legitimately brave and trustworthy but with an innocent and idealistic view on life he got in to protect the people he loves and the country, he believes, gives a fuck about him and while good on his own is not as good as Michelle in most combat related stuff.

They become a couple very fast, Michelle has finally the positivity she pretends to not lack in her life and Emerick has someone who eases him into the flexibility needed in this world and as the best thing that has happened in their lives they'll protect each other to death.

So they're send by a shady government to fight a just as shady rebellion (Which they'll find themselves working along and against several times because of different reasons), as well as other problematics in other planets which will put to test Michelle's self deceiving happiness and Emerick's ideals and tolerances.

That's just the basic premise in case you want to know anything else ask, I'll answer as fast as I can, I'll give me practice with my creation anyways.

Does any user here use Wattpad or some sort of public site to share their writing? Was hoping I could read through some works from people who frequent this thread and compare their writing styles to mine, plus I could always use more entertaining reading material.

I meant non-combat ways instead of beating them up.

You'll have a hard time pulling it off with just words on a page, so no. It's not possible.

You shouldn't need more than a page to describe what's going on a page. Personally, I think there are better formats for a comic script. That text in the middle shit looks awkward.

>metal creation abilities
Of course you're having a hard time coming up with a way to just incapacitate them, they're fucking broken. Consider nerfing their abilities a bit for breathing room.

Now you're just making it harder for yourself.

And how do you expect to fight a guy who can generate alkali metals (and explosives) at will?

You need a protagonist or two who can outsmart him and turn his ability against himself.

One example in pre-existing fiction is Mariah from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders who has the ability to magnetize objects including living people, which gave Avdol and Joseph a bit of trouble until they manage to defeat her by using their magnetism to go between her, then draw themselves to each other at fast speeds with cars attached to their backs, crushing her.

I never heard of it. Kind of wary looking at it though.

Anyway, What setting do you guys place your work in? Mine is set in the early 1700's in a setting where the BBEG was stopped but screwed up the world destroyed a few races, cut off an whole branch of Magic from the setting Basically elemental magic that allows to cast fireballs and shit

The other is a superhero setting set in a universe that had a sliver age, other dimensions, alien techs. Giant robots, evil organization, the whole nine yards.

I don't know, just trying to toss a suggestion out there for websites that aren't chans where anons could share stories. You'd be surprised but it's very limited in terms of communities that are decent for writers.

My setting is a "fantasy world" which in actuality is just a virtual world in a game that goes beyond the limitations of technology of our modern day with the entire system being a headset that plugs in your consciousness into the machine, allowing you to play the game, transporting you to this new world from the comfort of your own home. A small time is spent in the real world before the protagonist gets online and start playing the game before realizing he's actually stuck in the game along with all the other players. If you've heard of this premise before, you might assume the entire point of the story is for the players to escape, but it's actually the opposite. A majority of the population is happy living in this new, virtual world and the story follows the adventures of the characters in their new lives. At least, that's the basic setting I have going on.

Writer's Cafe is a good site, but I deleted all my stuff on there

I never understood Chekhov's Gun. I mean, sometimes it makes sense to remove non-vital stuff from a story, but (I guess it's some sort of dumb example that is not meant to be taken literally, but oh well) the story behind the name of this phenomenon/technique seems a bit dumb. Apparently, if you mention a gun, it must be used, but that's not how expanding on a character works.

Let's say, main character is invited by some other character he just met to come to his house for dinner. As he enters the living room, he sees there is a rifle in the wall.

There are several possibilities now:
There are lots of things to be deduced from small, seemingly unimportant details like that. Even if they are not vital to the story, they must be there for a reason. I would say Chekhov's Gun only applies to drama, where it's better to go straight to the point, and not to novels or other media.

Depends on how "strong" your characters are or whether they have powers or not. If physically strong, they may try to raid iron warehouses and iron transport trains/trucks to artificially increase scarcity. This is just a patch that will eventually crumble the moment they stop doing this, though.

If they are mentally strong, they could think of a way to increase iron demand. Maybe characters invent, I don't know, a smart material that could be used as the ingredient for nanomachines, which requires quite a big percentage of iron? The world would go crazy about it, and iron demand would be increased quite a bit. A demand the main villain will be "happy" to provide. Another solution would be depleting other high-demand materials to force the market to swap said material for iron; say, buy/destroy/force to expend all petroleum to force factories to find a cheap material to be used instead of plastic.

If they are economically strong, just buy all iron as soon as possible to increase the demand. Maybe manage to start a hoax regarding the origin of new companies exporting iron, such as commenting on how it's not actual iron and how it sucks compared to actual iron. Old iron companies would then see their demand increase.

If they have powers, it depends. If they can destroy matter, destroying iron would work. If they have magnetic powers, they could attract all the iron in the world and then hide it or send it off to space. If they can find people who can produce other elements or materials, just find them and ask them to do their best; eventually, humanity would reach post-scarcity.

You fags just can't go one thread without shoving your flavor of the month in here, can you?

using fanfiction, and just doing a fanfic for fun/practice.

Power girl autist is that you?

Does he have any limitations? Where does the matter for metal come from? What is the rate of generation? Can he generate alloys? Where does his body ends and metal begins? Does his body act like normal human's or like a metal?

Could he be tricked into generating enough Uranium to die of radiation? Would he die after being tossed into a vat of molten metal? What if he would be frozen with liquid Nitrogen? Crushed with hydraulic press? Could he be poisoned? Suffocated? Locked somewhere, and made to think that he can push his way out, only to crush himself in the process? What about acid? Can he be surprised or ambushed?

Why wouldn't some government or other organization come after him, and either use him to make materials for them or study his ability?

On the subject of magic and villain powers, what would be a good way to get around a villain that can see the future, has time travel, and can open portals to deflect projectiles and melee attacks?

Does this sound like too much, or can it be made to work if it's limited enough?

How far into the future can that villain see, and does the story have the whole "destine" future angle or "splitting the timelines" angle? Also, when he "sees the future" can he only himself and stuff around him, something random, or anything they want?

He can't see the past because it's already behind him, and he can't see beyond his death because the trauma would be too much for his mind to handle, which would render him comatose. His precognition lets him see random events that could possibly kill him (like an asteroid strike, a terrorist attack, a snake bite, etc).

His precognition has a range of around a league (3-7 miles), and he can see up to 1 month into the future. His visions are too "cloudy" for him to make anyone out, so he just sees vague occurrences, but doesn't know where they'll occur, or to who.

This leaves him feeling very paranoid and afraid to act (he's deeply afraid of dying), but his other powers give him just enough confidence to battle his enemies.

Too much. Nerf him and stick to one power

Why does she look like a 12 year old boy with make up then?

Because that's the kind of progressive art being churned out of diploma mills like CalArts.

Check to see what your protagonists can do and what would be in the realm of possibility for taking him out.

For instance, if someone was able to get close to him and poison him over a long period of time, it could soften your antagonist up enough to allow someone to swoop in and end him.

If you feel poisoning is too dirty for a protagonist to do, give the deed to another antagonist who needs this guy out of the way.

Let's keep this thread on track about actual writing techniques and improving our writing, sperg.

I haven't heard of Writer's Cafe, but I will check it out. I recommend giving Wattpad a look, since the UI is pretty organized and it has a lot of customization for your stories like having custom covers, inserting pictures and gifs in the middle of your text, and even adding videos. Just ignore most of the community; it's comprised of typical middle school girl fanfic shit.

Feel free to post a link and share it here, nigger. Also, would you say using fanfiction is the easiest way to attract an audience for your story?

Personally, this seems way too powerful for a villain. Unless the villain is SUPPOSED to be an unstoppable force that the protagonist can't lay a finger on, then it works. But if the protagonist is supposed to stand a chance, then it pretty much fails seeing as how there are a lot of powers this villain has that can make him totally unbeatable. I would recommend nerfing him down to one or two powers and/or giving some sort of Achilles Heel to even out the odds.

Because women can't be pretty or act like women you idiot. What year do you think this is? 1930?

I posted this in another board, but it sort of fits in considering the characters are superheroes.

Just a list of characters for a story I'm planning out.

It's a fap story.

(1/3)

Codename: Sunflower – Uses a special suit that absorbs solar energy and is able to use for both offensive and defensive purposes. She can expel the energy in concentrated beams or create impenetrable barriers of hard light. The suit also comes equipped with a jet pack that also runs on solar energy. The downside is that she fights at a disadvantage once the sun goes down and her source of power is limited considerably.

Real name: Katherine “Kate” Moon – Kate was born to two Korean-American parents who worked as defense contractors, inventing and developing technology for the Unites States Armed Forces. Discovered to be as gifted as her parents, Kate was an engineering prodigy, building her own computer at age 10. However she would grow rather rebellious and take opposition to her parents’ livelihood which she considered “war profiteering”. Spending most of her teen years as an activist for peace, she ended up growing distant from her parents until her father was murdered by a foreign spy in a botched attempt to steal plans for his weapons projects. Filled with rage and sorrow, she built the first Sunflower suit and brought the people responsible for her father’s death to justice. From then on, Kate Moon was a superheroine.

Kate is passionate about her superhero-ing the same way she is passionate about the other things she finds important, like activism and her favorite fandoms. She is short and petite, but quite busty (although her suit hides this well enough). She enjoys helping people, building new gadgets, and writing fanfiction.

Codename: Silverstar – The human host for a mystical spirit of the night, whose purpose is to uphold the ideals of law and justice. Silverstar assures her team that she is not possessed and that the spirit only assumes control of her body when she allows it, as well as relinquishing control back to her when she asks. Silverstar is more durable than the average human, capable of taking hits that would kill the average man. She can also fly at great speeds and has minor telekinetic abilities (she can lift and move a car, but not a house or a building). In addition, provided she is not weakened or exhausted, Silverstar can create portals between locations, capable of crossing great distances instantly.

Real name: Alice Wyatt – Alice works as a librarian, preferring the quite, lonely hours of the evening shifts to the busy, bustling lunchtime rushes. She came into contact with the Spirit of the Night while looking through old tomes hidden away in the library’s basement. Noticing a larger, leather-bound book whose cover was scribbled on with a language she didn’t recognize, Alice couldn’t resist a peak. In this one case, curiosity did not kill the cat. Rather, it empowered it.

Born to a black mother and white father and spending her childhood in expensive private schools, Alice’s worldview is considerably different than most black American women. She detests ghetto culture, despising rap and hip-hop music with a fire that burns hotter than most white conservatives. Yet at the same time, she recognizes that black Americans do suffer from injustices and racial tensions. However, Alice’s overall view boils down to: “Stop acting like hoodrats and they’ll stop treating you like hoodrats!” In short, she’s not quite as forgiving of shortcomings (such as BLM) as the average bleeding heart.

Alice is reserved and dresses conservatively, hiding her trim, svelte body away under sweaters and long skirts. She enjoys dry humor, jazz music, and Lifetime soap operas.

(2/3)

Codename: Eclipse – Has control over darkness itself, able to command the very shadows around you to attack. Actually not really. That’s just the bottled answer she gives people when they ask. It’s much easier to swallow than: “I can create illusions that make it seem like the shadows are attacking you, but what you are feeling is actually just my advanced telekinesis.” With such power over people’s minds and their perception of the world, as well as such honed telekinetic abilities, one would think Eclipse would be one of the most powerful supers in the world. Alas, Eclipse is content where she is as a second-stringer on Sunflower’s team. Truthfully, Eclipse is terrified of the responsibility that would come with joining the premier superhero team, The Alliance.

Real name: Elizabeth “Liz” Ramos – Given up for adoption soon after she was born and kicked from orphanage to orphanage throughout her teen years has made Liz a bitter young woman. Her abilities made things no better, manifesting before she had even entered puberty. Finding a family with Sunflower’s group of supers has warmed Liz considerably, but she still remains distant, keeping her teammates at arms’ length. Used to living as a loner, being a part of a team is a new experience for Liz and only time will tell if she can fully adapt.

Liz can come off as cold, bitchy, and insensitive, but it is all a mask to hide her pain. Liz yearns for a deeper connection with people, but fears that something will cause it to come crashing down. Liz is a hopeless romantic at heart and if there is one thing she desire more than a friend, it is a man to call her own. Liz’s style can be considered a cross between goth and punk, often wearing torn fishnet leggings, worn boots, studded belts, dark skirts, beaten leather jackets, and goth shorts. Liz enjoys Chinese takeout, boy bands, and romantic comedies.

Codename: Wildheart – Nature is her domain. It calls to her, and she calls back. Contrary to popular belief, she cannot talk to animals. However, she does have a primordial understanding of them and they of her, as well as the use of body language and pheromones. Gifted these abilities by a physical manifestation of Mother Nature after a night of wild sex (she tends to leave out the second part), Wildheart used her powers primarily to combat unethical and illegal practices in deforestation, as well as to preserve the nature and wildlife surrounding major cities.
Real name: Hanna Fairfield – A blonde bombshell cheerleader was the last person one would suspect of caring about the environment. But one night of college girl experimentation ended up giving her a new perspective. Hanna has been described by her peers as “thoughtless”, “air-headed”, and “self-absorbed”. To be perfectly honest, they’re not wrong. But to be fair to Hanna, one night of magical (literally) lesbian sex can change someone a lot. Now, Hanna is an airhead who cares. She wants to help and that’s all that really matters, right?
Hanna has always enjoyed the benefits of being beautiful. And she has always enjoyed the world of cosmetics. But ever since having her eyes opened, she has turned her back to the likes of perfume and lipstick and eyeliner. Now, she works with her natural beauty. And no, that does not mean she’s letting her leg and armpit hair grow out. Going natural doesn’t mean going cavewoman. It just means she’s going with more environmentally friendly products. Because if there’s one thing Hanna enjoys as much as helping the environment, it’s looking the best she possibly can!
Hanna has been described as a bombshell and with good reason. Her body is a work of art, sculpted by the Goddess Aphrodite herself (Well, it may as well have been). Long blonde hair, big blue eyes, world-class breasts, ass that won’t quit, and legs that go all the way up! Hanna likes dogs, wolves, bear cubs, partying, and a nice steak dinner.

Fucked the formatting on the last one. Shit.

(3/3)

Codename: Vanguard – The only male on Sunflower’s team. Compared to the rest of the team, his power-set is considered pretty white-bread, but no less useful. Vanguard was a policeman before he was a superhero. He was a part of the clean-up crew to clear away the debris left behind after the Battle of Mission City, where an alien force attempted to plant a foothold on Earth. After being exposed to a live power core, the cosmic energy that was emitted from the device altered his body (most would agree for the better). Now, Vanguard can lift tanks and trucks without a sweat, exert his body for far longer than humanly possible, and shrug off bullets and explosive projectiles as if they were nothing. The cosmic energy also allows him to fly. Vanguard is well beyond peak human capability. He is truly superhuman.

Real name: Clifford “Cliff” Clayton – A Texan born and raised, Cliff was raised old-fashioned by two loving parents alongside his three brothers. Growing up, out of all the fantasies his boyish mind could dream up, there were none he had more frequently than the one where he beat the bad guy and saved the day. At the ripe age of 12, Cliff decided what he was going to be when he grew up: He was going to be a hero. Unfortunately his older brother Jack became a firefighter first, so Cliff settled on Policeman.

Growing up around strong figures like his father and brothers, Cliff is unapologetic in his masculinity, especially so today with all the tumblr and feminist crap flying around. He was raised old-fashioned by conservative parents, so his views are considered a teeny bit backwards by his female teammates. But they love him anyway. He is, after all, the one person keeping their group from becoming a clamfest (that and he is quite easy on the eyes). Cliff enjoys fast cars, teaching thugs some manners, and watching reruns of the Batman and Superman animated series.

...

...

Yes, Tyrone. Not every story comes with pictures.

You don't need to, but if you want to give me feedback, I would appreciate it.

Please?

Oh, with the please, now I can do that.

The general idea behind the story was born on /erp/, with a team of supers consisting almost entirely of women save for the one man (who is supposed to do most of the work).

The girls have an unspoken rule of servicing the guy's sexual needs (partly because they don't want their only heavy-hitter to leave, and partly because they actually enjoy it).

The whole story is supposed to cater to this (admittedly a bit sexist) "superheroines in peril" fetish, with the superheroines being damsels and the superhero rescuing them (and being rewarded with sex).

It also caters (somewhat) to the COLONIZED/BLEACHED fetish, since the hero is a FUCKING WHITE MALE and most (3/4ths) of the heroines are strong women of color.

It needs a sexy supervillainess who attempt to woo the hero into joining her by giving better sex than his allies.

It's fantastic, honestly. It really taps into that kind of story centered more towards male fantasies (having a harem of women while you're pretty much a badass the rest of the time) that I haven't seen in ages.

Well, to be fair this kind of story does exist, most commonly in anime. But everyone knows that the main character is some generic guy who is a social retard and has his balls cut off so he doesn't notice any of the advances made by the girls in his harem; however, I like your approach where the only guy on the team is actually a testosterone filled man with urges and desires.

Don't worry, you'd be surprised how much normal people actually enjoy stories where women are still damsels in distress. Besides, don't lose any sleep over whether something is "sexist" or not. All you're doing is writing your characters in scenarios where they're in peril, tied up, captured, etc. (Which is really a great fetish tbh). Also, outside of Tumblr, there's hardly anyone who actually believes the kind of nonsense about whatever SJW flavor of the month "issue" Tumblr likes to complain about.

You're a fucking legend. This fetish is one of my favorites. I also have the colonized/bleached relationship between two of my characters in my story. Coincidentally, my female character also has a white father and black mother; although, she's an Australian. On the other hand, the guy in the relationship is a FUCKING WHITE MALE from Canada.

It's funny when I read about your character Katherine Moon, especially the part about her writing fanfiction and having fandoms and she is the opposite of my character, who browses anonymous imageboards in his free time.

Yeah, I'm not the kind of guy to desperately search for a million fans to read my story overnight, but it feels nice to know that someone is reading and enjoying my work.

Codename: Neurossa - Able to control human minds, taking in dozens in her thrall at a time. She regularly derives her manpower from heroes and fellow villains she takes control of. Silverstar and Vanguard are among the few that can resist her power, thanks to the otherworldly nature of their powers and the effect they have on their human minds.

Real name: Natalie Harper - Born to wealthy and distant parents, Natalie was educated by the best private tutors money could buy. Alas, all the knowledge in the world could not stop the young girl from feeling overwhelming loneliness. Natalie never learned how to properly interact with other people, having been kept from attending public and private schools. Her abilities manifested in her late teens, proving that mind control and an immature teenage girl was a horrifying combination.

Thanks to a strict diet and exercise routine imposed on her since childhood, Natalie is in fantastic shape, a vision of classical beauty, with soft lips, a pert nose, and a athletic, yet feminine, body.

She sees Vanguard as a prize to be won and Silverstar as a rival to vanquish, since both are one of the few to resist her will. Natalie enjoys power, control, wealth, and the idea of Vanguard pinning her down and taking what he wants.

HOW PROBLEMATIC
I love it.

I like that as well, and my bad on deleting my post. Wanted to repost with another picture.

No problem. Also, I'm reading your work, and I'm enjoying it quite a lot even though I'm not familiar with Hunter x Hunter. You have a nice balance of detail in your writing where it isn't barebones but it isn't paragraph after paragraph of insignificant details that become a strain on the eyes and a chore to read. I'll bookmark and continue reading before going to bed, user. Good work.

I hate this trope. If the creators want me to project on a character, can they at least make it a character worth projecting on. No man wants to be the average joe schlub who has women falling for him for no reason. Want to know why? Because all men know this is bullshit.

Women don't fall for average joe, they fall for Superman and Batman and Captain America.

Alright, Let's do this.

Digging the characters profiles. I especially like Sliverstar and Eclipse. Sliverstar for saying fuck that to hood culture and Eclipse for basically highlighting the fear of leadership.

Vanguard is great for the sense that he's not one of those brittle nittles that seems to populate western culture. He's old school and in a time where everyone wants to be progressive, being old fashioned is great.

wew

What are the cup sizes for all the ladies?

I will admit, most of the paragraphs in the chapters are full of nonsensical details, and I'm quite happy that you spotted that out as well. Currently, I'm taking a slow time on making the latest chapter, so hopefully from there I can solve and improve on that problem.

Thanks for reading it, and I'm really glad you like it so far.

Eclipse is a B cup (which she is self-conscious about) but has a fantastic ass.

Silverstar is a C cup with wide, feminine hips.

Sunflower and Wildheart are the bustiest of the team, both sporting D cups. However, Sunflower is petite, while Wildheart has the more traditional "bombshell" body (legs and all).

Neurossa is the bustiest of them all, though, sporting F cups that are almost inhumanly perky.

Let's face it. In Japan, where this kind of crap is produced, the guys watching those harem anime are really considered the "undesirables" of society; generally unattractive, NEETs, no social skills whatsoever. To them, just an average guy with no distinct features or real personality whose entire existence is comprised of being oblivious to women and accidentally feeling a pair of tits every once in a while IS their Superman.

I could act naive and pretend like I don't know why masculinity and femininity are demonized in our modern society, but it just makes me feel really warm inside when I see characters, particularly male ones, who act like actual men rather than low testosterone pussies.

I don't mind details, even a lot of details. I feel like details are important for world building, especially when the world is not like our own; it helps a lot with immersing the reader into the story. What I can't stand is when the pace of the story slows down to a crawl because the writer decides to go on and on about what a character is wearing or they spend a dozen paragraphs describing every nook and cranny of a location. Really kills the mood.

You have patrician taste in breasts, my friend.

I liked the Nonsensical details. It's important in my point of view. The goal is to sink the reader into the world and the characters. Oh I agree there can be too much of it but you so far have a nice balance to it.

...

I feel the way about that too. Especially if it's in an established series, when some of areas are never fully shown or talked about.

Definitely agree on this one. Granted, reading details are great, but having to go through a huge load does in fact kill the mood.

Glad to hear that, user. Thank you.

You better write that down somewhere in case some random user sees your work and starts requesting/commissioning artists for it.

Any other specifics, like:
- Accessories (glasses, piercings, tattoos, etc.)
- Height / Weight (not sorry)
- Age
- Hairstyle and length
- Eye color
- etc.

I meant more ideas for stopping them socially, not beating them up. All I could come up with is their family.

I suppose you can point out that there are much more legal means to use his abilities and he doesn't need to put on a cape and play king of the mountain.

I agree with this user (>>675366). Not only should you write down the specific physical characteristics that sets them apart in case you ever get the chance to have an artist work with you, but I recommend also writing down small, insignificant pieces of information that might not ever pop up in the actual story like their music taste, what movies they like, etc. It really helps getting in touch with the character while you write them. I keep a separate document full of the random quirks in a character's personality, even though I know it won't contribute to the main plot. It goes a long way.

I do enjoy details, but there is a fine line between being naturally immersed, being guided through a foreign world with details and being spoon fed information. But I don't see that issue in your story, there's just enough room for my mind to fill in some blanks.

Shit, fucked up the formatting there. Meant to say that I agree with on writing down characteristics.

Well, golly gee. Seriously, though. I'm flattered.

Yes, it's male fantasy, but I the heroines do have personality beyond their relationship to the guy. And the guy isn't even the one leading the team (even if he is doing all the heavy lifting)!

I also tried to make a male character that actually resembled a man that women would want to have sex with: handsome, charming, strong, brave, chivalrous…

Well, you gotta write what you know, right?

I love it too…

Sort of what I'm getting at with Vanguard. While society has made progress and advances in civil rights and all that jazz, there are some things about the men of yesteryear that are clearly better than the nu-males of today. Like having a backbone, for instance. And not wanting foreign men to fuck your women.

Also, since Vanguard is old fashioned thanks to his parents, it affects how he interacts with both his teammates and villainesses.

He really doesn't like watching his friends get hurt, in fact hurting women is grounds for bone-breaking in his eyes. So whenever he goes into full bloodrage on some punk mook who doesn't know how to treat a lady, his fellow heroines… feel things.

It's not something the girls are used to. They're strong heroines who can look after themselves, right? But having a man defend their honor is a new (and welcome) experience. They like it, Eclipse especially considering she's a closet romantic. Goth girl reads romance novels and fantasizes about knights in shining armor.

There's also his aversion to fighting villainesses, Neurossa to be specific. This is ultimately a weakness, since he wants to help his friends but he can't bring himself to hurt a woman …No matter how much she begs him to.
So there's this drop dead gorgeous supervillainess who wants him to throw her down and have his way, he knows it's wrong and he won't betray his friends for her, but he also knows he's not that strong and if he gets one more look at her divine tits he's going to break for sure. So, he tries to stay as far away from those fights as possible.

pic unrelated

Which is great, especially because a lot of writer make the huge mistake of writing a love interest with their only purpose and motivation being "I'm the love interest". It'd be a shame if one of the ladies standing by Vanguard were just a cardboard, one dimensional love interest who only served to fuel a different fetish and absolutely nothing more.

But of course, even as a young guy myself, why would I want to see some disgusting fatso get jiggy with a good looking woman? I know there's the whole "inner beauty" but we need to be honest with ourselves and admit that humans still base a majority of our attraction towards others through those superficial qualities we find most appealing.

To be fair, my story is basically a deconstruction of the popular videogame-related stories about players getting trapped inside virtual worlds (examples would be stories such as Sword Art Online, Log Horizon, .Hack//Sign, No Game No Life, etc.)

I would love to mention less anime-esque stories but it seems like the idea of players getting trapped in a videogame isn't as appealing in the West as much as it is in Japan. When I mean deconstruction, I examine a lot of common tropes prevalent in these kinds of stories, especially characters and tone.

For one thing, the protagonist is always some moody, angsty, lone wolf who is generally feared or respected by all, every word they speak being a line about "something something gotta be the best and win, gotta survive", winning every battle by pulling some new overpowered trick out of nowhere, being the desire of every woman he encounters (at least in most cases).

So why not change up the protagonist a bit? Why not make the protagonist a friendlier fellow, someone who isn't a "chosen one" or some messiah with a destiny to become the best, someone who constantly gets knocked down but keeps getting back up, who is open to lending a hand and being apart of a team without necessarily having to establish himself as the "alpha" leader of the team.

What about tone? Well, most of these stories have a scenario where if a player dies in the game, then somehow they die in real life. That's a dire situation and it means that something as innocent as killing another player in a game results in actually taking someone's life. Again, I look at this and think about what the dynamic of players would be if there was no real life consequences to killing another player and the only thing that would happen is that they'd respawn right after? It makes the thought of dying much less frightening and lightens the tone of the story.

I could go on about my story, tone, plot. I even have my own character list I could share as well but I don't know if you'd like to hear it. After all, it's a very niche story and it isn't everyone's cup of tea, so I understand if you don't want to read through a sea of text.

I disagree with "Write what you know" mentality, it's good when you're first starting out but after awhile you need to get out of that comfort zone and try to at least write something that's different, even if it isn't any good it's good enough practice to help improve on your writing skills.

I like this. I'd love to read your story.

The character is intentionally doing it to destroy the current governments of the world in hope whatever post-scarcity metal society emerges is more open to freedom. It's their C plan after "hard to remove propaganda shuts down government buildings" and "threaten politicians with C" (which fails because the targets are too stupid to realize the threat) failed. Plan Z is nuclear EMP (my understanding is smashing two pieces of the right Uranium isotope together at sufficient speed is all you need for really simple stuff and the hard part is getting the uranium, accelerating it and getting it to the target) to send everything back to Victorian era (the character doesn't want it to get this far, but has it as an ultimate fallback and retort claims they're a homicidal maniac).

wait one cotton picking second

When developing a character, do you guys write outlines for them, or just develop them as you go along with the story?

If you do make outlines, are you as general or specific as possible about their traits, likes, flaws, and all?

Also, is there a certain amount of strengths weaknesses, quirks, and everything you give your characters, or do you only focus on a few major ones?

Happy to hear that. Just a bit of a warning though, first couple of chapters are pretty slow, and it doesn't pick up until chapter 6. At first it was going to be a slice of life thing, but I decided to make the story as another story happening within the HxH universe.

Mah nigga. SAO is crap though

As long as you don't make a Kirito like character, you'll do fine. However, from reading your idea, it sounds like you're making an endearing character who just wants to play video games, but logged in the wrong time and place, and possibly being overshadowed by a false hero/protagonist who is really a combination of bad traits of a mmo anime mc.

Write them as I go along with the story, which isn't really a smart idea. It's best that you keep an outline of them on a doc/notepad file for future reference, and from time to time update it.

A little of both.

A little of both, but it's mostly focusing on the major ones while sprinkling in the little tidbits of each character (ex. sure so-so is a hardass, but he likes to have a cup of whiskey after a hard day's work, and tends his garden as a way to remember his friend who died of childbirth.)

I find it's normally best to be as detailed as possible up front, just so you can keep the character understood for yourself. You want to at least cover the experiences that would effect how they go through the story. Like if one has never been in a life or death situation before, they'd be less sure than one who was a soldier or firefighter for years. You need to know why they react the way they do. Like if one is prone toward violence or another tries to talk their way out of things, why do they chose those courses of action? Just assumptions that is the best way to do things, or due to past experiences? The more you know beforehand, the smoother it'll be when you're writing.

No to worry, user. I don't mind slower paced stories at all. Not every needs to start off with a huge action scene in the opening chapter. As long as it's still enjoyable, I have no problem with how fast paced or slow and methodical a story is.

I totally agree, it's exactly the reason why I saw that train wreck of a show in it's entirety. I watched it so I could AVOID the mistakes that show made with one of the biggest issues being a whiny, edgy teenager that is untouchable, a beta tester who knows more than any other player, has a posse of girls around him for no reason, and is one of the shining reasons why SAO as a whole fails; such an interesting concept that could be explored that could have had tons of interesting new game mechanics and could have been a nice love letter to online gaming and the people who play those games, but NO, all we got was a generic fantasy setting that had a coat of "it's a video game" splashed on it, and they only ever mentioned parts of said game with a couple of throwaway scenes every once in a while.

That's what I'm aiming for. It's definitely flipping the whole premise of this "angsty lone wolf" on its head.

Basically, yes. He's a guy fresh out of college, disenfranchised with how his life is going, he has no sense of direction, he has no real achievement. So he finds comfort and peace through the escapism of video games and when he hears about some revolutionary new system that connects players' minds into a game where it's like they're whisked away to a new world full of adventure and you don't even have to pick up a controller, you can bet he's going to hop on board from day one. It just so happens that things go awry where all the players are stuck, but rather than making the story some sort of fight for survival, it's more about how these players grow accustomed to their new lives (until someone can figure out how to get out, but there's no rush).

How important is a character's age in making them who they are?

That's nice to hear, and I fully agree with that statement.

Same, but I quit around episode 5 because I couldn't stand it anymore, and just decided to read up on the it. That Christmas episode was pretty terrible, especially with the shit forced drama and somewhat decent girl dying.

Agreed. I would give the series some slack if they amped up the MMO themes while downplaying the harem BS and the romance, but the harem, romance, and forced drama really killed the series.

Finding and living for the positives out of a shitty event. Sounds like a pretty comfy story.

A character's age determines how they react to specific events and situations, assuming no other circumstances affecting them in the story, and also how they are treated by other characters of different ages. For example, children are naive and carefree, teenagers are emotional and usually have a disdain for authority figures, and adults try to be figures to them, regardless of their competence. Of course you can have a kid who acts like an adult and vice versa, but IMHO characters who "act their age" are much more believable.

That first image…no, just no. Using alternative words for the sake of using alternative words is terribly writing. Simplicity is key.

I don't blame you at all, it's 100% understandable why'd you drop the show, everything is handled so poorly. I forced myself to sit through the entire series as research on not to handle a story the way SAO did.

And that melodramatic message of the decent girl humming a song while Kirito is crying? Talk about heavy handed; I'm pretty sure the creator tried to make that moment justify all his later brooding for the rest of the show.

I really wish it did actually incorporate some MMO elements into the actual MMORPG. Aside from generic components like an HP bar and leveling up they bring up from time to time and occasionally pulling out interaction menu, there was nothing unique about the game the characters played. Even the location of the virtual world is just so overdone and played out with it being some run-of-the-mill fantasy world with monsters and basic level design of grasslands/ancient city/dark labyrinth dungeons.

I agree. If they really wanted some harem crap, just have it in the background and don't let it take too much screen time, but I felt like the girls in the harem were written just to be these clingy groupies who just latch on to Kirito and have NOTHING else going for them.

I also feel like there was too much of an emphasis on the romance. When the scenario is "looking for a way out of a game that'll kill you in real life if you die in-game", I don't see there being much time to just relax and settle down with someone; however, my story is more about characters learning to live in this new world rather than wanting to figure out a way to escape it immediately.

I'm definitely going for something that takes its time with world building and characters usually driving the story forward. I could write about them doing quests, but that formula would get very tired and repetitive very quickly.

I've envisioned my main character as between 26-30 years old. The only problem is that I'm not that old yet (early twenties still), so I fear I won't make him react realistically for his age.

I've thought about making him closer to my age, but he just seems more interesting as an older man.

This is good-ole character exposition comes in handy. Characters acting their age is good when you don't have much time to build anything. But with your MC and supporting cast at this point you can drop hints as to having a interesting past(I.E grew up a delinquent, abusive parents, tiger mom, just got out of the military), or go full fluff and give him a life changing event(parents got shot in an alley)

If I tell you my teenage character had an abusive mother, but had a father figure in the parole officer that would check on them frequently, then you can safely make a character who respects authority figures while not stepping on your own toes or predispositions the reader might have.

Admittedly, the concept of leaving a message is kinda nice, but the way they used it was handled poorly. Not to mention, jamming a huge load of drama too early in the series or as way to remind the viewer that the premise of the story/show/comic (i.e. you die in the game, you die in real life) isn't the best way to do things.

Agreed. Funny that the creator made a character with ebolaids, and she dies from said ebolaids for the sake of drama.

I fully agree with that. Unlike .Hack//Sign where it shows viewers that the cast are in fact in a video game by showing game elements like world portals, dungeon crawling/exploring, and the characters' avatar being idle while the player is doing something like drinking tea, you don't really get that much immersion in SAO.

This also applies to a majority of the side characters in that show, which is unfortunate because unlike Kirito, Asuna, and the rest of low-tier harem, characters like Klein and Agil were more interesting to read/watch about.

Agreed, and the romance between Kirito and Asuna ain't that great either along with the drama around it (ex. the Fairy MMO arc) sounds like a shit romance drama fanfic.

I feel the same way, and if love ever does bloom in that type of story, it shouldn't overshadow the main focus and the build-up to it has to be handled with care.

You can always do traveling around the worlds by horseback and by boat (like Black Desert Online) as well with the quests. Like during those travels, the characters can discover more of the game's lore/myths/npcs and as they camp underneath the stars or escape perils, they all become true companions or some become rivals to one another.

How much of yourself and people you know do you base your characters on?

That is a great idea. I will make sure to write that down, especially because it would be a good way to have more character driven scenes as the characters make their way to the next quest, meeting new guilds of players (some friendlier than others), and also explore their own relationships as they arrive to the next dungeon, explore a new area, etc.

I think every writer injects a bit of himself into his story. I have a couple of quirks of mine in a few of the characters I write, but it doesn't reach the point where a character serves as a self-insert of myself.

My character shares name with my brother-in-law (A coincidence), and his story is quite similar to my father first years with my mom.

Here and there.

Anyone knows what kind of content Wattpad allows? Lewds, or violence, cause all I see is shit. Shit fucking everywhere.

Add in some crafting/cooking moments, and you got yourself a super comfy mmo story. Happy to help user.

Only little tidbits and quirks, but also keeping it subtle/downplayed to the point where it's not a self-insert or a personal BS. Using names of people that I know on the other hand are weird to me. Sometimes, I'll stick with it, but most of time, I would completely drop the name and use something else.

That's the plan. I want this story to be really relaxed and enjoyable, make it a situation where there isn't some clock counting down towards an inevitable doom or permadeath. I wanted to capture that same kind of camaraderie you'd have playing a videogame with your buddies; making fun of each other, top banter, goofing off together, etc.

Wattpad allows EVERYTHING, there are no limitations on the content you can write, which is one of the site's best features. Just don't browse the "trending" stories that are on the frontpage, they're made by and pander to teenage girls. I really recommend it, especially because there are a lot of little gems you could find by just dedicating time to browse through all the different categories, tags, and genres.

…Huh.

Well, I have an account now, so I do some heavy browsing. Thanks.

So far I'm liking the premise, and it'll be a nice breather from the inevitable doom themes that some MMO stories have. I wish you luck on your efforts, and hope to read it sometime.

Same.

Are there times when you guys struggle to work on your stories?

This thread encouraged me to write more, and I've written a few poems and started a short story over the week. But now I'm feeling burned out, like I overexerted myself too quickly, and I started losing interest in my work a couple days ago. That short story also doesn't read as well as it did when I first started it, and some of the poems are in the same boat.

How do you guys get over these issues when you have them? Do you just take a break or…?

Are there times when you guys struggle to work on your stories?

Yes.

I have my old hard-drive back, I even went back on my story to see if it's there but for the love of Christ I just can't touch it.

Hell of this writing I'm going through it, and good heavens there are a lot of mistakes. I'm correcting them right now but my problem is the fact that I'm trying to do everything at once:

and instead of dropping the fucking stupid shit like reading quests and reading manga or going on comics sites, I sit there moping

.>W-why can't I get my stuff done.

Instead of reading the shit that was posted in the thread, I goof around.

And I hate myself for it.

To get back on track, I did hear some advice to only write a few things each day, and not try to finish it in one setting.

How do you guys write romance?
I stop myself often from writing romantic scenarios because I feel like they're too, I don't know, mushy I guess? Forced even. I worry about choking the reader with it. At the same time, I don't want to spring a relationship from out of nowhere because that seems cheap

I use people I know and character s from other works as jumping off points for development of my own. Most of main cast has one of my personality traits, so it is a little bit easier for me to put myself in their shoes.

Of course. All the time. Most of time I spend on "writing" actually goes to editing and outlines.

I made writing, drawing, and brainstorming part of my routine. I do it, just like I brush my teeth, exercise, study, and "meditate." Even if I don't don't feel like it, I will vomit words and images onto paper. Some of the my best drawings were done when I didn't feel like drawing, and I set personal records on days I dreaded going to the gym.

Anons, how do I write a realistic blind character?

BLIND YOURSELF, ONLY THEN WILL YOU KNOW YOUR CHARACTERS PAIN

I bought a 12 pack of creative juice
tonight was productive

Written anything cool?

a boy and the beast
Dare threaten me, you skinny wrech
hero's greater than this land has seen for many years have challenged me
and each have become my supper

I… I committed a mistake.
There is a general rule for writing: don't make the audience lose their time. I did. My first chapter starts off ambiguously and slow, following a fake protagonist with no name, only to be killed off by the bad guy who the reader may thought it was the bad guy following her

Things don't start to get interesting until page 20, when we finally see the hero instead of some nobody woman who disappears from the plot after dying. Of course, it bring angst, drama, yada yada, but I took too much time for the story to kick in, and wasn't even funny.It's hard for me to write humor.

Is too late to change the beginning, my friend started publishing the comic and the pages are already finished, but I think I could change the middle and ending. It can be a "flawed" first chapter… right? Even good stories can have that?

Right?

Yup, it's too late to do anything. You should probably kill yourself.

It's not the end of the world but don't make the following chapters feel like the readers were put on a treadmill that starts out slowly only to suddenly become sanic-fast that they get thrown out of it and then vomit excessively.

I'm really sorry!
I don't have the experience I wish I had. Can you guys recommend me any good book on writing for comics?
Ones that I may found online?

Well to start off, what's your book about? What genre is it?

Well, you'd have to share some of your writing with us. What you might consider "choking the reader" with romance, others might consider enjoyable.

The way I usually write romance is to avoid "star-crossed lovers" crap. Is it really that satisfying to see two characters fall in love at the first sight of each other? I really don't think so. So I usually write the two characters initially being in constant contact with each other as traveling companions or job partners or just regular friends. Throughout their friendship, they'll see the good and bad from the other, brave the storms and go through harsh times together, and the audience goes along that journey with them. Eventually, the relationship develops and gets to the point where they express their feelings for one another, and they become lovers. For me, I feel this is the most "natural" way to write romance.

Right now, the relationship in my story starts off with this arrogant, strict, standoffish girl and warm, patient guy who brings her back down to earth and takes charge in helping her loosen up and enjoy life a little more.

Superhero with a bit of horror.
The first part is like a slasher, the second part we discover who the hero is, -think the Kafka metamorphosis- and ends with a bit action scene between the "hero" kicking the ass of the big ass villain.

Of course, outside of the alliterative name, there is very little superheroics in this chapter. Is about a man trapped in an armor, forced to work with criminals just to get money for his sick son.

Thanks for the encouragement, it won't be easy but I really am enjoying the premise, so I'll have a fun time writing it. Good luck with your writing endeavors as well, user.

What's your account name so I can subscribe to you?

No, it's never too late. Most writers go through rewrites and revisions dozens upon dozens of times before they find the version they find most acceptable.

How do I add non-white characters without looking like an SJW faggot? It's proven SJW shit doesn't sell but I want to add a character very naturally without it seeming like it's pushing an agenda and turning off readers.

Just write the thing.

==Always.== In both writing and drawing.

I keep going at it, but also do things to cheer/motivate myself up (like watch a cartoon/animu, read a mango, play vidya, try out on building a plane model, or go here to 8ch). If I feel way too burned out, I still do what I can even if it's some shitty doodle or spew out a outline/chapter for a story while editing it, but also sometimes spoil myself with something nice as reassurance that things will be alright.

I like to write romance in a slow pace with dabs of fluff here and there along with trial and error between the two characters. Either be it, they just met and they slowly become friends or if they're childhood/job buddies. Also trying to avoid the whole cuckolding or blueballing the readers, and currently trying to attempt a balanced out love triangle.

Currently doing a fanfic with a romance subplot with an already established character pair up with an OC, who will eventually move onto being paired with another OC.

I feel the same too, but giving up on writing anything romantic or about a relationship blooming doesn't really improve on anything. It's all about trial and error, and also looking at romance stories/comics/movies/games for reference on what not to do and for inspiration.

Have the two characters established a friendship or rivalry? If so, you can start building up a romantic relationship from there as you make progress with your story by sprinkling moments or banter between those two.

I will do my best, and thank you for your encouragement as well, user.

Very simple, add the non-white character and DON'T make them gloat and flaunt around about how non-white they are. Never make a character's race central to their whole character.

Just write a character and if they happen to be black, asian, hispanic, then that's what they are. But DON'T force an agenda in there, even if it is very easy to fall into the trap of shoehorning agendas in the story.

What shitty writers like the ones at Marvel keep doing wrong is that they make black characters just to have them, and they forget about making interesting characters first. If you want to avoid looking like an autistic SJW, write interesting characters first and worry about their appearance afterwards.

And don't worry, you don't have to worry about SJWs monitoring your story to make sure there are enough minorities in it, you have no diversity quota to fill. It's YOUR story after all. Don't feel pressured from outside forces. You should enjoy your own story as much as anyone else.

I fall into this trap all the time, I get an idea and start to write it down then I start to overthink everything and take a break to come back to it later to not burn myself out, then a month or so passes and I come back to it and I can't be bothered to finish it because I've moved on to other stuff.

The other anons got you covered. As long as your not a fucking RACIST like most SJWs, and treat them like people instead of a series of labels, it should be no harder or easier than writing any other character. Don't care about anyone's politics, just write the story you want. Because for some people you'll never have enough diversity, and for others you'll always have too much, and both sides will ride your ass no matter what way you go. So fuck them both, do whatever the hell you want.

In a modern setting, race most means things to people who WANT it to mean a thing. The modern world is much more focused on how much money you have, the rich and the poor have a distrust of eachother, and the middle class has issues with both. Think more about Betty and Veronica. It wouldn't matter if they were black, asian, whatever, because a lot of their conflict is from having different economic backgrounds.

You can of course have it be a much bigger deal in period pieces or fantasy settings where races just hate eachother or have bitter rivalries. Then you just gotta focus on what each race considers priorities. Even goals like "making sure all our people survive" and "fight evil wherever it arises" can have conflict because there are times the first race's desire for self preservation will aid or just fail to combat the evil the second race hunts. And, even though both races could be called "good", they distrust eachother and their ways. So you mainly want to focus on culture, and culture will effect a lot about what your characters are raised to believe is normal.

Hey deer guy, you should use this as your theme song.

I'm this user>>671539 >>671614

So, I took the advice everyone gave me, and flushed out the main characters some more, and I think they have more bearing on the story now. However, another issue I've come across has more to do with the story's world/lore than its narrative.

I've tweaked the story a little so that wizards aren't a separate species, but an occupation. The villain is an Ogre now, and the guy trying to stop him is called a Seer. But in the story. wizards are only allowed to specialize in one type of magic (healing, levitation, conjuration, teleportation, etc) lest they be arrested. The Seer and Ogre though both know tons of spells, so they try to keep a low profile.

The problem is that them knowing so many spells is supposed to be a big deal, especially in regards to the villain. I introduced the Seer character first, though, so it seems to really cheapen the villain's presence later on. He loses his gravitas and weight behind his attacks since the Seer can counter them. If I introduce the villain first, though, it might make the Seer seem redundant or unnecessary.

What do you guys think? Make the Seer know less spells? Should he have some kind of limit on his powers the villain doesn't, or one that's more restrictive? Is it fine the way it is? Any ideas?

Have you guys ever felt like you had enough material to write a novel, but once you actually started writing realized there was only enough for a short story or novella?

great song user.

I think you mean "fleshed out"
That one letter makes a big difference. Only mentioning this because this is a writing thread.

Thank you.

user..shippers would come regardless, gay or otherwise. Their minds are..weird. I mean, some folks would ship a character with said character's favorite pastry.

This could work if it weren't because the other girls have strong powers as well. Unless you want to make the girls act like lazy pussies/dumb sluts for no real reason, the story would make no sense.

I mean, in your own words, Sunflower can build impenetrable walls of hard light. That's super fucking overpowered, way more than being able to lift trucks. Silverstar also seems to be like Vanguard, but with toned down strength and with other utility powers that might make her slightly better suited for some situations.

Mentioning "the first Sunflower suit" also raises some questions. The Sunflower suit is certainly a powerful weapon, so why don't any other girls than Sunflower (which, by the way, has no innate powers) wear it? In fact, if hard light barriers are relative to the suit's position, Silverstar could combine it with her superspeed for explosive results

I don't want to start shit in this thread although I know that's what's going to happen, but I think you are trying too hard to pander to Holla Forums types without making your story consistent in the first place. You just threw in every trope that could piss of SJW and hoped the stuck, but the worst thing is nobody will tell you your world may have some inconsistencies because Vanguard is LE GLORIOUS CONSERVATIVE WHITE SUPERMAN, and criticising anything SJW may hate is haram around here.

Basically, either crank up Vanguard's powers until he is this unstoppable justice machine, or tone down each of the girl's powers. They seem to be perfectly capable on their own, so it doesn't make much sense that they are so desperate to keep Vanguard around. Maybe they like Vanguard as a person and that's why they don't want him to leave? Maybe they just crave his enormous hulk dick?

I understand where you're coming from. The character list I posted was a rough first draft and obviously things that sound nice and good in your head may not work well when you actually try it out. There are always problems like you mentioned when you start out with something and it takes time to smooth out the edges and create something that makes sense.

So, yeah, you're totally correct. The whole theme of the story doesn't really work if the girls are too powerful or the dude isn't powerful enough.

I am admittedly trying to create a story that is essentially the anti-sjw, partly because it will trigger people and partly because it appeals to me personally. But what the hell, if you aren't writing for your own enjoyment then why are you writing at all?

Perhaps Sunflower's suit isn't quite as powerful (barriers remain, but weaker and can be broken). Perhaps Sunflower has trust issues and destroys obsolete suits so that they won't fall into the wrong hands and be reverse engineered? Or maybe Sunflower builds them so that only she can use them? Aside from Sunflower, I don't think the heroines are too powerful. Silverstar has telekinesis and can fly, Eclipse can bring the shadows to life, Wildheart can command the wildlife. Silverstar is durable, but in the sense that she can survive getting shot or being hit by a car. Only Vanguard has superstrength and only he can survive a building being dropped on him.

I don't want to make Vanguard too powerful, though. True male fantasy isn't being so good that everything goes right for you, it's succeeding through adversity. It's having the strength of will to go on despite insurmountable odds.

Vanguard is superhuman, but the enemies he fights are often stronger than he is. For every mugger or bank robber he thrashes, there's a villain he cleans his clock. But Vanguard always gets back up. It's the struggle that appeals to me. That, and a bunch of hot bitches.

The girls do like Vanguard as a person. And they like his dick. They'd prefer having him around, even if they are annoyed at how often he rescues them.

No, it's never too late. You can even make the first chapter salvageable if you later tie around the first chapter with the rest of the story. For example, you could have flashbacks about the first woman's past, which could explain some other things of the story, or even tie the ending into the first chapter with a twist that would put Shyamalamadingdong to shame and make your comic instantly become a cult classic.

Don't force yourself to write or you'll hit the wall really fast. The best ideas in my experience tend to come to you when you're doing something else entirely that has little to nothing to do with your writing. Try talking a walk or play something you enjoy like a game or an instrument.

...

This would certainly make her much weaker. Still strong, but perfectly vulnerable.

Actually, this makes a lot of sense. It already happens in real life, what with proprietary tech and state-secret tech (how the US recovers the debris of any satellite crash, even from foreign countries, just to avoid reverse engineering). She could be paranoid about keeping her suit's secrets just to avoid letting it fall into the wrong hands, even if it means not providing her friends with one in case they turn against her or are careless about keeping it intact. Fuck it, you could even make her paranoia a character trait, and either play it for laughs and drama. In that case, you could even make an arc about internal conflict because she doesn't want to let other girls use it, or an arc about mind-breaking Sunflower by having some villain somehow steal the tech from her.

Another possible reason would be that she doesn't want to be left out. She is the only one whose powers depend on a removable object; paraphrasing Bane, she has merely adopted superpowers, and other girls have been born in them, molded by them. It could be perfectly possible that she is insecure about her own qualities, and thinks that giving each girl in the group a Sunflower suit could eventually make her useless. She would of course try to keep this as a secret to avoid giving people the impression that she is weak, both physically and mentally. This could be explored in some arc.

If you don't want to make her a crazy bitch or a childish girl, make the suit something more than just a suit. Perhaps it can't be taken off for some reason, or perhaps it requires some risky invasive surgery not everybody is willing to take. Maybe it requires heavy use of implants, or fuck, maybe it's not even a suit anymore, but a full blown Raiden-tier cyborg body in which the only thing that was kept from her was her head and her natural body shape perhaps "improved" quite a bit. Not everybody would like to do that to their own bodies, even in the case that it was undistinguishable from their real bodies except for their inner workings, if only for how fucking painful and risky the whole process has to be. Even if it were safe, I bet a lot of people wouldn't want to throw away their bodies like they were trash. Thing is, not everybody has to be able to use the suit, and not just because Sunflower doesn't want them to do that.

If Silverstar can lift cars and fly quite fast, she could drop them on top of enemies like a bomb. This would deal massive damage to anyone but the hardest characters, such as Vanguard, and pretty much kill any regular human/superhuman without defensive powers.

Even if she can't do that due to limitations, she could become a quite good sniper with enough training. Switching from building to building in a matter of seconds could make her untraceable, which is a quite strong power as long as her enemies aren't bulletproof. Even if they are, she could drop molotovs on them, in case they aren't fireproof. Death from above is quite a strong power.

Depending on how is this handled, this is also a strong power. If they are physical, how strong are they? Could she simply bring a building's shadow to life and fuck shit up with that? Or are they only illusions? In which case, why doesn't she just blind her enemies completely by putting a dense shadow on their eyes?

Well, I'm gonna be realistic, that's quite a shit power against stronger enemies, specially if you can only command nearby fauna and flora. That said, if she can force flora to undercome fast metamorphosis a la Floronic Man in the Swamp Thing, she can be quite strong (basically, Floronic Man was only defeated because he was destroyed by the Swamp Thing's arguments, otherwise he would have been pretty much unstoppable), but otherwise, all she would be good for would be commanding birds to eat people's eyes out (which would be quite useful, really).

(cont)

What I am trying to get at is, most of these girls would probably crumble on their own, but they are four and their powers could work great together. Unless they are forced to work separated, I don't see how Vanguard could turn around the situation on his own. I mean, thinking of a situation in which all five heroes have to work together to succeed is easy, and so is putting a lot of weight on Vanguard's shoulders, but I don't think he has a much significant importance inside the team than Sunflower, for example. He is vital for the team, but I can't see him as being a one man army that should be capable of doing as well on his own, unless all situations are designed around requiring superstrength and superendurance. For example, try to think under which situations would Vanguard be stronger and more effective than the other four girls together? Sure, there are some, but could they make the bulk of the story?

Well, I don't manage understand people who say "I'm just writing for myself, so I don't want people to look at my writings", but if you don't enjoy what you are writing, you are probably a sellout. Always enjoy what you write, even if everyone else hates it.

I know the user wrote too fast and didn't notice, but now I wonder how you talk with a walk. Do you talk with the legs moving or some shit?

Not the user who posted the character summaries but in the defense of the user who you've been discussing this with, (and this is just my take on it), I assume Vanguard is pretty much that binding agent that hold the team together. As someone who has had to work with a team comprised of mostly women; I can say that they will start a lot of in-fighting and talking a lot of crap behind their backs, so I can understand if Vanguard is there to keep the girls on track.

Plus, like he mentioned in an earlier post, Vanguard is also there because the girls crave his dick. I'm sure being on a team full of female superheroes can get a little stressful, so having a sincere, lovable guy that can hold you and also help relieve a lot of sexual urges is practically a necessity.

Say what needs to be said, every writer that wants to improve wants to hear constructive criticism on their work and not just be showered with endless praise. What you said is very helpful I think, and it isn't just you griping about your personal issues with the characters or calling him a problematic shitlord for being anti-SJW, but rather the internal logic of the characters within that user's story.

So far, this is one of the best threads on Holla Forums just because there are anons who are actually trying to help rather than just jerking each other off or shit-flinging and sending one another back to Holla Forums or Holla Forums.

How would you write a character who the reader must not if he is human or not? An ambiguously human character, mind you.

must not know*

Sorry for the typo.

It's all in the details. If the character isn't human but you don't want readers to know that, then make the character not know the type of regular customs that every human knows. Make the character interact with everyday objects as if they're discovering for the first time.

That would be a perfectly valid reason, but it would require the girls being extremely self-aware which, in these matters, they usually aren't. By that I mean, they should realize they fight a lot over (either petty or actually important, depending on how mentally capable you want the girls to seem) shit and Vanguard is the only person who seems capable of mediating between them because, either because he doesn't get into girly fights or because he is chill as fuck. They know they cause infighting on a regular basis, even if they would like not to, which is why they decided they need Vanguard to help them overcome their differences. Basically, they want to desperately keep him around as a voice of reason/moral support for the team, because they know they would probably not last together for too long if it weren't for him.

Could open up for some funny and heartwarming parts later on if the girls eventually become real friends after a while and not just a superheroes team that united because of their powers. Basically, even though they stopped fighting as often, and even if they could probably settle their differences on their own, they would still try to start shit on purpose (as in, both girls perfectly knowing they are not actually fighting, just pretending) to get Vanguard to exercise his extremely sexy manly mediation skills on them; maybe involving some dickings or something.

In my personal experience, this is also true. Not all of the girls inside a group will be like this, but an overwhelming percentage of them will, for some reason.

Wildheart strikes me as the pure hearted bimbo who would rather avoid fights, if only because she is unable to hate anyone or because she is too airheaded/downright dumb to actually pick on fights. I know cheerleaders are stereotypically bitchy, but for some reason I think Hanna would probably fit more the energetic innocent (as in, no malice or naivety, not that she doesn't know about sex) slut archetype than anything else. Perhaps she could work as the girl who is an exception to the rule, and would rather cry about other people fighting (which is why we still need Vanguard) because she wants people to get along than picking a side and starting shit.

(cont)
That said, even if this would make sense, how could you exploit the "superheroine in distress" trope, other than making them fight so constantly they are the most incompetent team ever made? I mean, it's kind of the point, but it would be frustrating after a while. I had rather have the girls fail because they are weak than having them lose because they are so retarded they can never cooperate for shit. I mean, losing because they are little bitches would be funny and good from time to time, but not ALL the time. I don't know about you, but characters being stupid on purpose grinds my gears, and all cartoons that could solve their problems in each episode had they had a tiny little bit of self awareness make me rage. Think newer Doraemon episodes, in which a fucking 95% of problems could be solved if Nobita wasn't such a dumb fuck who still doesn't know how dangerous can Doraemon's inventions be despite fucking up with them every episode for hundreds of episodes. Flanderisation of every character in the show didn't help.

There still needs to be some reason the girls can't win on their own. Perhaps, you could design their attack patterns around relying on each other, and in case a single one of them failed, they would instantly become less dangerous. This way, you could design villains that are hard counters to some of the girls (ie. ultra rich petulant brat who gets her powers from inventions she commissions, a la Princess Morbucks, who can simply get her sun-blocking satellite/airship to block sunlight to shut down Sunflower and WildHeart's flora control; graffiti/ink terrorist whose obsession is painting every building in the city - and later on, the world - and can simply temporarily paint a huge area in deep black to prevent shadows from appearing, who can shut down Eclipse; mad scientist who somehow manages to transform air into a non-newtonian fluid that prevents fast movement, who shuts down Silverstar's fast flight abilities, telekinesis-throw abilities and even portal abilities, since being forced to breathe slowly would prevent her from recovering from exhaustion, and also shuts down guns or anything that requires fast, such as Sunflower's jetpack; super sailor/pirate who can flood about one feet of the ground with salt water and also increase the amount of salt and humidity in the air due to sea spray, which shuts down WildHeart's control powers over pretty much anything that's not seaweed and seabirds or fishes, which are obviously pretty fucking rare to find in a city, and perhaps even fucks with Sunflower's suit since it could corrode some of her suit's components; hacker who can shut down Sunflower's suit to the point she may as well be immobile) who would probably shut down most of the team's (wo)manpower since they are not strong independent women who need no other women and rely too tightly on each other. Brute strength is pretty much self-sufficient, so Vanguard should do well against any of the examples without much trouble. This way, you keep the girls competent, just not against the extremely specific threats they face.

Just a little request: can we get a good deal of villainesses? I know there is already Neurossa, but I feel this story would work very well with evil women who crave after a strong man of justice's dick (or a strong woman of justice's tits, for the lesbos). Even if they are not interested in sex, there is still something hot about girls being gently dominated into submission through the use of locks or ropes. I guess you could also simply beat them up, but blood, hematomas and broken teeth is a fairly more specific fetish that wouldn't work that well into more light-hearted stories. But for the love of everything that's good in the world, don't turn this into US Angel Corps Lite.

Also, as an unrelated question, how tall are the girls? I have a thing for petite girls and shortstacks, but I don't know if, for example, Sunflower is short for American standards (below 5'6" or 5'7"), or pretty much universally small (around 5'0").

Anyone?

All the time, yeah.

Writing a novel is pretty fucking difficult. So difficult, many authors rely on stopping action through endless descriptions (which makes novels look less "juvenile" and "objectively better written", because boring == mature or something) to make up for their lack of content. For example, I remember Eragon being kind of like this, or at least the first book since I had to fucking drop Eldest due to how exasperatingly slow it was

If everything else fails, you could try to pad your shit with descriptions, but I would recommend writing several short novels or stories, related to a deeper level than thematic or not, and compile them in a book. Short story books are actually pretty entertaining to read, fast as fuck and a good way to worldbuild a setting since you can explore different aspects of it without much trouble, in case the stories are slightly related.

Then write a short story or a novella.

Oh God, were those books BAD.

How do you deal with it? Just go with it, or try to pad out the story's length?

Look at the bright side, at least it wasn't like the movie. Now, THAT was shit

Buddy, I don't have a novel, sadly. I turn those in short stories instead.

I think it's best not to pad out the length of the story. There are no guidelines or rulebooks deciding how long a novel has to be in order to be considered "good". Some novels are hundreds and hundreds of pages long while others are just several dozen pages.

I have a question for you, the user who posted the character summaries in this thread. You mentioned that the heroines like to help Vanguard with his sexual urges, correct?

How do you write the dynamic between the characters for something like that? Do all the girls know they're riding on Vanguard's dick? Is Vanguard allowed to openly show his desire for the girls in front of the other members of the team or is he supposed to keep his sexual activities a secret between and whichever girl he's with that day? Is he in some sort of relationship with all the girls and are the girls okay with sharing the same guy or are they all just friends who have the benefit of being sexual partners?

I am genuinely curious on what your approach is.

Silverstar doesn't like guns and is very against killing.

In fact, Silverstar isn't actually Alice at all. The hero persona is the spirit of the night that Alice allows to take control and fight when she's needed. It's sort of like a Firestorm situation with two identities occupying the same body. But this spirit is benevolent and always gives control back to Alice when she asks.

I suppose I could give Wildheart some limited sort of warging abilities, a la Game of Thrones. She can see from the perspective of animals, gathering intel as a squirrel or bird that no one notices.

I understand your concerns. It wouldn't make sense if the girls suck at their jobs and get captured every time and Vanguard has to save them. Sure, I said I'd be playing to the "superheroine in peril" fetish, and I will certainly be doing that. However, these are capable heroines and they won't be damsels the entire time. Obviously, they have to win some fights to be taken even a little seriously. 4 out of 5 times, everything goes in their favor. They fight their usual villains and they grab some food on the way back to base. But the fifth time, they meets someone like Solomon Grundy or Black Adam or Ultron. A real brute force kind of villain who isn't affected by magic tricks or beams of light or a flock of birds. But they are affected a strong-enough sock in the jaw. This is where Vanguard can truly shine.

Close. The girls are capable heroines in their own right, and work together well. They are family, yes, and families often bicker and argue. But they stay together. Vanguard is a calm voice of reason most of the time, but he's hot-blooded himself. The girls and Vanguard sort of keep each other in check, in a way.

The girls keep Vanguard on the team for multiple reasons. The first being: he's the only tank they have. As I said before 4 times out of 5, the girls are solid. But the 5th time, when they come across a villain who can make craters, Vanguard is… well, he's the vanguard.

There's also the fact that, yes, being a superhero is stressful. Dating is hard in the super community and it's difficult for men and women to find a partner who can deal with the baggage. The girls are lonely, sex-starved in some cases, and Vanguard is quite the male specimen.

And finally, the keep Vanguard because they genuinely like him. Sure, he's old-fashioned, sure, his politics might clash with theirs, and sure, the occasions where he rescues them can prick their egos. But he's a good man. He's charming, handsome, and he wants to help. The girls know better than to turn someone like him away.

Yep. Right on the money. Hanna is an airhead, even after getting her powers, but she's genuinely nice and she means well. She's the only one on the team without a mean bone in her body. Even Vanguard has his dark side.

Exactly. I get you. Hence the 4 out of 5 thing.

Though, I do like your idea of the girls relying too much on each other to the point where if one of the fails, they all fail.

I'm working on more villainesses as I type this out.

Sunflower and Eclipse are the shortest, standing at 5'5 and 5'4 respectively. Sunflower is stacked, though, while Eclipse is the most willowy of the girls.

It's less them servicing him (thought this does happen often) and more like an arrangement made between them. Dating in the superhero community is difficult. There's lots of stress, lots of drama, and dating a civilian is rife with other troubles. Since Vanguard is superhuman, he has trouble finding a girl who can keep up with him. The rest of the team have their own problems in the dating scene. They basically realize that they can help each other. Everyone wins because everyone gets their stress relieved. The girls don't mind sharing Vanguard because it's not a true romantic relationship. They're fuck-buddies.

When they're fighting villains and doing hero stuff, it's all professional. It's only back at the base when they acknowledge they're special situation. And I'm partial to Vanguard spending time with the girls as they need him than to the girls cycling through turns.

Though, I do plan on having each of the girls developing romantic feelings for Vanguard at one point or another. Eclipse, for instance, is already in love with him, but she accepts the fuck-buddy situation because of her trust-issues and because she figures it's the closest she can get to a real relationship with him without letting someone in.

Wonderful. Thanks for answering my questions. I suppose it makes a lot of sense that they'd be fuck buddies over actual partners, especially since it'd be extremely difficult for one guy to maintain a successful relationship with four girls (as if one weren't hard enough).

I know your story is still in the works, but when you do happen to finish it, where do you think you'll publish/share it? Would there be a place where any interested anons (such as myself) could go to check on your progress?

I honestly don't know where I'd post the story. Does any fine user here have any suggestions?

I'd recommend Wattpad just because it's extremely simple to use. I know I've been shilling for Wattpad on this thread a lot but it's actually one of the few active writing communities I've found.

From reading the earlier posts, there's wattpad, which allows you to go full lewd and you can post images/gifs. Then there's archive of your own, which allows you to also go full lewd in your stories, but I'm not too sure if you can post original content, since most of the stories there are for fandoms.

I forgot to mention, but like this user was saying, Wattpad allows you to go as lewd/graphic as you'd like with your stories. They permit any kind of story being posted on that site, plus you can embed videos, gifs, pictures throughout the pages of the story which I feel is a nice addition that hardly any other sites offer.

I thought archive of your own was invite only.

Just checked, and you're definitely right about that. It's invite only, and you have to sign up to be on the waiting list (currently 3269 on the list) to be a member.

And if you don't like wattpad, there's still adultfanfiction.org and hentai-foundry.com.

Have you considering commissioning an artist or two to draw your characters, or even drew your own sketches of them?

I assume you responding to me, right?

No shit, it's hard to tell when everyone's anonymous.

No, I have not commissioned anyone to draw my characters. I don't have an abundance of money to pay for that. And since my artistic skills are non-existent, I don't think we'll be seeing art of my characters any time soon.

Thanks for link, I was on vacation this whole weekend and I was hoping to get started on writing. Then I came down with a cold or flu or some shit and kept sneezing while I was typing on my laptop. I only had the time to write some dossiers for the outline. Im not really putting together a huge cast for this since everyone is at most expendable besides the Deer. I was writing up ideas for the main antagonist, what I've written so far is the guy is either a CEO of a weapons manufacturer who got the new gun laws pressed or the wealthy owner of the park. The wealthy owner seems like the best option to go with since it would easily link him to the growing problem of Deer killing his hunter customers at the park.

He would start going through some big lengths to get rid of him. First he would appear more calm and collected but when the bodies start piling up more especially of the higher paid guns he hired then thats when he gets extremely pissed.

Should Deer have some type of relationship with the other forest creatures? I was thinking they view him as just much a psychopath as the hunters but don't bother confronting him because he's the only thing keeping tons of them out.

Fuck, guess I'll have to use my imagination then.

Other than the supes, will there be any major non-superpowered characters? You have the parents or relatives of the superhero(in)es and probably of course the obligatory sexy reporter (think of Lois Lane or April O'Neil).

Since Deer is a psychopathic herbivore I think he should have a best friend who is a carnivorous animal yet much more rational who assists Deer and sometimes making witty and sarcastic comments as the story goes; something like a grizzly bear. As for other animals they could occasionally help Deer from time to time, eventually working together to fight back the humans who have amassed an army, sort of like a gory version of Open Season.

If you're going for a clever character that doesn't fight as often don't use a bear, use a fox

but i wanna see a sarcastic bear

I was debating on if I should give him another character to bounce off of with dialogue. If so then I'll have to look at the possible choices. Bear not really since I don't want people thinking this is just some M-rated Open Season. The fox might be a good idea though.

The ending I had planned was going to be that after a failed hit attempt on Deer by some hired guns in the middle of the night. He hijacks their helicopter (via putting a gun to the pilot's head) and flies it back to the park owner's lavish house. He crashes the helicopter on the lawn and steps out to have a final showdown with the owner. I was thinking of it ending with the Owner (survived the battle with Deer) telling the public in a press conference that the park is now declared a no-hunting zone due to recent events

I've got two ideas for the ending

One is that he says they're going to move onto a new park where there will be more 'fair game' for all. Then it cuts to a sniper scope aimed at his head and the MC seated on a lawnchair on a rooftop holding a rifle, he adds 'You can say that again' as he puts his finger on the trigger

The second idea is that he says his park is a no-hunting zone but to not discourage hunters in other areas. Then it switches to a cute rabbit having escaped the fallout of a grenade explosion in another forest. He raises his head and sees he landed in front of a large crate, which upon a closer inspection suddenly opens up spilling out weapons and ammo. He gives the same blank stare at the weapons like Deer did before hinting that the process is about to repeat in another location.

Any progress? Anyone?

There is a local writing contest ending soon in which one of the categories is "noir story". I've been thinking up of ways to make this engaging without making it cliché, but now that I am somewhat happy with what I have come up with, I realized it's so twisted and d e c o n s t r u c t e d around I don't even know if it could be considered noir anymore.

Basically, it's a cyberpunk story about a hacker hitwoman who has been given the task to steal information from another expert hacker friend that she knows is miles better at it than her. Long story short, she decides to break into his flat and physically jack into his computer to steal the information she needs, but things go wrong and she eventually has to kill him in somewhat ambiguous (and by that I mean, she could have probably talked her way out of this, but was too quick to press the trigger) self-defense. Thing is, it's not the first time she kills someone, but it's the first time she gets to see her victim's agonizing face, since up to this point she had only killed other hackers over the net and thought about it as little more than a risky videogame. Since she already knew this hacker beforehand (they used to be friends before they lost contact, and in fact live around the same neighbourhood), she gets to experience the damage a murder can cause to the victim's friends and family. She finally realizes all the damage she had done by killing people willy nilly, and eventually decides to take her own life after the pain becomes too great to bear.

Technically, cyberpunk is considered a noir genre, because it's basically the same, but far in the future. However, while this story starts out as a regular cyberpunk story (hacker protagonist, shady deals with the mafia, evil as a profession, violence, night clubs with lots of alcohol and scantily clad women, etc), it eventually turns into a story of what would it mean to recover your long lost empathy after being a scumbag, which is relatively unheard of in the noir genre. Sure, there are noir novels which focus in the victims' suffering, but I am not sure what would people think of a story about a criminal trying to cope with the fact that they have been evil all this time that tries to sell itself as noir. Do you think it would trigger the judges' autism, or should I go back to the drawing board?

It depends on how liberal their interpretation of "noir" is. The judges' interpretation doesn't need to line up with the general assumption of what cyberpunk is, so they could easily disregard your story simply for having cyberpunk elements at all

It doesn't hurt to inquire for clarifications.

Well, considering I can only reach them via the provided mail and that they will probably open it only in four days, once applications are closed, I don't think I could reach them in a timely manner.

But who cares. The chances of having a feminist judge in the team are high, and I doubt they appreciate that I depict a strong woman being weak as something human and "positive". Guess I will write it, send it, and if it doesn't make it in, translate it to English and post it around here.

Trying to make a chapter, but decided to draw some OCs to get my mind running again.

I've been sketching key scenes for my comic idea, so it's a form or writing. Also off and on working on a small practice comic, which I'm mostly writing as I go.

I've been thinking up a roster of supervillains for my heroes to fight (and, as suggested, many of them are hot villainesses who also pine after Vanguard)

I've also been deciding between posting on the familiar adultfanfiction and hentai-foundry websites, rather than wattpad. I've checked out wattpad and I don't think it feels like a good fit for me. I plan on these fapstories featuring my characters to be episodic, like issues in a comic book, somewhat self-contained but also connected.

One thing I'm struggling with is naming these super-organization. I know the League/Avengers analogue is going to be called the Alliance, but the smaller teams like Sunflower's? What do I call the Titans/Young Justice/Young Avengers counterparts?

Call em' the upstarts. It's shows that unlike the alliance they're more casual than the "Big guys."

Upstarts is nice.

Though, my idea was that Sunflower, Silverstar, and Wildheart were already a team before Vanguard and Eclipse showed up. I was thinking that when they were first starting out, the fact that they were an all-female super team was still a novelty, so they named themselves something to capitalize on that.

Perhaps something like The Jewels or The Darlings or The Knockouts. Something a tad feminine but still heroic.

Remember to leave a link to those stories whenever it is you do complete a chapter, I am sure plenty of folks would love to read it.

The Knockouts

Because well, it's cheesy enough for cape stuff and I actually expect this in an all female team.

Also because of their stunning bodies

Will certainly do, user. Of course, these readings will be for pure and analytical reasons, yes?

The Knockouts

I was leaning towards that name myself. It's fitting because the villains they fight get KO'd most of the time and they're all really hot. Also, it's not so feminine that Vanguard will take issue with the name.

The Bombshells?

How to make the main character more interesting, Holla Forums?

I like it, but it's taken.

Thanks, DC.

First things first, tell us about your MC. Is he/she too clean cut? Too nice? Too angry? Usually the problems like this the MC is either too one-note or has no affect on the plot (at least, not in an interesting manner).

(checked)
Start Talking, I'm going to need more than an greentext story and a reaction image.

What can you divulge about your character so we can help you git gud?

Make the secondary character the protagonist. Problem solved.

How could I convey to the reader that my character is pronouncing words differently from how they're normally said?

For example, one of my characters says the word "war" not like "wore," but like "star." What do I do?

Give them an accent and some quirks. Just little things to make them more memorable. Also, flesh them out more with likes, fears, things that make them go nuts, etc.

Suggestion: use "ah" to show the character's accent (if he/she has one).

Example:

"We're going to wahr!"

I don't ever visit the writefag threads, so I'm hoping that it's some meme of yours, or you're baiting, or something. I'll respond nontheless
jesus christ on a dipshits dingleberry, "give him an accent" is the worst type of character quirk you could come up with.
Adding "ah"s and random apostrophes is probably the single laziest way of making your character unique.
Don't give him a shitty accent. Instead, give him a speech pattern. Despite using a common language, every one of us has a tendency to speak in certain patterns, expressing the same ideas with different words.
Instead of thinking up a weird accent pattern, that you will likely fuck up at some point, think up a set of phrases that your character likes. I, for example, tend to say "Also, another thing:…" before every single unrelated thought, and often start a new discussion with "I might have mentioned it before, but…".
Replacing a single, frequently used word in your character's speech with an exact synonym, but much less common can be cheap, but can be very effective.

Also, if you're dead set on having your character have an accent, please don't actually write all lines of dialogue in that accent, unless it's a one-off character and/or you're only writing a tiny story. It's gonna get very, very tiring and annoying soon.
State in the story somehow that they speak weird, possibly have another character mock them for their accent.

(Checked)
Somewhat similar problem.
One of the cast is a monster and another has magical powers but the main character is a normal human and I can't decide on what his personality is gonna be like and how to utilise him in action scenes and what role he'll play in the story.

Before you write a comic, write prose.

Your first prose will suck, therefore try to write it as intentionally asinine and retarded as possible, random, stream of consciousness. Don't take it seriously, but do put actual work into it if you can. Try not to show it to anyone, ever, or show it to people as a joke. If you're going to show it to anyone, make sure it's not long. Keep it to a few paragraphs if possible. If you can tell a fully fleshed out (albeit retarded) story in just a few paragraphs, you're on the right track.

Then try writing a real story. Come up with the ending first. Then try to get to that ending in as little time as humanly possible, so that your story won't drag with a ton of boring padding. If you catch yourself making something that's like anything anyone has ever made, try to delete that part and make up something new instead. Don't let "there's nothing new under the sun" stunt your creativity. Your job as a writer is to try to come up with the closest thing to new that you can possibly make. If anyone else could write the story you're making, then why are you making any story at all? Just quit and let someone else do it. The world needs ditch diggers too.

If you've found your story that no one else has ever told, then comes learning about structure. God help you with this one, because it takes many years of concentrated soaking in of other people's art, and learning the concrete rules of storytelling. If you're a writer, this is your life now. An artist doesn't start drawing without learning anatomy (except, you know, the squirrel girl tumblr type of artist, and do you want to be that?). This means research. You don't have to read the classics, just at least watch them. Spend a few years watching old movies like Casablanca or Lawrence of Arabia or Patton or Taxi Driver. Try to notice or study HOW they tell the story, not merely what story they tell. Give your life time to grow and gain experience in how the world actually works. Observe people's behavior in real life. Observe their hypocrisies and their flaws and their delusions. Observe how shallow most people are, and then tell yourself you're going to write a story where the characters have true complexity, where most real life people don't have much complexity at all. You want to know the easy quick shortcut to breaking new ground in writing? Just make fun of people's real life behavior and idiocy. Works every time.

Then after all that, just glom together whatever characters and story and setting stick in your mind the most. If it's superhero related, throw it all in the garbage and just quit. Superheroes are the death of creativity, anyone can write that shit, just let other people do that. Your "new twist" on superheroes is unoriginal and uncreative and you're better off just quitting the whole writing thing, because not everyone has the intelligence to make it as a writer, most people are just fooling themselves with their dreams.

This is correct also. Don't type out accents unless they're incredibly thick. If someone has a mild accent, ignore it. They're words, not sounds. Communicate their ideas, not their mannerisms. Focusing on the wrong part of writing is the fast track to failing as a writer. This sort of work would be reserved for an actor doing a performance, and in that case the work falls to the actor, not the writer. Think of it like a script. Would you put those inflections in the dialogue, or would you leave the job to the performer?

If you really want to draw attention to a slight accent, describe it in the words of your story. Unless it's a comic. If it's a comic, you just have to let it all slide. If you're telling a prose story, you can drop a hint that the character "pronounced word X in a way that it rhymed with word Y." But stop and think, what exactly does this add to your story? How would describing the pronunciation of the specific words in Patton's opening speech help them win World War 2? Does it at all? No? Then don't bother with that detail.

Care to give us some more info on your character?

Saving these tips.

Characters become interesting when you explore who they are. For example, let's say the character is boring, hum-drum, compared to the secondary character. Start thinking why the character is boring and hum-drum as a positive instead of a negative. Maybe he's intentionally boring and prefers the ordinary. Maybe it's a choice they've made that all they really want is the simple things out of life. His boringness becomes something you can accentuate for character, his struggle for the everyday over the extraordinary is great fodder for conflict, or even a character arc, and his uninteresting nature becomes a good contrast to their entertaining supporting character.

The maybe your main character should act as the reference point for the audience. Since he's the protagonist, he should be the fish out of water type asking the questions the reader needs answered and serving as the mundane element to accentuate the fantastical nature of his comrades or his surroundings.

Remember, characters serve the story. Figure our what kind of story you want to tell and create characters to allow you to tell that story.

I didn't want to fully respond, but since a lot of people are responding, I will.
My plot is quite dark, and the main protagonist is a guy that can't emote very well due to having a permanent mask on his face. He is the everyman who is shocked at all the death and murder in his path, and wants to do the right thing and just go back to his normal life.
My problem is that he is not that interesting, actually, being an everyman and all, and his knowledge is quite limited for me to write. However, the secondary character, his boss, is a mysterious, dashing guy with no fears, and kinda nuts. He is an amoral criminal with an interest in literature, and my main protagonist must work with him.

The reason I don't put the Boss as the main protagonist, is because he is not relatable or human, if you know what I mean. I mean, I love to write him, quote Shakespeare or whoever with him, but I also hate protagonists who I can't relate, much less if they have no story whatsoever and are just amoral assholes.(The boss story is a secret, I don't want to ruin the surprise putting him in the spotlight)

Think, I love Clark Kent as a pro, even if he is not that interesting sometimes, I can relate to him, but I kinda dislike it when i'm reading a story with The Joker, since you know, he IS the Joker, an amoral villain with no sense of right and wrong, and can't relate to him (even if the normalfags plebs say otherwise with their memes of "Batman is what we want to be; Joker is who we are" bullshit"). At least he is funny sometimes.

Btw, Joker by Azarrello is an unfunny piece of crap.

(Pic unrelated, I just wanted to share something)

I understand. So maybe it's not a problem if the boss character is more interesting than the main character, while the latter is more relatable, or likeable.

What was the point of typing all of that advice if you were just going to undermine it with "X is shit, so don't even try"?

That's the whole reason why I have a normal guy as the protagonist in the first place.
But since I need him I'm stuck with a character that I can't figure out what else to do with.

So here's the question: I'm over here writing comic scripts and swilling around in the commission sewer trying to make money while I find a way to get noticed, but there doesn't seem to be one. The big two both don't accept open submissions, their logic seeming to be if "we've heard of you" then you deserve to be considered, leaning heavily on the idea of going to conventions. So, in order to get considered, you have to spend an inordinate amount of money just for the chance to be refused by companies choking on their own conservatism. If you look outside their niche, you've got Image and Dark Horse who seem open to new talent, but only for sure bets - miniseries and maxi series - meaning you have to put all your eggs in one basket and hope against hope they like what you've got. 2000AD does seen to break the mold in that they will accept single submissions in their canon settings, little future shocks for chump change, which if they like they might pick you up.

But overall it seems like the industry at large is not interested in new people joining that industry. It's only interested in taking from some suite of approved bodies what it needs to perpetuate the same bad ideas over and over no matter how badly it hurts that industry.

If we're so smart, so dedicated to comics, so eager and bright, how the hell do we break into the industry and start making good shit again?

Really like this guy's videos, especially his Life is Tumblr one too. But speaking about that, how do you avoid making kind-hearted male characters not like first pic related, but more like Jonathan Joestar, Clark Kent, or Sokka?

All three of those characters have pride and a sense of self-worth they cultivate through their inner life.

Warren exists for Max as a device to exposit information and get her out of corners in the plot.

It's not that "the industry" don't want new blood, it's that most publishers just don't indulge in accepting unvetted unknowns as an unspoken rule. Conservatism has nothing to do with it, as far as most editors are concerned, they're just trying to keep things moving. If they don't think you can contribute in some way, then you're outta luck.

Cruising the convention scene is just another means to build bridges with people that can potentially vouch for you in the future. The internet can only get you so far in that regard.

One could argue that the publishers that do accept submissions only do so as a PR measure: chances are they'll just reject most of them for a variety of reasons.

By not acting like spergs and pretending that the world is a meritocracy that judges you solely on the quality of your work.

Look at all three and notice something that warren lacks and that the other three has. Conviction. Oh and Agency.

Johnathon Joestar is a gentleman scholar that tries to do the right thing all the time, and even in the original manga was polite to everyone, including his adopted brother, the very one that made his life a living hell.

Clark Kent was raised by his two parents to be honest and to have responsibilities. Yes, he was afraid of his abilities but through love and nurture he used it to help defend the Earth plenty of times throughout the DCAU.

Sokka was literally the oldest kid in his tribe and was mostly raised around females. He doesn't even have the cool powers the other members of Team Avatar have. He's the closest to being like Warren and yet the kid is so far off it's unbelievable. Sokka main weapon is his intelligence and creativity. This was shown when he trained under that teacher. He didn't teach Sokka any sword skills; he taught him how to put his personality in a style that is uniquely his.

All three are different from Warren because he's literally a secondary character that exists to flaunt the main…'heroine.' He will never disagree, and he's loyal to a fault. He's his own worst enemy. We learn nothing from him only that he's very supportive of the heroine. Meanwhile we know what makes the other three happy, sad and pissed.

In Tl;dr Just make your character more rounded and you instantly avoids creating a warren.

Knowing the right people gives you an incredible edge in any industry.

If you don't want to spend time on kissing asses or entering into the clique, all you can do is work. Keep working on your skills, write scripts, and be persistent in contacting publishers. Make new, original comics and pitch them to publishers, put them up online, or make a kickstarter. Many new names entered the comic scene like that in recent years. Rat Queens was originally a kick starter, before writing atomic Robo, Clevinger wrote webcomics, Sejic posted his comic on deviant art and got offers from publishers etc. Since you are a writer, finding an artist to work with might be a pain in the ass.

Who cares. Why would you want to work for big two? There's a reason why anyone with an ounce of talent ditched them to work on their own stuff. Try to get into some anthology comic or a magazine first, like Dark Horse Presents or IDW's Amazing Forest.

Last option is Phelippe Smith/Rosinki's route of moving to a country where comics are taken somewhat seriously, learning language, and work your ass off to make the most of the shot you are given.

Mostly just fleshing out characters some more, but I did make it about 5 or 6 pages into a short story, before losing interest.

On another note, for those of you who have it int your stuff, how important is the lore? Does it play a big part in determining character history/interaction and all that, or is it just a second thought?

From the writing sphere the general argument is that lore is nice but unnecessary. However, the addendum to that can be summarized as "Know your shit". The reader only needs to know as much as he needs to know, but you the author need to know everything you can the better to represent the material, and therefore not contradict yourself.

I could provide some of my own work if anyone were interested in seeing it.>>681629

What inspire you guys?

I think watching a lot of sci-fi/fantasy action movies and animes/cartoons is what's done it for me.

I see all the magic or technology being used in the stories and I think to myself "Hmm, I've got a few ideas of my own that I haven't seen come up yet. How about I try and write my own stories with my own rules?"

Of course, that's obviously a lot easier said than done, and I haven't made as much progress as I'd wanted because I keep retconning my own magic/science rules so everything's bigger or edgier or whatever. That and trying to really flesh out my characters becomes a chore after a while.

Still, it's fun doing this. and certainly keeps me entertained when I've got nothing better to do.